Saving the world: one step at a time or all at once?

[The Hound]

Imagine that you are a first level character in a new campaign. Which of the following scenarios do you think would get you more hooked on that campaign, and why:

1) A "Lord of the Rings" scenario: you are suddenly thrust into a situation where your your actions can ultimately save the entire world from doom. You will spend the rest of the long campaign working toward this goal, slowly acquiring the abilities, allies, and information necessary to achieve it.

2) A more typical scenario: You are the resident of a town, as are all of your friends and family. You are placed into a situation where your actions can save this town and its inhabitants from destruction. You will spend several game sessions trying to defeat this threat. Only during the course of this activity will you learn that the threat is part of a larger threat that is a danger to your Kingdom. While fighting this larger threat, you learn that it is in turn part of a bigger threat to the entire world...

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I prefer #2 more. But not quite like that, I like mysterious most of all. So more along the lines of them slowly uncovering and delving deeper into a mystery till it finally is discovered just how deep this mystery, conspiracy theory, crime, etc. goes. So there is no like, "stages" of various amounts of threats, more simply it is all happening same time you just don't what what exactly is going on.

 

[Rechan]

I prefer option 3:

You make the world a better place one step at a time. Not climbing up a tree of "small threat turns into a big threat which turns into a bigger threat which", but instead "We set out to make this corner of the world a better place. We will protect this town. Then expand outwards, protecting that town. When we get powerful enough, we're going to topple the despot little king ruling over this tiny little place, and build a PROTECTED area. And then..."

I like it when players can change the setting, making their corner of the world a better place. Rather than dealing with one over-arching threat, that is either hittable in one shot, or just has a long reach and works through multiple proxies/has fingers in multiple pies.

SAVING the world is easy. Improving it is hard.

... BUT, that doesn't answer the question, as I anticipate the OP wanted. So I will go with option 2.

It presents more threats. More variety. It also is less time pressured. The Fellowship, for instance, were running under a time crunch. They couldn't stop and do side-treks without Sauron pushing his war machine faster.

 

[Doug McCrae]

#2. The slow reveal is more interesting, more long-term, more campaign-y.

 

[Jack7]

I think it really depends upon the age of the players Hound, their level of experience, and what they are looking to do. When I was young I really believed in the "Save the World" scenario. Get involved in the big things and you will end up saving the world. It was a romantic notion that time and experience relieved me of. Now I understand that you never really could save the world, only your little corner of it, and working together with a lot of others, everybody doing a lot of different things, that you can slowly change and improve the world. But you're never gonna save it, certainly not all at once.

That said if they are young and romantic and filled with vim and vinegar, anxious to take on the big threats and get right to the center of the stand-up fight and want to do it that way, then let em. Otherwise let em start out small and work their way up to it. I can tell ya this though, you can get killed real quick by jumping feet first into the middle of a big fight if you aren't very careful and really know what you're doing. Hell, you can get killed easy enough in any real fight, but experience makes you a lot better at survival. I think maybe soliciting their opinions, in a very, very general way, might give you a clue as to their preferences. Regarding the "jump right in" versus the "let's go slow and find up what we're really up against" kinda scenario.

I prefer #2 more. But not quite like that, I like mysterious most of all. So more along the lines of them slowly uncovering and delving deeper into a mystery till it finally is discovered just how deep this mystery, conspiracy theory, crime, etc. goes.

I'm with FS on this one. A good, slowly-cooking conspiracy and mystery goes a long way with me, as far as generating interest in a storyline.

 

[Rechan]

Now I understand that you never really could save the world, only your little corner of it, and working together with a lot of others, everybody doing a lot of different things, that you can slowly change and improve the world. But you're never gonna save it, certainly not all at once.

Well, I can certainly "buy" saving the world, ala Tolkien or taking out "The threat that's going to destroy/take over the world".

The thing that really knocked the stuffing out of Saving the World plots, for me, is that I've seen it done so many times, in so many venues (Buffy, Superheroes, fantasy, every single Paizo AP) that ultimately it comes across as the World being doomed every day, being saved every day. It's not special, it's just like mowing the grass: an act of constant upkeep. Or worse, it's rather trite, with succeeding erasing all that had happened previous, making everything happy and great.

And usually the "Saving the world" doesn't happen in a way that everyone in the world can see it; it happens in the Badguy's Lair, or at the Site of the Ritual, or whathaveyou. Who's going to know you succeeded, and how?

So it's ultimately just burned me out from the concept.

 

[kitsune9]

Imagine that you are a first level character in a new campaign. Which of the following scenarios do you think would get you more hooked on that campaign, and why:

1) A "Lord of the Rings" scenario: you are suddenly thrust into a situation where your your actions can ultimately save the entire world from doom. You will spend the rest of the long campaign working toward this goal, slowly acquiring the abilities, allies, and information necessary to achieve it.

2) A more typical scenario: You are the resident of a town, as are all of your friends and family. You are placed into a situation where your actions can save this town and its inhabitants from destruction. You will spend several game sessions trying to defeat this threat. Only during the course of this activity will you learn that the threat is part of a larger threat that is a danger to your Kingdom. While fighting this larger threat, you learn that it is in turn part of a bigger threat to the entire world...

#1 or 2 as a player is fine with me. I tend to be flexible. If I had to choose, probably I'd go with #2.

 

[Jack7]

The thing that really knocked the stuffing out of Saving the World plots, for me, is that I've seen it done so many times, in so many venues (Buffy, Superheroes, fantasy) that ultimately it comes across as the World being doomed every day, being saved every day. It's not special, it's just like mowing the grass: an act of constant upkeep. Or worse, it's rather trite, with succeeding erasing all that had happened previous, making everything happy and great.

And usually the "Saving the world" doesn't happen in a way that everyone in the world can see it; it happens in the Badguy's Lair, or at the Site of the Ritual, or whathaveyou. Who's going to know you succeeded, and how?

On rare occasion one can "save the world." Figuratively speaking. Every so often Nazis come along, as an example, but even then the fight is so big no lone individual or even group of people can do it alone. That was what I meant. And nobody saves the world and then that's it, it's saved from then on. After the Nazis there are the Commies, and then terrorists, and then so on and so on. It never really ends.

You can save it for the moment though. And people should definitely try. Do their part in the fight they find themselves in at the moment. But I've never seen a save the world fight that wraps it all up neatly, or is up and running, and then over, quickly. Threats to the world (even to small places) usually develop over a long period of time and usually take a long period of time to set right. It's just we usually don't see the work-up, just the working over.

As for your points about plot and fictional save the world storylines, I agree.
Done to death, and often poorly.