Hows your Campaign going?

[EricNoah]

Uh, let's see --

1) I use a sort of action point system (modified -- each player gets one chance to "screw the rules" per game session), and in that sense my game is not particularly lethal. The PCs use these to get out of jams or escape certain death.

2) I think I am fairly typical with treasure. I don't use XP, I just tell them when to level up. My PCs are 2nd level and I intend to keep them that way for a while.

3) I am using a homebrew setting with lots of plagairized material from Dungeon Crawl Classics and other sources.

 

[viscounteric]

My Hackmaster campaign is in a 6-week hiatus, as people are going through a flurry of weddings, bridal showers, and family functions (culminating in my cruise to Bermuda next week). However, the first story arc was completed in time and it's at a great point to regroup, rest up, and pick up some new skills.

Back in 2001, I combined my home-brewed campaign world with the Epic of Aerth from Mythus/Dangerous Journeys. Never looked back.

I just finished running B11 King's Festival and B12 Queen's Harvest. No character deaths (although I had a one-time player's character be chased off by orcs in the first session with no further resolution.)

Although I considered the treasure, magic items a bit much to my normally stingy standards, most of the magic weapons are items the PCs are proficient in, and a much-needed upgrade in armor and additonal skill increases will wipe out about 70% of their funds.

The group:
5th level fighter - specialized in Volgue (when he hits, he hits for mucho damage, but with such a low Dex he attacks every other round).

4th level cleric of Echellon (god of the sea... and pigeons).

2 4th level Half-Elf Bards (no relation)

3rd level Gnome Cleric of Yondalla - Yes, a Gnome worshipping a halfling deity... with a racial hatred of halflings to boot. The player is relatively new to roleplaying, and running this guy with Wuss-of-Heart as a disadvantage to boot has been pretty impressive.

1st level Gnome Titan Battle Mage - Before the pole arm fighter, this fella was the only combat prowess within the group. His own wedding plans and such have made him miss the last three sessions, even more of a negative when you consider that Gnome Titans earn EP at half the normal rate.

My Actual Play for this will be posted on rpg.net once I get around to finishing up my original Hackmaster AP, and my latest Illuminati University session.

 

[Grimstaff]

Wilderlands still goin' strong!

 

[Mitchbones]

My campaign is starting this wednesday, the players will find come in contact with a missing girls lover, and unravel the mystery behind her disappearance.

Hopefully It goes a lot better than my past camapaigns, which have all been flops.

 

[Treebore]

My campaings are going well.

My oldest (home game) campaign has a 9th level Knight, 12th level Paladin, a 9/10 Runemark Druid, and a 11/10 Thief/mage, plus a 8th level Dwarf Fighter henchman who has been around since he was 4th level (Deck of Many Things draw). They are currently finishing up DCC 18 in search for the "Staff of Life", which is a major Relic item they need to work towards the ultimate goal of stopping the return of Unklar to Erde.

Two permanent character deaths are Sylva Fromkin, 11th level Ranger, and Bovine, a 11th level Cleric of Odin. The wife of Unklar is a murderous wench.

My second campaign is about 5 months old and the group is a 5th level Knight, Bard, Barbarian, and cleric. A 3/4 MAge/Assassin, and a third level Witch. They are investigating a land where a group, most commonly called "Rangers of the Waste", originate from. They have found it to be a land that was once vibrant and alive, about a thousand years ago. Now it is a great "black sand" waste of a desert.

The reason the Rangers of the Waste go about the world and killing/assasinating mages (usually with links to Necromancy) is they are in search of their ancient King who sucked the life from the land to make himself immortal. Killing him will restore life to their homeland, or so they believe.

No deaths yet. Lots of close calls, though.

Now, this month (October), I am running three groups of 6 players through I6 Ravenloft. I expect many deaths, ranging from quick and merciful to slow and painful, plus immortal undeath. Hopefully I will finally see the destruction of Baron Strahd Von Zarovich.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

My campaign is starting this wednesday, the players will find come in contact with a missing girls lover, and unravel the mystery behind her disappearance.

Hopefully It goes a lot better than my past camapaigns, which have all been flops.

Howdy-

Just remember to have fun, as a good resource for DM's, check out the DMG II, some great advise on how to keep a campaign going. Heck, that might be another good thread starter if your so inclined, to ask some of the more veteran DM's here on EN world.


Scott

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I'm running two campaigns at the moment.

We just finished Session #45 for The Shackled City, set in Greyhawk. The intrepid adventures are currently attending a protest against recently enacted taxes, with a massive riot just breaking out. We'll pick up next week with all kinds of carnage and mayhem ensuing.

