CAMPAIGN RETCON: Have you done this?

[CaptainCommando]

I originally posted this on RPG.net. I think It's a good subject of discussion especially because of the events of the past year.

This particularly disturbing thread about Pokémon (don't read it if you're a fan) got me thinking about story retcons.

http://www.pokezam.com/forums/showthread.php?p=82138

In the last campaign that I ran (DnD), I retconned the story to transition from 3rd edition to 4th edition.

The PCs awake covered in a sticky, slimy substance. Their true memories begin to return. Not all of them are the same as they were.

Imagine thinking you're human all your life and suddenly waking up to find out you're a dragonborn. Same class, same ideology, but different race.

Everyone was apparently the victim of a giant fungal creature the size of new jersey. The previous adventures were all a mushroom-induced hallucination. Later the PCs realize they're still trapped in the mushroom's thrall and must fight their way to freedom.

The players were spooked when I had the townspeople start talking jibberish all of a sudden and it dawned on them that they were still being "digested" by a giant mushroom.

I was inspired by an episode of the X-Files for this.

Have any of you ever done a retcon of the campaign story?

What did you do for it?

How did the players react? What did they say or do?

[Satyr]

Actually, I would recommend it as a gamemaster and prefer it as a player just to begin with a new campaign before the whole stuff I had lived through and probably suffered to achieve was rendered completely insignificant. And, as far as retconning goes (which is already a copeout for bad writers), "it was only a dream" is probably the worst solution.

So, tie up the loose ends of your ongoing campaign, wrap it up and grant your players to go out with a great bang.
Then start a new campaign with the new system.

[CaptainCommando]

For my campaign, the way I did it actually opened up a lot of possibilities for storytelling.

The PCs had to cope not just with the escape from their current predicament, they would have to deal with the events that occurred in their absence from the real world. They would also have to deal with the consequences of their absence and escape. There would be questions to answer such as how did such a creature come to be or who else was or still is a victim of the mushroom?

Perhaps the act of destroying the mushroom (if possible) releases a recurring villain for the campaign. Perhaps it releases an important future ally for the party.

The transition retcon was far more complex in scope than "it was just a dream".

[mostlyharmful]

Don't do it. The Dallas ending is the worst form of Retcon, even worse than Chaotic Stupid Gods or completely unexplained changes. It's ok to stop a campaign, even better on a high note, but to just say 'Sorry, everything you've been doing is a big steaming pile of bad chemicals in your brain.' rankles.

[Ascension]

If I had just read the capsule description here I might say no, but reading the guy's explanation of the Pokemon series... this could work if you've got a party amenable to psychoanalysis.

[Myou]

I agree with Satyr and mostlyharmful, it's a very weak trick and it is likely to either annoy or disappoint players when they find out that all of their achievements were imaginary.

If a DM did it to me I’d be mildly surprised for a few seconds (it never really surprises anyone anymore because it’s so overused) and then just be left with a vague sense of frustration and dissatisfaction.

Using it as a plot hook the way you did wouldn’t satisfy me in the least, since anyone can rattle off a list of plot hooks without having to even think about it, and using the manner in which the PCs were kept dreaming as a plot hook does nothing to alleviate the problem.

You say the transition was more complex that "it was a dream", but actually, given your description, it looks like it wasn't. Everything that happened was a dream and was pointless, once the players awake they have new missions and enemies that have nothing to do with the dream and could just as easily have been introduced with any other plot hook.

[Jastermereel]

I tend to agree with those opposing the idea, but have a suggestion.

If you do it, don't nullify everything that happened before, but incorporate elements.

If they were all hallucinating together, then perhaps others they knew weren't just hallucination, but co-hallucinateors. The villian, a few memorable NPCs, all might be somewhere in the Jersey-Sized-Shroom (JSS) still.

While the players have woken up (or have they? (dun-dun dun!)) the general conflict might remain in some ways. They might try to find and rescue their former allies, possibly by dipping back into the hallucination (with other PCs keeping watch). They might discover that a villian they fought is actually a mental projection of the JSS and is actively seeking them out (to recapture? to recruit?).

In short, don't abandon the stories you've been telling. Re-imagine them in this new setting.

[Seatbelt]

I once retconned a small green dragon into an acid breathing lizard, because I decided Dragons didn't exist in the world. :P

[CaptainCommando]

You say the transition was more complex that "it was a dream", but actually, given your description, it looks like it wasn't. Everything that happened was a dream and was pointless, once the players awake they have new missions and enemies that have nothing to do with the dream and could just as easily have been introduced with any other plot hook.

Oh but see I mentioned how big the mushroom was and that a certain enemy might be met...

The PCs were most certainly not the only ones in the dream world created by the mushroom. They retain their memories of the dream world but so do those who were in the dream world with them. If the campaign hadn't ended prematurely due to real life issues (school, work, and parents who think DnD is a waste of time - I ran the campaign for my friend and some church youth group kids), their paths would have crossed with a recurring villain from the dream world adventures among other NPCs they encountered. The results would have been quite splendid to weave.

