Best Campaign You've Ever Played [Archive] - Wizards Community

Best Campaign You've Ever Played [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Chrono Nexus
12-20-07, 08:28 AM It's been a long time since I posted here, but I thought I might check some of my old online haunts.
I've been running a campaign for the last several months, and it's been great! I don't want to bore you with the details, but I have great players and the group dynamic is strong.
What is the best campaign you've ever participated/dmed in? Please describe it in a nutshell (your role, the type and genre of the campaign, the number of sessions, and the timespan of the campaign from start to end), and what aspects of the games were most fun for you.
I tend to stream line my campaigns for my players, but having a better idea about what keeps long campaigns alive would be good to know for the future.
Ariakus
12-20-07, 11:17 AM My favorite, and first was Dragonlance, the original 16 modules campaign from 1st Ed. Advanced D&D. I played the whole group, all 8 characters by myself. My DM was getting me into the game and we didn't have a group, so he decided to run it with just he and I. It was great, I didn't even lose any one, they all survived. Then about 15 years later I DM'd the same modules by email, unfortunately something is lost in the slow pace of email and lack of face to face gaming and it killed the adventure by the 4th mod... :(

I'm not sure how many sessions were played when I played it in the early 80's, it was scattered over time , not all at once. Once the game was going, we kind of merged with another game and its players, so we played DL off and on between the two of us. I loved the role of the mods in writing the books and taking over the roles myself, envisioning them as I played them out. The introduction of the draconians was great, something new for the time...now new races of monsters pop up faster than popcorn, back then they were rare. I also loved the feeling of being part of a world that changes by your every action, being sought out by Dragon Highlords, bringing back the old gods and their power; you started out with Goldmoon as a low level cleric without any spells because no gods were there to grant them until the group discovered the Disks of Mishakal(goddess of healing) and brought the true word of the gods back. So the entire 1st mod had no healing in it at all... then you had to enter Pax Tharkas and rescue 800 slaves from the Highlords and then lead them to safety amongst a dwarven kingdom under a huge mountain that did not trust humans or any other race for that matter and had to find an ancient hidden entrance just to get in...then hope the dwarves will respond well to the fact you sneaked in and brought 800 humans to live with them as well as an army of draconians :) All this by mod 4...I think the drama made it an awesome campaign, the intense and action packed drama that lasted to the last drop so to speak.
EaterOfTheDead
12-20-07, 04:59 PM At the risk of repeating the above post my best experience was running the DLC modules (the 2nd Ed update of the core 12 Dragonlance modules). In the last days of 2nd Edition I ran a party through all 12 in a single campaign and we had a blast. I changed enough, according to options in the modules, so that fans of the novels would still have several surprises. The Dragonlance Chronicles were some of the tightest modules I ever read, not without their flaws, but still real tight.

The party was all original characters created using the 2nd Edition Dragonlance boxed set with only the Kender pocket chart added from the 1st Ed book (I still use that chart). We had a Kender ranger, an elven fighter, a human paladin, an irda mage/cleric and a minotaur fighter. They all reached about 18th level depending on class. The climactic end had the party diving through a portal to the Abyss and battling Thakisis. Just plain awesome.

Good times all around and the modules remain some of my favorites.
Crim_Fireheart
12-21-07, 11:34 AM Hm... best campaign hands down, was a Realms-ish game that carried on for about 2 years with my friends, Jason, Jenny, Preston & Louis w/myself DMing.

Group dynamic was perfect, we were there to play, there were rule challenges from time to time but no lawyering & everyone was cool with making a ruling & figure it out later... I implemented my "combat indecision" house rule which worked out great... basically when its your turn in combat if you don't know what you're going to do you get basically a 10 count to figure it out & if not you lose your init. for the round, the reason being you paniced or pee'd yourself or whatever... lots of in jokes & silliness but everyone was just having fun & getting the game going... we were going from 1st to about 7th level when it faded out... since Gen Con 07 (I'm an IN native) I am trying to get another game going again with some of the same people... wish me a Critical Hit on getting that done?
EaterOfTheDead
12-21-07, 12:59 PM wish me a Critical Hit on getting that done?

*casts wish*

May the good Mr. Fireheart roll a natural 20.
RichardAwesome
12-21-07, 02:30 PM The best campaign for me is in a world called "Al'Ranthia". It's a world that's in planar chaos and is mostly water with millions of little islands.

We've been playing this campaign off and on for 3.5 years, if I remember correctly(taking breaks between chronicles for new DMs and such).

In a world facing an invasion of trolls, a draco-lich bent on revenge, an unholy plague, and the new threat of devils taking over, our chaotic little group hasn't helped much.

You see, the trolls are the original problem and we were supposed to find these elemental orbs that could be used to defeat them..

Well...

First we **** off a dragon(tried to steal his hoard), end up getting him killed.. but he comes back as a draco-lich now bent on destroying us and the world.

This draco-lich just so happens to have contracted an unholy plague, which we help spread amongst the goblin population, which is the lead merchant race in this world, spreading the plague around the world now. One of our teammates actually did his best to spread the plague after contracting it himself. He was a harpy, so he would do his fascination and attrack everyone to him and then touch them to transfer the plague. lol

Well... we got this crazed man with us the whole time talking about his kingdom. Eventually we make a deal with a giant to get him back to his kingdom. When we get there, it's been overrun by devils. Well, one of our team members makes a deal with the devils and goes back to Al'Ranthia to drop off a beacon for them. lol

So yeah, we're about to destroy the leader of the devils in the other world, but we'll come back to Al'Ranthia facing yet another threat.

