This one goes out to all those DM's out there...

[ReluctantDragon]

Couples skate!

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*cough*

So, let's say that you are a game master of whatever respective game that you enjoy playing the most. Let's also assume that you are reaching the end of your days. Not dying or anything, but that feeling is on the horizon that gaming is losing its 'shiny' aspect for you. You know that the day will come when you shelve your last book and don't pull it back out again, save to reminisce, sell it on ebay, provide fuel for the fireplace, or for the quickest ammunition to save off the inevitable zombie invasion.

So let's say you go once more into that yawning chasm as a GM. You want to play your end all, be all of games. You want this to be an experience that is hailed amongst your circle of friends as 'THE GAME'.

For myself, this means I will be motivating the players and myself to actually playing an entire 1 through 20 campaign. I want to develop the player's characters in the game world so that the players are so heavily invested, should they actually die, then a teary eye meets mine when I tell them they failed the save.

"What," you might ask, "has this to do with me?"

Well, what would you game masters out there, new and veterans of 1st edition *enter game title here* do if you had 1 last campaign in you. What would you do if you knew it was one last blast, one last chance to have you and your friends tell an amazing story, if only amazing to yourselves? What would you guys do?

[JellyPooga]

Wow, that's a tricky one...

hmmm.....I think, perhaps, I would draw upon all the remaining Creativium remaining in my brain and come up with a story worthy of Tolkein himself and hope that my players don't squash it like a paper cup (though if these are your players, then that shouldn't be a problem). I'd write the most epic, unpredictable saga, with the baddest baddies and the goodest goodies. Love! War! An Epic tale of Betrayal set in a world gone Madde! Dwarfing the Mightiest! Greater than the Greatest! Watch as 100 Zulu virgins dance in their savage marriage...

...sorry about that, I went a bit 'Theatrical Trailer' on you there.

Having said that, Love, War and Betrayal do all make for epic level story-telling...not so much the Zulu virgins though (unless you're into that kind of thing, of course). They also fit into every RPG setting known to man.

If you want a good story that's fun to play, don't do the stereotypical thing of characters dying lots...to be honest D&D is terrible for stories for that reason. Focus more on plot than combat. Make combat dangerous, but not so much that the players will just die. Don't adjust the story to fit the 'Appropriate Challenge Rating'; if the PC's come across something they can't beat, they should run away. How many books have you read where the main characters have 3 or 4 fights every day? Now how many have you read where they have a fight once or twice a month? Go figure. Look to literature my friend...it's not only the source of inspiration, but it sets down the guidlines for what works. Just imagine that your game is in fact a three part novel (or something) and whether you would enjoy reading it.

My apologies for coming across a bit "Advice for a new-DM", but it's all I can give you really...what I consider to be a good story is probably much different to what you think.

Anyways, good-luck!

[TheDon]

I'd try and make the whole thing with all the cool ideas I've had through out the years but never got arround to doing them because either the setting wasn't right or the players were too high or too low levels

I've alwais wanted to run a time travelling game (Yes I know, it's a mess) and, much like Chrono Trigger, the events that you change in the past affect the future. It's also a good way to fit in whatever quest I want. Make the player start in a non magic present day world, have them travel to the past and save someone only to come back to the present with so many changes, like magic running rempant, causing cataclysms. Going back to the past just in time to witness the birth of magic. Stuff like that... I'd build an epic story arround the players.

But hey, that's just me.

[squidthingy]

Have you players take an old character or make a new one, and start said character at epic-level, than create a small town and put each character in a different part of it. Than make it a free-for-all complete deathmatch between the characters, last one standing wins. This can make for a very fun session, but for a whole campaign I can't you sorry

[Reinboom]

I would delve more into the psyche of the players. Get an idea as to what each person likes in epic storys that are NOT "THE GAME". Do they like lord of the rings or the hobbit more? Do they prefer the antihero, the villain, or the story where everybody finds out they are the bad guy? I would take a study of each player months before the actual game. Do they like Indiana Jones or Batman? Batman or Superman? Kefka or Sephiroth?
Next, I would find each players strengths, what is their major in life, what are they good at. Find where each of these overlap in how they generally play their characters.
Study each player, go over every detail you can remember of how they play, and try to connect it to "why do they play this way?". Perhaps their characters are generally bold and charismatic, a beacon of a party - and in normal life they are rarely honored for existing at all. The connection is obvious.

