Tips for running an episodic campaign?

[whydirt]

Recently, I've putting together some ideas for a game I'd like to run. While I'd love to run a continuous, drawn-out campaign, I know that the schedules for myself and my group of potential players are scattered at best.

Because of this, I'm thinking of running a more episodic game, where each adventure is roughly self-contained, with some long-term threads popping up occasionally. My current plan is to have the characters work as agents of a secret organization on behalf of a king or other leader. I also plan on keeping the world relatively detail-free at the start so that players can have more input on things and I have more room to make things up on the fly when necessary. This setup allows for characters to come in and out more freely, since I can always say they're out on other assignments.

To start things off, I'm thinking of running an "entrance exam" type quest to test the group's capabilities where they're sent to follow a lead regarding a lost royal treasure. I will include a couple of complications. First, the group has to keep the item's disappearance a secret (public knowledge of this theft might cause unrest in the kingdom) and second, the treasure isn't actually missing - the group's patron organization is just testing them.

Some questions:

1. Do any more experienced DMs have any general advice on running this type of game?

and,

2. Does anyone have thoughts on my starting adventure or have some ideas on how to make it more exciting? What could make for an interesting McGuffin for them to search for, even if it's one that they can't really find?

 

[Ry]

The complications you're describing have to come out in the course of the adventure - otherwise it's just endless frustration.

What I'd recommend though, is breaking up the McGuffin, and have the players working to reassemble it - or at least recover the pieces which are powerful in and of themselves. Just when they start getting it together theirs can be stolen, or bits they entrust to other parties can be stolen. Makes for ongoing but not without progress - and the fact that bits are taken away is a natural reaction of the villainous forces to all these things being in one place. In fact, you might make it so that various forces know how to pinpoint these McGuffins when multiple ones are stored together, to justify the players dropping them off at friendly strongholds. I.e. "do you want a big red sign saying - Fiends, please eat me" on you?

 

[Prism]

It can be good to start off with some fairly unrelated adventures and like you say pretty detail free. This allows you to assess which of your adventures you felt the players tuned into the most and then use that as your link to follow up adventures later. You could ask each player to write down a 'secret' about their character in their background, which might give you ideas for later adventures

I have found the general breakdown that works well in this sort of campaign is roughly
1st - 5th party is sent/asked to do something
6th - 10th party picks up on one or two of several hooks you dropped during 1st to 5th
11th+ party starts to find its own adventures, players have their own ideas, interspersed with events they can choose to get involved in

I would be careful about the test idea. The characters might feel annoyed about having their life risked for something that wasn't real. If they were not actually at risk would the players be disappointed? Would they ever trust the patron again fully?

3 of our last campaign starts

You go along with the tribe to a new land, to settle, expand and explore
You are enlisted into a war as a soldier - fight!
You are shopping in Ched Nasad (underdark) and the whole city collapses on you - can you survive and get out?

 

[whydirt]

I would be careful about the test idea. The characters might feel annoyed about having their life risked for something that wasn't real. If they were not actually at risk would the players be disappointed? Would they ever trust the patron again fully?

What if the characters/players don't find out that they were tricked until much later? Maybe make it a secret they can discover down the road, after they're already invested into other plots?

 

[Ry]

I'm with Prism on that one; if X is supposed to be a PC ally, X should never risk PCs' lives meaninglessly.

 

[Wraith Form]

I'm with Prism on that one; if X is supposed to be a PC ally, X should never risk PCs' lives meaninglessly.

Agreed.

Unless it's a Dungeon-like Contest of Champions style adventure, where death isn't really death--and the players know that ahead of time.

 

[whydirt]

I guess I should have been more clear, I wasn't planning on the characters in direct harm - at least not from the planned "test". On the other hand, I think it would be cool if the characters were detoured by a real threat to the crown along their way toward completing their official objective.

 

[Hussar]

I frequently run campaigns in episodic mode. I actually tend to prefer it myself.

Don't worry too much about continuity. Feel free to jump around, retcon history, whatever. After all, if it works for Star Trek, it should work for you.

My "test" adventure was the "Golden River Run". I was using the city of Mithril in Scarred Lands. Every year, the sewers flood with water tainted by the Titan Kadum. Every spring, after the rains end, the city posts rewards for the group that can bring back the biggest Blood Sea mutant from out of the sewers.

It was a lot of fun.

 

[Napftor]

Campaigns I'm DMing are almost always episodic. It's quite fun but don't get too wrapped up in the endgame specifics at the beginning. My most recent campaign is only 6 modules old and there is a recurring enemy which I had never even considered at the start. In fact, it was the PCs' reaction to the first adventure's enemy which made them so. There's an important lesson for you: watch your players. This is good advice for any type of campaign, really, but when they practically drool at the chance to encounter someone/something already introduced, then you've probably struck gold.

It's great to have an overall goal in mind but, as I said, don't plan too much with it too soon. My campaign is run module-by-module. There may be a definitive goal near the campaign's finale but at the start it's just running with whatever I feel like. A lot of standalones are best at the campaign's start if just to let the players get a good hold on their characters without being troubled to remember important meta-plot info.

Interestly enough, my current campaign has started out bery similar to yours--PCs are part of a greater organization. A good move given the uncertain attendance of your players. As for your starting adventure, it sounds good. I'd definitely put something at the end instead of just the patrons saying, "Ha, we fooled you good. Just testing!" Perhaps the PCs could be given magical trinkets or official emblems of the patron group which allow them access to group strongholds or temples (?).

As your campaign does start rolling along, don't be afraid to throw some internal struggle into your patron group. Forcing the PCs to choose sides in such a struggle immerses them even more deeply into the organization and the setting as a whole.

 

[Volaran]

I suppose this is a chance to pimp our podcast.

Radio Free Llael
http://freellael.libsyn.com

Primarily Iron Kingdoms focused, but the second episode contains information on episodic campaigns in general, and more specifically the one we're running now.