Examining campaign patterns

[EricNoah]

Thinking about some recent threads (particularly the one on ending campaigns, but also general threads about how fast characters level up, etc.) I thought it might be fun to kind of analyze some of my trends in my campaigns.

Eric's Campagins:

Planescape I -- 15 adventures
PCs went from 1st level to about 9th level
June 1996 - September 1997

"Dreamland"
"Bridge on a Dead World"
"Falling"
"Land of the Dead"*
"Rule of Three"
"Darkest Sigil"
"Menacing Malady"*
"Mystery Package"
"1001: a Barroom Brawl"
"Shattered Temple"*
Interlude: "The Confession"
"Bit & Bridle"*
"Sea of Sand, Sea of Fate"
"Vira's Test"
"Unfriendly Rivalry"
"Final Showdown" (campaign climax)


Planescape II -- 6 adventures
PCs went from 4th-5th level and ended around 9th-10th
October 1997 - September 1998

"Field of Nettles"*
"Realm of Thought"
Interlude: "Demonbane"
"Umbra"*
"All Doors Close"
"Nemesis Redux" (campaign concluded at a good spot but could have gone on longer)


FR Underdark -- 5 adventures
PCs went from 1st level to about 5th-6th level
October 1998 - December 1999

"Bane of Bain"
"Bounty Hunter"
"Red Tooth"
"Port of Shadows"
"Rubyfire" (ended in a TPK)


Planescape III -- 2 adventures
I think PCs started around 3rd and ended around 7th
December 1999 - July 2000

"The Red Prison"
"Once Steadfast" (was actually about 3 adventures worth of material)
(campaign ended in a good spot; we were also ready to switch over to 3rd edition at this point)


Bastion of Faith (Forgotten Realms) -- 10 adventures
PCs went from 1st to about 13th level
August 2000 - August 2003

"Tears of Ilmater"
"The Sunless Citadel"*
"Dead Magic"
"Loose Ends"
"Protection Racket, Part I"
"Shadow Weave, Part I"
"Protection Racket, Part II"
"Shadow Weave, Part II"
"Interlude: Cyric's Dark Gift"
"Tears for Twilight Hollow"*
"Hell on Earth"
"The Path of Duty" (campaign climax)


Arcana Unearthed -- 4 adventures and counting...
PCs started at 2nd level, just hit 4th level
August 2003 - present

"Old Stones"
"A Mother's Curse"
"Test of the Red Shields"
"The Missing Corpse"

* = published adventure, pretty close to the way it was published.

Things I've noticed:

I don't use a lot of published adventures. Many of my original adventures used bits and pieces of adventures (maps, NPCs, maybe the ghost of a plotline).

Prior to 3e, my typical lenght for a campaign was about a year or so. And we never went much higher than 10th level.

D&D 3.0 provided me 3 solid years of gaming and we only got up to 13th level. Granted we only play once a month or so, but still... I remember thinking 13th level was pretty powerful for the PCs.

Only one TPK -- that's not too bad! Otherwise, campaigns tend to end on a high note or with an actual conclusion.

An "adventure" as I name them can be as short as a couple of encounters or as long as several shorter "typical" adventures.

The list looks really short compared to the memory of so many, many good times.

 

[James McMurray]

We appear to be polar opposites.

- I use printed adventures almost exclusively, meshingthem to my group's style. Like any DM though, sometimes I have to adlib when the players go in a irection I did't anticipate.

- The only campaigns that have ended (2 out of 4) ended in TPKs. The first was at the climax of the Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and the second was in section 2 of "Of Sound Mind". The zombies managed to surround and kill the party because of the tight quarters and a botched turn attempt.

 

[EricNoah]

I want to try to use more published adventures, I really do. I think it would save me tons of prep time. I'm a player in a group that just got done with almost TWO YEARS in the Banewarrens, a published adventure with no lack of material. And as a player I had a blast. I was never thinking "ooh the DM's lazy for using a published adventure."

But when it comes down to the time to decide "what next", published adventures don't often fit right where I need them to fit. Maybe I should pick one (a good one, a big one) and make the campaign fit "around" it? I've been reading Tomb of Abysthor a lot recently; and I've heard good things about some other "mega" modules. I should start reading some reviews...

I have subscribed to Dungeon for years and plunder them for ideas and maps. Maybe that's the best role for published adventures in my campaigns. I would love to run that Adventure Path though...

 

[Patman21967]

Thanks...and more

Eric....first off, as a long time GM, let me thank you for the conversions of G1-3. I am beginning a new campaign tonight, and will be fitting those 3 in among many of my own adventures. We play every Sunday, and we usually either finish a campaign, or it peters out when myself or the other guy who GM's gets another idea stuck in his head. We usually alternate weeks. He'll run his campaign 2 weeks, then we'll do mine for 2. It keeps everyone involved. I like to play, and sometimes need a break to catch up on GM things. Life takes up most of my week, so having 2 weeks to prepare helps alot.

