D&D General 40 Year D&D Campaign

[Lanefan]

I'll add, although this game is marketed as one continuous campaign... I don't think it truly is, at least in the way you'd first assume. Although much of the world is set in "alternate history Earth," apparently he replaced South America with Hyborea from Conan, and Middle-Earth is can be reached by the sea. Plus Greyhawk, and even Menzoberranzan (from Forgotten Realms) exist in this world too.

In this case "one continuous campaign" I suspect means more than for 40-odd years his players/PCs have mostly picked up the action this session at the point they left off last session, occasionally swapping out parties or story-lines but that's it.

You're conflating "campaign" with "setting", perhaps. The setting can be whatever he wants it to be including mash-ups based on all kinds of sources. Hell, my own setting has (faux- in all cases) ancient Greece, early-Renaissance Britain, a Roman Empire, Sumerians, and Aztecs/Mayans all bordering on the same Mediterranean-size sea; never mind a couple of homebrew Human cultures and some Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits.

 

[Lanefan]

This is also... really weird. You essentially are forced to play your dead character's descendants, and if you don't you can't play. If you don't have descendants, you have to play another player's descendants if you want to keep playing.

I'm not someone who like to "bad wrong fun" anything, but this looks just so awful.

Yeah, that seems a bit much.

It does, however, strongly imply that his campaign covers a much broader span of in-game time than do many. Interesting.

The unintended but obvious side effect of this rule, of course, is to push new players toward playing older-aged PCs who are already parents of grown children, so that their descendents are already in place for when they are needed.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Yeah, that seems a bit much.

It does, however, strongly imply that his campaign covers a much broader span of in-game time than do many. Interesting.

The unintended but obvious side effect of this rule, of course, is to push new players toward playing older-aged PCs who are already parents of grown children, so that their descendents are already in place for when they are needed.

Yeah I think it's a cool concept in a lot of ways, it's just forcing people into it that really sucks. You really want to play the same family forever? What if I started as a kid (and his daughter did) who loved elves, and by the time I'm an adult I really want to play someone who isn't an elf?

I didn't include the snippet, but he does eject people from the game if they die, don't have descendants, and don't have anyone to give up a descendent.

 

[Oofta]

I wonder if he's saying you have to play a descendent or you can. I allow people to play descendants, and sometimes they do. Sometimes they're the descendants of other player's PCs.

In any case, I don't want death to be terrifying. Not optimal? Sure. I hope my players are attached to their PCs and the stories we've been telling. But beyond that I'm not going to tell someone they can no longer play in my campaign because their PC died.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I wonder if he's saying you have to play a descendent or you can. I allow people to play descendants, and sometimes they do. Sometimes they're the descendants of other player's PCs.

In any case, I don't want death to be terrifying. Not optimal? Sure. I hope my players are attached to their PCs and the stories we've been telling. But beyond that I'm not going to tell someone they can no longer play in my campaign because their PC died.

Seems like they have to, unless the player made their character celibate or something. That's why people cry at the table, because they're ejected from the game.

 

[Mort]

Yeah I think it's a cool concept in a lot of ways, it's just forcing people into it that really sucks. You really want to play the same family forever? What if I started as a kid (and his daughter did) who loved elves, and by the time I'm an adult I really want to play someone who isn't an elf?

I didn't include the snippet, but he does eject people from the game if they die, don't have descendants, and don't have anyone to give up a descendent.

This seems very limiting.

I wonder if he makes new players beg an existing player for a descendant?

Plus wouldn't this give players a possibly unhealthy obsession with well, being fruitful and multiplying?

Umm, yeah.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah I think it's a cool concept in a lot of ways, it's just forcing people into it that really sucks. You really want to play the same family forever? What if I started as a kid (and his daughter did) who loved elves, and by the time I'm an adult I really want to play someone who isn't an elf?

I wonder what he does if a player just decides between adventures to retire out a character and roll up something new?

 

[Mannahnin]

I wonder what he does if a player just decides between adventures to retire out a character and roll up something new?

Sounds like that's not permitted. Your next character has to be the descendent of your current character (or of someone else's) pre-established in the world, unless you have a pre-approved special accomodation like the aforementioned celibate Cleric character.

It seems a bit inflexible to me, but I do appreciate the idea of having all new characters tied into the existing ones and families.

I'm playing in The Great Pendragon Campaign right now, and this is part of the idea. That we're playing through 90+ years of game time, and ideally our knights will have multiple generations of progeny, and past relationships and characters will inform and add depth to successive relationships and generations. So far we're only nine years in; some bad winters & wealth rolls have unfortunately given us handicaps on our childbirth and child survival rolls, resulting in only one of the three knights having a surviving son so far, and there's a prophecy that he'll die before he comes of age! We had our first PC fatality last night, and Sir Berel died without an heir of his body. However all of us just had our first squires come of age and get knighted last year during the conflict between Uther and Gorlois, so that player is now making a PC out of his first character's former squire.

 

[Oofta]

Sounds like that's not permitted. Your next character has to be the descendent of your current character (or of someone else's) pre-established in the world, unless you have a pre-approved special accomodation like the aforementioned celibate Cleric character.

It seems a bit inflexible to me, but I do appreciate the idea of having all new characters tied into the existing ones and families.

I'm playing in The Great Pendragon Campaign right now, and this is part of the idea. That we're playing through 90+ years of game time, and ideally our knights will have multiple generations of progeny, and past relationships and characters will inform and add depth to successive relationships and generations. So far we're only nine years in; some bad winters & wealth rolls have unfortunately given us handicaps on our childbirth and child survival rolls, resulting in only one of the three knights having a surviving son so far, and there's a prophecy that he'll die before he comes of age! We had our first PC fatality last night, and Sir Berel died without an heir of his body. However all of us just had our first squires come of age and get knighted last year during the conflict between Uther and Gorlois, so that player is now making a PC out of his first character's former squire.

I get wanting continuity, but you don't have to be a descendent of a PC in order to do that. If it matters, just have a PC that was somehow affected by the previous campaigns and/or have ties to an old PC would be all that I would care about. For me, previous campaigns have ripple effects but I want to tell too many varied stories to limit it all to one region or chain of PCs.

 

[Mort]

I get wanting continuity, but you don't have to be a descendent of a PC in order to do that. If it matters, just have a PC that was somehow affected by the previous campaigns and/or have ties to an old PC would be all that I would care about. For me, previous campaigns have ripple effects but I want to tell too many varied stories to limit it all to one region or chain of PCs.

I suspect you could do that in his world - you just have to properly "mother may I" it.