| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Chosen of Bane |
Posted - 08 Mar 2005 : 01:45:23
I was just curious as to what type of games people like to play. Below I will describe what I feel common campaign styles. If you select "Other", please describe the style of game you enjoy the most. Thanks.
Major Epic Scope Single Adventure: One uber-long adventure taking PC's from low level to high level. Think Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil or Lord of the Rings style game.
Single Plot, Multiple Adventure Campaign: One major plot line for the campaign but consisting of multiple adventures. Something like, find the 7 pieces of this all powerful artifact. Each piece is in a different part of Faerun and will take at least 7 adventures to complete the major plot.
Series of Multiple "Un-related" Adventures tied into one Campaign Plot: PC's complete a series of "unrelated" adventures for various (or single) employers. Multiple adventures are then tied in together in one final plot.
Ongoing Multi-Plot, Multi-Adventure Campaign: PC's complete a series of unrelated adventures that have nothing to do with eachother. PC's simply take the best job offered to them at varying difficulties until they decide to retire. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Tordis |
Posted - 17 Apr 2006 : 08:36:58
My preference would be option 2, as it gives the possibility to develop your character to a certain level without the players getting bored. Even though there is a main plot and a final purpose to the PC's actions, you can still use some of your ideas that simply don't fit in and pack them in as side quests. |
| Giilvas Vyshaan |
Posted - 15 Feb 2006 : 17:50:42
I have enjoyed so many adventuring & DM-ing campaigns of all types, however, the ones my gaming buddies and I always talk about seem to be 'remembering' the most are the ones with many unrelated but tied into a single campaign plot. We are currently in a major epic scope single adventure campaign that we all are having a great time with. That's the point, isn't it? |
| Angron |
Posted - 26 Dec 2005 : 18:57:04
In my group the DM dosent have that much say in waht we do, we play more out the lifes of the pc's. We do what we feel like doing and the DM runs all of our different sane\insane ideas as the adventures instead of making them ahead of time. As an example: One of the pc wants to establish himself a small kingdom up in the north, we would travel from the place we were at up to the north and start working on that task, and the DM controls the world and does what he think is the most realistic response to taht action for the different things\persons that lurks in the north |
| Talanfir Swiftfeet |
Posted - 11 Dec 2005 : 14:36:36
My DM once made a very good campaign, where the PCs started at different towns and didn't know eachother. Only after our third session of playing did the PCs meet eachother and became a group. And at some points the of the campaign the group separated to do different sub-plots, that all linked to the major plot.
This kind of plot maybe very hard for the DM to make, but we loved it. It made our group seem like it's not a ready made group that we just started playin,g but a group where every PC had their own history and their own interests. |
| Vangelor |
Posted - 11 Dec 2005 : 01:39:48
I went with "Single Plot, Multiple Adventure Campaign", because I like to have adventures lead to further adventures for the same troupe of characters. But I also run multiple campaigns.
My Waterdeep game is geared toward a half-orc Sun Soul Monk, A half-elven bard and a human rogue, who are hired to work for an investigation firm, which ends up involving them in numerous plots large and small as they look into strage events in and around Waterdeep. The private investigators angle is well suited to numerous self-contained stories, but there is an overall story of an unsolved mystery that they are gradually untangling as well.
My Cormanthor campaign wound up not really continuing, but might have gone anywhere. I still hope to revisit that setting, and perhaps someday we shall. |
| Antareana |
Posted - 10 Nov 2005 : 15:55:49
I prefer either one really big epic Adventure without many sub-quests (which is what I am running with my group at the moment) or many adventures that belong mostly to the same plot. I like doing "big things" and that works only properly if you are either epic level or if you are following one big scheme over a long long time.
Many different adventures can be funny, too, but most DMs have problems with giving the PCs reputations then (which can be annoying and unsatisfying)
Thats what happened in our Planescape Campaign until we were 15th level or so until one of us suddenly became chosen of Mystra  |
| Thelonius |
Posted - 07 Oct 2005 : 07:44:36
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Thelonius
I remember a "surprise" game I played once. I was DMing and i allowed them to create the char till level 25. I still can remember their faces when the rivals were revealed... themselves, someone casted a "clone" spell against them while sleeping and they were always pursued by themselves, same spells, same levels, same weapons, it was incredibly funny. They still hate me for that one...
That's evil! I like it! 
*bows* |
| Crennen FaerieBane |
Posted - 06 Oct 2005 : 23:14:21
Series of Multiple "Un-related" Adventures tied into one Campaign Plot
Definitely for me... I have one of the best GMs in the world and she is really good at running this type of adventure, which is wonderful. I love that all the adventures, while unrelated at face value, tend to all come to a sum total in the end.