Their adventures in dream would be connected to future adventures in the waking world in ways the players would not have expected. Hardly pointless.

One of the big reveals would have been that those who shared the dream world also shared pieces of real memories from each other. Half of what a PC thought were his/her own memories back in the first level of dreaming were half of someone else's memories. The plot would shape based on how the PCs decide to use the remnants of the memories they'd shared with certain NPCS when they were hallucinating.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I've restarted campaigns inside a system ("You know, this RuneQuest campaign would have been much better if I'd known more about Glorantha when I ran it, and set it in Ralios instead of generic Griffin Mountain that should be Balazar but they screwed everything up and removed it from the Gloranthan context in the book I had"), between systems ("I think we're old enough to understand Rolemaster now; let's convert our MERP characters and keep playing"), and intend to restart a game in a different system (Rolemaster to Lord of the Rings).

None of these instances got (or will get) an in-character explanation, because that's cheesy and tacky. Keeping my "retcons" out-of-game/character protected the story and , or completely circumvented the issue. ("Yeah, new campaign, same characters.")

[Myou]

Oh but see I mentioned how big the mushroom was and that a certain enemy might be met...

The PCs were most certainly not the only ones in the dream world created by the mushroom. They retain their memories of the dream world but so do those who were in the dream world with them. If the campaign hadn't ended prematurely due to real life issues (school, work, and parents who think DnD is a waste of time - I ran the campaign for my friend and some church youth group kids), their paths would have crossed with a recurring villain from the dream world adventures among other NPCs they encountered. The results would have been quite splendid to weave.

Their adventures in dream would be connected to future adventures in the waking world in ways the players would not have expected. Hardly pointless.

One of the big reveals would have been that those who shared the dream world also shared pieces of real memories from each other. Half of what a PC thought were his/her own memories back in the first level of dreaming were half of someone else's memories. The plot would shape based on how the PCs decide to use the remnants of the memories they'd shared with certain NPCS when they were hallucinating.

Wow, that all just sounds really unsatisfying for players. You tell them that everything they did was pointless, and the BBEGs they had vanquished are all alive and fine, and that their backstories are not their own?

You could have easily achieved the same without the lame dream plot twist and without invalidating their achievements so far. No offence, but I think you're too concerned with telling a good story and not focusing enough on what the players would enjoy.

To be honest, I think I'd just leave a game if the DM started messing around with my character and the plot like that.

[Tiki Snakes]

In defense of the OP, as a player I would have found this quite interesting. It happened on the break between editions, so there's a natural cut-off point. In effect, it really IS a new campaign. You can't directly convert 3.5 characters to 4th edition, there ARE going to be changes.

And the major changes to the Characters are the PLAYERS design and choice. It's not like he gave out pre-gens! Right?

Now, with that in mind, getting to both continue a character AND create a new one, at the same time? Well, that's kind of cool.

Imagine the case of the previously human Fighter (or whichever it was) Who wakes up as a Dragonborn? Well, that'll take some IC time to get used to, alright. And just as he's (IC) Getting used to the fact that not everything that happened, happened quite as he remembered it (I'm assuming that at least some of the 'dream' is based on actual events in World 2.0), he meets a man who looks like him. He meets the dude whos face he has been wearing all this time.

That's not screwing a player over with a ret-con. That's basically throwing in Crazy-Awesome Shout-Outs to a previous campaign.


It may not be to everyone's taste, but if the players were happy enough to change their characters that significantly that the human switched to a Dragonborn in the first place, I can only imagine that if it'd continued, it would indeed have been great fun.

[CaptainCommando]

When I announced that I was switching to 4e, everyone wanted to play the same classes or as close as possible. The one player playing a human paladin of bahamut wanted to play as a dragonborn paladin of bahamut. The bard changed to a wizard because the bard class wasn't available at the time.

The players had the option of starting a new campaign or continue with their own characters plus the 4e changes. The players chose to continue. I created a way to incorporate the changes in a grandiose fashion, and the way I executed it was well-received.

They hadn't killed the one special bad gal/BBEG I was planning on bringing back in the story. The twist would have been that the bad gal wasn't bad before being sucked into the mushroom, and that upon returning to the real world life she left behind, the bad gal would continue her crazy evil deeds (even more insane than before). The party would recognize her MO and be the only ones that could stop the crazy gal.

The PCs' original backstories still remained valid, since everyone chose to keep their class preferences (making the new backstories similar for the most part) and because their "false memories" would come into play later. The players rolled with this and set about exploring their strange circumstances and we had fun while the campaign lasted.

The retcon was tailored to the players' wild style of play. It's not for everyone, but a good DM is supposed to be able to give the players what THEY like, right? :smallsmile:

[Myou]

As long as the PCs are happy of course. ^^

Sounds like you didn't make this a surprise - they knew about it all. So it's different to just having thme suddenly wake up.

I don't think it'd be popular in my current game, but if the PCs enjoy it then that's all that matters.