Hey, little bit of a complicated question here (not sure how much context is too much context, so, forgive me):
I've been DMing for a fairly large group of players for several years now. The core group of five players has been pretty stable the whole time, and we generally have one or two extra people, who tend to rotate out, at most times. No, I don't really have much issue with DMing for that many people.
Our first campaign ran for about two and a half years, and when that ended, there were still a lot of dangling plot threads left. That was kind of intentional. The world's been saved, for now, but there are major consequences. One of the PCs flew into a mysterious portal in order to save the Material Plane, but no one knows whether she survived that experience or not. One of the other characters is slowly becoming undead. Plus hints of... aliens? That campaign ended last April, and we started another one shortly thereafter that's likely to wrap up this summer. The second campaign is pretty separate from the first one, but there's been a few mentions, whispers of things relating to the lingering plot threads from before, as well as the new characters seeing some of the fallout from the end of the first campaign.
Here's where we start to get to my actual question. Since we're not that far out from the end of the current campaign, I figure I should probably start thinking about what we're going to do next. There was a lot left unfinished from the first campaign, so I'm thinking that all these ongoing plot threads need to come together at some point. We can do a "Part II" for the first campaign - bring back those characters, tie together ongoing plot threads, resolve mysteries, etcetera. That would be good, it seems to be where all this is going. Except, we're not there yet. These things that have been building in the background - the aliens, spirit creatures, the material being cut off from the other planes, a war between the planes - haven't been built up enough yet. So we can't do "first campaign part II" yet.
So I decided we should do something else between our current campaign and "Part II", something that would build this lore & story, and set everything up for "Part II". There's essentially two different pillars of story that need to be built in between - 1) the aliens & ancient lore, and 2) vampires, fallout from the plane split, & politics. Except that's basically two separate campaigns. Building Pillar 1 requires characters to be on the other side of the continent than what would be required for Pillar 2. The problem is, if we play one full campaign and then the other, that'll be too much time in between. It'll take too long. So, can we play both campaigns, Pillars 1 & 2, at once?
I'm basically looking for any advice or ideas for how to manage a setup like this - two campaigns, running simultaneously, with the same players but different characters, and some plot threads/story elements that appear in both games. Like two campaigns that are one? What would be the best way to go about doing this? We can only play three hours each week, so there isn't an option to do, say, one game on Wednesday and one on Saturday. I'm not sure whether we should alternate parties/campaigns each week, or each arc, or what? I know this is pretty complicated, but if anyone has any ideas, that would be really helpful.
I think maybe you're writing yourself into a corner. As the DM, your story is as malleable as you choose it to be. Why do the characters need to be across the world in order to have crucial plot information available to them? Why can't they get there in this campaign?
If you're already considering what to do after your brand new campaign ends, you should maybe focus more on your brand new campaign and bring it up to the storytelling par you're looking for.
Don't fall into the trap of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - don't have entire campaigns set up simply to segue into the interesting bits next campaign. Just do the interesting bits.
Yeah, looking back, it's pretty obvious my ideas were way too overcomplicated. What about this:
- My group played a long homebrew campaign which ended with a lot of dangling plot threads. We've since been playing another campaign that's set in the same world but mostly unrelated plot-wise.
- I'd like to come back around the characters from the first campaign at some point, after the current game finishes, and play a "Part II" where we deal with some of the unresolved plot threads. The players would probably really enjoy that too.
- However, there's some more information that I'd like to be established in some way before we start the "Part II." Things like politics, how the rest of the world is coping with consequences from the first campaign, a mysterious illness that's affecting people with innate magic (Sorcerers, Bards, etc), as well as establishing more information about mysterious alien beings that were glimpsed in the first campaign.
- There's not a good way to include these things in our current campaign, because A) the plot is pretty complicated already, and B) I want to keep the current game more separate from the first one.
So my revised question is, what would be the best way to get across this information? Should we run a campaign in between exploring these things, or should I just send the players a document, or something else?
The quick and dirty way is to say there’s a time jump. Then just write out a page or two filling in whatever gaps you have in the lore. You know, it’s been 15 years since the end of the second campaign. In that time x y and z have all revealed themselves and are doing stuff. Like the crawl at the start of a Star Wars movie. Then go ahead and get the band back together and play through your part 2.
