PDA

View Full Version : Gamer Tales Plot of the longest game you were part of?



Tanuki Tales
2020-09-03, 09:33 PM
My games usually end up being one shots when I play, but the longest I did was Rise of the Runelords for Pathfinder 1st edition.

Mr.Sandman
2020-09-03, 09:39 PM
Stopping the rise of the God of Destruction, 3.5, good 3 years starting in 09, though part of that was half of us were away at college after the first half year and could only play once a month.

Kaptin Keen
2020-09-04, 12:44 AM
Nobles have been disappearing from all over several sectors of the galactic north-east. This, apparently, has been going on unnoticed for quite a long while. Please go investigate.

It turns out a rogue AI is picking up human DNA from prime specimens - among them nobles, and whenever possible fallen space marines. It is using this DNA to rebuild the perfect human: The God-Emperor of Mankind. It is succesful too.

So for the players it goes from a minor mystery, to a rogue AI in control of several star systems outside Imperial space, to OMG it's trying to create a pet emperor - to wait .. the God-Emperor is alive, are we supposed to kill him? Again? Does that make us as bad as Horus?

NichG
2020-09-04, 01:41 AM
Every world, every universe died in fire and darkness. And then we woke up, on an island outside of time, and had to put it all back together with the power of interplanar time travel. With the complication that the substrate of reality was basically experience points, and the great end of all things was actually in part a harvest and in part an attempt to create beings (the PCs) with the ability to breach the walls of reality and escape or unlock any sort of metaphysical barrier. Which, on the grand scale of the campaign, was a very elaborate prison break attempt by a powerful entity (more or less the deity of experience points) from the solipsistic maze of alternate realities that it (and we the PCs) had been imprisoned in all along.

Or to sum up, if you can't figure out how to break out of a cosmic prison but have ultimate power within the prison, just create some PCs and give them an open-ended levelling system and wait.

Yora
2020-09-04, 03:33 AM
We're currently 17 games into our campaign, now being very close to the ending.

It started with Against the Cult of the Reptile God and uses several parts of The Isle of Dread and Dwellers of the Forbidden City. A snake cult has been mind controlling and kidnapping people on the continent as slaves, which were taken by pirates to their main base on the Isle of Dread, where the serpentmen are excavating and rebuilding an ancient city as part of their plan for their great return and conquer the world.

Dienekes
2020-09-04, 08:11 AM
Current one is probably the longest.

Servants of a cursed god uncovered one of the Idols of Creation and the remnants of a long dead empire that protect it. The heroes defeat these servants and become embroiled in the emerging politics as this ancient empire comes to the forefront while they uncover what of their history has been true and what was lies. As they deal with lords, kings, and demigods each with their own views on how the world should be led and what the idols can do to make those goals a reality.

And petty theft.

A surprising amount of petty theft.

Lacco
2020-09-04, 08:36 AM
6 years.

The game officially lasted from 2008 to 2014. If I had to count the sessions, I'd guess something around two hundred - we used to play at least once per month, with smaller sessions being played with my roommates every two or three days. Had around dozen weekend games, where we hired a cottage in the country and played from afternoon to morning.

It all started with a single barbarian from Zhibara that entered a tavern. At that point I did not even know the system well - it was my first try. One tavern brawl later and I knew this was the correct system for this game.

It was winter. Another barbarian, from Savaxen, took a ride on the back of a coach - owned by another player's character. The coach broke down near a house that has been used as a refuge for group of bandits. One horse soup later, the group was able to fight the bandits off.

Another set of unlikely heroes - an Otamarluk woman escaping from marriage proposal in costume of man and very stoic and silent woodsman - tried to escape a city under siege, meeting the others. Together they ventured into depths below the city, found an ancient necropolis and managed to find their way through a dark underground city where shadows meant death.

On the backdrop of war between Gelure and Cyrinthmeir, they travelled from one side of the continent to the other, finding allies and enemies, managed to uncover a big conspiracy, commanded an army, fought off hired assassins and found the ancient order of warriors that opposed their greatest enemy, who was determined to use the party - consisting of a de facto king of Savaxen raiders, a noblewoman that managed to clear their family name, one of the most celebrated archers of the world, a leader of barbarian tribe from far east and several other on-and-off characters - as a threat of "greater evil" to unite the countries against them and build an empire, using ancient prophecy and dark magic.

