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Old 11-29-2017, 09:37 AM   #1
Kymage
 
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Default Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

This idea has been floating around my head for awhile. I got the idea after some of these shared cinematic universe movies.

Has anyone ever thought up/GMed/played a series of campaigns (with different PCs mostly) that were interconnected and led to a large campaign down the road. For example Campaign A plays to conclusion with some Easter eggs/references to Campaign B and C. Campaign B is then played with a different set of PCs with references to the other campaigns followed by other campaigns. These all lead to Campaign Z or so which combines elements of all the campaigns into one big campaign which wraps up the threads from the earlier campaigns.

Kinda of curious if anyone has done this before and if so how it went.
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Old 11-29-2017, 10:55 AM   #2
johndallman
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

I have done something similar, by running several campaigns in the same world with the same background plot elements being gradually revealed. It was frustrating, because the players didn't remember things, even when they were playing the same characters in a different context.

To stand a chance of this working, there needs to be a detailed campaign log, and there needs to be an in-game reason why characters know about events that they weren't involved with.
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Old 11-29-2017, 11:31 AM   #3
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

I have had previous campaign's characters appear as NPC guest stars in subsequent campaigns, and turned campaign events involving the old PC's into legendary background for the new crop.

There was one memorable occasion where the current PC's realized with horror that they were facing off against their own, over-powered, highly experienced creations. They rapidly decided that negotiation was preferable to confrontation and all ended well.
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Old 12-01-2017, 12:43 AM   #4
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

I have played in Janyce Engan's "Stars Are Right" Call of Cthulhu campaign. That campaign began in 1981 and is still running today. I played from 1988 to 1990, then again from 1997 to 2001. (The Army and Grad School and moving and all that keeps me away).

Anyhow. While I was in the game, there were...20 something players. Those players were divided up into smaller groups about 5. Jan would run 7 days a month. Usually every Saturday and 3 Sundays a month. Our group would sign up for one of those days on the master calendar. So each group got to play about once every 3-4 weeks.

We'd play. We'd keep really good notes about where were were on any given day. There was a master in game calendar (it helped a lot that the game was set in the 1920s when travel was slow and international communication was not instantaneous). We were all in the same universe. And we were all in the same campaign. And sometimes characters switched from one group to another. My second character stared off in the "Hollywood Group" but ended up in the "Islanders Group." Once a year game time, on New Years Eve, all the players would dress up in period clothing, go to a period hotel, and have a banquet where we would LARP out making our plans for the coming year...now not all the sub-groups were exactly allied. The Junior G-Men didn't exactly trust the Islanders, for example. But we all we trying to stop the Things Man was Not Meant to Know from entering our dimension.

Anyway, it was a marvel! And if I were still in California I'd still be playing in that campaign!
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Old 12-01-2017, 01:59 PM   #5
Mark Skarr
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

On multiple occasions.

In fact, my Infinite Weirdos campaign (catch up here, link to Denver GURPS forums, same place tshiggins' Facets game is archived; mildly NSFW for offensive language), is another culmination of several story lines from different games with different players over several years. It, like many of my games, ties back into a “pre-historic” BattleTech game that we played in High School (in pre-historic times, which concluded with the "Battle of the Gates of Dawn"). It also has ties to GummiBear’s MegaDenver game and events that occurred in it, leading up to the previous multi-thread event which culminated at “The Battle of the School” and a major battle in the war for the multiverse.

Only Hand of Bobb gets the majority of references and understands what is going on, but the other players are gathering information and realizing there is so much more going on.

But, at the end of the day, all they really care about, right now, is what happened to Sherry.
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Old 12-04-2017, 01:20 PM   #6
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

One thing I was wondering about is how difficult it would be to do this when the campaigns are different genres. For example, Campaign A is a standard Hack and Slash Fantasy, campaign B is Hard Sci-Fi, Campaign C is Supers, Campaign D is Film Noir and so on and so on. I think that might be not so difficult if you do it in the context of a infinite worlds/infinity Inc. type scenario but how difficult is it to do in other contexts? I can see problems trying to move PCs from campaign to campaign if the genres are so radically different.
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Old 12-07-2017, 09:00 AM   #7
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

I have two cases of running multiple campaigns in the same setting and using elements of previous campaigns as backgrounds for the new one.

The world that I created for my college AD&D 2E campaign underwent heavy revamping to become the setting of my GURPS Fantasy campaign several years later. The changes were profound enough that I didn't use any PCs from the first game as NPCs in the second one. However, I did later start a D&D 3E campaign based on what I could recall of that 2E game rather than the GURPS version of the world. The PCs of that third game belonged to an Adventurer's Guild founded by PCs from the first one, but the game didn't last long enough to introduce those NPCs "on screen."

I have also run three campaigns set in Green Ronin's Freeport setting (D&D using v.3.0, v.3.5, and v.3.5 but converted to Pathfinder mid-campaign). My wife and one other friend have played in all three games, with new characters each time except for the latter playing the same PC in my second campaign. In the third game, her PC became an NPC sage who the party consulted from time to time. I also used some of the other retired PCs as NPCs in the second and third campaigns, though not to the same extent. Another player from the second game decided to make his old character the hated enemy of his new PC for the most recent game. We ended the campaign before he was powerful enough to challenge his rival, but that showdown is the obvious choice for a one-shot adventure if we ever do a sequel.

In addition to those two examples, I've thought about using some PCs from yet another past v.3.5 campaign as NPCs in my current Pathfinder campaign (which has three of the same players), or possibly as PCs for a high-level one-shot set there. It's a different world, but it would be fairly simple to adjust the characters' histories to fit the new campaign.

I'm also considering running some adventures for my kids (age 13 and 12) set in a different part of my current campaign's world. If I did, there would be a possibility of those PCs meeting (or even joining) the main game's PCs when my children and their characters are older and more experienced. (We might need to convert characters at that point, as I prefer running D&D 5E for my kids.)
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Old 12-07-2017, 05:54 PM   #8
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

Have played in a game that began with a one-on-one played on weekday evenings, then had another player and character start on Sunday while the first player was harlequin and recorder, then two more players had friend characters join the second who was travelling, making four.

Then the first player introduced the first character again when the others passed through his home village...

It wasn't really planned, but we all eventually were playing Sundays after midday as a party travelling together, each of us having agreed to aid another to complete their 'quest' in exchange for aid in our own.

It's a game that has survived several iterations over quite a few years now.
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Old 12-07-2017, 06:34 PM   #9
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

I believe Vikings has several campaigns that can be played successively with a bit of twist.
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Old 12-04-2017, 07:30 PM   #10
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Default Re: Multiple Campaigns leading into one Large Campaign

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kymage View Post
. . .
These all lead to Campaign Z or so which combines elements of all the campaigns into one big campaign which wraps up the threads from the earlier campaigns.
. . .
The complexity of this really seems to hinge on one aspect that I'm unclear about.

Are you truly trying to bring most of the players from the various campaigns into Campaign Z, or is Campaign Z just influenced by the events, backgrounds and NPCs (who may have been PCs at one time) of the prior campaigns?

The former seems to be require much more innovation in the style described by trooper6 (four posts above), whereas the latter seems to "just" be intense adventure design.

Do you intend Campaign Z to have the regular number of players as any one of your other campaigns or to be the aggregate of all (or most) of the players?

Last edited by Tom H.; 12-04-2017 at 07:34 PM.
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