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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quasqueton" data-source="post: 3312064" data-attributes="member: 3854">I want a group of adventurers that stick together and survive for long periods of time. I want stories and plots to unfold over grand times. I want a bad guy the PCs fought at 3rd level to come back to haunt them at 12th level. I want plots that the PCs first saw back at 5th level to be resolved when they are 15th level. I want the PCs to learn that the minor information they learned at 8th level is actually the missing piece of a puzzle they need at 20th level. I want the PCs to have back stories in and from the actual game play.This story-telling* is what sets RPGs apart from other games. It’s the draw that makes me prefer an adventure RPG game over an adventure board game.Reading Piratecat’s story hour really showed me what a long-running D&D game can be like, with long-time characters and epic plots. Then I started reading the Order of the Stick. Regular characters, running plots, great stories unfolding.I’ve never had a single PC group/story that lasted more than about 6 levels. PCs die, singly or in groups. For instance, they make a powerful enemy at 3rd level, they encounter a big plot at 4th level, they have a history together by 5th level, then they die at 6th level. The enemy, the plot, the history are all dropped as a new campaign arises. I could keep the enemy and the plot for the new campaign, but the new PCs don’t really have any in-game connection to it as their predecessors had. I tend to hope to build new enemies and new plots that the current PCs actually build in-game histories with.Or maybe they don’t all die at one time, but rather one at a time, over many game sessions, each dead character being replaced with a new character, such that by 10th level, there’s no original PC still in the group. That villain from 3rd level, the current PCs have no real history with him. That plot from 5th level, none of the current PCs have any connection to it. That piece of info they learned at 8th level, the current PCs don’t know it.And bringing in a new 12th-level PC to replace the dead just feels so wrong – building a character up from low levels to high levels is a major cool factor of D&D. A highly experienced character just walking onto the “set” with no real in-game back story, to join other PCs, just seems so against the meaning of D&D. And starting a whole group at 12th level, a whole band of very powerful characters, with no real, in-game back story, just feels so fake.I like looking at the 12th-level PCs and knowing they’ve been through hell together since low levels, and here they are “all grown up”. I don’t like looking at the 12-level PCs and knowing that one leveled up from 5th level, that one from 8th level, that one from 10th level, and that one is just starting new with the group today, at 12th level.I used to be content with the rotating door of PCs in a D&D game. The story went no further than the current dungeon. The PCs’ in-game back story went no further back than last game session. But now I want long-term stories, extended in-game histories. “Piratecat, Rich Burlew, you raised my hopes and desires for a D&D game story! Damn you!” ;-)I know some DMs cheat the game to make sure PCs never die. As a Player, I hate that. As a DM, I find it distasteful, but I also don’t think I’m good enough to do it without being obvious. I *like* seeing how things play out by letting “the dice fall as they may.” But that means deaths, and the end of stories. You can’t have it both ways, apparently. You can’t let the dice fall as they may *and* expect a long-running story with long-term PCs. Are they just mutually exclusive?I now find myself disappointed with playing RPGs – character death really annoys me. Might as well play a board game where nothing carries over from session to session.How do you feel about party consistency through the levels of the game? Does it matter to you? Does your game have long-running plots and stories, or is it just a glorified series of one-shots? Do you cheat to keep PCs alive? Do the Players manage to keep their PCs alive without DM intervention? How do you feel about bringing new higher-level characters into a group who has risen “legitimately” to high levels?Is there a way to have party/PC consistency over long times with a let the dice fall as they may attitude? Or should I just give up and re-accept the revolving door of PCs in D&D?[* I don’t mean a “story” in the sense of a predetermined script, but just the natural story that evolves from playing the same characters over a period of time – dungeon crawl to dungeon crawl creates a story just as much as following a plot path. Especially when elements of earlier crawls resurface or follow into later crawls.]Quasqueton</blockquote>

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