After analyzing each player, I would write in the most common overlapping aspects. Take aspects from their favored villains, but of course, don't take the entire villain. Find what they enjoy the most.

Next I would study this further, read into stories of intrigue or war, fill yourself with as much inspiration as you can. Constantly write notes while doing this. Constantly develop.

I would explore my own GMing, what aspects are normally trumped the quickest, what aspects got the best response. Next, I would try to take note of everything I would normally do (perhaps dungeons have always been the main center, diplomacy perhaps) and try to note to -not- do it as much. Make sure I am unexpected.

I would then develop the world it's in, slowly. Give it the basic parts, the basic pieces, geography, government structure, religions, etc. Only lightly detailed.
From here, I would write a series of short stories, each centered on one character from the world in any given time. Try to be different and unusual with each. A story of love, a story of power, the fallen hero, etc. With each story, build that into the campaign world somewhere.

After this is all done, I would write the first adventure, and numerous side adventures. Build many plothooks, create the starting area. Then, finally, have the game start.

[Mithhuan]

For my final game, my last hurrah as DM, I wouldn't spend months studying playing styles. I wouldn't stress out over writing the perfect plot or creating the the most dastardly of villains. I would get my players together. Have them put away their character sheets, dice and books and take out a clean sheet of paper. I would then break out my set of yellow polyhedral dice that have been all but retired and have the players take turns rolling the single d6 for their stats. Then I would break out the pink/orange, whatever color it is Basic D&D rulebook and finish creating and equipping the characters. And, we would proceed on our way to The Keep on the Borderlands. Laughing, joking and reminiscing about old adventures and how we got started playing this game. Oh, we probably wouldn't save the world from the evil menace, and we would place bets on just how long thief #7 would live. But we would have fun. Which in my opinion is more important than story lines, motivation, feats and skills.

[valadil]

I'd run all the adventures I never had the balls for. All that stuff that can derail a campaign. Time travel would be important for sure. But the trick would be to pull off all that crazy epic hootenany without losing sight of the actual characters going through it.

Another option would be an arabian nights type ordeal, where players slip into characters across several stories. Hopefully I'd find a way to tie all these stories together and let players pass back and forth between the characters they made. Also, throw in time travel. And robots.

[LotharBot]

Another option would be an arabian nights type ordeal, where players slip into characters across several stories. Hopefully I'd find a way to tie all these stories together and let players pass back and forth between the characters they made. Also, throw in time travel. And robots.

Quantum Leap would make an awesome campaign. The players keep their mental stats, but their equipment and physical stats keep changing on them. And they have to solve some random problem at each point in history, and eventually everything comes together in some epic conclusion...

[Deepblue706]

I would be prompted write so much material for the coming game, in hopes of making it perfect, that I'd probably die before it was finished. My legacy would have to be saved, and passed on, for another to complete.

My aim would be to have everything imaginable. And, then some more stuff added on top of that.

Murder, Deception, Betrayal, Romance, Comedy, Action, Furry Animals, Lasers and Popeye. And much, much more.

AH, YES! I HAVE THE INSPIRATION! I MUST GO AND MAKE MY ULTIMATE GAME NOW!

[Kioran]

I´d actually worry less about doing the coolest things ever and creting the ultimate world - I´d probably prepare two or three sessions ahead, let the story gather Momentum and write the lattes Sessions around the PCs actions (remember how the concept of Miko changed through several installments when the story gathered Momentum?).
Having a consistent, immersing world is the Ars Magna. And don´t worry about losing that cool Idea in the back of your head. If you had the feeling it wouldn´t work out......It probably wouldn´t have.

