Making a (drastic) campaign course correction...

[weem]

@Brad L - Don't read this...







Ok (I'm long-winded, so I will try and trim this down)...

My current (4e) campaign has now had over 22-ish sessions. We started at 4e's release. The players are now level 12.

The way the campaign has been progressing, the action has been building towards this event that would occur somewhere in the mid paragon levels. One that would end the campaign (no one says these need to go to 30 right?).

I gave the players this impression back when they were around levels 8-9, and I started asking what they wanted to see in the next (new) campaign - what sounded fun to them essentially - those discussions were fine, they seemed relatively excited.

Recently they been saying they wish they could get to play more in the Paragon levels as they know this is coming to a close and won't get much of a chance to in this campaign. We have talked about advancing through the heroic levels faster in the next campaign, perhaps even starting around level 3-4 instead of 1 (I/They don't want to auto start in Paragon levels).

So, what I have been considering now is to put the new campaign on the back burner by drastically changing the course of the current campaign - pushing off/away the event that is coming soon (one they are aware of). This idea appeals to me because they get that extended time in the Paragon levels they want (who knows, maybe we get to Epic even), and at the same time it would allow me to move away from some things they are in the middle of now that I am not that into.

Here is the question...

Have you made a drastic turn in your campaign to pull out of something(s) you were not happy with? If so, how did it turn out - were the players resentful for the change in focus or did it add a new sense of adventure/excitement to the game? (Bonus for examples)


-- Want more details? See below --

The group was tasked with specific individual... tasks... to complete in order to face a larger challenge ahead. I thought of it like a long skill challenge. They each received tasks they could do and then over the course of a month (basically each Saturday) was a game devoted to a specific player, with the other players playing NPC's for that players task (now I feel like I have posted this somewhere... deju vu).

So, to give you an example, the Dragonborn Fighter was tasked with going to his homeland to get as much help as possible (by the end, he came out with 412 Soldiers), the other players playing members of his clan who knew him and wanted to help take down a rival clan leaders men and finally the leader himself (epic fight btw, 1 vs 1). The Cleric went after a relic in a buried temple facing the undead, the other players playing people from his church who went along to help him - you get the idea.

All of this with the end goal of relocating a fort that is 'blinking' through various planes, fighting into it (it can defend itself pretty well) and cleansing it (it is possessed by some powerful entity) in order to not only keep it out of the hands of a snake-like race of creatures bent on using it in their war on an ancient valley and its people, but to use it to defend those people *takes breath*

So I have a Dragonborn with soldiers at his back, a Cleric with a relic that has the power to cleanse the fort (they hope), a Wizard who is now a Sorcerer (long, but cool story) and a Rogue who was with the Sorcerer (a new player replacing another, so he didn't have an individual task)...

...and I want to basically say... "yea... and now for something completely different!". I have ideas on how to do it (it needs to fit with the story somehow) but all of them are pretty drastic obviously as they would require (for one example) the Dragonborn to leave/lose the soldiers.

My primary idea at this point...

Finding the fort, cleansing it, etc only to have it 'crash' (after cleansing) in another plane leaving much room for (new) adventuring (and time to pass) before eventually getting back to the 'snake people' threat at home - maybe even during epic levels at which point the s--t will have gone down already and they will have to deal with the aftermath.

So, how does that sound to you and/or does anything interesting come to mind idea-wise?


Thanks!

 

[vyme]

First of all, I really like the "focus on one character, with supporting cast" idea. Just so I'm sure I'm getting the right idea... the other players are playing one or two session characters that then move on, right? Not just their usual characters in supporting roles?

If you're already dealing with multiple planes, then the idea of having the fort crash opens up a world (er... plane) of possibilities. Maybe it's a bit cliche, but if you strand them in a pocket dimension where "time flows differently," then they could potentially adventure for many levels, and return to the primary threat shortly after they'd left. This has the added bonus of: 1) forcing them into a strange environment where they can learn foreign things, acquire foreign items, and be presented with foreign challenges & 2) return to face the epic snake-people threat as... well... epic characters.

