Question for Veteran DMs

[Pielorinho]

When I was a teenager, I ran the original ToEE. Soon after we finished, I started my own, embarrassingly similar game, also set in Greyhawk.

Basic plot: evil wizard tries to become a lich. He dominates an entire town using cool magic items, builds a dungeon under his castle, and commences experimenting (and playing in his S&M parlor during off-hours). After his experiments go horribly awry, awakening chaos magic in the land, the PCs come to his fortress, hack their way down through four levels of baddies, kill off the wizard's duergar trapbuilding tricky assistant, and confront the lich. He escapes through a portal; they follow;

and they end up in another world. Part II of the adventure involved them exploring the other world, encountering treedwelling elvish giants, bald human-sacrificing plains nomads, huge river-demons, fanatically lawful-neutral orcs who considered creating fictional art a capital crime, adn the like.

Part III of the adventure, which they never got to, involved them meeting back up with the half-lich, who had started infecting other people with his undeadness, and killing him off. They never got there.

Nonetheless, the campaign was tremendous fun. I think I took more risks then in my DMing than I take now, and people were more forgiving of inconsistencies and implausibilities, and we had a blast.

Daniel

 

[King_Stannis]

i am noticing a trend, here. it would seem that many of us are in agreement about the importance of good, 3-dimensional NPC.

i think there's a lesson to be learned there - instead of fretting about the furniture arrangement in your dungeon, instead worry about what the NPC was doing last week.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...instead of fretting about the furniture arrangement in your dungeon, instead worry about what the NPC was doing last week. ...

Man, that's good advice.

I think I'm going to write it down.

 

[Old One]

Hmmm...

Definitely a common theme!

My longest running campaign was The Company of the Moon, set in a modified Deepingdale (FR). It ran, bi-weekly, from mid-1991 to the end of 1996, then monthly from 1997 through 1999. Key factors included:

• Making the setting my own - I used the Original FR Set as a starting point, basically ignored everything that TSR did with the setting after that and let the PCs write the history.
• Living, breathing NPCs - The prime key to the game. I introduced a number of NPCs early in the game - some allies, some enemies and some for color. I made them much more than just cardboard cut-outs...the PCs really cared what happened to these NPCs.
• The Recurring Villain - One of the NPCs was a chaotic elven fighter-thief that ran all manner of con games and scams. He drove the players crazy. They never did bring him to justice (and he even saved them once), but several of my old players still froth at the mouth if I mention Tyrik Freestar!
• Free Will - I think a certain amount of "free-will" is key, especially for thinking players. They want to know that they don't have to go in any particular direction for the stake of the story, but can be gently prodded through appropriate plot hooks.
• Know what makes each player tick - Each player has different motivations and hot buttons. Figuring out what appeals most to each player helps make for a healthy campaign. One of the best ways to find out is to ask them!

My most satisfying campaign is actually my current Faded Glory campaign. I have taken all of the items above and implemented them in an epic campaign world full of intrigue, death and mystery...gotta love it!

~ Old One

 

[RangerWickett]

Let's see . . . I'm 20 now, and I started playing Talislanta when I was 8 or so . . . so yeah, that's 10 years or more. Not as a DM, though.

Honestly, the longest game I ever ran consistently is the one I'm running now (though 'consistently' is a relative term). I'm not that great of a DM, though, because I don't try to pull the players in. If they don't seem enthusiastic enough to roleplay in character, I have a hard time to do it too, so often we tend to be more narrative-based and less roleplaying.

 

[BMF]

Kinda in a hurry here, so I'll be brief.

After DMing for about 8 years or so, I finally met a few really good gamers. On a lark on day, we all skipped school and hung out at my place and gamed all day. The session was all off the top of my head, but one of the new players brought a lowly 1st level human wizard into the game. little did we know it was the start of an epic saga that would last nearly 10 years (and is still going on)

That lowly 1st level human wizard is now an 18th level emperor and has been converted through every edition of the game (1e, 2e, 2.5e and now 3e).

What made it good?

1. Lots of cool NPCs.
2. A gripping story that spanned the character's entire life and involved 3 alignment changes (NG -> CG -> CE)
3. Numerous narrow escapes and epic heroics.
4. An intigrated plot that connected the events of his first adventure with the events of his most recent exploits
5. Heavy role-playing, especially at higher levels when politics became important.

 

[Paka]

Ars D&Dica

A bunch of my friends were sitting around, trying to figure out what to do on a weeknight. My college semester had just ended, it was the beginning of a long Ithaca summer.

On a whim I ran a D&D style quest game with Ars Magica rules. I wrote down the archetypes I wanted represented: Squire, Ranger, Thief, Priest, Wizard's Apprentice, Bard and Magical Race(turned out to be a Dwarf).