[DraPrime]

As people have said before, make it epic. But one thing must happen. All hell must break loose. I had a DM who went through a similar stage (he came out of it) and did an AMAZING Eberron campaign. In Eberron other planes of existance are either moving away, to, are very far away, or ar connecting with the material plane. When they connect weird stuff happens. There's also Dal quor which is permanantly away. People's dreams happen here. Now my DM decided that ALL the planes would connect with Eberron. Even Dal quor. Needless to say Eberron became an interplanar battlefield of amazing proportions. This is just to show you one way of making everthing in the world go wrong. Think "What's fragile in the world that I'm playing in and how can I screw it up?" And do everything that you were afraid to do earlier as a DM. Things that could have potentially ended the campaign. Things that could have caused TPKs. This is your last campaign. Take every risk posssible.

[psychoticbarber]

I'd actually start the campaign in media res.

It sounds strange, but whatever-had-gone-before, whatever the prologue and early rising action was, I'd skip it. The players would know, and the characters would know, but I'd start the campaign just as the crescendo begins.

I don't know specifically what it would like, but the entire campaign would be one fast adrenaline push to the summit. If you can imagine a piece of music with a vast, rising crescendo, that would be it.

End on a quiet chord, a soft note of victory and the feeling that Everything would be all right once more.

I like music, haha.

[Seffbasilisk]

All of the BBEG's I've made, but never used, I'd throw in.

I'd finally finish fleshing out the campaign world I've worked on creating for a long time now. Probably end with a plot to destroy it,

Start them with a few levels of NPC classes, have a massivly powerful, horribly crippled, near-death outsider arrive near then, and give them a chance to be the heros of legend and retrain them.

Start them vs kobolds, goblin sappers, hobgoblin regiments...

eventually vs Evil Bard BBEG (Sebastion), children horribly warped by thier parents, and intense moral dilemmas.

[Diggorian]

Hmm ...

Epic apocalyptic theme, like the world is about to shift into a lower plane with fiends pouring through gates and the disillusioned gods above willing to take the loss.

Design the best campaign starting adventure I ever have. Run it, secretly record the session, then use the ideas and input from the players reactions to plan for the next game. Game two I do the same. Keeping doing this expounding on every detail until the plot snowballs to huge proportions.

End it with a successful TPK that elevates the PC's to god level posthumously as the first pantheon of a newly redeemed world. End it with a scene of an old man telling children a legendary version of how the heroes met at level 1.

Fin

[ocato]

Hmm ...

Epic apocalyptic theme, like the world is about to shift into a lower plane with fiends pouring through gates and the disillusioned gods above willing to take the loss.

Design the best campaign starting adventure I ever have. Run it, secretly record the session, then use the ideas and input from the players reactions to plan for the next game. Game two I do the same. Keeping doing this expounding on every detail until the plot snowballs to huge proportions.

End it with a successful TPK that elevates the PC's to god level posthumously as the first pantheon of a newly redeemed world. End it with a scene of an old man telling children a legendary version of how the heroes met at level 1.


Fin

Nice. These are all great ideas. I'd kill to get into a good game like these. I've had mediocre luck and don't currently have a group. Le sigh.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I would deffinetly run an epic apocalypse game. They think they'll be able to stop it from happening, but in the end they just wink out of existane like the rest of them.

Actually, no. When the apocalypse happens they'll see the battle between the upper and lower planes, probably join in on it and when it's about to wind itself up and end they go out in an epic blaze in a way that utterly destroys all that is, was or ever will be.

[Diggorian]

Nice. These are all great ideas. I'd kill to get into a good game like these. I've had mediocre luck and don't currently have a group. Le sigh.

Sadly I'm just coming off a DM hiatus, so recharged an no where near retiring. I'll be running in the old folks home if possible. :smallbiggrin:

Fortunately, you'll just have to move to Michigan and you can join mine. You're in the neighborhood already.:smallamused:

[Whiplord]

Well, I nearly teared up just reading the first post. Then I realized I was listening to "When We Were Younger and Better" by 65daysofstatic. Oh, well that explains it. How oddly appropriate.

