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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gothwalk" data-source="post: 164991" data-attributes="member: 2263">Long Term Rat BastardingMy last campaign ran for three years; the current campaign is a sequel of sorts.While I throw plenty of opposition at the PCs, at the high levels that they're now holding, physical opposition isn't the best. To have impact any more, you need to go for the heartstrings, the drama. Some of this can come from the elation of defeating a powerful foe. But some also has to come from the downsides, from loss and betrayal. And this needs to be built over time.Some examples: A powerful, practically unknown NPC had been helping one of the PCs from behind the scenes for a long time. They knew him as just "the Keeper", and knew he had an interest in that PCs extended family. He had given them powerful magical items, information, helped them out of tight spots, and so on. Buried in all of this was one, just one piece of false advice - carefully engineered to still look good under the worst of examinations. But it was the make-or-break for the campaign. Earlier in the campaign, an NPC had died. He was the first major NPC not to survive a battle, and the PCs put on a funeral for him (cleric-heavy party). During the funeral game, two of three players were crying.Later, they discovered that this NPC was, in fact, the avatar of a god. They nearly killed me - not because of the plot point, but because of the emotional wringer they'd been through. They still bring it up from time to time, more than two years later, quite often in dealings with that god. (One of the original PCs, the only one still being played, is his Proxy now).In a final example, in the make-or-break of the campaign, it became apparent that the only way out of the situation they were in was to have another god die. They were very fond of this god - one of the PCs was a part of his family, and they'd seen him go from a demigod to a full deity, and have his Order grow. In my campaign, dead gods don't come back. Ever. When they realised this, all three players were weeping, for almost half an hour in the case of the family member's player. And, of course, what had pushed them into this decision was the advice of the traitorous Keeper, from almost two years ago in real-time, and two and a half in-game. They did find a way out, eventually, with some excellent high-fantasy reasoning, and superb playing. But I have heard them mutter, under their breaths, as I call for a saving throw, or tell them that the NPC they've been pursuing for days across the planes is gone without a trace, "You are an evil man." While the campaign I run is high-magic, and high-fantasy, the emotional effects work perfectly - perhaps even better, in low-magic settings. I also have some interesting (to me, at least)techniques of writing adventures that I'm dying to share with other DMs - but only where my players can't see them. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Drew.<a href="http://www.badgerofthelord.net/" target="_blank">http://www.badgerofthelord.net/</a></blockquote>

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