For the second time in a row my players managed to force the end of a campaign in a balls to the wall approach, and in the process radically altered the game world.
The D&D game never really found its feet like the old Runequest game did. One of my die hard roleplayers disappeared to get married, dropping out of our little circle of friends as his new relationship took over his time, the world I ran in was poorly developed compared to the massive amount of lore I had created for the Runequest game...
To make a long story short, about midway through the planned campaign to save the world from an undead god/plague (the Elder Evil Atropos), the players made a deal early on with Grazz't, the Demon Prince. After a few sessions most of the players rejected his aid, turning increasingly good as if to atone for working with a demon, but one player made it her goal to marry the Demon Prince and become a princess of hell, even picking her prestige classes for more powers over demons along the way.
When they entered Carceri to track down 'The Heart', an artifact of unknown provenence and power, but prophesied to be necessary to overthrowing Atropos, they didn't know it was literally the soul of Ur, the sun-god/twin of Atropos.
Once they had that knowledge, they were really hot to track it down.... until one player realized she could give it to Grazz't as a dowery gift.
Cue a three way showdown between the undead forces of Nerull (the damn thing was hidden in his palace at the bottom of Carceri), the demonic army of Grazz't and the archons of Kaye (a paladin god worshipped by the party cleric), with the players running around trying to get the hot potato 'Heart' to the patron of their choice!
Needless to say, my unnamed D&D land, with its confused medley of home made and canon god figures now has a new, demonic, Sun-god, ending the threat of Atropos for the time being, and the other players are reduced to trying to mount a holy war against the new church of Grazz't.
I made a lot of mistakes in this campaign, not the least was moving back to D&D, and not having a well designed world for my players. After the fun of the Runequest campaign, everyone bitched about the restrictions of levels and classes, about wonky hit points and so forth. Some of the complaints were more valid than others, but it really just didn't work.
Ironically, setting up an 'end game' for the campaign, something I rarely do, was NOT the weakness of the game, but pacing, as always is a challenge. The loudest players are also the worst offenders of 'lets go kill shit, I'm bored', overshadowing the players who want to do interesting things like set up churches to 'lost gods' and found knightly orders.
I think the greatest mistake I made, however, was just not taking the time to properly recharge between campaigns. The rush to start a new game led to a lackluster performance from me, the GM.
However, aside from the interesting, colorful, finish to the game, there were good parts. I got a bit more comfortable presenting NPCs as characters instead of just saying 'He says this' or shorthanding it to 'You negotiate with the NPC and he sells you the castle for a penny." or whatever. My NPC's were stronger than they've ever been, even when I had to literally pull them out of my ass as the players zigged when I planned on a good zagging. Graz'zt, for example, was everything you want in a seductive, manipulative, suave charmer the few times he appeared, getting all but the most devoutly good characters to seriously consider his points. I also got better at providing interesting options to the players... setting up 'hopeless' and 'railroady' situations that never the less had enough holes that the players could take (and did!) agency in events. Losing The Heart to Graz'zt literally came down to an initiative count, as the cleric finally stopped chasing the Warlock (who can dimension door) and sent the Trumpet Archons at her (seriously: 180 charge range beats a 75 foot D-hop, in one round, no less...)... just before the Demon Prince 'rescued' her, with his prize... four ticks before the Archons arrived to fillet her.
But what do I mean by a beginning?
Well, three weeks ago I talked to one of my players as I took him home (lazy bitch lives half a mile away... he can and does walk it. Toss in a little rain tho.... ;) ) about Amber, which I've been meaning to use as a ruleset for a couple years now. It is totally not appropriate for some of my players, so the discussion was about running a second group. Then another of my players, just the other day, brought over a gaming buddy (wargaming and online, not an RPG'r normally) who was very eager to hear more about Amber.
Its still 'notional', but its growing strong, and fast. I've identified a few points that I, as the GM, need to work on as the potential players coalesce.
1- I am not concerned with Amber Canon. I'm sure I'm the only player who has read the books at all, and frankly I don't care that much about it. Entertaining but hardly world shaking. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to deviate from the ideas of the setting, amber and chaos and shadows... and the core game being interfamilial bickering and politicking rather than dungeon questing. I may use the elder Amberites as distant background figures (and parents), that the characters themselves are only distantly familiar with. This gives me a built in mythology while not requiring the players to get completely up to speed before play.
2- My main task, from the get go, will be to get the players not only invested in their characters, as people, but provide the proverbial stone to toss into their midst to create the infighting and inter party maneuverings that I feel reflects the way the campaign should be focused. One point is to ensure that there are very real 'prizes' to be one, prizes that can only, logically, belong to one player at a time. The Traditional prize is, of course, the kingship of Amber. Reality itself can be a prize, and I need to leave that option open as well.
3- One point that has occured to me is that to make this work I'm going to need to make a lot stronger investment in set up than I usually do. I'm not talking about world design so much, though a rough map of 'Amber' itself may not be out of the question (seriously, its a lot easier to sell a fight up an endless stairwell over a bottomless abyss of you have already established that not only do both exist, but that they are in X spot). What I'm actually talking about is a formal process of integrating characters into the setting, pre-game handouts and even a few good/bad secrets being arranged ahead of time.
I envision it working a bit like this:
Session 1- character creation as a group (auction of course), with plenty of time to hold 1 on 1 sessions to answer questions in a separate room, and no game play the first night.
Week 1- schedule one on one sessions for tweaking and integration: Who is daddy and what does this mean? What has your character been up to, etc. This also gives me a week to tweak the first session to the actual, created characters. I've always rushed creation into campaign mode, but I think taking this extra week or more would pay of huge dividends.
Session 2- would actually be the first session of play. Simply due to structure it is sound to have the characters actually getting together for the first time (or at least the first time in a long while) as part of the campaign 'plot'... much as Corwin has to re-enter amber society in the book.
Obviously, before I begin any of that I'll want a good list of useful/important NPCs so that I'm not constantly reaching into my ass for shit... nasty business that. This goes back to setting out a physical map for my version of Amber, as well as setting up external plot elements (re: The black road and dastardly NPC plots that need to be uncovered and undone)
Of course, I also plan on starting a new Runequest game, possibly continuing to grow my existing setting, though I may do away with the 'start in Renbluve' structure.
All of this implies I'll be staying put, which seems unlikely, ironically enough. I could have a while to plan this out.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled forum surfing.