Anyways, I like the idea of running a huge 1-20 campaign. I would want it to the most epic world possible, not only in size, but also in making the players feel like they're there. If this means investing hours in making elaborate sets and props, so be it.

[JMalone]

I'd run the comedic horror game I always wanted to do in D&D. A demented campaign that'd be ripping off Lovecraft, giggling all the way as it did so. It'd be like a Disney adventure movie with slavering otherworldly creatures lurking beyond perception, possibly with a musical number halfway through session 5, and a whole lot of sarcasm and dry humor.

Either that, or a campaign based on Ultima. That'd be pretty snazzy. The players race to find the Codex, become the avatar, etc., while trying to stop the machinations of Blackthorn and all of those lovely chaps. Instead of the standard "Kill the Foozle/burn the thingamajig" game, they'd be doing their best to follow the virtues and act like heroes should.

[Toliudar]

I'd definitely go for sentiment. Any favoured NPC's from previous campaigns find their way into this one in cameos. The PC's have to create a shared background to start, so that they START not only invested in their own characters, but everyone else's. The BBEG is especially E, even if not particularly big. Maybe the world's not at stake, but something beloved - a refuge, a work of art, a relative - definitely is. Sentiment will carry you through the moments when wit, greed and silliness sometimes fail during a 20-level epic.

All the best to you!

[Ar-Sakal]

Pretty tough thing to do, the last campaign. I can tell you that even though I still ocassionaly organize a game every 5 months or so, I don't have the drive or commitment of a couple of years ago to play. Back then, feeling the same as you do, I made what I called my masterpiece campaign, which everybody enjoyed.

Choose a campaign setting that you like, and the kind of campaign you know you want to see to the end. If you are a big Tolkien fan, get into a campaign in Beleriand nearly the end of the First Age or the War of the Ring. If you like SW, make something that changes the entire Galaxy. If you are a dungeon crawler, make a dungeon that has like 500 rooms. The more you enjoy the campaign setting, the more likely is that you will research your stuff and be more precise in describing things, locations and places. (In my case, I chose a SW campaign right after the "Heir of the Empire" books concentrated on the Dark Side of the Force - no Vuuzhan Yong though).

DON'T forget your players. If you like LG campaigns, but play with a group of players that behave in a chaotic or evil way, you will make them miserable and more likely to break your story. Adapt into something that you know will fit their style.

Now, choose if you want your players to start new chars or use the same the currently have. I would recommend that if you start new chars, make sure you subtly force the team to know each other and act as a group instead of individual players. Your life will be much easier. Don't be afraid to create the characters yourself to make sure they are balanced and suitable to the adventure, just remember when you asign them that a guy who loves magic will hate a barbarian.

I also agree that you should keep fights to a minimum in your master campaign, since they can bog down the story. Think of all the stuff that happens in a movie, particularly chases. In my experience, a great chase with a nice description and suitable music (and by suitable, I mean rock or alternative) gets playes into the action much more than a fight. And when there is a fight, it will usually be with important villains or enemies, giving an extra reason to sit down for an hour or so to solve the fight. DUMP random encounters. They are a waste of time if people are not really interested in gaining experience or treasure.

Remember that a story always has two sides, the side that everybody sees and the side hidden by the storyteller. When the hidden side is revealed, you get a "plot twist". Do your stuff and create BOTH stories thoroughly, thinking of the way that the hidden side will remain as such. Oh, but be also ready to improvise some parts. I have found very fun moments when I have just outlined key events and then let the story play itself by adapting into whatever the players are doing.

Finally, chose a villian that represents all that the players dislike. If it means pulling the recurring villain from one story and adapting him into you new campaign or resurrecting an old enemy, who cares? What matters is giving the players the motivation to stick around and bring down the punk.

