D&D : Benjamin Button Campaign

[Necrosnoop110]

Sorry if this was discussed somewhere before but it occurred to me today and I don't believe I have seen it mentioned before.


D&D - Benjamin Button Campaign : Characters start at 20th level at the start of the campaign and regress from 20th to 1st.

Admittedly, I cannot on the quick, come up with an in-game reason why this would be the case or even why one would want to do this in the first place. But I was curious, has anyone ever done something with this idea? Any thoughts about an in-game reason why this would happen? Campaign ideas for such a thing? Thoughts in general?

Cheers,
Necro

[Calen]

Interesting thought.
Reminds me of the Warcraft III Undead campaign, where the main hero lost a level every mission but compensated by getting a more powerful army.

Based on that I could see something like a warlock's patron denying power overtime, or maybe all magic is dying so arcane users losing their power over time.
With the right players this could be a fun concept but I think that most players want to be gaining power over time, not losing it.

Probably the best way to do this would be giving something to balance the power loss, maybe with more magic items?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I want to say one of the old World of Darkness games worked like this--the goal was to become more human, but doing so meant losing magical power. Promethius, I want to say? Maybe Mummy?

Edit: looks like I was thinking of Promethean: The Created

[Batcathat]

Does it have to be experienced that way in-universe or just for the players? If the latter is enough, maybe just do it by jumping around in the narrative? The players start out portraying the heroes in their final adventure, but then the perspective jumps back in time, eventually ending up with their very first adventure. I suppose it could be done in character as well, with some sort of mental time travel where the heroes go back into their younger bodies (though that might not justify being lower level, since they would still have all of their knowledge).

[Zhorn]

I had a similar thought to Batcathat.
Start at the lv20 final adventure, with the players having a lot of control over their features, boons, magic items, etc.
Then each subsequent adventure is about how they gained each of those things, jumping back a level or two, where the goal is obtaining a thing they had in the previous high level adventure but do not have for the current game.
Players lay the groundwork for their next adventure through what they have, and their RP on what they faced to get them, and the DM builds each leg of the campaign bringing those moments to life.
Each session players could introduce new elements that will exist for prior-upcoming adventures, but will be lost/removed by the end of that session as to explain their absence from previous games.

[Pex]

I like this idea for being clever and would want to play, but knowing me it's probably something I would not enjoy actually doing. It's self hypocritical.

One idea is to go with stereotype. The PCs were formerly gods who need to learn humility for whatever reasons. Their immediately loss of power was losing divine status and downgrade to 20th level. As they struggle to not die, they directly deal with the troubles their mortal worshippers have. As they're losing powers as the levels downgrade they appreciate more the plight of the common people who lack anything special except their own lives of existence. The common people who aren't even as special as the adventurers the gods used to fulfill their goals in the past, enabling the gods to understand what it's like to be those people they exploited to fulfill prophecies or stop foes and dangers.

[Anonymouswizard]

I want to say one of the old World of Darkness games worked like this--the goal was to become more human, but doing so meant losing magical power. Promethius, I want to say? Maybe Mummy?

Edit: looks like I was thinking of Promethean: The Created

nWoD, Mummy: the Curse is the one with continually reducing powers. There's also apparently a way to break your bonds of servitude in exchange for most of that power and it's generally considered Worth ItTM I really want to get it.

Of course being nWoD you can still spend XP on skills and powers even as your mystical might reduces.


For doing a reducing level game, I can also see using it for a quick and dirty representation of the effects of aging. You being as the victorious heroes having just defeated the Demon King or whatever, and then play out the next six to eight decades slowly starting to feel your age.

The final adventure is when the now level 1-3 heroes help some youngsters defend their village from goblins, possibly losing one or more of their number but finally letting go and passing the torch to new heroes.

Heck, I might use such a finale for an All for One or Paleomythic game. Flash forward enough decades for serious aging to take effect and just play out the end of the characters' lives.

[Pauly]

The players are caught in a time loop due to [insert powerful magic here].

Each time they clear a boss they advance to the next level, but this level is further back in time. The PCs then have to clear the new level based on what their level/equipment was at the time in this part of the time loop [time helix?]. Maybe give the players a level appropriate budget for buying equipment each time they drop levels.

You could have the players running through the same area, and have the area change with the time changes. The basic layout of the dungeon will remain the same, but what each room is used for, locations of traps, what rooms can be accessed etc. will vary each time they go through it.

The end of the campaign will have the players break the time loop and be ready to venture into the world as level 1 adventurers.

[animorte]

This makes me think of the beginning of God of War 2 a bit. Where you slam down into the battlefield and start running everything over for a while until you are killed, literally crawl back up from hades and start out your adventure with none of your awesome abilities. To be fair, that was more like starting out at level 10 and getting kicked to 1, then playing the long road up to 20.

[The Glyphstone]

You could frame it as a bunch of retired high level heroes telling stories of their adventures. Each adventure/story happens chronologically earlier in their careers.

"Oh yes, that was a wild time. But do you remember when we..."

[Pex]

The tricky part is when real life happens and a player needs to leave the game or a PC dies without being raised. The former is easy. That PC joined the party at the moment in the story the player had to leave. The latter case can be a retcon. The PC joined the party at that point. The PC who really died is the player's replacement character.

[Kane0]

The PCs are getting increasingly old and battered but are still forced to save the day until theyre just too spent.

[Spore]

I would also enjoy a reverse age progression worked into this, which could conversely also work as an inverse linear warrior, quadratic wizard thing.

Wizard is your easy mode for the start, fighter is the hard mode. As further as your game progresses, the harder the wizard has it, with more and more options being removed. They both become younger and younger, which is an actual upside for the fighter (as well as not loosing as much with each level decrease), so by the end of the campaign suddenly the warrior carries the group while the wizard is a teen with barely a stumble unable to throw out more than a few cantrips.

Overall however this sounds like a proper ordeal for the players.