Do You Play Subsequent Campaigns In The Same World

[Tonguez]

I've done a couple of Dynastic games (so successive characters in different but connected campaigns over time) and I've done unrelated characters in the same world.

One of my personal conceits when I DM is to have a cameo by The Grand Circus Maximus and my DMPC Orbril the Gnome. Orbril was my longest lasting PC who early in his career captured a pair of giant hamsters and used them to start a travelling Circus troop. He eventually became a resident of the Fae Realm and the Circus gained the ability to cross between Planes/Worlds. So in all worlds where I DM it is possible that the PCs might see a gnome riding hamster go past when they approach a new town or even come across the Grand Circus Maximus. I do try to keep it subtle and not over do it ..

 

[Voadam]

For the last 20 years I have run mostly in my homebrew campaign setting, it started off a 3.0 three-DM shared one with combination elements of Ptolus, Post-apocalyptic Greyhawk, and eventually Eberron precursor. Later I started doing some 3.5 pbp online DMing and ran an Oathbound Wildwood campaign using that setting straight and also a Freeport trilogy one in my prior shared world one with my own further developments of the setting. Since then I joined a face to face group and when I ran campaigns I used the setting as well, doing a Freeport trilogy Pathfinder 1e one with the new group, a PF1e Reign of Winter campaign there as well, and a 5e Carrion Crown campaign in the setting. Since covid I started with a different group on Fantasy grounds and have been running an Iron Gods campaign in the setting for a couple years now.

Mostly it is the same world, same rough time frame, different campaigns in different parts of the setting. The two Freeport groups were the same module in the same world so a reset for the new group.

In the 80s to 90s I did a long Greyhawk 1e campaign that ended up 2e Ravenloft. I started a Ravenloft campaign with another group in the 90s and they eventually ended up interacting with the undead remnant of one of the prior campaign's characters as an NPC so I was able to tie the two campaigns together with the second group finishing one of the modules the first one did not.

I generally run modules in a setting in a fairly sandbox style, the PCs can ditch the plot and go elsewhere and follow up their own stuff, but I use a lot of module material heavily.