This is one of the few groups I've DM'd that I absolutely have to railroad to get them to adventure. Without some not-so-subtle prompting they would sit around and do nothing. It's weird.

That group consists of 4 gestalted characters (1 of them an NPC who gets used whenever we have a friend in town).

-Kaseem - A scout/sorcerer 8, seems a bit laid back and is definately "neutral" in his outlook. Wants primarily to get paid and live a life of luxury (which involves lots of bathing).

-Kuno - A fighter/rogue 8. Very much the Belkar Bitterleaf of the party, without the overwhelming psychotic issues. Currently angry because they didn't get their reward for their last mission (on account of the group killing the person they were hired to rescue). While officially neutral in alignment, he is sliding towards evil...

-Ingirid - A fighter/cleric 8 of Kord. Honorable, wise and conscience of the party. Frequently ignored (until it's time for healing, or the kicking of evil arse). Trying to figure out why she adventures with the rest of the party.

-Thomas - A fighter/cleric 8 of Heironeous. Typcial sword and board fighting type, loves vanquishing evil. Played as an NPC.


My second campaign meets about once every 4-6 weeks for what I refer to as the "Weekend of Pain". They've played 11 sessions of the Age of Worms and just finished "Three Faces of Evil". We're playing this one as a "dice fall where they may" campaign and it's showing in the stack of dead character sheets. They lost a couple of members in The Whispering Cairn (1 to an insect swarm and 1 to the Windwarriors). TFoE saw 3 character deaths (all to the Ebon Aspect). Our next session will introduce replacement characters and deal with the aftermath of the collapse of the Dourstone Mine (which conviently is located beneath the mayor's manor). It should be interesting.

That group consists of:

-Tharim, a dwarf fighter.
-Eli, an elf rogue.
-Nashtok, a human dragon shaman.

The new characters will be a cleric, an archivist (I think... it's the class from Heroes of Horror), and a halfling wizard.

 

[Blackwind]

Currently playing in a D&D 3.5 homebrew run by my friend Adrian, who was the kid who introduced me to D&D back in 4th grade! We're 23 now and both have families--both of our SOs play in our group.

We just played last night, finally hitting 5th level. My CN Human Wizard, Mercurius Blackthorne, incinerated eight hobgoblin warriors with his first fireball Our party succeeded in infiltrating a goblinoid stronghold in order to obtain a map of enemy fortifications. We managed to get in by dressing up in robes formerly belonging to a bunch of evil necromancers (allied with the gobs) that we'd killed. Long story short, after giving us the map, the bugbear shaman ordered his men to kill us anyway on our way out. We found ourselves trapped between, oh, a dozen fully armed hobgoblin warriors with orders not to let us out the gate--and a ravenous pack of dire wolves, unleashed by the bugbear commanders. That's where the fireball came in handy.

Two PCs got to negative hit points last night, but no deaths so far this campaign. Our wealth is somewhat lower than average, although we do own a grand house with a two-story library for my aspiring Loremaster. The plot is already too complex for me to summarize here, but this is undoubtedly the best D&D campaign I've ever played in. I only have two gripes: one, that the pacing is so tight that my wiz doesn't have enough time to scribe scrolls or research spells. Two, that gameplay sometimes grinds to a halt due to rules-clunk. I'm enjoying playing in this campaign immensely but don't really want to run 3.5 ever again.

EDIT: PC Roster

-Beth (my gf): Laurelin Silvermoon, CG Elven Ranger 5 (dual-wields thinblade and lightblade, her animal companion is a cath shee kitten)
-Michelle (Adrian's gf) Shaila, CG Elven Cleric 5 of the goddess of luck
-Clay (Michelle's son) Kenson, CN Human Rogue 5
-Nova (my gf's brother-in-law) Hrunk, CG Half-Orc Barbarian 5
-me, Mercurius Blackthorne, CN Human Wizard 5 (aspiring loremaster)
-Draco, Mercurius' kobold manservant (NPC)

Currently investigating the disappearance of the Elder Gods and defending the kingdom against the forces of a newly returned evil death god. Woot!

 

[Tomovasky]

waiting for it all to start

Well my game is just about to start next weekend hopefully (was going to start it this weekend but the release of Halo 3 stole most of my players) Any way I am going to be running Pazio new “Rise of the runelords”

Now I only have 3 players so I am letting them be Gesalt, all of them get a free 18 to there stats and a free feat from the pathfinder players guide .

Books Allowed so far : Core, Pathfinder, Complete, Hero’s (horror and battle).