C-Fb |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 06 Oct 2005 : 22:51:46
quote:
Originally posted by Thelonius
I remember a "surprise" game I played once. I was DMing and i allowed them to create the char till level 25. I still can remember their faces when the rivals were revealed... themselves, someone casted a "clone" spell against them while sleeping and they were always pursued by themselves, same spells, same levels, same weapons, it was incredibly funny. They still hate me for that one...
That's evil! I like it! |
| Thelonius |
Posted - 06 Oct 2005 : 20:43:43
I remember a "surprise" game I played once. I was DMing and i allowed them to create the char till level 25. I still can remember their faces when the rivals were revealed... themselves, someone casted a "clone" spell against them while sleeping and they were always pursued by themselves, same spells, same levels, same weapons, it was incredibly funny. They still hate me for that one... |
| Fletcher |
Posted - 06 Oct 2005 : 18:12:23
I enjoy having an overall 'theme' to games, but not necessarily a single epic plot. It is often hard to get fractious players to go in one direction. The term herding cats comes to mind. 
So instead of having the goal of taking on the Zulkirs of Thay, or smashing the Power of the Cloaks and Blades of Mulmaster, I prefer to have games where there are recurring villains, and villainous groups.
The recurring villains usually are always after the same or similar goal each time the players run across them. The villainous groups tend to have a broader reach for their plans. Because, like any orginisation, they have the manpower that enables them to branch out into different fields of villainy.
The overall goal of games I run tend to be to grant the players the opportunity to flesh out their characters and meet many of the character's goals/ambitions. |
| Thelonius |
Posted - 01 Oct 2005 : 08:13:38
Indeed I don't like great scale plots, they suppouse too much problem in trying to not affect important stuuf, as cities or special NPCs, that's why I prefer conspiracys, and dark plots, even sometimes I've played "dungeons" plots, a la Eye of the Beholder. But the problem of playing conspiracys plots is that is difficult to make them different, finally you end always playing the same "Someone wants to kill king Azoun" plot  . Oh we need an imagination referesh. |
| Thysl |
Posted - 30 Sep 2005 : 23:17:02
I go for the Single plot, multiple 'adventures' idea; Mainly I steer ny PCs towards heroic PCs, not mercenaries. Heroes need epic adventure. That being said I am also VERY busy and need to utilize module adventures occasionaly. I'll slip the module into the plot continuaty(sp), and there we are... |
| Lord Desolation |
Posted - 30 Sep 2005 : 22:28:49
I like the fly by the seet of your pants kind of adveneur. It makes things more interesting and you can stop playing after doing a particular job for a while. Its kind of like stopping on a chapter in a book and picking it up later. |
| ode904 |
Posted - 22 Jul 2005 : 07:50:27
I prefer 'Ongoing Multi-Plot, Multi-Adventure Campaign'.
It´s just good. |
| Never |
Posted - 22 Jul 2005 : 00:31:26
There's the campaign goal as well character specific adventures I make during creation. I also provide them with a far number of side quests, a few of which can end up affecting the main plot in significant ways. For instance, a rival poet breaks into a PC's house and burns their journals of poetry and part of the house. Looking into this reveals that the NPC stole a number of journals from the past year and burned the house to cover the theft. After recovering the journals, the PC finds several poems in their handwriting that they don't remember writing. These poems not only predict accurately what has happened and also detail events that haven’t happened yet. |
| Faramicos |
Posted - 20 Jul 2005 : 18:23:28
I like longscale grand adventures. They give the opportunity do to rally dive deep into a plot...  |
| Reefy |
Posted - 20 Jul 2005 : 00:52:06
Probably a cross between options 3 and 4. |
| Decay9 |
Posted - 19 Jul 2005 : 22:55:48
I tend towards playing nuetral characters, so I simply do whatever my character pleases, if she wants to be hired for money, she will, or otherwise she will simply go do her own thing. since I tend to choose what my character is up to, I tell the DM and he makes up the adventure, it is rarely ever all tied into one plot except with my epic character. and when I am traveling with other people, sometimes I will just branch off and do a few solo campaigns, then return to the group later on, or not. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 19 Jul 2005 : 06:06:21
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Alisttair
I like to do different things for different campaigns to keep things spicey.
Have you any particular examples to share?
Yes, and in what campaigns? Are you talking about the Realms only?
|
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 19 Jul 2005 : 05:52:49
quote:
Originally posted by Alisttair
I like to do different things for different campaigns to keep things spicey.
Have you any particular examples to share? |
| Alisttair |
Posted - 19 Jul 2005 : 04:28:15
I like to do different things for different campaigns to keep things spicey. |
| Sgain |
Posted - 08 Jun 2005 : 21:24:58
I tend to like unrelated adventures that connect together somehow..its usually some NPC's that the players have met or ticked off somehow, or I have some other totally unrelated (til near the end) plot. This allows me a lot of freedom to put in plot twists, and other adventure hooks, but allows me to use the 'bad' guy from time to time to harrass/motivate the party.