Unfortunately, with kids, work and other grown-up stuff, the game never actually finished.

Quertus
2020-09-04, 10:20 AM
I've never really counted sessions / years. So I don't actually know which was longest.

Also, some "games" were more "series of one-shots" than having one overriding "plot".

That said, some of the longer ones that I happen to remember right this moment include…

Explore world, Diplomacy everything, slaughter goblins whenever possible, plunge world into Chaos.

Thrive in the paradise known as Ravenloft (OK, the rest of the party probably had a different PoV on this one).

Bring about the end of the world to save the world. Go big or go home.

4th wall sense is the bestest super power ever. But try to survive using it to fight the railroad campaign.

Travel the multiverse to find new monsters to summon. And maybe antics along the way.

Murderhobo some people because we were told to; maybe remember to wipe off the blood before trying to get a room.

Weaponize an entire town; destroy as many of their "national monuments" as possible to kill the invaders.

Democratus
2020-09-04, 11:14 AM
6 years.

Ran a Babylon 5 RPG campaign that lasted longer than the original series. :)

I think the final count was just shy of 200 sessions.

Our group's average campaign length is about 2-3 years.

SimonMoon6
2020-09-04, 03:45 PM
The longest games I've run were about 10 years.

The first one of these was a 1st edition D&D game. I can't say that it had a plot overall, but it had lots of silly fun stuff. First of all, I had been reading the MythAdventures novels as well as the Netherhell books by Craig Shaw Gardner, so those influenced me a lot. Brax the deveel showed up a bit early on in the plot, as the main characters (a cleric, a barbarian, and a multi-classed drow) adventured with an NPC (a gnome cleric/illusionist). (Later on a "trollop" (female troll) showed up as well.)

The first adventure (at 1st level!) they had to deal with a lich. Yeah. But he was insane and didn't make good choices. In the end, they defeated him, but he escaped.

The second adventure, they heard about a multi-headed dragon flying around. They were meant to think it was Tiamat and be scared, but I don't think they thought that much about it. The enemy was actually a chimera. After defeating the chimera, they found a magic pearl.

The third adventure involved them having to fight an army of beholders on an island. Once they arrived, I rolled a random encounter for them. It was an ogre. What was he doing here? I decided he was running away from the beholders, so when he met the PCs, he joined up with them. This was a monumental moment in this game, as he (Bob the Ogre) sort of became a follower of the drow PC, who he started to idolize.

He eventually tried to cast spells like the drow, but couldn't possibly succeed. Eventually, I had him be able to cast spells anyway, having had some minimal instruction in magic from the drow and the gnome. I'd roll a d4 to see what class spell (cleric, druid, magic-user, or illusionist), then I'd roll another die to see what level spell, and then I'd roll another die to see which spell. He could cast any spell in the book... but he could never control what he would cast. He only did this in grave emergencies, and the cleric would often be heard yelling, "No Bob!" The spell he cast most often was Astral Spell, sending himself to the astral plane, where he could do absolutely nothing useful.

Anyway, back to the beholders. The magic pearl gave protection against beholder eye-rays, so the PCs stood a chance against them. Later, the pearl turned out to be a human female druid who had been turned into a pearl. Eventually, she was turned back to normal and became a romantic interest of the cleric.

Then... so many things happened. The barbarian's player killed off his character and brought in a new character, a paladin named Arthur. I allowed him to be "Prince Arthur", with his home of Camelot being run by his father and his father's wizard, Merlin. Then, a multiverse-traveling world-destroying opponent named Shishky who I had used in several other campaigns showed up and was ready to destroy stuff, but the PCs ran him off, but not before he destroyed Camelot. Fortunately, a friendly but suspicious orc who had been hanging around had stolen most of the treasury before that happened and they got the treasury back from him.

