Mike Mearls' Genius: Type your own core story

[mythusmage]

Core Story:

We are not alone, and you get to babysit.

 

[Janx]

Originally, my campaign was:
a group of naval officers work together on various missions, fighting priates, exploring islands, quelling rebellions for their superiors.

My campaign has since shifted into the next phase, which isn't "mission oriented", instead it is:
a group of officers work together to diplomatically solve problems with the other races, and avoid getting into an all out war.

Janx

 

[Melan]

A party of adventurers assemble to seek fame and fortune. They find trouble instead, get everyone that is anyone in the vicinity after their head, and flee the area. Next week, they do it all over again, or get caught.

Oh, wait, that's my players story.

No, that's my campaign in a nutshell. A bunch of never-do-wells try various get rich schemes in a town, one of which raises holy hell. They flee with their lives and some pieces of ill gotten loot. It is almost Vancian, except with a lot more blood.

 

[Mallus]

...snip...In the morning they will return to the bar, as their DTs are now quite unmanageable.

Brilliant!

 

[howandwhy99]

A group of characters learn or perish. That's about it.

 

[John Morrow]

According to Mike Mearls (and Ryan Dancey) D&D is built upon a core story summarized above. Pretty neat. This is the stuff of legends. We go through it every week and it seems it's still fun after 20 or so years. This thread is for making your own core story. Can you rival Gary Gygax*?

"Identify evil bad guys. Thwart or defeat. Repeat."

The various evils in the setting may be independent or coordinated (at which point, part of the objective is to find and defeat the coordinator) but it's basically the standard core story of an action movie or superhero comic book. We don't do too much adventuring for the sake of loot, though that can go along with defeating the bad guys in some settings.

 

[Von Ether]

A party of adventurers assemble to seek fame and fortune. They find trouble instead, get everyone that is anyone in the vicinity after their head, and flee the area. Next week, they do it all over again, or get caught.

Oh, wait, that's my players story.

For the Vampire: Dark Ages game I was stuck in for far too long.

A group of completely self-center individuals meet at all the same parties as they all look for different pieces of the same artifact. Most of the party avoids the crazy PC who make outrageous boasts and outlandish lies that either gets NPCs killed or mad at everyon in his vincinity - regardless of actual affilation with said crazy dude. Regardless of how hard the others try to avoid attention, the crazy man will bring the hyper suspicous and intellgent Inquisiton after everyone. Run out of town, repeat until a city get torched for "infestation" and GM quits.