So here's a weird short campaign I want to try

[Morrus]

This odd idea has been bugging me for ages. I doubt I'll get chance to do it, but it's very appealing to me.

I'd like to run a sequence of short adventures. The catch is that each adventure is set 50 years apart, and each is run in a different edition of D&D. Different characters for each. Each will feel different because they're literally being run in a different edition.

Initially I thought it could progress in order; then it occurred to me it might also be fun to switch back and forth a little.

I'd use prepublished adventures. So what I need is a list of adventures, one from each edition, which can feasibly fit together into a rough narrative of some kind with a minimal amount of work required.

Some have obvious links. Classic adventures and their Returns to or the like. Those could form mini campaigns but I want adventures from each edition.

Anyone got any bright ideas about how to approach this? Suggestions for adventures? Even if I don't ever get to play it, it would be a fun thought exercise to put such a campaign together here on the boards. Who knows; somebody else might find it in 5 years and give it a try!

 

[Abstruse]

I did something vaguely similar once in one of my campaigns. I was running an inspired-by custom written campaign based on the D-series. You know, Underdark and drow and all that from 1st Ed. I'd had a lot of plot threads going on based on the idea that drow live for hundreds of years as do dragons. So one night when they fell asleep, they had a flashback session in the bodies of other characters from two hundred years before. They jumped into the bodies of Drow and slaves from the house they were fighting against and slayed a dragon. Blah blah, the PCs slay the dragon, but its offspring escapes. As it escapes, they learn that the magic shop owner in the village they go to frequently is actually a dragon and the child of the murdered adult dragon, which explains his racism against elves in general and drow in particular.

The campaign I was running was Pathfinder, but I ran the flashback as a 4th Edition campaign. It was a way to make it feel different, and since the power scale is different between editions, it made the drow enemies feel strong, powerful, and threatening and helped cement to them that going head-to-head in combat against these people whose bodies they just inhabited is not a good idea. It worked out very well.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, a flashback is definitely one narrative mechanism that would work. Kinda like seeing the flashback in black-and-white, or weird dreamy-vision. In fact, I seem to recall someone (Piratecat) ran both ToEE adventures (1E and 3.5) with one module forming flashbacks from the other, running each in it's own system.

That's a seriously good setup for two systems.

Now I need a good way to do something with 5 systems. Or 6, depending on what I include.

 

[Abstruse]

Take a page from Red Aegis and have them be bloodlines. Elves for sure and maybe dwarves, you could have them carry on from system to system. But for the humans, halflings, etc. that don't have lifespans measured in centuries, have the next in line be the son or grandson of the previous character. It would allow for the various stat fudging and changes you'd have to do between editions because you can do straight conversions and still end up with different characters. For the longer-lived races, they meditated or studied or walked the earth or whatever, which explains the changes as well because they have changed/advanced since the last edition.

You could also not tell the players this is going on, if this is going to be a year or two long thing overall. Tell them you're running a series of 3 month campaigns and have them make new PCs every time. The second time they enter the Temple of Elemental Evil or Castle Ravenloft with the new set of characters, leave easter eggs to the previous campaign so they know that they're connected if they pay attention. This'll only work the first time round because they'll figure it out pretty quick and the impact will be gone by the third time.

 

[amerigoV]

Since you were looking into Savage Worlds - I was pondering something similar with two of Pinnacle's IPs -- the Weird War series and the Deadlands series (including Hell on Earth). All are earth-alternate histories and covers a pretty nice span of time:

• Weird War Rome
• 1600s with Soloman Kane (ok, 3 IPs)
• 1880s with Deadlands and Rippers (ok, 4 IPs)
• 1930s Deadlands Noir
• Weird War II
• Tour of Darkness (Weird War Vietnam)
• and Hell on Earth (post Apoc)

 

[Zardnaar]

Did you ever play Phantasy Star III generations of Doom on he Sega Genesis? Game covered 3 generations and you had a choice of 2 marriage options at the end of the 1st and 2nd generations and you played your kids in the next generation. If you married the warrior women you next character was a fighter type if you married the one with techniques you got access to spells in the following generation. You had 6 different kids to try out over the 3 generations and 4 ending to the game as you had 4 kids in the 3rd generation.

You could maybe even try out traits from games like Crusader Kings II so if you have a wife that is a genius your next character gets an intelligence bonus etc.

 

[GX.Sigma]

It might be cool to do them in reverse order. So you start off in 4e/Pathfinder (which your players are already comfortable with), and it gets more and more old-school as the campaign goes on.

Or maybe a type of time travel where you can only go to a few different time periods (e.g., you can only travel in 50-year increments, so if you spend a week in the future, it'll be a week later when you go back to the past).

 

[Abstruse]

Or maybe a type of time travel where you can only go to a few different time periods (e.g., you can only travel in 50-year increments, so if you spend a week in the future, it'll be a week later when you go back to the past).

Time passes in San Dimas normally. You have to dial one number higher!

Anyway, this would work very well if you can manage the sandboxiness well and possible temporal conflicts. Also, you'll need to make all the characters for each edition you use in advance. Another game you may what to look into is another one not out yet called The Strange, which is based on the Numenera game engine and involves characters changing as they enter different alternate realities. Different system and it's a single system across the board, but you can use it for inspiration.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I would look for an adventure that has been visited in each edition. The one that comes immediately to mind is Tomb of Horrors (original in 1E, Return to the Tomb of Horrors in 2E, a free web adventure in 3.5, a hardcover adventure in 4E, and D&D Next bestiary conversion in the D&D Next playtest packets to go with the Dungeons of Dread compilation thingy). Keep on the Borderlands is another one that's been touched on a lot, though I think it may have skipped 3.5.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hmm...the Slavers, Against the Giants, Temple of Elemental Evil, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil modules could be pressed into service.

It also might be fun to run ALL of them through Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, with the module changing over time as repairs and improvements are made...