The lich from the first adventure continued to be a recurring opponent, often off plotting somewhere. One time he just showed up for no apparent reason and bullied the PCs into giving him enough money to buy a ring of fire resistance, since fire was one of a lich's few weaknesses.

The player who had been playing a barbarian and then a paladin actually played a variety of characters. One time, he made up an elf (I forget what class) and we rolled magic items for him randomly out of the DMG. He got a ring of three wishes. He promptly used up all the wishes on his first adventure and then retired the character. Another character was a mind flayer monk (remember, there's no LA in 1st edition, so I was just winging things). Another character was a home brew "apprentice wizard" character suggested by the Netherhells books, where he could cast almost anything, but he had to roll to do so and could screw up really badly. Some things he could cast better than others, but he was just using general magic knowledge to make up spells on the spot.

As I said, there wasn't much plot overall, since like most D&D games, it was just one unrelated adventure after another.

One plot was just sort of a thematic thing. The drow's name was Elwryn Callistern. He had a familiar, a weasel (I think) named Ch'p. Well, okay, I see a DC heroes connection here. A monster/object/thing destroyed the drow civilizations in the Underdark, leaving El-Cal as the last drow alive. However, as a side effect, the rocks of the Underdark had been irradiated in some foul abominable way, creating green rocks called "Cripple Night" which could weaken any drow. Ch'p naturally got a version of a Green Lantern ring. A trollop (female troll) who had sort of been romantically involved with the cleric got a magic lasso. An NPC from a module who worshipped a bat god also hung around. You can kind of see where this was going, right?

In the end, the game just fizzled out. The drow's player moved away and the cleric was killed. The cleric was reincarnated using a different table and came back as a beholder, making him not too useful as a cleric. And so there wasn't much life left in the game at that point.

LibraryOgre
2020-09-04, 04:00 PM
It was one of two Rifts games I played in college... both took an entire school year.

The first was a Coalition game; I can't remember our initial missions, but we eventually wound up going to Germany, getting abandoned by the Coalition, then heading back to the Coalition by going east. We fought a brodkil invasion, teamed up with some Russian Warlords, and fought our way from Poland to Chi-Town. After that, we had a few games (me with a new character, the old one having died fighting Koscheii the Deathless) where we fought the Xiticix Invasion. In that one, I wound up kiting a good portion of a hive before I did an intentional crash landing in Lake Superior, counting on my power armor to keep me alive (it did. barely.)

The second involved retaking Atlantis from the Splugorth. We started with a crew made up entirely of True Atlanteans, including my shifter. My shifter eventually sold his soul to Mephisto for power, then went back on the deal, only to have Mephisto show up after we rescued the original King Arthur (a True Atlantean with rune weapons, of course), and demand that I pay him for the power I did use by killing Arthur. I refused, threw most of my magic into creating a portal for Arthur and the rest of my team to escape, then fought Mephisto to allow them time to escape. My replacement character after that was a hatchling dragon, literally hours old when they met me, which I played as having few boundaries and little in the way of sense... like a cat on a mixture of meth and catnip. I eventually was rewarded with one of the pyramids in the Splynn Dimensional Market, after we drove out Splynncrth with a massive push.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-09-04, 06:46 PM
Mine wasn't super long, just a hair over a year (not counting the time we took off because one player and another player's wife both had babies). I was DMing, D&D 5e.

There wasn't one consistent plot. I rarely have consistent plots over huge swaths of time--I do campaign arcs instead. Because I hate planning ahead. They were all connected in that the characters were the same and there weren't huge time gaps (the whole thing was about 1.5 years in-game time, with a big gap during the winter).