Hey, little bit of a complicated question here (not sure how much context is too much context, so, forgive me):
I've been DMing for a fairly large group of players for several years now. The core group of five players has been pretty stable the whole time, and we generally have one or two extra people, who tend to rotate out, at most times. No, I don't really have much issue with DMing for that many people.
Our first campaign ran for about two and a half years, and when that ended, there were still a lot of dangling plot threads left. That was kind of intentional. The world's been saved, for now, but there are major consequences. One of the PCs flew into a mysterious portal in order to save the Material Plane, but no one knows whether she survived that experience or not. One of the other characters is slowly becoming undead. Plus hints of... aliens? That campaign ended last April, and we started another one shortly thereafter that's likely to wrap up this summer. The second campaign is pretty separate from the first one, but there's been a few mentions, whispers of things relating to the lingering plot threads from before, as well as the new characters seeing some of the fallout from the end of the first campaign.
Here's where we start to get to my actual question. Since we're not that far out from the end of the current campaign, I figure I should probably start thinking about what we're going to do next. There was a lot left unfinished from the first campaign, so I'm thinking that all these ongoing plot threads need to come together at some point. We can do a "Part II" for the first campaign - bring back those characters, tie together ongoing plot threads, resolve mysteries, etcetera. That would be good, it seems to be where all this is going. Except, we're not there yet. These things that have been building in the background - the aliens, spirit creatures, the material being cut off from the other planes, a war between the planes - haven't been built up enough yet. So we can't do "first campaign part II" yet.
So I decided we should do something else between our current campaign and "Part II", something that would build this lore & story, and set everything up for "Part II". There's essentially two different pillars of story that need to be built in between - 1) the aliens & ancient lore, and 2) vampires, fallout from the plane split, & politics. Except that's basically two separate campaigns. Building Pillar 1 requires characters to be on the other side of the continent than what would be required for Pillar 2. The problem is, if we play one full campaign and then the other, that'll be too much time in between. It'll take too long. So, can we play both campaigns, Pillars 1 & 2, at once?
I'm basically looking for any advice or ideas for how to manage a setup like this - two campaigns, running simultaneously, with the same players but different characters, and some plot threads/story elements that appear in both games. Like two campaigns that are one? What would be the best way to go about doing this? We can only play three hours each week, so there isn't an option to do, say, one game on Wednesday and one on Saturday. I'm not sure whether we should alternate parties/campaigns each week, or each arc, or what? I know this is pretty complicated, but if anyone has any ideas, that would be really helpful.
Thanks!
I think maybe you're writing yourself into a corner. As the DM, your story is as malleable as you choose it to be. Why do the characters need to be across the world in order to have crucial plot information available to them? Why can't they get there in this campaign?
If you're already considering what to do after your brand new campaign ends, you should maybe focus more on your brand new campaign and bring it up to the storytelling par you're looking for.
Don't fall into the trap of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - don't have entire campaigns set up simply to segue into the interesting bits next campaign. Just do the interesting bits.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Yeah, looking back, it's pretty obvious my ideas were way too overcomplicated. What about this:
- My group played a long homebrew campaign which ended with a lot of dangling plot threads. We've since been playing another campaign that's set in the same world but mostly unrelated plot-wise.
- I'd like to come back around the characters from the first campaign at some point, after the current game finishes, and play a "Part II" where we deal with some of the unresolved plot threads. The players would probably really enjoy that too.
- However, there's some more information that I'd like to be established in some way before we start the "Part II." Things like politics, how the rest of the world is coping with consequences from the first campaign, a mysterious illness that's affecting people with innate magic (Sorcerers, Bards, etc), as well as establishing more information about mysterious alien beings that were glimpsed in the first campaign.
- There's not a good way to include these things in our current campaign, because A) the plot is pretty complicated already, and B) I want to keep the current game more separate from the first one.
So my revised question is, what would be the best way to get across this information? Should we run a campaign in between exploring these things, or should I just send the players a document, or something else?
The quick and dirty way is to say there’s a time jump. Then just write out a page or two filling in whatever gaps you have in the lore. You know, it’s been 15 years since the end of the second campaign. In that time x y and z have all revealed themselves and are doing stuff. Like the crawl at the start of a Star Wars movie. Then go ahead and get the band back together and play through your part 2.
Yeah, I guess the only problem with that is that the players will probably have trouble remembering any of that info after a couple weeks.
They’ll have the hard copy to refer to. Besides that, players never remember anything.