D&D General 40 Year D&D Campaign

[Oofta]

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

Like I said, I don't directly enforce any connection to previous campaigns. However, while discussing possible character options I will bring up previous campaigns and PCs as possible ties to the past. That way if people want to tie in they can, but enforcing a "mother may I" would be one of the reasons I wouldn't be interested in the campaign. If a PC perma-dying doesn't bother the player (for many it would and has) because of their investment in their PC I don't see how that harms me or our campaign.

It's interesting to get a peak into another person's campaign, even if this one seems quite extreme (and not very representative). It seems like it works for his players, so that's what really matters.

 

[Mort]

One thing that, I think, would be quite jarring for anyone used to 5e (and even many people used to older editions).

There's a pretty extreme level range at the table. I think I saw between level 11 and level 25 among the various PCs.

If level means anything close to what it does in most D&D games, that's a REALLY wide range and from the little I saw - the DM just throws challenges at the party, he doesn't provide different things for different power levels.

It's a different way to play.

 

[Mannahnin]

There's a pretty extreme level range at the table. I think I saw between level 11 and level 25 among the various PCs.

If level means anything close to what it does in most D&D games, that's a REALLY wide range and from the little I saw - the DM just throws challenges at the party, he doesn't provide different things for different power levels.

Bear in mind that if he's running an AD&D variant, the power difference may not be as extreme as it seems. For example, in AD&D rolled hit dice normally cap out around 10th level, and you accumulate another 1-3 points per level thereafter, depending on class. Saving throws and spell casting continue to progress, but once you're in the teens in levels you're already in the high level power range.

 

[Mort]

Bear in mind that if he's running an AD&D variant, the power difference may not be as extreme as it seems. For example, in AD&D rolled hit dice normally cap out around 10th level, and you accumulate another 1-3 points per level thereafter, depending on class. Saving throws and spell casting continue to progress, but once you're in the teens in levels you're already in the high level power range.

Sure, but, for example, casters change RADICALLY between 11th and 20 plus. The spells an 11+ caster can pull out or good and can change a combat. The spells a 17+ caster can pull out are world altering.

And, as you say, saving throws are much better as you get higher. The fight I made it through (the one against ninja assassins in the streamed game) really highlighted this actually. The low level characters were lucky to even be upright for the fight (nasty poison saving throw to start every round) where the high level characters had no issues.

There were quite a few other examples where the fight was a breeze for the higher level characters and an absolute nail biter (if they'd even make it through) for the lower level ones.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

funny thing. Without having 1 constant campaign setting over the last 30 years, I have had more then 1 player choose to add a family line to a new campagin world so they can play someones son daughter ect.

 

[pogre]

Love the terrain and miniatures. The game is not my style, but kudos to him for keeping it rolling. His players clearly enjoy it.

I have all of my stuff near the table and I rely on the players to help with set-ups and moving figures. We can put together a scene very quickly as we play. So while I sympathize with his position "nobody touches miniatures, but me" it would never work in my game room.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

That sort of piecemeal setting sounds like exactly the kind of thing many of us came up with when we were young. As I said before, sometimes part of growth is starting afresh with a clean slate.

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.

Anyway, there are probably many campaigns that are technically part of the same world but don't have much to connect them as well.

The prospect of permadeath within a D&D campaign that's been running that long...I don't know about that. Imagine having played in this campaign for decades, only to have to beg another player for a descendant or essentially be kicked out of the group, all because your character didn't start a family. If I've been gaming with someone for years, I couldn't imagine looking that person, that friend, in the face and telling them "your character never had kids, so you're out of the group."

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.

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[Mort]

The prospect of permadeath within a D&D campaign that's been running that long...I don't know about that. Imagine having played in this campaign for decades, only to have to beg another player for a descendant or essentially be kicked out of the group, all because your character didn't start a family. If I've been gaming with someone for years, I couldn't imagine looking that person, that friend, in the face and telling them "your character never had kids, so you're out of the group."

It would seem to shape PC decisions in some specific and odd ways!

I mean, if you knew that not having descendants risks a permaban unless you can get charity from another player, that would heavily influence both what you play and how you play them.

Though he does seem to make allowances for a player that plans out of the gate to not have children.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, he clearly wants to run a game that emphasizes generations of families and dynasties, where death is truly something to be feared. Which, really, the best way to do that is to just talk to your players about the kind of game you want. Not turn children into the equivalent of the number of lives you have to play in a videogame.

It would seem to shape PC decisions in some specific and odd ways!

I mean, if you knew that not having descendants risks a permaban unless you can get charity from another player, that would heavily influence both what you play and how you play them.

Though he does seem to make allowances for a player that plans out of the gate to not have children.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

isn't that from chick trats? "If you die in the game you are dead to us, you can't come back?"

like was this the guy to start the satanic panic?