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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Horror! of a Game That Never Ends
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<blockquote data-quote="Shiroiken" data-source="post: 8117934" data-attributes="member: 6775477"><p>When I was younger, my campaigns were open-ended. They were primarily stand-alone adventures (often published modules), with only a handful of things being connected. My first campaign was a Monty-Hual type game that I inherited when the DM moved, and characters were about 18th level (1E AD&D). At around level 30, it was just too hard to continue challenging the characters without using the gods from Legends and Lore, which was a notion that offended my sensibilities (still does). I told the players they had the choice of an epic campaign ending adventure, where they'd either ascend to immortality or be erased from existence, or they'd face an army of level draining undead, where they'd certainly lose most of their levels with a high probability of permanent death. They wisely chose the epic quest, after which we started over.</p><p></p><p>As I got older, I understood the advantages of having an overarching story. Watching the X-Files gave me a good idea on how to balance stand-alone adventures with plot-driving adventures. Once I did this, I found that the length of a good campaign isn't dictated by the game's level limits, but by the needs of the story. This can be high level (my first 5E campaign took about 2 years and went from level 1-18), or can be fairly low (friend's first 4E campaign went from level 1-5). Dragging a campaign on after the story is told generally ruins the memorable aspects of the story, causing it to "jump the shark." I like to keep the same setting each time though, if I can, and include the events of the previous campaign to promote continuity.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shiroiken, post: 8117934, member: 6775477"] When I was younger, my campaigns were open-ended. They were primarily stand-alone adventures (often published modules), with only a handful of things being connected. My first campaign was a Monty-Hual type game that I inherited when the DM moved, and characters were about 18th level (1E AD&D). At around level 30, it was just too hard to continue challenging the characters without using the gods from Legends and Lore, which was a notion that offended my sensibilities (still does). I told the players they had the choice of an epic campaign ending adventure, where they'd either ascend to immortality or be erased from existence, or they'd face an army of level draining undead, where they'd certainly lose most of their levels with a high probability of permanent death. They wisely chose the epic quest, after which we started over. As I got older, I understood the advantages of having an overarching story. Watching the X-Files gave me a good idea on how to balance stand-alone adventures with plot-driving adventures. Once I did this, I found that the length of a good campaign isn't dictated by the game's level limits, but by the needs of the story. This can be high level (my first 5E campaign took about 2 years and went from level 1-18), or can be fairly low (friend's first 4E campaign went from level 1-5). Dragging a campaign on after the story is told generally ruins the memorable aspects of the story, causing it to "jump the shark." I like to keep the same setting each time though, if I can, and include the events of the previous campaign to promote continuity. [/QUOTE]
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