D&D General 7 Golden Rules of Dungeon Master Etiquette

Clint_L

Legend
Who said anything about preordained?

As player*: was in a party that failed to save the world, directly leading to a cataclysm that killed many millions and ended the campaign (1991)
As DM: ended a campaign by running a break-the-world-to-save-the-world story arc, the PCs didn't know about the break-the-world part until the very end (1994)
As player*: was in a party that, while maybe not breaking the world, certainly changed it for everyone and ruined it for many by, in-character, causing the world to change on the fly from the 3.0 rule-set to 3.5 (2007)
As player: was in a party that, while saving/fixing the world, sank most of a continent and part of another, again killing many millions (2018)
As DM: in my current campaign a party actually broke the world years ago (both in real time and game time) without really realizing what they'd done; other parties (and some powerful NPCs) are only just now starting to clue in that something's going wrong in a very big way. Jury's very much out on whether anyone will (or can!) try to fix it, or if it's already too late; in either case I can mine this for plot ideas for some years yet. :)

* - and as fate would have it, in both these cases it was my at-the-time character who tipped the balance; even weirder is that the 2007 character was my attempt to re-make the 1991 1e character using 3e rules, so in effect it was kinda the same character both times.
Yeah, that's fair. If you're willing to go all the way and end or radically change a campaign setting, then that's another matter. I prefer local or personal stakes.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


Lanefan

Victoria Rules
Yeah, that's fair. If you're willing to go all the way and end or radically change a campaign setting, then that's another matter. I prefer local or personal stakes.
Oh, you can still have those small-stakes adventures etc. without any problem; but the long-term big picture is still there in the background whether or not it's relevant to whatever the local-based types are doing at the time.
 

Remove ads

Top