You will, of course, have to find a way to strand the Dragonborn's soldiers elsewhere. But think of the cinematic moment as he and the fort disappear for a few minutes, the soldiers start to panic... then suddenly he reappears more powerful than ever, equipped with a shiny new weapon (or whatever).

So, my suggestion would be to go with the idea you've already started to formulate, but make sure you have a well-developed demi-plane to lead them through for at least a couple of levels. Whether it's a simple "search for a portal out of here" or a "we seem to have become embroiled in the local crisis," if you do it well, your players will get into it.

 

[weem]

First of all, I really like the "focus on one character, with supporting cast" idea. Just so I'm sure I'm getting the right idea... the other players are playing one or two session characters that then move on, right? Not just their usual characters in supporting roles?

You got it, right on the dot

So, my suggestion would be to go with the idea you've already started to formulate, but make sure you have a well-developed demi-plane to lead them through for at least a couple of levels. Whether it's a simple "search for a portal out of here" or a "we seem to have become embroiled in the local crisis," if you do it well, your players will get into it.

Yea, I'm thinking that's going to be the best option. I like the idea you mention about them disappearing, being gone a while and then coming back to the same time - that would be funny (and time travel via plane hopping through planes that have varying speeds of time has occurred in this campaign) -- but I'm thinking something along the loss of all his soldiers (aka their deaths)... maybe make him question if he is cut out to lead - I could then, over the course of the next few games, bring up that theme from time to time... does he take the lead again or take more of a back seat approach kind of thing... make the loss weigh on him but ultimately lead him to discover it made him a better leader maybe. We'll see.

Thanks for the feedback and for reading through my post - Have some XP!

 

[Bumbles]

Sounds typical enough. Watch the beginning of Disney's Gargoyles series for an example. Goliath and Hudson went off to deal with something. The three young gargoyles were in the Rookery.

If you want, you could have the soldiers diseased or cursed somehow instead.

 

[fba827]

Sounds like a fun campaign (rotating npcs, etc). So nice work there.

As for your issue at hand --

I see one of two "main" options.

1) stall the "storm the castle" task
2) have the "storm the castle" task as planned but then expand _after_ it

#2 is sort of what you're proposing, where after the castle there is more stuff left in its wake. whatever you do after the big thing though, make sure it ties back to the castle so that it feels like continuity -- maybe by it goign away, there is some side effect on the local landscape/polulation/etc.

For #1, Is it possible to devise another task for each of them?
Perhaps the cleric realizes that the relic is missing a piece (or he needs to consult some book in a far off temple as to how to use it 'right'), and the dragonborn realizes he needs some ritual that will allow dragonborn to survive in this place they're going (maybe one of it's defenses is a wierd aura that injures dragonbkin (thus also dragonborn) by causing madness - so some special ritual is needed to protect them (just make it up and consider it a unique magic ritual), and so on.

Though, whatever you do with #1, you will have to figure out where to put the relic and the army and similar things in the meantime, the PCs can't necessarily be wandering around with these things.

Or maybe the castle has spirit-like wards that know what is being planned so "bad luck" or some specific monster is now targetting the PCs. The PCs may not realize at first that it is realted, thinking it all random but individualized attacks. But then after a while they might realize a theme (all the monsters or things that attacked them have some mark on their forehead that matches that of the castle, etc).

 

[weem]

Thanks Bumbles and fba827, XP for you as well!

-- edit: nm fba827, it won't let me give some to you right now --

@fba827

Yea, the more I think about it the more I like the idea of cleansing and then crashing the fort in some far off plane (which you reference as #2). I was thinking earlier that what might be cool is that when they end up in this plane, the fort is their only way out and so maybe much of the Paragon levels are spent on this plane, with its inhabitants - doing stuff for/with them (small quests basically) while the over-arcing story is 'gather what is needed to get the fort moving again'.

Very interesting.

 

[Piratecat]

I talk a little about major campaign shifts in post 10 of this thread. It may not completely apply, but there's a bit of usefulness there.

 

[weem]

Thanks PC - I actually read some of it when it started, though your portion (post #10) wasn't in there yet but yes, there's some good info in there, thanks