I love it when a Campaign Arc comes together

[Woas]

...And that two years might represent maybe 8-15 adventures, depending on your/your group's style.

Is that enough time to spin several long multi-adventure story arcs? No.

I guess it's just comes down to different perspectives then. To me, two years worth of play time and you can't have heaps of awesome gaming? I honestly can't fathom a situation like that.
Plus in all honesty, I'd think leveling up at a faster pace would be a boon so you can hit all the sweet spots fast and with maximum awesome, then move onto the next, hit the climatic ending and then start afresh.

 

[Lanefan]

I guess it's just comes down to different perspectives then. To me, two years worth of play time and you can't have heaps of awesome gaming?

Sure you can. But 10 years gives you 5x the awesome!

Plus in all honesty, I'd think leveling up at a faster pace would be a boon so you can hit all the sweet spots fast and with maximum awesome, then move onto the next, hit the climatic ending and then start afresh.

Levelling up quickly to get *to* the sweet spot is fine, if not overdone. But once you're there you want it to last as long as possible before advancing beyond it.

Which brings up another problem I sometimes have: I'll come up with what I think is a great idea for a story or adventure arc, then realize my party is either way too low or way too high in level for it to work the way I'd envisioned. One way or another, those are the ones that always get put on hold...

Lanefan

 

[haakon1]

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing (and interconnected enemy plots) are good, in my opinion.

The key is to know your group, though. I'm running two groups. For one, a word to the wise is generally sufficient, and multiple complicated plots are fine. The payoff is in the "oh, that's so cool, now I get it" moments. I also play a lot with connecting current events to the campaign (Greyhawk) backstory and to previous campaigns that some of the players were involved in. That goes over real well . . . and I do "remind" players of what their PC's should know/remember, as needed . . . it's just not needed all that often.

For the other, hints -- look out for this -- and reminders are needed, and keeping it simple is better. How I deal with the reminders is by doing an opening read through of the previous adventures -- sort of a "previously on Buffy" montage. That seems to work.

For both parties, I recently gave out a gazeteer of sorts, explaining more about their country, its history, economics, politics, etc. Some people dig it. Some don't care.

 

[Rechan]

Finally got around to reading/replying to this thread. Apologies for the lateness.

I still say that you have to sit on some of your coolness/plots, simply due to time restraints. TO give you an example: Let's say I have 3 cool scenes with pirates, two cool scenes with hags, three with frost giants, one with a dragon, two with kobolds, one with a mini-beholder, two with shadar-kai, and three with gnolls. Each has its own corresponding plot.

I can't throw all of those at the players at the same time. Purely because there are only x number of hours per session, each encounter takes y hours to do. So they all can't be done literally at the same time (fighting 12 fights simultaneously), and back to back, there would be no CONSISTENCY. ("Ok, you just beat the pirates, you're standing on the ship... Now, frost giants spring out of the water and you're all standing on a mountain!") It would just be a montage, instead of anything resembling a narrative. Which can be fun occasionally, but it's even less sensical.

The cool stuff at least needs to be led up to. Otherwise it's random and hard to follow. Besides. Some cool stuff doesn't work. If I have a Cool Thing that involves high level monsters, I can spring that on a 1st level group and get a TPK, I can de-level the monsters to the point that it's unsatisfying and rather jarring ("So were 1st level and we just slew frost titans? What?"), or I can wait until it's balanced.

The same can be said with plots. If you have at least 6 or7 campaign-spanning plots, you can't do them all simultaneously. Because then the party will be confusd that Step 1 of Plot 3 isn't related to Step 2 of plot 5, and get things mixed up, not to mention time related (again, can't cram 12 things in the same session simultaneously when they all take time) as well as narratively unrelated ("Step 2 of Plot 5 involves the desert, Step 3 of Plot 4 involves the Frozen North", so the two don't really interact because they are so far apart geographically and in-game time wise, it's difficult to simultaneously run it.)

