Reviving an Old Campaign From Hiatus -- Help!

[Mordane76]

Okay -- here's the story. I apologize up front about the length, but I have a lot of material I need help with...

My homebrew campaign went on an unfortunate hiatus back in October, when the holidays started to get heavier. I was working a lot; I was shorthanded on employees, and I'm also a full-time student. Now, my schedule has cooled down again, but I have some problems...


First, when we left the story, we were in the middle of a bit of out-of-game turmoil. One, because I was working so much, my pre-game preparation time had been cut completely, so there were points where the game bogged down, and some people enjoyed that slower pace, because it gave time to ask more questions of NPCs. However, others didn't, so there was some stress over this difference. How should I approach this subject? Should I just see if it's all glossed over with time, or should I take steps to countermand it before we start back up?


Second, since it has been almost three and a half very busy months, my memory of the last session is sketchy at best. I don't really remember where we left off in the story, or where I intended to go next. What should I do? Should I pow-wow with the players and try to reconstruct the story from them, or just wing it?


Third, when we left, we were gaming once a week. I'm not sure I want to game once a week again now that we're starting back up, but I also worry that if we don't meet regularly like this, the game won't survive at all. I'd like to game once every two weeks or possibly once every month, mostly because I know how busy my schedule will be with classes, and I have a wife who presently tolerates my gaming, but mostly because it's online PbP, and doesn't take up large, unbroken blocks of time. We also used to game on Saturdays, and I'm not sure that night will be the best night for me this semester. How should I approach this topic?


Fourth, when we stopped gaming, I was having issues with magic items, treasure availability, power creep, and rampant leveling. Many of these issues stemmed at least in part from my lack of pre-planning, but now, the PCs are in the 17-19th level area, and one of them has major (possibly unbalanced) power due to a custom core class and template. I don't blame the player -- the game is a play-test in progress, but the fact of the matter is that it was getting to the point where he could do anything the other characters could, and quite often better than the others as well (so spotlight and challenges became more difficult to manage). How can I best address these issues so that I don't alienate my players, keep it fun for them, and also keep it sane and fun for me?

 

[Mordane76]

Bump

 

[Jolly Giant]

1) It's all a matter of finding the right balance, I guess. Can't come up with anything more helpfull than that right now, I'm afraid...

2) Go with the pow-wow! You definitely need to know exactly where you left off in order to make a coherrent continuation.

3) Personally, I have some bad experiences with games that isn't played at least once a week. Sessions tend to become further and further apart, half of each session is suddenly spent trying to remember what happened last session or the one before that and after a while people loose interest and game grinds to slow, unsatisfying halt.

4) The uber-character definitely needs to be adjusted. If, as you say, the game is an ongoing play-test, everyone should be able to understand that not everything PASSES that test. Explain to the player that his character is stealing the fun from the others, and that his class, template or whatever made him to powerful needs to be adjusted. Give him the choice between adjusting his current character or rolling up a new one. Try getting him to adjust the existing one! Making a high-level character from scratch often makes the character too powerful, as all choices -including what feat to pick at lvl 1- tend to be made on the basis of what will be the best choice at lvl 20!

Hope this helps...