pming
Legend
Hiya!
Create an NPC called "The Duplicator" or something. He/she/it can "reflect/duplicate" people like a Mirror of Opposition or something. These duplicates have very limited duration...like a single round to start. Now the PC's may have to "fight themselves". Have The Duplicator on some mad scheme to 'duplicate everyone in the world' so that there is a "perfect balance" in the universe ("he" is a crazy Neutral guy...not good, not evil....neutral). Work it into a story where the PC's are the key "duplicates" that he must duplicate perfectly first because they are "the chosen pair" (hey, you said they were crazy-powerful...make them stand out for it!). As The Duplicator perfects his duplication of them, their 'duplicates' start to last longer and longer and be more and more like them. Other duplicates of other important people start showing up...then going crazy (mayors, kings, high priests, etc; the Duplicator is trying out new techniques and needs test subjects).
Eventually, it will become known to the PC's that their only way to defeat The Duplicator is to find the lost "Doorway of Time"...they need to give up their current life, step through the portal, and re-enter the past; forgetting all they know and all they have done, with only fleeting feelings and/or strangely real-feeling dreams. With that final sacrifice, the Duplicator looses his power because he to has been re-set to a prior time. Then have the denumont of the campaign be with them waking up, as level 1 PC's again, in their favorite inn, X number of years in the past. They exit the inn, intent on starting their lives as adventurers. They retrieve their horses from the stable, and see someone who looks so familiar. That stable boy? Yeah, him...something about him is eirily familiar, like he was in their strange dream they had the night before...but he wasn't s simple stable boy, he was some kind of powerful wizard-demigod... oh well. It was just a dream, wasn't it....?
Something that finalizes that yes, the PC's sacrificed themselves for the greater good. They go on to have a chance at a better life (re: starting as 1st level adventurers), but the bad guy is forever stuck in life as a poor, dirty, stable boy...never to rise above it. The PC's are victorious and the bad guy get's his just rewards.
The key would be to try and have things work towards the PLAYERS deciding to give up all their kewl-powerz n' lootz. Just trying to take it away from them isn't going to sit wall. But, they have to want to do it. They have to have a suitable incentive to do it. And when they do...reward them for their sacrifice.
Or you could take the easy way out and just say "Sorry guys. I can't DM this campaign any more. If I put something tough enough to survive you, it will be tough enough to kill you in a round...so you'd only be fighting things you can obviously defeat, with no real chance of loosing. Lets try something else, but this time set in [insert another campaign world]". That'd work too, but may be less than fulfilling.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Create an NPC called "The Duplicator" or something. He/she/it can "reflect/duplicate" people like a Mirror of Opposition or something. These duplicates have very limited duration...like a single round to start. Now the PC's may have to "fight themselves". Have The Duplicator on some mad scheme to 'duplicate everyone in the world' so that there is a "perfect balance" in the universe ("he" is a crazy Neutral guy...not good, not evil....neutral). Work it into a story where the PC's are the key "duplicates" that he must duplicate perfectly first because they are "the chosen pair" (hey, you said they were crazy-powerful...make them stand out for it!). As The Duplicator perfects his duplication of them, their 'duplicates' start to last longer and longer and be more and more like them. Other duplicates of other important people start showing up...then going crazy (mayors, kings, high priests, etc; the Duplicator is trying out new techniques and needs test subjects).
Eventually, it will become known to the PC's that their only way to defeat The Duplicator is to find the lost "Doorway of Time"...they need to give up their current life, step through the portal, and re-enter the past; forgetting all they know and all they have done, with only fleeting feelings and/or strangely real-feeling dreams. With that final sacrifice, the Duplicator looses his power because he to has been re-set to a prior time. Then have the denumont of the campaign be with them waking up, as level 1 PC's again, in their favorite inn, X number of years in the past. They exit the inn, intent on starting their lives as adventurers. They retrieve their horses from the stable, and see someone who looks so familiar. That stable boy? Yeah, him...something about him is eirily familiar, like he was in their strange dream they had the night before...but he wasn't s simple stable boy, he was some kind of powerful wizard-demigod... oh well. It was just a dream, wasn't it....?
Something that finalizes that yes, the PC's sacrificed themselves for the greater good. They go on to have a chance at a better life (re: starting as 1st level adventurers), but the bad guy is forever stuck in life as a poor, dirty, stable boy...never to rise above it. The PC's are victorious and the bad guy get's his just rewards.
The key would be to try and have things work towards the PLAYERS deciding to give up all their kewl-powerz n' lootz. Just trying to take it away from them isn't going to sit wall. But, they have to want to do it. They have to have a suitable incentive to do it. And when they do...reward them for their sacrifice.
Or you could take the easy way out and just say "Sorry guys. I can't DM this campaign any more. If I put something tough enough to survive you, it will be tough enough to kill you in a round...so you'd only be fighting things you can obviously defeat, with no real chance of loosing. Lets try something else, but this time set in [insert another campaign world]". That'd work too, but may be less than fulfilling.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