Anyway, this is the recipe for my last major campaign before my current semiretirement. I got players heavily involved with chars I made which complied with their playing style and my purposes, heaviily relied on many images, videos and similar to make descriptions richer in a setting everybody enjoyed and with a campaign suitable to playing style, dumped traditional Conan battle music and just used metal, electronic, rock and alternative as I found suitable. Oh, and I used a villain they hated from another campaign and got him involved right away. The players enjoyed the adventure thoroughly!!!!

[Overlard]

I'd create two BBEGs. One would be the "destroy the world" kind, starting off at near-epic level at the start of the campaign. The heroes would have to thwart his plans any way they could, but avoid meeting him directly as he'd squash them with barely a second thought. As they grow in power, their effects on him grow larger, and they can take on larger missions to hamper his efforts. Make the sense of foreboding grow as the campaign continues - they're racing the end of the world and only have a second's head start. This isn't the kind of game where PCs get to rest for a few weeks to craft weapons & magic items, the situation is getting more dire by the day.

The other BBEG would be a rival and his associates. Knowing the PCs since the first level, and due to a slight of some kind, or any other source of hatred, constantly returns to cause them trouble at every turn. They might be a couple of levels above the PCs, but always (temporarily) beatable should a straight-up fight begin. Play them smart, have them hire cohorts & assassins, set traps and plot against the PCs. Have them be the personal villain rather than the epic one. The PCs should ideally hate him more than the main BBEG. He murders their loved ones, steals much-needed items from under their noses and is generally the ultimate annoyance.

After the PCs have finally defeated the main BBEG, are weakened and have their guards down, strike with the second BBEG. Don't make it impossible for them, but have them on the back foot. They may have saved the world, but they still have to battle for their lives.

[RandomNPC]

i think i may be on my last game. if nothing else, i am giving it my all. I can't sit down and prepare game ahead of time because i already know what's going on and i feel silly repeating it on paper. I make characters for them to meet and whatnot in detail close to the time they meet them, but the core story is all in my noggin.

we started this game years ago and everyone still loves it. The villans that are annoying, the times characters get shortchanged, or become tottally invalid in a fight, or even when they have nothing go right an entire game session, they are still so into the game that they don't get annoyed with me. they have cursed the Lich for having windwall and dismissal ready to go, laughed at the pink bunny slippers of spider climb, and earned a group invitation to retire in the flying citadel, home of the largest flight of good dragons.

i think we have about a year and a half left in the game, gaming a few hours every other week. we do an occasional all day thing but someone always shows up four hours late and it just turns into a normal sized extra game day.

[Matthew]

As DeepBlue and company say, very difficult thing to give advice for. I think Diggorian has the best approach, though, make it really earth shatteringly epic (without epic levels). Demons and world threatening forces that change the face of the campaign world, and the Player Characters must sacrifice everything to stop complete destruction. They'd best be Good or Non Evil Aligned...

[Corolinth]

I'd probably start plotting and scheming, and suddenly my desire to run games would surge and it wouldn't be my last hurrah.

[Daze]

How about letting your players assume the roles of the various Monsters in the MM and have them beat YOUR party of "PC's".. switch the tables for once?

either that or Dragons take over the earth in brutal fashion.... *shrug*

[sleeping fishy]

some stuff

umm, unrelated to anything but i just wanted to say i love ur avatar!! its cute.

[SoulCatcher78]

One of the things that keeps us playing is we are still looking for the "rush" we got the first ime we played D&D. It's not about stats/feats/items, it's about feeling that there's about to be a discovery around every corner. I am reminded of the words "Every paycheck a fortune, every formation a parade!" because every game should be treated as your last. I know that eventually we burn out, I did quite a while ago. I switched game systems (went to white wolf and their collection of bookshelf destroying tomes) and then just took a few years away from gaming while I was concentrating on other things. Then out of nowhere I get torpedoed (sp?) by this little web comic called Order of the Stick and I get sucked back into D&D. Luckily I have an outlet (with these fine forums for PbP games) that I can adjust around my schedule or all those ideas that have been percolating in the back of my head for the last 6ish years or so would be going to waste.

