Crossing Campaigns

[the Jester]

Has anyone else ever crossed their campaign with another dm's? Perhaps you traded players for a while, perhaps you traded chairs for a while (normally I dm, but when the party enters your setting I'll play instead), maybe... I dunno.

Years ago, in early 2e, another dm and I worked out a dm exchange- he dmed the group when they were precipitously plane shifted onto his campaign world, and we had several weeks worth of sessions in his campaign before returning to mine. It was really cool- this was the infamous series of adventures leading to the pc with the keep exploding from within an extradimensional space inside his head- and led to the party's acquisition of an artifact from his game that eventually (naturally) possessed the pc holding it, resulted in 2 or 3 other pc deaths and led to the rebirth of his campaign's arch-villain. Very cool, and (in my version, not sure about his as he had recently joined the army and was only back on leave) our campaign worlds ended up tied very tightly together.

Anyone else got any stories about this? I seem to recall Piratecat having a story about a guest dm and severing damage...

 

[hong]

Piratecat: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Morrus: What?
Piratecat: Don't cross the campaigns.
Morrus: Why?
Piratecat: It would be bad.
Morrus: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?
Piratecat: Try to imagine all your players' heads exploding simultaneously and all the dice in your collection being thrown at you at the speed of light.
Henry: Total archetype reversal.
Morrus: That's bad. Okay. Alright, important safety tip, thanks Kevin.

 

[JoeGKushner]

It's only worked for me a handful of times.

In 3rd ed, I've only done it once and that was okay.

See, I run my campaign a very specific way. Low magic in terms of overall amount, but most magic items are fairly rare or unique. Low gold so the PC's keep hunting down more treasure. Almost like Cowboy Bebop or Outlaw Star.

Most of the guys I play with, when they GM, also use a 42 point base and I use a 32 point base.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

We've just started this as an experiment. The reasoning behind it was that we switch GMs every three to four months and quite often start off again with new 1st level characters. How about (we said) switching GMs but keeping the same characters? Then we might have some characters who progress above 5th level or so.

Since I had run the players through the Freeport trilogy, they were used to sailing on ships. When the time came to switch, the new GM had the PCs' ship pass through a dimensional portal during a storm and shipwrecked the party. My (new) character was introduced as they were washed up on an inhabited island. After we've completed this longish adventure, we'll be switching GMs again.

So far, so good.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Alzrius]

Didn't I see this in Knights of the Dinner Table? As I recall it ended with sanctions from the makers of the game being imposed on the gaming groups in question.

 

[Knightfall]

Piratecat: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Morrus: What?
Piratecat: Don't cross the campaigns.
Morrus: Why?
Piratecat: It would be bad.
Morrus: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?
Piratecat: Try to imagine all your players' heads exploding simultaneously and all the dice in your collection being thrown at you at the speed of light.
Henry: Total archetype reversal.
Morrus: That's bad. Okay. Alright, important safety tip, thanks Kevin.

Hong, that was hilarious! Love that movie.

Who you gonna call?

 

[Knightfall]

Has anyone else ever crossed their campaign with another dm's? Perhaps you traded players for a while, perhaps you traded chairs for a while (normally I dm, but when the party enters your setting I'll play instead), maybe... I dunno.

Well, the new group I just helped put together is goingto try something, similar to this. One DM is going to run a campaign, while the other (me) will run a different campaign. They won't be related, from a PC standpoint, but you never know what the two of us will cook up if the Alternating Campaigns' Night works.

Mine will be a new World of Kulan campaign, while the other DM is considering both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. I hope we go Realms, as I've never played in a Realms campaign.

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Nightfall]

Rich,

Good luck with that. For me, Realms games are more fun with Demon Princes involved. Maybe because I've become very jaded with the gods of FR. But that's just me.

 

[Voadam]

I am currently DMing our group, having taken over the campaign from the previous DM so he can get some PC time in, I'm going to cover the campaign for about two levels when his story arc kicks in again with a high level module/plot we've been building towards.

I'm actually the third DM in the campaign so far, my brohter started it with Banewarrens, one of my friends took over briefly for a short homebrew adventure in the city of Ptolus, my brother took it back to run Heart of Nightfang Spire, and then I took over and have been running Demon god's Fane plus some other stuff while the friend ran my PC through some solo stuff and my brother might do so in a little bit as well.

There are some things I would have run differently if I had the campaign from the beginning (only spontaneous divine casters, no half-races, etc.) but it is very cool to work with the plots and world that we have built up, including the world history and divine politics (Ptolus for us is set in a post-apocalyptic Greyhawk 10,000 years later world after gods wars). All the players are into their characters and have history with the world and each other.

I have no idea oog about the other dms plots besides what I learned in-game, and vice versa. We worked out a world history timeline for when significant god and empire events happened, and left some room in lists of bad guys in nemesis noble houses and banes that had escaped so that we could each draw on these elements as needed, but that is about it.

My friend likes to homebrew a lot so there are monsters and magic that are fresh to me, while my brother has a lot of WotC resources that I don't and I have a ton of d20 and other stuff to draw on that nobody else has. It is a good mix of familiar and new.

 

[the Jester]

Hmm, anyone ever try a cross-over game where the pcs from two different dms' campaigns meet? Kinda a "JLA/Avengers" type thing?

If so, how'd it work out? How did the dming duties get divvied up? Was it a party v party battle, a team-up, or both? Would it have made a good issue of Marvel Team-Up?