"Living" Campaigns

[Crispy Critter]

As a devoted player in Living Greyhawk, I'm not a big fan of the broad generalizations being bestowed upon those who play in the campaign. You can find powergamers and munckins, blah, blah, blah, in any campaign whether through homeplay or through the RPGA.

As for the scenarios being linear. Well, alot of them are, but I usually chalk it up to the fact that you only have four hours in a slot to finish the module. I will disagree about the roleplaying aspect of Living Greyhawk. It really depends on the table. I've met some really good players over the past 2 and a half years, who have created interesting characters. Thus, when we sit down at a table our characters have a history together and we're able to get into character quite well.

One of the best aspects of Living Greyhawk is the regional system it employs. I live in New England which is the Bissel region on Oerth. We have a number of specific plot-lines currently being played out in our region. Evard's meddling, Baklunish-Suel racial stryfe, conscription into Bissel's first-ever standing army, Ket problems....

Other regions have their own plot-lines as well. In the end, I have met some great people and I have gotten hours of enjoyment from playing.

Jim (whose looking around for Rugger to throw in his two cents )

 

[Rugger]

Someone call my name?

I'm actually one of the Triad (regional directors) for Bissel (New England).

And I'll tell you what...I went for this job purely because of the people. In my time playing LG, I (and my group of players from Vermont) kept finding one great player after another...everywhere we went, we kept meeting great people! People that love the game, and have fun playing it. And by hitting some other cons, we've made friends all over the country.

Now, I'm not saying its perfect. There are folks out there who play it from the "Rules-monger" or "munchkin" point of view, but who are we to judge them, as long as they are having fun?

Heck, just a few weeks back at RaptorCon in VA, I played a mod (Summer's Passing) that folks kept warning us against...and I'll tell you what: it was the most fun I had all weekend. It was nearly ALL roleplaying and puzzles. Fantastic. And to boot, our DM was a 13 year-old girl who had helped to design/write the mod, and she did an absolutely AMAZING job. Definitely contributed to the fun.

LG is what you make of it...my advice would be to make a fun-to-roleplay character concept, but be ready to back it up with rules-effectiveness just in case...a lot of Year 2 mods are KILLER, a problem that we are hoping to address up here in Bissel. We have a reputation for exceptionally deadly adventures. What we now need to do is balance it out with more intrigue and shake that reputation...

But I've rambled enough....

Try it with an open mind and most of all make sure to have fun.

-Rugger

(AKA Matthew Pennington, Bissel Triad POC)

 

[Outlaw]

Living Campaigns

At this time, six Living Kingdoms of Kalamar scenarios are available for download from the RPGA web site. They are entitled:

LKoK1: If I Were a Rich Man
LKoK2: The Rounds
LKoK3: Hurry Up and Wait
LKoK4: Making a Name
LKoK5: With Thine Eyes
LKoK6: Reflections of a Shrouded Past.
The next scenario, LKoK7: Burial Mounds should be available for download soon.

Well, Mark is almost right. The first EIGHT modules are available and by September it'll be 15. We're also not even a year old yet.

As for Living campaigns in general, there are definitely ups and downs. Most people that play got into it because their home campaigns dissolved, people moved away or they just couldn't find a group to play in. That's how I and most of the people I know got into it.

Depending on the campaign, it can be very combat based, but this is a broad generalization. I've run multiple Kalamar modules where the PCs spent so much time role playing that there was no combat at all. We generally try to balance modules so that there's a good part role play and an adequate amount of combat (everyone likes to hack from time to time).

Modules are linear, I will concede that point. Modules have to be written to fit into a four or five hour time slot. In that time, it's hard to offer enough options for players because the table has to be finished in a certain period of time. Still, modules fluctuate in how much they can offer.

Depending on what you want to play, there's a lot to offer. I play in LGreyhawk, LSpycraft, LJungle and LForce. I also run LKingdoms of Kalamar. They all have something different to offer.

The whole powergame thing and the bad modules thing is more reflective of the people in a particular area. I've had numerous bad experiences on the east coast, but not so much in the midwest. Then again, there are people in those areas that have never experienced the deluge of powergaming. That all really has to do with chance. I've had great experiences here in Missouri and I have a large number of friends that I would never have met if it weren't for Living campaigns.

As for Living Kalamar specifically, we are a low xp/magic advancement, but give us a couple of years and you won't have much trouble finding yourself a table. We're still on our way up.


--Joe
Director
LKofK

 

[buzzard]

Living Greyhawk: C+
Boring Linear Modules, Gms who dont know rules, Powergamers, Munchkins YAY!

You are over generalizing drastically. It is the biggest campaign (by far), so it will have the most gamers, both good and bad. You have probably just seen the bad. I have had some excellent LG experiences. I've also had some poor ones. It's a mixed bag. However, because it is the biggest, it is easiest to find, and you can play a lot. I play a fair amount of this (a few times a month).

Living Jedi, err I mean Force: F
remember that brady bunch episode where Jan complains that everyone ignores her and always pays attention to her older sister, giving the classic quote of " Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!" ?

