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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jürgen Hubert" data-source="post: 3089143" data-attributes="member: 7177">A large number of "epic campaigns" have been published over the years - the original "Dragonlance" modules, the "Enemy Within" campaign, or the "Darkness Revealed" adventure trilogy for Trinity. They all set out to make the player characters part of sweeping changes to the game setting, and deliver in that. And there is of course something satisfying in seeing how your player characters change the worldHowever, they often cause the appearance of the dreaded "metaplot" - that is to say, that future supplements will incorporate the events of those campaigns into the fabric of the setting. And this is problematic. For one thing, there is no gurantee that the adventures will play out as expected - thus making these future supplements at least partially worthless for the GM. For another, many GMs are resentful if they have to constantly buy new supplements just to keep the setting "up to date". Finally, the players might learn something about events in these adventures merely by reading supplements that take place at a later date in the timeline of the setting.But there is another way of doing epic campaigns, which has been demonstrated in "Exalted: The Authochtonians". The Exalted RPG intentionally has no metaplot as such (at least partially because the PCs tend to be so powerful that they will shape world events nearly from day one) - the timeline of the setting never advances.However, the "Authochtonians" nevertheless provides a framework for an epic campaign. It's basic premise is the invasion of the "main world" by an outerdimensional techno-magical civilization, and it provides both detail on this society and its powers, and three different campaign frameworks on how the invasion could play out. And the entire invasion is optional - no other book in the line assumes that the events described in the book take place (though some of them give suggestions on how to incorporate these events if the GM so wishes).This strikes me at the best way to publish epic campaigns - they allow the GM and players to change the setting drastically without assuming that the campaign has taken place at all for all other supplements. Of course, it has the downside that once these sweeping changes have been made as a result of the campaign, the GM is largely on his own when dealing with the repercussions beyond those mentioned in the campaign book itself.So I was wondering:1) Do you like publication of epic campaigns for your favorite campaign setting that introduce large-scale changes to the setting?2) If so, do you want future publications for the setting incorporate the changes that the campaign has wrought and advance the timeline of the setting?</blockquote>

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