Your Campaign; is it Status Quo?

[Snoring Rock]

Call me old school, but I am still running Wilderlands. It is my go to setting for sure. I run what I call a location based, status-quo campaign. You get a background and then you are set free on the world, or maybe the other way around.

I place adventures where they fit. I find good matches for villages and cities and place them there and detail them. I do not look to match adventures to levels of characters. If you go running into the cairn of some lich, at 3rd level, you should run. Fighting is well, pointless. I find players taking notes in order to come back to places to explore later at higher levels.

How do you do it?

[Treebore]

I run my hoome game that way, buut not my online games. Since we are limited to 3 hours per session on line I put more effort into focusing them.

[alcyone]

Well, first off, I don't have a campaign that has been running since the 70s or anything. I've run a number of them, some short, some longer. Some are defined by the modules that are in them; I usually use the setting in them if there is one, and the players know there is a sequence and stick with it and don't wander all of Mystara when they are supposed to be in Alfheim.

My most recent campaign, though, is sort of a sandboxy hexcrawly thing. I do have some dungeons and tombs and things from magazines and books peppered around. Also plenty of small lairs, animal burrows, hideouts, etc, where you'll find the No. Encountered. Granted, near their starting location, I have placed lots of things that are achievable by a small band of adventurers, but there are also places where no, it's not reverse psychology, there really are 200 orcs there ruled by a demon, and the game doesn't care if you fight them or not, but if you do, you'll very likely die unless you up your game.

The wandering monsters aren't scaled to the party, but it's not a foregone conclusion that a wandering blue dragon will eat you, he might be happy with a couple of your camels if you are polite and tell him where his rival Wyvern is nesting.

Playing Oblivion and Skyrim recently made me want to make my campaign more like that. Lots of caves where you will find a few bungling thieves, or a single bear, in addition to the sprawling necropolises and undercities. (Though the Elder Scrolls games are level-scaled).

Also, I am finding when I run chains of adventure path type modules, my poor players, excited when they come up with some cool background and story for their character, have no way to realize it, since their work is cut out for them. The sandbox, or at least a hybrid module/sandbox approach, is a better way to let them actually choose their destiny. Then, when you hear "I am questing to retrieve my father's sword and dethrone my uncle" you don't have to say "Well, unless your father's sword is on the Slag Heap and your uncle is Lord Coburg, it probably won't happen..."

[Buttmonkey]

I am kid-gloving it at the moment. We had a TPK last session and I've been having a hell of a time scheduling the follow-up session. I don't want to discourage the players, so I'm only putting level-appropriate stuff in front of them at the moment. Long term, assuming the campaign thrives, I expect to have a variety of inappropriate options for them to play with if they are so inclined. Hopefully, they learned the value of running after the last session.

[Omote]

I have been running my own campaign setting for the better part of 10 years now. It's loosely based on the Necromancer Games Lost lands setting, but has evolved into its own thing over time. Pretty much, everything that happens in these campaigns, happen within 200-300 miles of each other. That's not that big of an area, but the PCs don't have much motivation to adventure outside of that boundary. Sure, I'm open to it, but it just doesn't happen. Much like the OP, I place adventures, special scenarios, power groups, etc. within the confines of the campaign. If the players stumble into something that is above their level and abilities, I'm mostly fair and give warning and hints within the game. If the PCs still go for it, so be it. They will suffer any consequences. Since these multi-campaign arcs usually affect the setting in some way, the players are very much the fabric, as well as the movers and shakers of the world. In a sense, since I have multiple groups run in this campaign setting, it really becomes a living world. I wouldn't call that status quo, but I would call that somewhat standard for big, long campaigns.

~O

[Arduin]

How do you do it?

I run a sandbox game.

[Lobo316]

I'm running a campaign. A "story arc" if you will. Definate feel to it that has a begining, mid-game and endgame. How they get from point A to point B is largely up to the players. In fact, most of the encounters I've designed are not placed in a particular location, but are designed to be dropped in where I feel they are the most appropriate. It's a northlands based campagin in a homebrew world. Very viking like feel, but has a "epic" scale backdrop (image, Rome invading, and your the ones getting invaded...and losing).

While that arc is playing out, I'm also sewing the seeds for the next story (which is a Cthulu-like invasion scenario). They've run accross a number of encounters with creatures not from this world, and are slowing catching on that there are two stories running here. There is a large scale war scenario, and running under that is the outside invasion scenario, which will jump off after the war scenario is completed. In fact, they've already met the NPC who will later recruit them for this "more important" mission, which will include many Cthule inspire monstrousities and perhaps, some mind flayers.

I don't mess around with "random" encounters that are not in thier level range. Not much anyway. I have no problems killing characters, but nither am I out to kill 'em. I just don't have the time or inclination to work up "extra" encounters they "may" come accross. I do have wondering monster charts I use from time to time, but we only meet once every two weeks for 4-5 hours. Don't have time to mess around with to many side treks, we are collectivly telling a story and would rather focus on progressing that storyline.

[jdizzy001]

Though I have run very linear games in the past, I have begun to incorporate my legacy rules (each game night counts as 1 year of the PC's life), and since I have begun using them I have adopted more of an episode like approach. Each session begins (or ends depending on the time each group has. My sessions usually last 3-4 hours) with a "winter phase" adopted from pendragon and altered to fit a d20 game. From there the PC's embark on the night's episode when it ends they go home and disembark at the start of the new year. Some sessions end with a "to be continued" and bleeds into the next session, but all in all, one session for a year seems to work well.

I don't track xp either. I allow the PC's to level up about every other night. However, since most my groups never meet more than six times, I have found it beneficial to level them as part of the winter phase. Basically my winter phase goes like this
- roll a prime to find out what your character did to earn money in the off season (this is a great way to incorporate secondary skills from the ckg)
- roll to see how your family/manor faired this year (if applicable)
- roll to see what happened to your extended family throughout the past year (great for future plot hooks. IE brother offends local Lord and is now in jail).
-age PC 1 year. It hasn't happened yet but I have rules for aging. I know there are some in the ckg but they are more of a *poof* you're old kind of rule set. I prefer the slow march of time so the PC's can watch their character grow old and prepare a protege to take their place.

[muneshige]

I am shocked that PCs can take enough actions within a 3-4 hour span to constitute an entire year worth of actions. How long have you played this way?

[jdizzy001]

It's not that one night of gaming equals events to cover the year. My legacy rules are developed under the premise that during the course of a game year the night's episode is the noteworthy event that occured during the year. Real life is actually quite uneventful. Likewise, my legacy rules take all the "mundane" training, work days, non combat days and boils it down to a few rolls during the winter phase. Now, should a campaign warrant more game time than one session, i'll extend the year (the tale of frodo the nine fingered, and the ring of doom obviously took more than one session to resolve. If memory serves me right, from the time frodo left the shire to the time he returned 9 months had elapsed).

I just started using my legacy rules, but I have been doing episodic play for a few years now. The only difference between the two is that I begin or end each session with a winter phase. Other than that, most my rpg sessions are independent 5 room dungeon set ups. I also try to break up the seasons between sessions as well. Session one takes place in the spring of year 1, session 2 takes place in summer of year 2, session 3 is autumn of year 3, session 4 is winter of year 4 ... You get the idea.