My friend played the Dwarf who was kinda the group's Gandalf and the rest of the party played a bunch of kids whose guardians were all retired adventurers.

For the first time, they all set out together in search of a Dragon's Lair.

It was truly awesome. The game lasted years and even now, years later, when we are all in the same town, we get together and play.

The game always had an intense party atmosphere and attendance was always 100% (except for when the Priest had to go away on an Internship).

It was the energy that made it a great game. The players gave me this great return on energy and it was, without a doubt the best game I have ever run. nothing has come close since.

NPC's, descriptions, preparedness aren't as important as players who are going to enter a symbiotic relationship with ya. They fed me energy and I fed it back and it was a real blast.

I can't even describe it. It was like a party.

If I can have two more games like that in my life, I will have been a lucky DM.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

One of my best lasted about 6 years, till I had to move to a different city (but still play with a couple of the players but it means a 120 mile trip) about 12 years ago..

Not sure what it was about the game but all the players meshed really well, all had thier individual characteristics. We had other players come in and out of the group, but the core players seemd to gel perfectly (and I think thats the making of a great game)

The campaign centred arounf one PC in particular a female cleric of Selune, who's mentor was killed about 3 years into the game, but at the end of the campaign was reborn as an island (its a long story) where the lead character reclused to.

There was also a female half elf fighter and male elven wizard who I decided were to be siblings from teh onset but never told them, they developed a very love/hate relationship and when they eventually learned they were related it was classic.

There was also the unluckiest dwarven fighter you would ever meet, and probably never want to again..
He contracted mummy rot, changed sex, had all his hair burnt off anf nasty scars from an acid attack, had a nasty case of fleas from sleeping whereever he could amongst other things..

The Elven wizard mentioned above was a character too, the player had a really perverse sense of humor... adn a wand of wonder which can never be a good mix.. Such as when he coated a house with chocolate that was being attacked by Werewolve.. mmm chocolate coated werewolves plummeting to teh floor..

There was also a Half Snow elf ranger, another female Dwarven fighter adn a halfling thief who sported a dandy human skull as a helmet

As said there was a cast of others, some brought in for a few sessions only to work around a story line.. One who played for over a year as a "spy" in teh group for me, who knew eventually he would scupper the plans of the group, stealing away with a quest item they had..

I'll stop waffling now before someone here realises I should be doing some work..

 

[Quickbeam]

Probably the best long-running campaign I've ever DM'ed was years ago in AD&D. It began with several pregenerated modules and worked through some of the alltime classics (Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Descent into The Depths of the Earth, Tomb of Horrors). Along the way I mixed in some homebrewed towns and mini-quests, allowing a steady stream of intirguing NPC's to cross paths with the party.

The combination of truly great module adventures and homebrew creativity geared specifically for our group, made it all very memorable and endlessly entertaining. Right now, I think our current gaming group is just settling into that same comfort zone, but we rotate the DM chores. Soooo, it remains to be seen how well we maintain the dynamic as time moves forward.

 

[Galfridus]

The best campaign I ever ran only lasted a semester of college. I called it the "Thieves' World Campaign", but it had nothing to do with the similarly-named books. The PCs formed a majority on the council of a large city's thieves' guild, and the campaign was centered around them running the guild rather than going on adventures.

The campaign started with the apparent death of the guild's Grandmaster; what had formerly been his advisory Council suddenly had to step up and start running things. The players had a wonderful discussion about how to do this (and how to present it to the guild!), followed by a wonderful swearing-in ceremony where most members swore loyalty to the new leaders.

Of course, thieves being thieves, things quickly turned sour. One of the PCs, angry over the kidnapping of his wife, created a secret alternate persona and started threatening and killing people all over the city, guildmembers and civilians alike. Before long he was the Big Bad Villain of the game -- and the other players didn't know it! The player in question made some wonderful speeches ("We don't know anything about this guy! For all we know, he could be me!"), and eventually betrayed the guild to form his own faction. Another pair of players pissed off an elemental cult, so of course one betrayed the other to save his own skin. The campaign ended with one PC fleeing the city, one dead by ritual sacrifice, and two survivors -- but everyone had a grand time.

The game was set in a home-grown world, low fantasy with a very different magic system. I used the Hero System (which is excellent both for low fantasy and for running custom-made magic systems). I used "blue booking", where players do a lot of communicating with each other and the DM via notebooks, so that each PC could pursue their own agenda in secret (essential for this sort of game!). Many sessions were composed mostly of bluebooking, interspersed with meetings or other encounters that were roleplayed normally. I have still have those bluebooks somewhere...great to have a record of the game like that!