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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JustinA" data-source="post: 3530166" data-attributes="member: 51618">ALIAS is a great example of this because it not only demonstrated the strengths of the technique, it also demonstrated the weaknesses.For example of how it DOESN'T work:[spoiler]The episode where Dixon is driven to despair by, IIRC, the death of his wife. The entire episode would be incredibly powerful -- building up to a moment where Dixon is literally standing on a bridge and weighing whether or not he should jump... The only problem? The beginning of the episode had been a flash-forward to Dixon dramatically threatening to blow himself up along with a suspect unless the suspect gave him the information that he wanted.This scene not only established that Dixon was suicidal before an episode with a dramatic structure based entirely around building Dixon up to a suicidal peak... but it also removed all tension from the climactic moment of Dixon standing on that bridge.For an example of when the technique worked marvelously you don't have to look any farther than the very first episode.[/spoiler]Digression aside, I did something like this once: The group I was DMing was running through a lengthy, world-hopping campaign. One of the players had to leave town for several weeks and we decided to put the main campaign on hold. I decided to run the Freeport Trilogy to fill the gap.During the third episode of the Freeport Trilogy the heroes are at a grand ball. I knew that the other PCs would be coming through Freeport at some point, so I decided to place the entire Freeport Trilogy in the future. When the players arrived at the ball, they met their characters from the other campaign (who, as it later turned out, were there to meet another NPC).We kept the details of the meeting vague, and then -- several months later, when the main campaign reached that point -- the group had a blast playing out the previously vague meeting in complete detail.There are also subtler elements: Activities of various supporting cast members in the Freeport campaign became clearer when it was revealed that those activities were tied to the events following the other group into Freeport. (The half-orc captain in the first Freeport adventure was a character already established in the world-hopping campaign (who was in Freeport waiting for the world-hopping PCs to arrive). The ship that the Freeport PCs arrived on at the beginning of the Freeport Trilogy was the same ship -- from the Maiden Voyage Penumbra module -- that would bring the world-hopping PCs to Freeport.)Fun stuff.I like doing this type of subtle campaign-binding. For example, that same world-hopping campaign started with Three Days to Kill. When I designed a campaign based around Rappan Athuk, I had the mirror found at the conclusion of Three Days to Kill created by the demon priests of Rappan Athuk.</blockquote>

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