I Did Something I've Never Done Before in 38 Years of Gaming...

[Richards]

...I finished up a campaign I was DMing!

Now, I've had campaigns I was DMing finish up on me before, either because they just sort of fizzled out or the players moved away or whatnot, but last weekend I ran the final planned adventure for the D&D 3.5 campaign I've been running for the past 9 years, and which we started at the request of a coworker of mine who wanted to introduce his 8-year-old son to D&D. 20 levels later, we closed out the campaign on a high note, with the coronation of one PC and the others all moving on with their post-adventuring careers. (If anybody's interested in the details, it's the "Wing Three" campaign over in the Story Hour forum. Want linky? Here's linky: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?330488-Wing-Three)

This Saturday the same group of players and I are starting up our first "sequel" campaign ever: same game world (a heavily homebrewed version of Greyhawk), but 20 years later. Everyone's going to run a brand-new 1st-level PC starting out in the kingdom where the first-ever PC of the "8-year-old son" mentioned above (who's now 17) from the last campaign was crowned king. A few of the new PCs even have links to PCs and NPCs from the "Wing Three" campaign.

I'm looking forward to it!

Johnathan

 

[Legatus Legionis]

.

 

[Upgraydd]

That is such a great story, my kids will be old enough of in a few years so I'm hoping to do something similar.

So much happens in 9 years and the fact that the group stayed together is amazing. I am correct in reading it that the Half-Orc Barbarian became king? Nice!

 

[Richards]

You are indeed correct. 8-year-old Jacob created a half-orc barbarian named "Slayer" as his first ever PC. Several years later, he renamed him "Galrich" (which we decided was the Orcish word for "Slayer," and we decided his human mother died in childbirth delivering him - hence the name). Now he's "King Galrich the First," ruler of the small kingdom of Kordovia. (It turns out his human mother was the kidnapped queen of the kingdom, who spent the last year of her life as a slave to a tribe of orcs.)

The cool thing was that the campaign started with me DMing for Jacob and his dad and my youngest son. Months later, Jacob's mom joined us, and when Jacob's little brother (2 years old when the campaign started) turned 8, we added him in as a player as well. Having five players and a DM derive from only two families in the same town makes group cohesiveness fairly easy, and we seldom have a player no-show.

Johnathan

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Thanks to this thread, I've found the Wing Three session reports and have been reading through them over the past couple of days. Great stuff! (My favourites so far: arguably the tragedy of Edmont not wanting to come back from the dead... and the surprise reveal of the new king.)

My son is 3 and we're still at the point where I use the minis and battle maps to tell him stories about his knights slaying the dragon (especially the white dragon: he always wants it killed) but I'm looking forward to similar sorts of family games in a few years!

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Congratulations! Still working towards that achievement myself after ~30 years of gaming.

AR

 

[Talmek]

Congratulations and Holy Cow!!! What a fantastic story and achievement! You basically have described and accomplished what I would love to do with my children (4 total - Mom plays too) in the campaign. It makes for fantastic memories and passing on (with any hope) the game to a new generation.

You win, sir. Well done!

 

[Nytmare]

...I finished up a campaign I was DMing!

Congrats! Man, I can't imagine what that must feel like. Was it the same group of players pretty much all the way through?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Congratulations Richards!

It took me about 17 years of gaming to run a campaign from a Level 1 start until its planned conclusion (with the PC's around 18th-20th level). It took about 5 years to complete (with a 6 month break in the middle due to the birth of one of my children) and is definitely the highlight of my DM'ing career.

All the players in the group still have fond memories of that campaign, and it often gets discussed at the gaming table, even though the campaign ended 3 1/2 years ago.

 

[biotech66]

Congrats and EXP SIR!