your homebrew campaign - generic setting or single campaign?

[Nellisir]

In practice, I've run all but one of my campaigns in essentially the same area of the same setting (and the other campaign was set in Faerie, not so far away).

In theory, I've given myself a loophole by ruling my "world" is an infinite disc that encompasses everything from the Material to the outermost reaches of the Outer Planes. No planets, no stars, just the candles of the dead above and the plane of Shadow below.

So I could set very divergent campaigns in the "same" world, but I haven't done so. My games don't feature much continental travel, so while every campaign has affected the setting, I just move the next campaign over a kingdom and the PCs' actions suddenly become rumors most local folk haven't got the time to care about.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Akrasia]

You don't need more than one world, if it's the best possible one.

 

[Gez]

I originally set out to create a world that could supports multiple campaigns over a period of time but as I develop the setting itself as well as the campaign plotline, I'm finding more and more that the setting itself is the campaign (if that makes any sense). Basically, the plotline I'm working on tells the story of the world and will greatly affect it in the end.

It's about the same for me, although it can still support multiple campaigns. The current one allows to explore and discover the world and its history, and should permit to change dramatically its political scene.

But there's plenty other stories that can be told. Lots of themes and hooks will be approached in the current campaign, but left unresolved because there's only so much a group of heroes can do at a time.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

So what do they do?

Maybe they defeat her, and the big baddy a hundred years later is her reincarnation, a descendant, or she escaped via some weird time travel thing?

 

[barsoomcore]

Well, fun ideas, but her life story is VERY well mapped out (and known to the PCs). Mm.

Such difficult problems we set for ourselves!

 

[Nellisir]

My Kung-Fu Angels game is actually set in my Barsoom setting, and it's the first time I've ever done that -- run more than one campaign in a single setting. I'm nervous because I feel like things are very limited for the Angels -- they aren't going to be able to do anything about the big bad of their time because she's still hanging around in the main campaign, a hundred years later. So what do they do?

Well, you say they know her life story -- does that mean they know everything she's done/going to do? She's still around in a hundred years, but this current group may, as their epic ending, force that by delaying her sinister plan "now". Presumably the players know what's up -- find out what they're looking for for resolution. Maybe there's someone worse, someone pulling her string "now", that this party takes care of, freeing her to grow a bit and become the threat she'll be in a hundred years (I'm thinking The Dominator and The Lady, if you're familiar with The Black Company).

But you know, I kind of LIKE the work. Am I a bad person?

Yup -- setting impossible goals for the rest of us!


Nell.

 

[barsoomcore]

Oh, I'm very familiar with the Black Company, 'tis true. Lady was a formative experience for me.

You know, let's just say it's complicated and leave it at that. I could explain, but there's good people wanting to get on with their conversation here, and once I get started explaining this, I won't be stopping for QUITE some time.

I guess you'll need to read my Story Hours to see how it all turns out!

 

[fusangite]

So to those that have homebrews, are your settings generic in that you have played (or could play) multiple campaigns within them or did you create it to tell the story of a particular world (like a novel for example)?

I think the better homebrews are ones like yours -- where the world has an implicit major narrative. I think many GMs screw up by trying to make a world that functions as a setting completely un-coupled from the plot. When I design a world, it is always one with an implicit narrative that, when it's over, has basically rendered the world a less interesting place to be... and it's therefore time to create another world.

Occasionally, one can do two campaigns in one of my worlds but typically that entails going considerably forward or backward in time or, if the first campaign was world-shaking, the second quest has to be universe-shaking.

I think you're on the right track recognizing that your world has, implicit in it, one great story. Let this post stand as an offer of unqualified encouragement.

Also, my homebrew will be low-magic. Do you think that the mechanics of the gave have any effect on the campaign itself? It seems to me that it's more common for a low-magic campaign to have a greater effect on the world itself rather than say a Forgotten Realms campaign.

Forgotten Realms is not a world that could possibly hold together coherently. Don't compare anything to it; just because it's popular doesn't mean it isn't ridiculous. I don't see any link between low- or high- magic and the question of implicit narrative.

I have read about low-magic campaigns where over the course of the campaign, the players discover why magic is limited or find a way to bring it back or something like that. I could be wrong, this is just my impression.

I think this assumes that the "natural" state is high-magic. Low-magic worlds can be low-magic intrinsically; the "natural" amount of magic could, in fact, be even less than the campaign starts with.