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<blockquote data-quote="rmcoen" data-source="post: 7735484" data-attributes="member: 6692404"><p>When I sit down to plan a new campaign, I generally start with a starting hook, and three distant goals (partially why 4e resonated with me). Thinking back over the current and previous half-dozen campaigns, the end goals have been: stop a Far Realms incursion, stop a barbarian invasion, rebalance a pantheon's power (Death becoming too powerful), stop a "magical mutant apocalypse", figure out what happened to the dragons / stop end of the world. The Far Realms are Chaos incarnate, but not evil. The barbarians weren't "evil" or even chaotic, but certainly a threat. The god-power game had a lot of politics, but was more "life vs. death", not "good vs. evil"; it did have one of my standout *Evil* villains, one the party went out of their way and far off-script to hunt down and kill (and he wasn't a BBEG!). The "end of the world" campaign dealt with "historic evil" - the current generation views the actions as evil, but at the time it all seemed justified an reasonable. (That campaign's "BBEG" wanted the end of the world, but wasn't "Evil" per se, beyond not caring about the genocidal results of ending the world. He even employed the "heroes" for awhile, using them as stalking horses and diving rods.)</p><p></p><p>So, mostly, no titanic battles of Good vs. Evil. The PCs each campaign - not always the same players! - tend to be a party of 3-5 Neutrals (different flavors of Neutral), with 1 or 2 Good. The foes and adventures generally are Goal-based, generally with political/allegiance themes. One character is being hunted by angels, for example, because his powers mess with the timestream and their patron god won't take the risk of being depowered. The cleric's hometown hates the party because they sided with some wizards against some druids over the distribution of a unique "godsblood" resource; on the other hand, the Academy of Magic now swears allegiance to that same empire-building cleric... But the party (the good-aligned characters pulling the Neutrals along) stepped away from the main quest to aid plague victims in one case, and in another overturned a highly Lawful despotic society to free slaves. Plus I litter "the field" with "elementally Good/Evil" beings... you can trust this guy, you can kill that guy. the players are frequently relieved to be confronted with a clear enemy/friend, but otherwise clamor for the shades of grey. In their eyes (and mine, as GM at least), anything harkening to an extreme viewpoint - enough to "detect" or be "protected from" is dangerous - no matter which extreme. Judge Dredd isn't someone you *want* to interact with!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rmcoen, post: 7735484, member: 6692404"] When I sit down to plan a new campaign, I generally start with a starting hook, and three distant goals (partially why 4e resonated with me). Thinking back over the current and previous half-dozen campaigns, the end goals have been: stop a Far Realms incursion, stop a barbarian invasion, rebalance a pantheon's power (Death becoming too powerful), stop a "magical mutant apocalypse", figure out what happened to the dragons / stop end of the world. The Far Realms are Chaos incarnate, but not evil. The barbarians weren't "evil" or even chaotic, but certainly a threat. The god-power game had a lot of politics, but was more "life vs. death", not "good vs. evil"; it did have one of my standout *Evil* villains, one the party went out of their way and far off-script to hunt down and kill (and he wasn't a BBEG!). The "end of the world" campaign dealt with "historic evil" - the current generation views the actions as evil, but at the time it all seemed justified an reasonable. (That campaign's "BBEG" wanted the end of the world, but wasn't "Evil" per se, beyond not caring about the genocidal results of ending the world. He even employed the "heroes" for awhile, using them as stalking horses and diving rods.) So, mostly, no titanic battles of Good vs. Evil. The PCs each campaign - not always the same players! - tend to be a party of 3-5 Neutrals (different flavors of Neutral), with 1 or 2 Good. The foes and adventures generally are Goal-based, generally with political/allegiance themes. One character is being hunted by angels, for example, because his powers mess with the timestream and their patron god won't take the risk of being depowered. The cleric's hometown hates the party because they sided with some wizards against some druids over the distribution of a unique "godsblood" resource; on the other hand, the Academy of Magic now swears allegiance to that same empire-building cleric... But the party (the good-aligned characters pulling the Neutrals along) stepped away from the main quest to aid plague victims in one case, and in another overturned a highly Lawful despotic society to free slaves. Plus I litter "the field" with "elementally Good/Evil" beings... you can trust this guy, you can kill that guy. the players are frequently relieved to be confronted with a clear enemy/friend, but otherwise clamor for the shades of grey. In their eyes (and mine, as GM at least), anything harkening to an extreme viewpoint - enough to "detect" or be "protected from" is dangerous - no matter which extreme. Judge Dredd isn't someone you *want* to interact with! [/QUOTE]
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