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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arravis" data-source="post: 4077478" data-attributes="member: 327">Our four year campaign was coming to a close, the party finally reached epic a few months before, and had gathered an army of allies and mercenaries to take on the seemingly overwhelming forces of their enemy. The players were nervous, they had spent most of the campaign only worried about themselves and their comrades, but for this battle they would lead many thousands of men into battle. They spent hours coming up with clever strategies and gave passionate speeches to their troops. The lives of their army and their allies hung on the decisions the PC's made.So imagine their surprise when the battle started and I asked everyone to hand me their character sheets and I handed them new ones back, three for each player. Character sheets of first and second level warriors: a platoon of men they themselves had commanded to hold a tower near the front lines. A tower that had to be held at all costs... a tower that the PC's almost certainly knew would be overwhelmed, dooming all who held that ground.Much of the game was spent waiting for orders, preparing defenses in the tower, and just talking. Each soldier had a history, each one had families and friends. Father and son were there, husband and wife, good people, bad people, the general mix of all that makes us human. And when the enemy finally came, they fought with all they had. They fought harder with those 1st and 2nd level characters than I had ever seen them fight with their epic characters. As they fell and died, they fought harder still, knowing they were all doomed in the end. They shed tears as the last of the men fought together, singing the songs of their homeland, as the enemy battered down the tower door and overwhelmed them. They had all died with an honor and grace that the players had never had with their own characters... and they had all died forgotten. The battle was won in the end, the PC's epic character's overcame, but no one would tell the tale of the in the tower and no one would know what happened.Just a dozen among many thousands.</blockquote>

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