Every campaign is your last one so you'd better get back to giving it everything you've got (or can reasonably beg/borrow/steal).

[Knight_Of_Twilight]

I'd have a group of 4, and each would have to make an epic version of a favorite character from a past campaign, from any edition.

The campaign would start with a skirmish- either a town being raided by some force, or maybe even a fight between the pcs is they are that different. In the process, they'd come across a rip in reality.

This tear would be one of many. Forces of Pure Chaos would come pouring through, ready to rend the world, the universe to shreds to make a monument to chaos.

The players, united by a goal, would have to help the gods, angels, devils, demons, each under assualt by these creatures, gaining their help. In the end, they'd have to mount an attack on the enemy, a living being of entropy.

Hey, so I'm melo-dramatic. Sue me. :P

[PnP Fan]

I would probably think epic, but start small. I'd give the Players some kind of premise/theme, so they can build character that can work together, and that make sense hanging out together. Make sure everyone knows what kind of mood you are going for. Nothing is worse than running a horror game when one of your PC's is a lycanthropic bunny rabbit halfling. It'll just kill the mood, doc. Once you have the cooperation of your PC's, and they've created sufficiently detailed character histories, build your story around the PC's and their lives/backgrounds. Once the story has them woven into it, your adventure hooks can fall into place, and, voila you'll have a campaign that your players are invested in emotionally, and that will spark memories for years to come. You'll be a legend. ;-)
A couple of problems with this style of running:
1. It becomes increasingly difficult to kill PC's without completely derailing your plot, because the plot is so heavily driven by the PC's, so you may want to consider how this will affect your gaming style.
2. You may or may not want to tell your players that you're running your last campaign. For starters, they'll try and convince you otherwise. Also, if they know it's your last, they may not put their all into it (conversely, they may put extra energy into it, depending on they type of folks you game with). Just give it some thought before you tell them.

As far as storylines, anything epic, world ending, kind of thing. I thing something that permanently changes the face of the setting you use would be best. Perhaps the return of Netheril in FR, or perhaps a true understanding of the Mournland in Eberron. Or another Last War even. Someone mentioned sentiment, that is also a good place to go, especially if you have a long history with this group, or if you expect to not see them as much in the future. But don't over do it. If you just trot out old npcs, it loses it's impact and becomes gimmicky.

Good luck! Sorry to hear your leaving behind your screen,:smallfrown: but I'm sure it's for something better.:smallbiggrin:

[Dan_Hemmens]

Well, what would you game masters out there, new and veterans of 1st edition *enter game title here* do if you had 1 last campaign in you. What would you do if you knew it was one last blast, one last chance to have you and your friends tell an amazing story, if only amazing to yourselves? What would you guys do?

I'd sit down and ask myself what about gaming I was bored with, and I'd think about whether I could play games differently, to do away with the stuff I didn't like.

I know that's not really what you were after, but I seriously think that trying to have a "last hoorah" when you're already sick of D&D is a bad idea. I think it's far better to try and rekindle your enthusiasm, then try to get a final great work out of the little inspiration that remains to you.

[Matthew]

That's a good point, Dan. It might indeed be best just to quit while you're ahead and have some 'apart time'. A lot of people come back feeling a new enthusiasm for RPGs.

[Keiichi]

See, my issue would be that I would start DMing this epic session... and then I'd realize how epic and awesome, it was and how much cooler this all was to my day job, and it would quickly become, not my last session.

But, when in that mindset I would take a a week off work, and start writing an adventure, in the world I've build that my players know and love. I would write the tale to be action packed, and fast paced, my players would feel like their characters because I'd count in my head when they had 6 seconds to act. My characters would be terrified of crushing ceiling traps and feel like the king of the world when the 1 hit point left charged in criting the monster that was about to TPK the party. The players would show up two hours early for the rush of my last stand, they would shed tears when their characters died and celebrate when they make it out alive, basically I will run my ideal season where my players are so involved they forget the numbers and play the characters