This is the short short short short version though. As I said, 3.5 year campaign.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Chrono Nexus 12-20-07, 08:28 AM	It's been a long time since I posted here, but I thought I might check some of my old online haunts. I've been running a campaign for the last several months, and it's been great! I don't want to bore you with the details, but I have great players and the group dynamic is strong. What is the best campaign you've ever participated/dmed in? Please describe it in a nutshell (your role, the type and genre of the campaign, the number of sessions, and the timespan of the campaign from start to end), and what aspects of the games were most fun for you. I tend to stream line my campaigns for my players, but having a better idea about what keeps long campaigns alive would be good to know for the future.
Ariakus 12-20-07, 11:17 AM	My favorite, and first was Dragonlance, the original 16 modules campaign from 1st Ed. Advanced D&D. I played the whole group, all 8 characters by myself. My DM was getting me into the game and we didn't have a group, so he decided to run it with just he and I. It was great, I didn't even lose any one, they all survived. Then about 15 years later I DM'd the same modules by email, unfortunately something is lost in the slow pace of email and lack of face to face gaming and it killed the adventure by the 4th mod... :( I'm not sure how many sessions were played when I played it in the early 80's, it was scattered over time , not all at once. Once the game was going, we kind of merged with another game and its players, so we played DL off and on between the two of us. I loved the role of the mods in writing the books and taking over the roles myself, envisioning them as I played them out. The introduction of the draconians was great, something new for the time...now new races of monsters pop up faster than popcorn, back then they were rare. I also loved the feeling of being part of a world that changes by your every action, being sought out by Dragon Highlords, bringing back the old gods and their power; you started out with Goldmoon as a low level cleric without any spells because no gods were there to grant them until the group discovered the Disks of Mishakal(goddess of healing) and brought the true word of the gods back. So the entire 1st mod had no healing in it at all... then you had to enter Pax Tharkas and rescue 800 slaves from the Highlords and then lead them to safety amongst a dwarven kingdom under a huge mountain that did not trust humans or any other race for that matter and had to find an ancient hidden entrance just to get in...then hope the dwarves will respond well to the fact you sneaked in and brought 800 humans to live with them as well as an army of draconians :) All this by mod 4...I think the drama made it an awesome campaign, the intense and action packed drama that lasted to the last drop so to speak.
EaterOfTheDead 12-20-07, 04:59 PM	At the risk of repeating the above post my best experience was running the DLC modules (the 2nd Ed update of the core 12 Dragonlance modules). In the last days of 2nd Edition I ran a party through all 12 in a single campaign and we had a blast. I changed enough, according to options in the modules, so that fans of the novels would still have several surprises. The Dragonlance Chronicles were some of the tightest modules I ever read, not without their flaws, but still real tight. The party was all original characters created using the 2nd Edition Dragonlance boxed set with only the Kender pocket chart added from the 1st Ed book (I still use that chart). We had a Kender ranger, an elven fighter, a human paladin, an irda mage/cleric and a minotaur fighter. They all reached about 18th level depending on class. The climactic end had the party diving through a portal to the Abyss and battling Thakisis. Just plain awesome. Good times all around and the modules remain some of my favorites.
Crim_Fireheart 12-21-07, 11:34 AM	Hm... best campaign hands down, was a Realms-ish game that carried on for about 2 years with my friends, Jason, Jenny, Preston & Louis w/myself DMing. Group dynamic was perfect, we were there to play, there were rule challenges from time to time but no lawyering & everyone was cool with making a ruling & figure it out later... I implemented my "combat indecision" house rule which worked out great... basically when its your turn in combat if you don't know what you're going to do you get basically a 10 count to figure it out & if not you lose your init. for the round, the reason being you paniced or pee'd yourself or whatever... lots of in jokes & silliness but everyone was just having fun & getting the game going... we were going from 1st to about 7th level when it faded out... since Gen Con 07 (I'm an IN native) I am trying to get another game going again with some of the same people... wish me a Critical Hit on getting that done?
EaterOfTheDead 12-21-07, 12:59 PM	wish me a Critical Hit on getting that done? casts wish May the good Mr. Fireheart roll a natural 20.
RichardAwesome 12-21-07, 02:30 PM	The best campaign for me is in a world called "Al'Ranthia". It's a world that's in planar chaos and is mostly water with millions of little islands. We've been playing this campaign off and on for 3.5 years, if I remember correctly(taking breaks between chronicles for new DMs and such). In a world facing an invasion of trolls, a draco-lich bent on revenge, an unholy plague, and the new threat of devils taking over, our chaotic little group hasn't helped much. You see, the trolls are the original problem and we were supposed to find these elemental orbs that could be used to defeat them.. Well... First we **** off a dragon(tried to steal his hoard), end up getting him killed.. but he comes back as a draco-lich now bent on destroying us and the world. This draco-lich just so happens to have contracted an unholy plague, which we help spread amongst the goblin population, which is the lead merchant race in this world, spreading the plague around the world now. One of our teammates actually did his best to spread the plague after contracting it himself. He was a harpy, so he would do his fascination and attrack everyone to him and then touch them to transfer the plague. lol Well... we got this crazed man with us the whole time talking about his kingdom. Eventually we make a deal with a giant to get him back to his kingdom. When we get there, it's been overrun by devils. Well, one of our team members makes a deal with the devils and goes back to Al'Ranthia to drop off a beacon for them. lol So yeah, we're about to destroy the leader of the devils in the other world, but we'll come back to Al'Ranthia facing yet another threat. This is the short short short short version though. As I said, 3.5 year campaign.