D&D General What Style of Campaign Do You Prefer?

[Reynard]

EDIT: Just a note to point out that I am asking your general preference, or favorite style of campaign. i.e. What do you PREFER to have drive the game, of the choices presented.

These are obviously intentionally broad categories and there's room for interpretation and space between them, but I'll try and define them for purposes of the poll. Note that I am not assigning any sort of setting to these: exploration can be in the wilderness, in a megadungeon or in a city equally, so these are about modes of play. And of course please comment, especially if you choose the "Other" option.

Exploration: The game is driven by filling in spaces on the map, finding out what's out (or down, or up or whatever) there.

Intrigue: The game is driven by relationships between the PCs and with NPCs and factions, and the machinations of all involved.

Plot Driven: The game is driven by a strong plot line, a story with a beginning a middle and an end, which may or may not involve Big Stakes. The point is to tell a coherent story.

Episodic: The game is driven by multiple different stories or adventures, whether serious or beer n pretzels, where the point of play is the adventure at hand.

World Building: The game is driven by the development of the "world", both"in the fiction" if the PCs build things and in a metagame way. This is similar to exploration but emphasizes the collaborative aspect of play toward setting development. The world is more important than any PC group or their adventures.

Action!: The game is driven by action, whether bash down the door hack and slash or epic level combats to save the world from dark forces. The point is to roll a lot of dice and engage the mechanics in a fun way.

 

[commandercrud]

All of the above.

 

[Nagol]

A combination of exploration and intrigue. Where the focus is "What is unknown?" and "How can we take advantage of it?"

 

[Reynard]

All of the above.

No preference? Not even by 1%?

 

[Fenris-77]

I had trouble picking just one. I ended up picking intrigue because even if it's not detective-y or whatever, I like games that include rational and motivated NCP actions, and ones that have greater push and pull than just their personal motivations. Obviously you can get that in any style of game, but while some of the other options could include it, intrigue will include it.

 

[commandercrud]

No preference? Not even by 1%?

I don't like campaigns that are too focused on one thing.

 

[Reynard]

I don't like campaigns that are too focused on one thing.

Fair enough!

 

[Hoffmand]

There’s definitely alot of overlap. But primarily world building. I really like the PC’s to eventually build or take over an organization and then compete with other factions. Also a lot of exploring and learning about the cosmology. I have a very Reed Richards exploration side on a cosmic scale that I like to balance with very local street level encounters. Definitely don’t like mega dungeons and prefer urban and civilization exploration. Learning secrets and how to use them to your advantage is a big part of it. Esoteric secrets as well as social or political.

 

[Fanaelialae]

All of the above.

A friend of mine ran this campaign which started as an underdark campaign. We escaped from the duergar who had imprisoned us, and had a few misadventures.

Then the tarrasque crashed into the underdark and the world ended. We awoke in a town at the center of the world, where we discovered that the only way to restore life to the world was to travel through the memories of the planet and find the magic stones that held the souls of unborn deities.

Though we didn't realize it until later, there were many unknown forces at work. There was a former adventuring party which had undertaken our quest in a previous age and "survived" through a very poorly worded wish. Then there was an ancient vampire lord who had manipulated this cycle many times before (and whom that adventuring party was trying to stop by stopping us). There was also a horror from beyond the stars that had devoured the hearts of many planets and was now on it's way to devour ours. We learned these things gradually, and didn't put all of the pieces together til the very end.

The memories that we had to travel to were quite exploration heavy (since the first thing we needed to do was figure out where we were and where we needed to go). But they had plenty of other aspects. Lots of combat. Plenty of locals to interact with (including no small amount of intrigue, though that was arguably the least present aspect of the campaign). The memories made it extremely episodic in a way, but the overarching story gave it the best elements of a plot driven game (IMO). We got to most definitely leave our mark on that world, so that checks the world building box as well.

It basically had a bit of everything.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Also all of the above.

I've never sat a table where the group didn't fairly evenly blend (at one point or another) all the options listed.