Good gaming,
Patl

 

[nopantsyet]

Eric--that's exactly what I'm starting to do. I've got a stack of Dungeons that I have never used and much of which I've never even read. As my wife was getting closer to having our second DMling, I realized more and more that the load of 100% homebrew was going to be too much. So I decided to start using published materials to ease the load.

My approach is to keep my own long-term plot arcs and incorporate published materials into that frame. I'm tweaking the published materials and adding some of my own encounters in order to advance my plots, but the bulk of the adventuring is not going to be my own.

We're just starting the first published adventure in the campaign. The party has to cross a harsh desert and they need some action after a protracted social/political adventure. So I'm dropping in the Dark Sun adventure they just published in Dungeon. I'm swapping some of my homebrew stuff in place of some of the DS-specific stuff to keep it consistent with my world. And I'm using NPCs in the adventure to convey information that relates to the larger plots as well.

Net result, I'm going to get four or five sessions out of one session's worth of preparation. That's efficient DMing! And more importantly, it's getting me more excited about running the game, which had become pretty difficult. Turns out the load had been too much for a while, and it was starting to catch up with me.

 

[RangerWickett]

I've run several games in the same setting. Each game has pretty much been a seasonal story, with an ongoing adventure, broken up because of friends heading off for summer vacations and such. But each game tended to have a single plot line, with lots of short adventures in the process.

Most of this is explained on my slowly-revamped website. Here's an excerpt.

The Fall: A desperate gambit by the last free Elves to overthrow their human oppressors casts a nation down the path of darkness. Amidst the chaos, the world's first child of man and Elf finds himself driven on a path of revenge by his dead mother. Run from September 2000 to November 2002.

The Scourge of the Burning Sky: The world is ruled by an immortal emperor whose armies suffer no rebellion. When this emperor falls and vanishes, the struggle to fill his void sears the world with the fire of war. The unlikely hope against this scourge are a handful of refugees forced from their homelands, seeking safety in a haven of wizards. Run from January 2003 to March 2004.

The Mother of Dreams: As the world begins a renaissance of discovery, nobles and kings sponsor adventurers to explore the ruins of ancient ages. One such group of professional heroes falls upon a trail to an old, sinister plot that has not yet run its course. Run from January 1996 to August 1996, heavily revised since. This is going to be a serialized story on my site in the not-too-distant future.

Tides of Homeland: Where you are born and raised influences the life you lead, the friends you care for, and the decisions you must live with. Like the tide, though you may pull away, you will always find your way back to shore. Four friends find themselves far from safety in the land of sunless seas, and the villainy they discover there will threaten all their homelands. Run from March 1999 to December 2001.

Winds of Change: Carefree after much strife in the world, the apprentice air mage Vidania travels on pilgrimage to the Stormchaser Coast. She and her bodyguards adventure swiftly from land to land, exploring a world of magic, and possibly unlocking the ancient secrets of the Elemental Guardians. Run from June 2002 to August 2003.

 

[Piratecat]

I've used a lot of published adventures in my 12 year campaign. Initially I used published adventures from Dungeon almost exclusively; once three or four of those went by, I started to riff off of those NPCs and places to create my own adventures. More recently I've been taking old adventures (Waterdeep, G1 & G2, D1-3, Dungeon #70's Kingdom of the Ghouls) and very loosely using them for inspiration.

My campaign goes through stages around certain themes. We have had several Planescape arcs (we're in one right now), two city arcs, a political arc, an underdark/undead arc, a "travelling" epic plot arc, and the like. Like seasons of a TV show, these provide some closure and some variety within a central framework.

 

[EricNoah]

Dungeon #70's Kingdom of the Ghouls)

I was weaving a bunch of Kingdom of the Ghouls stuff into my Underdark campaign, along with some Dead Gods stuff (Orcus/Tenebrous/Kiaransalee) that had been unearthed in Planescape II with the death of Maanzecorian.

I do get a great deal of satisfaction when there's an "echo" of something past in the game -- an old NPC or location or theme that reverberates later on.

I am often scattering the seeds of a possible adventure that might take place two or three adventures down the road even as I'm writing the current adventure. Half the time I don't even really know what it is I'm getting the players ready for. Some of the seeds don't sprout, but some do and when it does it makes each adventure flow into the other very naturally.

 

[Piratecat]

I noticed your site's references when I did a web search on Kilenor! My group's descent into the Kingdom of the Ghouls took almost two years real time; I'm finally just getting to the big fight against the Ghoul King in my story hour. I changed a lot of details, but the inspiration and theme of that adventure carried over very nicely.

Like you, I sprinkle my game with dozens of plot seeds that I can always pick up and use later. It works really well, and the group likes the foreshadowing and sense of history.