D&D 5E This year's PCs next year's Pantheon?

[Grimstaff]

I don't normally go for the epic-level play, being content to top out my campaigns at 10th level or so.

But the Epic Destinies preview has me intrigued:

What would the players think if their characters in this campaign retired at lvl30, I advanced the timeline 20 years or so, and the old PCs are now deities the new ones worship?

Hmmm.

 

[CoarseDragon]

We did that in 3.0 and it was very interesting for us players to have the next campaign in the same area and see our pervious characters as legends of the realm. It can be fun. As I recall one of our group was the son of one of the previous.

 

[Wormwood]

What would the players think if their characters in this campaign retired at lvl30, I advanced the timeline 20 years or so, and the old PCs are now deities the new ones worship?

We loved it 20 years ago in our D&D Immortals game.

 

[FadedC]

I don't normally go for the epic-level play, being content to top out my campaigns at 10th level or so.

But the Epic Destinies preview has me intrigued:

What would the players think if their characters in this campaign retired at lvl30, I advanced the timeline 20 years or so, and the old PCs are now deities the new ones worship?

Hmmm.

I got the sense that retired players are expected to potentially be part of the new campaign in some way. They could be minor (or maybe not so minor) dieties, legendary figures, the head of the mages guild or any number of other things at the DM and players options.

I'm sure people won't always use that because people often like to create completely new worlds. But I suspect something like you describe is somewhat intended.

 

[N0Man]

I got the sense that retired players are expected to potentially be part of the new campaign in some way. They could be minor (or maybe not so minor) dieties, legendary figures, the head of the mages guild or any number of other things at the DM and players options.

I'm sure people won't always use that because people often like to create completely new worlds. But I suspect something like you describe is somewhat intended.

This is what I got out of it as well. Sure, you might have a player rising to deity status, however they aren't all going to do that.

I imagined some would be deities, some would be come legends, some might move onto another plane of existence, some might imbue their essence into an artifact, some might gain immortality, and some might become martyrs.

I haven't seen the heroic paths, but I suspect there will be a lot of variety. Plus there is nothing to stop a DM from expanding on these ideas and making up more possibilities.

The important thing seems to represent that they mattered. Their lives or deaths had meaning, and in some form or another, they achieved a form of immortality, either literal or figurative.

Not a bad way to wrap up a campaign.

 

[muffin_of_chaos]

In my last game, our characters started out as noobs and slowly became influential in a modern/magical setting over the span of 6 years. We started a new campaign and our old characters are still alive as the primary superpowers of the world, though we don't run into them. Actually, halfway through the current campaign my new character was taken over by a demon/god, and through clever plot manipulation the DM let me play my old mage, with his magical powers stripped (slowly he's gaining them back as he re-levels). The shock on the faces of my teammates when they realize I'm playing my old, epic character with their (admittedly now fairly high-level) noob characters was priceless.
Pretty fun to have my nerfed-but-extremely-inventive old character duke it out with my now-very-powerful-NPC new character.

For this reason, I actually think the "Epic tier" won't work out very well with my group. Most of the major character development in this game happens by chance, and the DM will end the campaign before we reach the maximum level. Takes some of the fun out of it to think that there's a steady, measured progression towards greatness.