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

[Talmek]

...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

So after reading this post I decided that it was time to attempt to bring my kids (11 and 8) into the fold and see if they could keep up with a D&D 5e game. Using The Fey Sisters' Fate from Goodman Games as my guide I started a weekday game with them and it was a complete success! I read through the one-sentence descriptions of each character class to them, then had them choose a race. From that point I ran through the character creation process and provided them backstories so they would fit in the area. We ended up with a human fighter (for the 8 year old) and a gnome wizard (for the 11 year old). My significant other ran a halfling rogue and I decided I would supplement healing via potions found along the way, which turned out to be unnecessary.

These two young players took two different routes to conflict resolution, one with the traditional "Stabby McStab Stab" approach, and the other with completely non-violent methods, looking for and utilizing spells like sleep to give themselves a way out. The most interesting piece to the whole thing was that they behaved better at the table than some of my adult players, in that they let one another play their character without "help", not interrupting or judging one another's decisions and actively playing off of one another's actions. Again, this dumbfounded me as they had never played a TTRPG before, or really been exposed to it other than seeing all my friends and I play it in passing.
[MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION] - I wouldn't have attempted this with either of them so young (I believed that it would have been a waste of time and effort until they were both at least 11-12 minimum) prior to reading your post. Seeing your successful campaign closure story was the driver behind this decision, so thank you!

 

[Richards]

[MENTION=74486]Talmek[/MENTION] - I'm thrilled to hear about your family's 5E game! I've had many pleasant years gaming with my two sons (I started them out with AD&D 2nd Edition when they were 10 and 8; now they're 31 and 29!), and I wish you many happy years of gaming with your family.
[MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION] - Thanks for reading through the Story Hour, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. (And I agree with your "XP" selections - those were some of my favorite bits, too!)
[MENTION=55178]Nytmare[/MENTION] - It started out with my co-worker Dan, his son Jacob, and my son Logan. A few months later, we added Dan's wife, Vicki. And about 6 years later, we added Jacob's little brother, Joey. Other than a few "guest appearance" sessions with my eldest son, Stuart, when he was home from college, it's been just them for the entire campaign.

And thanks to everyone else for the congratulations. This has definitely been a highlight of my gaming career. And hopefully those of you with younger kids will get to DM for them when you feel the time is right.

Johnathan

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Actually, I wanted to give XP in a few more places but my crappy Third World connection made that problematic at times. Anyway, great read and I made sure I XPed the ones I really liked. (Grottlepox and his mirrors: brilliant.)

 

[Water Bob]

I know what you are saying (in the OP). I've had several fizzle out. My longest running accomplishment, with a beginning, middle, and end, was a 7 year long D6 Star Wars game that lasted about three game years, taking place just after A New Hope and ending just before The Empire Strikes Back. It ended on a downer, as there was another Force person to be reckoned with among the group, but he was corrupted by Vader. And, working with the player secretly, that character maneuvered the group into Imperial capture.

Everybody loved the ending, though. I was a bit surprised. They liked how it didn't interfere with what we knew of Star Wars Canon at the time (this was in the late 90's).

Great game. We played a group of Rebels, from the time that they joined the Rebellion until Vader's masterstroke, scooping them all up, with the Force Sensitive becoming Vader's apprentice (this was tons of years before The Force Unleashed). The corrupted character became Darth Raije (also chosen before "Darth Rage" became a fairly well known character in the legacy).

Fun times.