Grand adventure/campaigns like the Giants, Slavers, Drow series from years ago were a lot of tun, but even moreso when mixed up with other plotlines. It made them feel more 'real' and less linear (the party didn't feel that they 'had' to do things, they felt more like they wanted to do them).
I also like the ideas of players changing their minds about how they are going to do something, they may decide that they aren't ready for something, or that they want to scout it out longer before getting involved. That makes sense to me and I try to be prepared for it.
I also use other adventures and then interconnecting them (I call it mod-bashing) so that they fit my campaign idea, the players may recognise certain things from other adventures (hooks, NPC's, locations) but they will also find lots of things have been changed by me to fit my plot.
Hope this answers the question.
cya
Sgain |
| Ironstar |
Posted - 03 Jun 2005 : 09:31:45
I voted multiple "unrelated" adventures tied into one campaign plot. I prefer a game where I may become or may not become a famous adventurer, like for example the characters in FR novels.
I like it often even more when I can play a hearty dwarf going "to do the job" for someone to get some money to spend for staying in inns and buy ale. I don't have an urgent need to become a famous character in some big event of Faerun's history. |
| Neo2151 |
Posted - 03 Jun 2005 : 07:50:05
I had to go with "Single Plot, Multiple Adventure Campaign" because, being a person who loves his FR novels, this is the closest you can get to feeling like a major player in a novel. Part of this is probably because in my group there is hardly anyone with any imagination, and the few with imagination don't have a good grasp of the game rules. I tend to find myself being the only DM in the group to go all out in adventures to really put the feeling of "this isn't just a piece of paper, this is my character, a living [insert race here] with a mind and feelings of his/her own that are different from mine" (and regardless that DMing is fun, sometimes it's nice to just play a character without knowing exactly what's going to happen ). Also, because of this, I tend to enjoy reading more than D&D (which is sad  ) which puts me in the position to want to be a novel character most of the time. |
| Shadovar |
Posted - 15 May 2005 : 02:25:58
For my preference is that there is a main quest which is unchanged throughout the gameplay with a series of subquests unrelated to the main quest or otherwise called series of unrelated adventures tied into one campaign. Makes the gameplay more exciting and thrilling. |
| VEDSICA |
Posted - 14 May 2005 : 22:10:00
I chose single plot,Multi adventure.Usually played over a few gaming sessions.That is my preference |
| Imrahil |
Posted - 14 May 2005 : 17:32:14
Interesting question.
I put "other". The type of campaign I like to run has unrelated adventures layered over the top of an encompassing story arc. One of my gamers calls it "X-Files" style. I like to always have a sense that there is some connection between stories, but some adventures are loosely tied to the story arc at best.
What I like about this is that the characters are never aware whether what they are doing is a stand alone adventure or a story-arc adventures. This allows from some interesting red herrings. |
| Snotlord |
Posted - 14 May 2005 : 15:30:31
Easy: Series of Multiple "Un-related" Adventures tied into one Campaign Plot. 
I discussed what we wanted to include with my co-DM before the first session. We picked a location (Cormyr), a couple of villains we wanted to use (Cult of the Dragon, Zhentarim), and what kind of characters we wanted (pro-Obarskyr soldiers, war wizards and so on).
We encouraged the players to read Cormyr: A novel, and got started with new characters.
The campaign has turned into a mix of investigation of Cult of the Dragon plots, side-treks for the crown, personal stuff like evil brothers and missing love interests, and army manouvers. |
| Bendal |
Posted - 14 May 2005 : 15:08:36
I didn't find a particular category that describes my current campaign, so I chose other.
I'm sure to the players the adventures they are involved in look unrelated, but behind the scenes they are most definitely connected and future adventures will start disclosing what's going on.
So far they've driven off/defeated bandits cutting off a village from trade with other cities, rescued a young girl from some gnolls, and fought off an attempt by river raiders from boarding their barge. They have also learned that young women are disappearing from the streets of Yartar, and that there are slavers operating in the region to the north of that town, and orcs are moving south from the Evermoors as well.
What they don't know yet is all three are connected, being orchestrated by a couple of ruthless merchant-adventurers in Yartar, in conjunction with the frost giant incursion further north. The bandits were cutting off the land routes to the village so the merchants had exclusive trade rights via riverbarge, and were selling slaves to the orcs for gold and information. Meanwhile there is a wizard/slaver operating a festhall in Yartar kidnapping women for her customers, and secretly selling them to the trade merchant for shipping north up the river as well.
Now the PC's are showing up on the merchant's radar screen as becoming a major nuisance. Any further trouble and something will have to be done about them... |