Part 1: Help a little town on the borders. This culminated in an expedition to some towers that had (re)appeared nearby in the lake, and the introduction of a few major NPCs. Two, mostly unrelated mini-bosses. Levels 1-5 (ish)
Part 2: Interlude. Travel back to the capital under arrest. Trial for demon worship, acquitted by divine intervention. Hunt down the human supremacists and their shadowy backers who accused them. This sets up part 4. Level 6-ish
Part 3: Expedition to the Twisted Lands. A demon prince's cult is turning an expanding area into a biohazard, mutation zone. Culminated in a ritual that involved protecting (very weakened) avatars of gods while they dropped a rock on the center of the cult, shattering their defenses so the party could go in and clear things out. Major boss fight. levels 7-9
Part 4: Freeing the Stone Throne from a generations-old, unwitting pact of demon worship and defeating the Dark Lady before she apotheosized as a demon prince. Culminated in leading an international strike force into the Dark Lady's palace through a portal network and kicking her hind end. Then sealing the breach in reality she caused with her death curse. Level 10.
-----This is the end of the canon adventures as far as the world's history was concerned-----
Part 5: Downtime. They set up a international body (off screen) and had minor solo adventures. This ended with a call to action from a pair of demons--a threat bigger than them was looming, and they had their own plots going and so needed mortals to intervene so that the angels didn't (because angels don't care about collateral damage). Creatures called Awakener were leaking in and corrupting reality. They kicked their purple butts, and in doing so learned of a bigger threat at the ancient library city, lost 200 years ago. Level 10.
Part 5: Side quest to gain power before tackling the library city. Through a portal to an underground city besieged by frost giants and hag-led barbarians and betrayed from within. Levels 11-13.
Part 6: Travel to the library city, with a mishap taking them to the Plane of Earth. Level 14.
Part 7: Gaining access to the inner city, a rhapsody in 4 parts. Each one dealing with one of the Seven Sins, powerful Awakener fragments each embodying one of the Deadly Sins. Levels 15-18
Part 8: The inner city. Making a Wish to reshape reality. This one only had limited actual combat, but they did talk one of the major antagonists into an existential crisis. Fortunately that happened in a pocket of the Abyss, so the resulting explosion didn't hit anything important. Note: that antagonist was firmly Lawful Good. But they were Chaotic Good, and didn't like the dude's idea of what is "good". Level 19
Part 9: A romp through the center of the Astral Plane, kicking the butt of a demon prince who was trying to take the universe down. Then travel out to the edge of the Crystal Shell around the universe and have a final showdown with the Awakener leaking through a breach. Level 20.

Yes, my setting is very non-traditional, especially where the planes are concerned.

None of these were planned in advance--after about the 2nd session they went off at obtuse angles to what I had planned so I just said "forget the plans" and planned only a few sessions in advance in any detail.

SimonMoon6
2020-09-05, 02:54 PM
Another (approximately) ten year long game was the following:

First, it started off as spin-off of another campaign, so I should explain that game first. The first game was my take on Marvel's "The New Universe" where there was "The White Event" that gave some people powers, but it was sort of a real world setting, so people didn't typically put on spandex and go patrolling for crime or anything. In my version, it was a "Black Event" instead (the skies went black instead of white). The hook of the game as I ran it was this: you don't know what your powers are exactly, but you can slowly try to figure them out. Like one guy had telekinesis, which could to some extent even become transmutation (by "telekineting" atoms themselves). Another guy was learning the extent of his energy manipulation powers, while a third had a more unusual power that would cause him to travel along his own genealogical timeline, especially when he was in danger.

Anyway, the PCs of that campaign eventually found out the origin of the "Black Event". Lords of Chaos (as from the works of Michael Moorcock) had come to this universe (in the form of giant flying swords) after being invited to this world accidentally by some gamers who read stuff in a book out loud that shouldn't've been read out loud. The Black Event was entirely caused by the Lords of Chaos. The PCs had to fight the swords and eventually were able to find the people who were responsible for bringing them here to this world.

Plot Twist: those people were the players themselves; in particular I was the one who had accidentally brought the Lords of Chaos here.

It turns out that there was a way to rid the world of the Lords of Chaos, but those people who had brought them here would have to go on a quest. Thus begins, the really long lasting campaign:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, yeah, this was a "self insert" game (which we called an "avatar" game back then). The PCs were the players and they had to go through five different universes, to reverse the problem. In each universe, each of the five players (well, four players and the GM) would gain a magic item and then they would all return home. So, the first was a world of Moorcock's fiction (Elric's homeworld of the Young Kingdoms). I've forgotten exactly what the other universes were, but the last world was a Call of Cthulhu world.