Well imagine a RPG filled with Marshas all wielding lightsabers, each one a perfectly statted carbon copy of the others, each trying to outdo the last with their silly little broken force powers.

Skip it.

Can't argue much with this, though in my area we do have some people who play non-jedi. Probably the most obnoxious thing about the campaign was that they did a rule revision a year or so ago, and anyone who had a character above a certain level had their character axed.

Living Death: A++++++++++++++----->
This one campaign redeems all the rest. For all those who say living modules cant be deep, interesting, exciting and frightening because they only last four hours need to try this adaption of the Ravenloft rules for real world 1890s.
Living Death is a mystery horror adventure series pitting you, mere humans against the secret maniacal forces of the Red Death and its minions. It takes place in our world, not in the Dnd world, so characters and scenarios are based in historical reality. Of course the threats are not real, Ive faced cultists ghosts, wraiths, cultists mummies werewolves cultists illithids vampires and more of those damn evil sorcerer cultists!! The stores are written by people who frankly, could be writing professionally. Whats all the better, is that your classic powergamer is turned off by this ROLEplaying intensive background and setting.
If you do anything, do this one.

Living Death fans do tend to be quite enthusiastic. I tried it once. I had a table with some damn fine role players. However nothing happened. When I state nothing happened I am not kidding. The only memorable thing which occured was eating breakfast. I enjoy a table of good roleplayers, but I like to see something happen. Also as fair warning LD is difficult to join these days(as I understand it) since the modules are follwing a set storyline. It also will expire as the storyline ends.

Living Arcanis: B+
See description of Living greyhawk, but with much better writing of modules. I like it, but a bit monty haul.

I've heard good and bad things about this. I have heard comments about one module which had a completely bogus ending which makes me uninterested. In any case I don't need additional living campaigns.

Living Kalamar: B
Low power version of Living Greyhawk, plus difficult to find becuase its not very popular yet.

If I were to pick up another Living campaugn, this would be it. I am familliar with the world, and I think the rules for this incarnation are pretty good.

Classic RPGA: A
Get them while they last cuz RPGA is phasing them out. high quality Dnd and COC modules abound.

High quality ones may abound, but I have only found a few. I've been stuck in too many hackneyed modules playing Classics to ever play one again. It may be me, but I utterly despise being stuck at a table playing a character which is preposterous. I've seen good DMs make these modules work well, but it takes a good one. I've given up on these utterly.

You forgot Living Jungle, which is my favorite (though likely an endangered species since RPGA is dropping it after this year). It is D&D set in a remote, sealed off jungle, in Faerun. Technology is set in the stone age, and characters have a myriad of races to choose from. There are basically no magic items. Masterwork items are cherished. The tone is quite light and there is a lot of role playing, and some combat. Things actually do happen in the adventures, though I confess a lot of them can be linear. Of course I rather think linearity is a function of the 4 hour time limit, as with the rest. People tend to revel in the ability to play dumb savages. LJ can often be found to be the loudest table at the con with many a loud grunt or schreech erupting.

buzzard

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

You are over generalizing drastically. It is the biggest campaign (by far), so it will have the most gamers, both good and bad. You have probably just seen the bad. I have had some excellent LG experiences. I've also had some poor ones. It's a mixed bag. However, because it is the biggest, it is easiest to find, and you can play a lot. I play a fair amount of this (a few times a month).

I'll definitely second this. Some of the best Living campaign games I've played have been LG. I've had a few poor LG experiences too but I would say that the odds of getting a good game are a good deal better than from randomly selecting a convention game or from randomly selecting a home-game. (Of course, very few people randomly select their home-games. . . .) Of all the Living Campaigns I've played, LG is probably my favorite.

About Living Arcanis
I've heard good and bad things about this. I have heard comments about one module which had a completely bogus ending which makes me uninterested. In any case I don't need additional living campaigns.

I've played quite a bit of Living Arcanis and I can honestly say that people who say the writing is significantly better than Living Greyhawk are selling a bill of goods. Editing and writing are actually worse in general (especially the editing--writing is in the same ballpark). However, it does have a number of things going for it. First, the setting is a good deal more unusual and less generic. The new races and the changes to the races and the gods feel like Arcanis; if a Greyhawk, FR, or KoK element jumped in, you'd know the difference. (Whereas, you could drop FR elements into Greyhawk, or KoK elements into FR without too much conversion). Second, the overall plot arcs are much tighter and more focussed. If you play ten Living Arcanis modules, odds are good that six or seven of them continue the same plot. This results in a much greater feeling of your actions effecting the world and that effect is more quickly realized, more dramatic, and more quickly reacted to. 3. When plots are branching or give you opportunities to screw yourselves, they are more likely to be noncombat than in LG (although you have significant noncombat options in a number of LG modules too). A pair of pit fiends could conceivably show up in at least one APL 2 module if you do the wrong thing. (Unfortunately, it's not always clear what "the wrong thing" is and, at one point, my party avoided a certain TPK only through the use of an Augury--there weren't any clues as to what the right thing to do was).