Throwing a lot of stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks, as far as plot hooks, is a fine method but I don't think that's how I want to run the entire game.

I did a quick mock-up, covering about 12 sessions, give or take, depending on how long any given idea in the listed "sessions" would take, going along with your plot point presented. This is sort of how I'd see a general outline going, then making changes where the PC's went in different directions. Remember, it can't be set in stone, the plot has to be dynamic, allowing for PC actions to determine the course of the story:

Thanks, that is more in line with what I was looking for (albeit a little more involved!). I started this thread to ask how to mesh/peter out long campaigns. Initially I thought you were saying "Here's a plot, take this plot" but then I see it's just an example. I like the suggestion you give about the Eladrin's primal (or more likely, "wicked" nature being sated by the Hunt). I want help with outlining (perhaps a more organic method than the 5x5 method but not by much).

But, part of your point (PC choices shaping the direction), I certainly do that. To give an example, this recently came up in my game. The PCs needed to face a dragon, and do so in a time crunch. There were three ways they could find the dragon's lair on time:

1) Rumor has it a man 2 days away claims he stole from the dragon. He's come into some wealth.
2) A witch can lead you to the dragon, but she expects some personal sacrifices.
3) A mythical beast, when slain, will answer one question both truthfully and in depth.

The PCs dismissed 1 because the thief likely wasn't reliable. They argued over 2 and 3 (Half wanted to slay the beast because it was the simplest/most trustworthy, the other half wanted to save the One Question Answered for a more important, world-shaking question that's pertinent to their personal quests). So they finally went to the Witch; a PC sacrificed his ability to show happiness, another sacrificed his ability to feel love, affection, joy, and see beauty.

Further, I started the campaign by detailing the different regions and asked, "Where do you want to start?" And the PCs picked the location of the game's beginning. Each region has its own meta-plot, that may or may not factor into the campaign's plot. Either way, their choices mean the direction the game takes.

First off, you twice mention "online" above: are you playing online, or around a table? (hint: "table" is 5/6 of "stable"... )

Yes, online. I'd say 5/6ths of any RPG I've played has been online. I've lived in places where it's HARD to find players (Read: reliable players that I like who are interested in games I'm interested in). Take my current situation, where everyone I want to play with are 30something professionals who can barely find time for a once-a-month game in systems I'm not interested in playing/running.

Besides. I'll be leaving my current location in a year and a half, and then only staying in the next location for two years. I also lack the ability to drive. So, my situation does not lend itself to being with very reliable and consistent people.

Second, you're assuming the players are going to stay the same all the way through - which is not always the case. In my first campaign, 3 of the 6 players who started the campaign finished it, and a total of 19 players were in at some point or other (and by "in", I mean they had at least one character of their own). My second campaign was similar; 2 of the 3 starting players were around for the end, while a total of 21 players got their names in the game log by playing at least one character.

Two things.

First, I've rarely been in a game that survives. When the GM has lost interest, or the players have, or 2/5ths repeatedly don't show up, etc, the game just dies.

Second, I'd rather scrap a game than cycle through so many players, not having the players you started with. I like to begin campaigns that hinge very strongly on the PCs. If for instance the Campaign is about character A and Character B's background, or written for their motivations, and they leave - but I now have player C, D and E, I'd rather just scrap it and make something about C, D, and E rather than continue the campaign about characters who are not even part of the game anymore.

 

[S'mon]

I run a sandbox 4e game and a 'plotted' or linear 3.5e game. In the sandbox the PCs go anywhere within the box, there's always stuff going on, and they decide what to do next. In my 'plotted' 3.5e campaign I base it off published modules in a loose 'adventure path'. 4 so far, each has run for 4 sessions, usually with a BBEG at the end. Fighting the BBEG or otherwise winning the module gives a natural high point to end on, then I can take a break, or go into the next module. Longer term plots build slowly in the background, perhaps hinted at by NPCs. Links between events gradually emerge. The importance of events rises as the PCs go up in level; from saving a person at level 1, a community at level 3, a kingdom at level 5, the world at level 7, and hopefully the timeline at level 9 and the universe at level 11 - that's the next two adventures.

