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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GQuail" data-source="post: 3421971" data-attributes="member: 30709">I Cut on the off chance those damn fool players wander in...[spoiler]There is an evil, Chaotic level band of villains who are trying to cause havoc to further their long term goal of removing all gods from the world.  The leader of this group was a cleric who lost his powers because his deity considered something he did "stealing" when he felt it wasn't: his bitterness sent him on a quest into the Shadow Plane where he became a practicioner of Shadow Magic and acquired a sentient item, armour made of shadowstuff which has made him even more warped by it's desires.  He believes that the bigger a tradgedy he inflicts on the world, the more hope and faith in the Gods he can erode away: and without faith, the gods are nothing.The players do not know it yet, but several of their long-running problems have been down to this group.  An attempt to bring a Demon Princess into the MAterial Plane so that she could be elevated to Godhood was equipped wtih the right knowledge by these guys; and the current war between a Human and Elf empire is being stirred on both sides by Doppleganer spies.  They've even steered a dragon cult from idly worshipping dragons to seeking to create Dracoliches.The players were a constant problem, but they could not kill them as they suspected their allies would try to raise them: instead, they attempted to banish them out of sight using an ancient magical relic which possessed the power to move things forward in time.  The players unqittingly activated this with the steering of th aofrementioned Doppleganger and they're no 23 years in the future: and the evil team have "won", their dream anarchy state in full swing.  This has included using mighty Noctomancy to blot out the sun with a permenant Shadow Plane portal, drowning the world in night and terror.This later part of the plot will now involve the PC's hunting for magic that can send them home, and from there trying to prevent the tradgedies they know await them.  A big question will be "can we change the future?", a question I fully intend to leave the party in the dark about for as long as possible.  They will have to struggle uphill to stop what is destined to happen from coming true, especially as plans will change once they interrupt them by returning.[/spoiler]On top of al this, following a post I read here many moons ago, I have another thing going on in my game world: though I'm wary of how far I can push this idea.  Again, spoiler space...[spoiler]The party fought a wizard with similarity to Venger, the D&D cartoon villain.  He was trying to operate a magical portal and was instead banished into it when it malfunctioned.... and ended up leaving the game world for something.... bigger.  That is, he ended up outside of the game, and deduced that the world he'd lived in was somehow "less real".He's called himself The King Outside, and has slowly been messing with the game world.  He's made fights force for the PCs by moving monsters to catch them, he's messed with time so foes have had years to grow stronger, and he even made a PC completely vanish from the memories of the whole world.  He'staking a while to deduce how far his powers go, but it's getting more powerful each time: and the party havenoticed the undead he summons leave behind "soul papers", sheets with numbers that quantify them, and have made the jump to "character sheets" and worked out this is /big/.The idea, stolen way back when, is that Venger's biggest asset in the D&D cartoon was tha tonly he knows the kids are, well, kids.  So Venger knows the party are not bold heroes but nerdy D&D players, and seeks to undermine them.  This also runs parallel to the main plot in that just as the evil villain gang seek to undermine deities for how they treat their creations, Venger is an interfering force beyond the world who they must stop.  In effect, they've got to do soemthing akin to the villains to win.I'm a big comics fan, as are some of my party.  So, taking a leaf from Johnny Nexus and his superhero game stuff in Signs And Portents (the Mongoose PDF gaming mag) one of the final steps in this plan is going to be the party's very game world and system being splintered by the monster.  They'll come to a session and I'll act confused that they don't realise we're playing a BD&D dungeon crawl, then wonder why they think it's odd we're playign Street Fighter the Storytelling game.   The players will see hitns to Venger throughout the other worlds and have to puzzle out a way back to the "right" one.The big problem with this plan, apart from the fact it might prove a bit distracting from the other one, is how to end it.  Taking a cue from the Animal Man comic (which was a big inspiration in this idea), this may well come to an end with the players coming into the "real world" and seeking the creator of their world to assist them with weapons that can cut through the game: that is, they actually meet their DM and he gives them the tools to fight their foe on ane vening footing.  This is probably too much Deus Ex Machina and too "out there" to run with, so I'm trying to think of a better way[/spoiler]In my opinion, you should be careful about trying to force an over-arching plot too soon.  I designed this campaign in modules: the first four sessions were designed to theoretically end there, then the next eight, then the next four months..... you should leave hints in each block to the next one or two, and there's nothing wrong with having a big plan, but there's no point in planning a 20 level epic if you're going to stop at level 3 to play Vampire instead.  Do iot in chunks that the party can stop if they want and still get a complete story: and any threads left dangling give you sequel material!  :></blockquote>

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