Hi I am sister of said brother. Been trying to help him with figuring out some way to save things. Help please. I have no clue what to suggest and all we can think of is just finish this as much as possible and forget it ever happened to retcon.
Our group has a new DM every... 7 weeks? My brother is currently dming. He's a good dude. Cares about giving his players a good time, he's funny, and has fantastic NPCs. About midway through his campaign things started to go downhill. Pacing was off, parts of the story didn't connect well, and there were some struggles with character backstories. Classic story of bit off FAR more than he could chew and now he is choking on it. This is his first every serious backstory campaign. (Previous experiences include: Campaign he hosted during a very difficult time in our lives and had trouble handling criticism, and somewhat silly campaign people loved.) Once again, he is a good guy. He's been beating himself up ever since feeling terrible and feeling he's ruined a part of everyone's backstory (All the characters hate his characters evil dad.) He's definitely a perfectionist...
Right now, he sees only two options. 1. BS his way to a neutral ending with a campaign he hates... or 2. Retcon everything...
This campaign has been going on for... 4 - 5 weeks so retconning isn't just something he can simply do. Plus, my character only joined in the campaign before this one and that campaign was set in the time frame of a day while his has lasted 3 days. In this time my OC and another character have been developing a lovely relationship (Dude asked her out after he's known her for a day and a half it was awkward but funny.) We also did backstory reveals in this campaign... Or at least three of our players did. My brother's character shared his in a much earlier campaign. My character didn't feel like sharing her trauma with the party just yet.
I just feel terrible for him, but I have no clue how to help him fix things and he's been beating himself up about it like he's betrayed everyone and ruined the campaigns after his.
Please don't be mean to him... He's trying his best and it hurts to see him so disappointed with himself
"So basically, her backstory is evil Sophia the First mixed with King Henry VIII!!" "CORN MEAL! CORN MEAL! CORN MEAL!!!" "Roll for initiative against the tree."
The unfortunate reality of DMing is... sometimes you do things that just don't work. You learn from it and try to do better the next time.
I suggest an open discussion with all the players in the game -- "Hey guys, I was trying to do something and it isn't working", and get a sense from the players for how they would like to see it end. If they aren't having fun.. maybe just end it and either switch to something else or run one-shots. If they are having fun, knowing what they find fun may give new inspiration -- or the players might have interesting ideas that you didn't think of.
A full retcon rarely works well, but a reinterpretation in a new light is a useful skill.
It’s tough to give specific advice about salvaging things without details of what’s happening and what went wrong. But otherwise, I’d agree with pantagruel. Sometimes you take a shot at something and it doesn’t quite work. The only real option is talking with the whole group and seeing where to go with it. That can really help with buy in if the players all know they need their characters to do a specific thing or forget a certain piece of information to make things work.
Ok, it sounds like to me, that he thinks the campaign is going worse than it is, and with the history you mentioned of not handling criticism well, there's probably not much you can do to convince him otherwise. So IMO, the campaign needs to end ASAP, not because it is unsalvagable, but because he isn't comfortable DMing it anymore. TBH It's not at all uncommon for creative people to be overly self-critical, there are loads who write and rewrite stories endlessly because they aren't happy with them, and many of the most successful writers are the ones who come to terms with their own failings to just get stuff out and published.
So, if I were in your shoes, what I would try to do is get the other players together first to explain how stressed your brother is, and then have a whole-table meeting to talk about how they can make sure he has fun as well. Without saying anything about how the campaign is going well / poorly in general, and mostly focusing on what parts you as players want to keep as cannon because you really liked it.
There are lots of ways to make a sharp break in an on going story to "reset" - have the party get kidnapped by aliens, be flung backwards/forwards through time by crazy magic, step through a portal to a different plane, get thrown in jail, or wake up from a dream.
Hi I am sister of said brother. Been trying to help him with figuring out some way to save things. Help please. I have no clue what to suggest and all we can think of is just finish this as much as possible and forget it ever happened to retcon.
Our group has a new DM every... 7 weeks? My brother is currently dming. He's a good dude. Cares about giving his players a good time, he's funny, and has fantastic NPCs. About midway through his campaign things started to go downhill. Pacing was off, parts of the story didn't connect well, and there were some struggles with character backstories. Classic story of bit off FAR more than he could chew and now he is choking on it. This is his first every serious backstory campaign. (Previous experiences include: Campaign he hosted during a very difficult time in our lives and had trouble handling criticism, and somewhat silly campaign people loved.)
Once again, he is a good guy. He's been beating himself up ever since feeling terrible and feeling he's ruined a part of everyone's backstory (All the characters hate his characters evil dad.) He's definitely a perfectionist...
Right now, he sees only two options.
1. BS his way to a neutral ending with a campaign he hates...
or
2. Retcon everything...
This campaign has been going on for... 4 - 5 weeks so retconning isn't just something he can simply do. Plus, my character only joined in the campaign before this one and that campaign was set in the time frame of a day while his has lasted 3 days. In this time my OC and another character have been developing a lovely relationship (Dude asked her out after he's known her for a day and a half it was awkward but funny.) We also did backstory reveals in this campaign... Or at least three of our players did. My brother's character shared his in a much earlier campaign. My character didn't feel like sharing her trauma with the party just yet.
I just feel terrible for him, but I have no clue how to help him fix things and he's been beating himself up about it like he's betrayed everyone and ruined the campaigns after his.
Please don't be mean to him... He's trying his best and it hurts to see him so disappointed with himself
"So basically, her backstory is evil Sophia the First mixed with King Henry VIII!!"
"CORN MEAL! CORN MEAL! CORN MEAL!!!"
"Roll for initiative against the tree."
The unfortunate reality of DMing is... sometimes you do things that just don't work. You learn from it and try to do better the next time.
I suggest an open discussion with all the players in the game -- "Hey guys, I was trying to do something and it isn't working", and get a sense from the players for how they would like to see it end. If they aren't having fun.. maybe just end it and either switch to something else or run one-shots. If they are having fun, knowing what they find fun may give new inspiration -- or the players might have interesting ideas that you didn't think of.
A full retcon rarely works well, but a reinterpretation in a new light is a useful skill.
It’s tough to give specific advice about salvaging things without details of what’s happening and what went wrong. But otherwise, I’d agree with pantagruel. Sometimes you take a shot at something and it doesn’t quite work. The only real option is talking with the whole group and seeing where to go with it. That can really help with buy in if the players all know they need their characters to do a specific thing or forget a certain piece of information to make things work.
Ok, it sounds like to me, that he thinks the campaign is going worse than it is, and with the history you mentioned of not handling criticism well, there's probably not much you can do to convince him otherwise. So IMO, the campaign needs to end ASAP, not because it is unsalvagable, but because he isn't comfortable DMing it anymore. TBH It's not at all uncommon for creative people to be overly self-critical, there are loads who write and rewrite stories endlessly because they aren't happy with them, and many of the most successful writers are the ones who come to terms with their own failings to just get stuff out and published.
So, if I were in your shoes, what I would try to do is get the other players together first to explain how stressed your brother is, and then have a whole-table meeting to talk about how they can make sure he has fun as well. Without saying anything about how the campaign is going well / poorly in general, and mostly focusing on what parts you as players want to keep as cannon because you really liked it.
There are lots of ways to make a sharp break in an on going story to "reset" - have the party get kidnapped by aliens, be flung backwards/forwards through time by crazy magic, step through a portal to a different plane, get thrown in jail, or wake up from a dream.
Hear me out…. Time travel ;)
Best Regards, VanillaDM