 

[The Coffee Cat]

In my 4e game, the characters have gotten to the good stuff action wise (defeating villains, saving the day etc.), but the full meaning of those actions within the greater plot(s) are not yet clear to them. For instance, they saved their secret employer (whose identity is a mystery to just about everyone) without knowing who he was. They had to go through a hard battle to save him, so they will remember when the revelation comes - "Holy #%&#, that's the guy we saved from those cultists!". (Had he died, he would have arranged for resurrection and taken the expenses out of the PCs pay. )

Of course, my players are very lost now - I've nudged multiple plots ahead to their respective halfway points, and there are red herrings out there (some bad guy knows who's employing the PCs and is feeding them hints that their employer is actually evil, which they now believe and probably will keep believing until said employer reveals himself). But there's going to be a veritable cascade of payoffs as plot thread after plot thread comes together at the last 4-5 levels of the heroic tier, which I think the players will enjoy greatly. I work hard at keeping plot hooks relevant and sub-plots interesting while the main plots keep advancing though. The goal is for the PCs to have fun even if they don't know why such and such happens, and later watch their eyes light up as they see their past actions in a new light ("Hey, that sorcerer we saved was actually a legendary master-spy! How cool are we?")

Of course, I'm open to the idea that having several plots halfway at the same time might be less ideal than having one plot just resolved, one halfway, one just starting out - a "staggered release" of plot hooks if you will. But the players are having great fun guessing and discussing the plot hooks, too. Sometimes they're on to something, sometimes they're dead wrong and sometimes they're wrong but the idea is so awesome that I change the plot to work it in.

 

[Rechan]

So Coffee, how do you do it? I mean, how do you personally map/plot/outline all this stuff out beforehand, so you can see the threads crossing?

And how do you double-check in case the PCs zig when you can zag?

And where do you present relevant options for the PCs?

 

[The Coffee Cat]

Generally I map out the broad strokes and fill in the details of how to advance the plot to the next step only when I plan the actual session. I started with mapping out several factions with different goals that would occasionally clash, and then I planted some NPCs with hidden backgrounds among those that the players knew beforehand, and some they met on the way (not every named NPC has a hidden background of course, but probably as much as half - that way I can reveal some early and some not until the very end). With parallel plots that can progress relatively independent of one another, the order the PCs tackle them in isn't crucial.

My response to unexpected PC input is to generally run with it and try to progress at least one of the plots if I can (there are also more self-contained sub-plots that, while less important in the long term, can be resolved faster so not every resolution happens at the end of the tier).

As an example of relevant options, my players just reached a city after slaying a dragon. They are told that two armies (one imperial, one savage) are about to clash over a mystical forest nearby, and the town would be trapped in the middle. Additionally, the town has had an undead problem lately. Now, the players can choose whether to seek out the savages, the imperial army or deal with the undead problem. And if they ever run across the local lord, he'll recognize the items they took from his son (the dragon they slew) and they'll be thrown in jail.

It should be mentioned that among the savages are the tribe of my group's shaman, who has recently suffered a change of leadership which might not be beneficial to them. And the imperial general is the estranged father of the paladin. Hence the plots rooted in these two characters' backgrounds will both progress and intersect. And the undead problem is another precursor to the revelation of a massive invasion from the Shadowfell, which will shake the world (hence avoiding civil war between the two sides is kind of important in the long run). The dragon plot is more self-contained and will be completely resolved, since dealing with the opposing armies and undead should swing public opinion in the PCs favor... but then again, the local lord might pay the PCs a visit later... hmm...

Stealth Edit: As for pacing, I handle it by moving another plot along while I wait for one to resolve, in case that wasn't clear. There's always some interesting plot progressing (or some sub-plot being resolved) - the downside to this is of course that the players can forget things, but they generally remember the most important things the next time a particular plot moves further.