Well, as it happened, the PCs returned home successfully and banished the Lords of Chaos from their universe. However, because of the way things worked, the Lords of Chaos were replaced by the Cthulhu Mythos entities who were now retroactively a part of this world. Well, you know, you win some, you lose some.

But now the PCs had a taste of adventure and knew that there were other universes out there to explore. They were told that there were 23 universes (but that wasn't quite true; they were told that by someone obsessed with the number 23). And they had superpowers and magic items, so they had a number of kinds of adventures to have. They could visit the DC Universe or the Star Trek universe or the Doctor Who universe or a generic D&D world or any of the others.

The main plot for a good long while was this: the NPC that represented me (the GM) went insane (a lot of Call of Cthulhu adventures will do that to you) and with his incredible knowledge of the 23 universes, he went around collecting items of power from each of the 23 universes, while the PCs tried to stop him. Eventually, they had one big showdown that ended with the PCs entering his mind to try to sort him out.

After that, the PCs sort of settled down in the Dreamlands (part of the Call of Cthulhu setting, but the nicest part). They had tons of adventures of various kinds, centered in that location.

There were a lot of truly strange adventures too (in case the above seems too "mundane"). Like, one universe was called "The Unstable Realms" which was where almost anything could exist and anything could happen. For example, they met "the chicken"... you know, the one who crossed the road. And he became a long time ally of the group.

Another time, the universes were in need of fixing, so they had to go through adventures in a number of worlds, all while carrying a magical rope or thread or something that would bind the universes together.

There was an adventure where the game system we were using changed, which was explained by meddling from strange and unknowable Dimensional Shamblers.

At one point, they even each had the chance to create their own universe, which had mixed results. (Nobody wanted to create a world that would cause them problems later on, like with super awesome villains that were too powerful to beat... but they also wanted to create interesting places that you might want to have adventures in. So... yeah, that was a mixed bag.)

However, the main setting dissolved at one point. One of the PCs was very interested in the mechanics of how universes worked (which I called "Poly-ontology"). He grew too knowledgeable. He was then allowed to ask a mysterious multiverse-traveling NPC any question he wanted. He wanted to know more about the nature of reality. Well, he got his answer.

The nature of reality was that the entire multiverse was created for the entertainment of other, higher-dimensional beings. However, these beings would not be entertained if the inhabitants of the multiverse *knew* that they were watching. So, the entire multiverse disintegrated.

The PCs survived in some sort of non-space and eventually a new, smaller multiverse emerged, consisting of only five universes. And the nature of traveling from one universe to another changed as well. This time, there wasn't just one game system that we were using. Each universe used its own game system and translated each character into that system the best that they could. So, there was a D&D world using the D&D game system, a modern day superhero-light universe in the GURPS system, the DC universe in the DC system... and I've forgotten the rest. Changing character sheets from universe to universe was something I've never seen anybody else do and I found it to be quite an interesting experiment.

But the game didn't last much longer after that.

Kapow
2020-09-07, 02:56 PM
11 years Shadowrun...
Overarching plot? There wasn't any.

But it was the most fun campaign and group I've been in.

We started as street runners and were dealing with and on the level of oyabun and execs and the like at the end.

We started in Berlin and only left, when the anarchistic system was over, just to return some years later and reestablish anarchy - it is just perfect for runners.
Later the official (by the books) status was reestablished and our team spread out all over the world.

Lord Vukodlak
2020-09-07, 09:43 PM
So I ran this evil campaign, it was centered around helping the Garr Empire capture this weapon called the "Hex Cannon" a massive city based weapon that could blight and entire area basically magically irradiating it. If they captured the weapon they could dominate this entire continent. As they plotted to 'temporally' disable the weapon so The Empire and allied forces from City-States on the continent could attack the city it was built it.

They uncovered the weapon was designed by this gnomish wizard who went mad after building a device that let him communicate beyond the outer planes to alternate material planes. The use of the weapon aside from killing tens of thousands of people and blighting a region so nothing could live there again weakened the dimensional fabric of the universe. Over use of the weapon or if it say exploded could rip a whole in the fabric of reality.

