Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 139459" data-attributes="member: 467">My most successful campaign has also been the longest running.  It started 7 years ago in Savannah, GA, with a group of friends with whom I clubbed, drank, and just generally hang out.  It was AD&D 2e, set in a valley-nation called Erebar.  Aside from a nefarious port city where the evil king ruled, a small dwarven mining town, and the PC hometown of Axehold, there was nothing to the setting.  Of course, I needed a hook, so i decided that Axehold was founded by a group of adventurers (a Fighter, a Druid, a Wizard, and a Dwarf Barkeep) and celebrated the founding every year at the First Day of the First Moon of Summer, by having a contest called Heroes fest.  Four groups of young people would randomly recieve a small quest, and the first group to return successfully was awarded the prize.I decided that the evil king had a son the same age as the PCs, and he led one group (which was charged with getting the ear of an ogre).  Of course, his "team" consisted of men at arms and court wizard apprentices.  Another team, all siblings and friends of the PCs, drew the lot to return with a stone from the foundation of Sorrow Keep.  The thried group I do not rmemeber, but the PCs got the quest: bring back a brandleberry bush.  Not the start of an epic campaign, i tell you.From that humble beginning a true campaign took shape.  I credit my players with making it so wonderful.  Thedecisions they made about their characters (I said "No elves" and one play just *had* to play an elf, and a ninja no less; one player wanted desperately to play a druid, dd not roll the stats, so instead of whining he played a character that, too, despertely wanted to be a druid).  I tossed bones at the group constantly, and most of them bit.  Sometimes subplots fell flat, and others appeared out of nowhere.  the campaign was not about going out on this quest, or delving into that dungeon.  It was about building Erebar into something special, both as players and as their characters. They warred with gnolls and then joined forces with them.  they suffered assaults against dopplegangers and discovered that the ancient world had been one of great advancement.  They wateched as that evil prince became King, held the power of the storms in his hand, and consorted with demons.  they travelled into their own "Days of Future Past" and retruened changed forever.  They entered the Land of the Dead in order to save the world and one of them, a valiant dwarf, chose to stay to seal that way from evil forever.That nija elf built more of the world than any other character.  Who was he? How did he get here?  We did not know so we said that he did not know.  Soon, elven ninjas and wu jen were traversing the globe to return that young lordling to his place.  but he had died, only to be reincarnated into the body of a human soldier, who had nearly fell defending Axehold.  NPCs became PCs and vicer versa.  And amongst it all, the characters learned the true history of erebar (which the players helped build) and returned the old Gods to their rightful place in the world, at the same time defeating the Doppleganger threat and stopping the Great Beast of the earth (a "super red wyrm") from abolishing all life.Somehwere in the middle of all that, I moved from CT and they moved to Pittsburg.  We did not stop playing.  Two to four times a year, I would (and still do) make the 500 mile trip and we would play a marathon session (3 or 4 days, 12 hours a day) and move the story a step closer to its pic conclusion.  And when we finally finished, we realized that Erebar was not done yet.  Only two of the original players remained, but the group had grown with new ones.  They all created new characters for 3e, some the children of important PCs and NPCs, some wholly new.We are currently in the midst of the second Erebar epic, one that covers new ground at the sime time tying up loose ends (Gods don't just appear on the world and everything is okay, after all).  I see this game being the one I play still when the rigors of Real Life have made it impossible to play otherwise.  It will be a year or three yet before this stage of erebar ends, and I just assume that there will be an Erebar 3, once again looking into the future.So what makes a good long running campaign?  Players.  plain and simple.  Good players bring stories with them.  Good players give you the raw materials with which to craft your own stories.  Good players cry at PC funerals and rage at recurring villains.  Good players don't whine when their PC dies, or cry because they did not get to play what they wanted to play.  Good players make campaigns.I am just there to put the puzzle together.  they bring all the pieces.</blockquote>

Verification