The Players
A elven Paladin/ Ninja (complete Adventurer) trying to add the kensi or darkstaker inquisitor (CW?) –goal to drive out all evil

A dwarf Cleric of Torag (God of the forge ) /Sorcerer- Wanting to build an army of worshipers, remove the evil that his greedy uncle gave to his family name, and become a master black smith.

A Varsian (gypsy humans) and Shoanti (tribal humans) mutt Psion / fighter- wishing to become a master of the star blade, a man that is about to cross the line of insanity who goals in life are to kill as many goblins as he can before finding his Spartan inspired perfect death,

 

[shilsen]

A couple of weeks ago we had the latest session of the CITY campaign (see sig) I'm in, run by Mallus, featuring the following PCs:

Burne (played by Rolzup) - An alchemist (read pyromaniac) who is convinced that he is the greatest thing since empowered fireballs, with a flair for creating sentient creatures, including his robot-cat-familiar, the long-suffering Abraxas, and a construct bodyguard called the MODOSS unit, which is run by the brain of a lemur. A ‘pneumatic lemur’ that once belonged to an enemy alchemist, but defected.

Atlatl Jones (played by Atlatl Jones, nee Michael Tree) – A tiny dragon magister from the nation of Phue, which has achieved great magical advances by stealing any form of enlightenment which wasn't nailed down. The latest addition to the group, he now travels with them, accompanied by his butler Jeeves, his Monkey-killing gun, and his incredible amorality and fascination for shiny objects.

Rackhir (played by Rackhir) - A ronin archer from the Empire of Heaven, the closest thing the group has to a normal human being, who persists in the vain - and contradictory - hope that he could remain with these three and be a hero, aiding the helpless and terrorized (usually being terrorized by his companions). Able to spot a fly half a mile away and then shoot it through the eye, he is constantly restraining himself from doing so to either Meiji or Atlatl. He has developed an eye twitch from sheer tension.

Meiji Kitsume (played by me) - A shugenja from the Empire, Meiji is a duplicitous, womanizing, cowardly braggart, who also functions as the group's healer and divine spellcaster. He spends his time trying to screw anything female and attractive, keeping the PCs alive, tormenting Rackhir, learning the very rare Gate (teleportation) magic, and making sure he never, ever takes a hit point of damage in battle (not necessarily in that order).

In the last session, the PCs entered the Land of the Dead through a portal, which is part of a complicated plan to steal something called the Kaiju Egg – an Imperial artifact that contains the soul of an angel that manifests as Godzilla — back from the demon that stole it from Atlatl as he was stealing it from official Imperial oni. Still with me?

Once inside the afterlife, they encountered the shades of a number of people whom they'd killed, most of them recently while quelling a riot (by blowing up the rioters). The shades were unable to significantly inconvenience the PCs because the latter were protected from the effects of the land of the dead by an elixir obtained from a legendary undead politician known as the Semi-Lich. When they gave up attacking us, we chatted with them and since some of them were really bored with being stuck in the land of the dead, a couple of the PCs 'killed' them by tossing them up into the primordial chaos that fills the sky above. Atlatl then narrowly escaped being sucked into the primordial chaos and paid it back by bottling some of it.

Once the group continued into the land of the dead and encountered a pool of blood with a draconic skeleton floating above it, complete with the wreckage of a craft that had struck it and a robotic woman. Atlatl investigated it, was attacked by giant red blood corpuscles, hit the skeleton with the bottle of chaos causing both to explode, was saved by the manifestation of a giant goldfish with a katana (okay, so it was a koi), and now he has the mark of Cain on his brow. The koi was almost certainly a servant of the Creator god, and the dragon skeleton was most likely His handiwork; probably some kind of warning against hubris and forgetting one’s place. Which Atlatl blew up.

Rackhir's twitch got worse.

The group reached the city of the dead and waited in line to get in while chatting with a rakshasa in a protective suit(who was guarding some vampires in palanquins) and failed to mug him despite Meiji's suggestion they do so. Entering the city, they found a decent bar, called The Limbo Café, where the effects of the land didn't apply. Atlatl messed with the artifact the protected the place, something the rakshasa called “The Greater Disk of Dischord”, which hit him with a Polymorph Any Other and turned him into a human. Since he - and everyone else, esp. Rackhir - needed a drink to recover, they entered the bar and met a couple of mythical figures from another reality, namely Gilgamesh and Orpheus, as well as a demigod from their homeworld with a pair of magical prosthetic hands named Bigby.

I think that's the place where I woke up.