Now the the guy they were working for the Thralherd Nupraptor he lost his wife and daughter to this weapon, and when your body is eaten away by pure malice its really hard to come back to life especially for children who tend to be to weak to endure it anyway. His intention was to simply overload destroying it and killing the PC's so they could never reveal his treachery to the Empire.

Further complicating matters was the PC's needed the help of a legendary artificer named Gizmo to safely disable the weapon without getting them all killed. Gizmo being Chaotic Good was not fooled by the PC's assurances the weapon would be dismantled and not used by The Empire to further global conquest or replicated. He did however readily believe that Nupraptor wanted to annihilate all traces of the weapon out of spite and revenge. Dooming the PC's to there fate was the fact that one of them the Lawful Neutral member of the group Covenant Sky decided the weapon was to powerful to be allowed in anyone's hands and approached Gizmo about betraying everyone else.

That campaign ran until about 14th level. Gizmo sabotaged the weapon setting its magical power source to implode. Covenant Sky and Gizmo rocketed up the elevator shaft with their academical powered jet packs. The remainder of the party found theirs had been sabotaged. However Nupraptor betrayed Sky and Gizmo and sealed the shaft above them. (had the wizard not used up his disintegrate spell Gizmo could have fixed their packs and they all could have escaped).

The device imploded and being at ground zero they were sucked into the floating island domain of Outworld/Outland which it was called was a running gag. They were surrounded by the armies of the Hash'lk'Khan the designers of the weapon.
Gizmo and Sky escaped because their jetpacks still worked while the rest of the party was captured and later became antagonists in the second campaign.

Part 2 took place 25 years later.
This campaign ran from 3rd to 21st level.
The first arc of the campaign involved freeing this island kingdom from control by the Garr Empire. The island was ruled by the Imperial Governor Janius. After the disappearance of Nupraptor a decade previously.(15 years after the last campaign) Which at the beginning seemed to be the only connection to the old campaign. Now it being the same players they all theorized about what nefarious things the old Psion had been up to. What evil plots was or did he get up too.

But as they plotted to liberate the island they found evidence of him well not being evil including adopting half a dozen orphan mentalists one of whom was a party member. But as he was captured and tortured for years by Janius his memory wasn't the best. He knew his father had adopted him and his siblings to find help but not much else. They also found evidence of the pending invasion by extra-planar beings.

In the end they discovered he'd reformed. Realized the folly of his past and was determined to make up for it by his actual intention was to rebuild the Gnomes communicate device these outerworldly invaders were a complete unknown being from outside their crystal sphere not even the gods could answer that question the only one who might was 'Braxis'

Now Braxis was an NPC powerful psionic creature in the form of a massive hydra unless who choose to appear human. He'd make an appeared in every single campaign I had ever run, he can travel between planes, dimensions and campaign settings. And he's old enough to remember when Athas was green and the Lizardfolk ruled Faerun. This is where the psion kids came in. Nupraptor adopted a kid for each psionic discipline hoping to create a kinda psionic beacon when combined with mad gnomes communication device to reach out and contact Braxis just for some intell on these future invaders. That was thwarted when Janius attacked and killed Nupraptor to secure his hold Governor over the island.

So while dealing with Janius they had to find the other siblings and complete the device just so they could contact Braxis, especially important as portals had already started appearing ESOIV:Oblivion style.

After dealing with Janius, meeting Nupraptor's ghost they saved the now grown children finished the device and were able to contact Braxis who could tell them all about the Hash'lk'Khan. Then came the arc of fighting the Hash'lk'Khan destroying their power base. Their Lich leader who was over 50,000 years old. They allied with Sky and Gizmo who'd been running a resistance movement in Outworld/Outland fought and killed their old characters now leveled up with templates like Lich or Death Knight addd on top.

Between the two campaigns it probably took about five years in RL to cover both. Now the first part had a great effect on the second. Had they royally screwed up in the finale of part one and caused the weapon to explode the invasion would have happened much sooner. Had they managed to all escape they'd have all shown up as allies later but there would have been no foot-hold on the other side. There's more but the campaign was a decade ago and I don't have all those notes anymore.