And I think that might be a record . . .

[Saph]

Well, our long-running Forgotten Realms campaign that some of you have been reading odd excerpts out of (it's the link in my signature) finally came to an end today. The party got wiped out (yet again) except for me (yet again), and we finally decided to call it and begin a new campaign at low levels.

The campaign lasted for about 15 months, playing most Saturdays, not including breaks, going from 1st-level to 12th. That's pretty long, if nowhere near record-breaking, but I'm going to put in record claims for three of the features of this game:

Longest campaign diary. I write novels for a living, and the campaign diary's been something I've done on Saturday evenings just for fun (although like always, you learn a few things too). The final word count with the last entry finished is 42,000, or about half the length of one of my books.

Most deaths survived by a single character. My elven wizard, going from level 2 to level 12, has seen 24 other character deaths while she's been in the party, and on three separate occasions has been the sole survivor of a TPK. (Just to add to the irony, this is a character whose main focus tends to be on keeping everyone else alive, who's saved every other party member at least once, and who's gotten some of them resurrected. Didn't make any difference, only prolonged the inevitable.) By the end it had gotten to the point where the other players were making jokes about having their next characters worship her as an unkillable demigod. For her part, she'd become convinced that she was under some sort of curse that brought bad luck to everybody in her vicinity except herself, like Himawari from xxxHolic. Out of over two dozen characters that travelled with her over the course of the campaign, a total of three survived, of which two were retirements.

Most unlikely character to survive all the way up to 12th-level. Niriel was almost ridiculously Good-aligned to the point where she not only wouldn't lie, but would answer just about any question absolutely honestly, no matter who was asking. She was also incredibly naive, tried to be friends with everybody, even monsters, assumed everyone she met was trustworthy until proven otherwise, and wouldn't do anything she considered evil even when given the choice between that and dying. Somehow she ended up outliving everybody else.

Any of you who can beat those, post your stories. :P

The campaign finished with four out of the six players killed by a group of bluespawn godslayers and redspawn arcaniss, the fifth away (he couldn't make the session), and my character the 'guest' of a great wyrm green dragon. The deal I got given was that I was to stay with her and keep her company until she got tired of me (in which case she'd eat me), or I insulted her (in which case she'd eat me) or enough time had passed. In exchange she'd help me with what my character was trying to achieve and teach me about dragon magic. Or I could say no, in which case she'd also eat me. The really weird thing is that it's not even the first time something like this has happened, although last time it was a family of red dragons instead. At least greens are Lawful rather than Chaotic. If you're curious, the story of the final session is here (http://dnd.meetup.com/779/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2626275&lastpage=yes#). The very beginning of the diary (though not the campign) starts with the party at 4th-level, here (http://dnd.meetup.com/779/messages/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2626275&pager.offset=0).

Can't really decide what to do with the diary now it's done. Campaign journals aren't interesting enough to turn into a book unless you're a D&D geek, know the characters in the game, or both. So maybe I'll just leave it as is for a while. If you have any suggestions, send them to me. :)

- Saph

[Azerian Kelimon]

Me can beat the third record. Made a Healer who got to level 23 from level 1, and that I managed to get there and still be useful without UMD cheese was a surprise for me. By the end, the party was begging the DM to give me a some kind of special DM fiated buff, because they felt I was penalizing myself too much. Worst thing, he agreed. Was a big blow for my morale.

[Tallis]

The diary might not work as a novel, but what about the basis of a comic book? Or a webcomic?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Saph'd have to do the classic thing and add an epilogue, though.

[Saph]

The diary might not work as a novel, but what about the basis of a comic book? Or a webcomic?

I'm not really good enough at drawing. Plus I'm not sure how funny it would be without the character interactions (the players of Iara, Callus, and Jinx are all hilarious to listen to at the table).

Might just make it into a D&D read-for-fun sort of thing. It would probably need something for an intro, though.

- Saph

[Telok]

I've had similar experiences.

Ivan, the dwarven fighter/psion (nomad) went from level 3 to level 18 over the period of a year and a half. The only character in the party who never died until the last fight. Alas he never got to realize his goal of turning the best elven restaurant on the continent into a dwarf gutter bar featuring a solid gold urinal hammered out of the holy symbols of a particular evil goddess. I can't even begin to count the number of character deaths in that campaign, ten to fifteen before resurrections and at least and two people with at least 4 resurrections each.

Zoltar! the xeph cleric of magic and travel has survived three different TPKs. Interestingly his escapes have all been of the nature of "Guys, I'm out of spells. Be careful... Oh bother, they all died. Run away!" He went from third level to seventh and is currently resting in my character file for a well deserved vacation.

[Chronicled]

I'm not really good enough at drawing. Plus I'm not sure how funny it would be without the character interactions (the players of Iara, Callus, and Jinx are all hilarious to listen to at the table).

Might just make it into a D&D read-for-fun sort of thing. It would probably need something for an intro, though.

- Saph

I'd be interested in reading it.

Shamus Young (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale) did something like that, which turned out to be a decent read (and full of good ideas to use).

[Saph]

Actually, in reference to the '1st-level is too lethal' discussion in the other thread:

There were a total of four TPKs over the campaign. One at level 2, one at level 4, one at level 11, and the final campaign-ending one at level 12. Character deaths were spread fairly evenly, with the safest period being around levels 6 to 9.

My conclusion from this: How lethal your D&D games are depends almost completely on your DM and not at all on your level. Our DM was the killer type, so games were dangerous at low levels and dangerous at high levels. Those DMs who ran safer low-level games generally ran safer high-level ones too.

- Saph

[Altair_the_Vexed]

You write for a living? Cool! I wish I did... but I can never stick at anything long enough to - oh look! shiny! [chases shiny thing]

Ahem. :smallwink:

Your comment that your word count for the diary was up to 42k words made me check my current "Story So Far" thread on my group's forum. I was surprised to find I'm up to 21k, and we've not even gone through half the levels you've mentioned!
I started this group out at 5th level, they've had a few encounters (encountered a ghost ship adrift and stolen its cargo, been pursued by the Duke's Navy, seen most of the crew imprisoned by said Navy, freed them and escaped) and they've nearly finished their first proper adventure (a thoroughly converted OD&D pre-published scenario). I'm writing it all up in a pastiche of George MacDonald-Fraser's style, which is suitably swashbuckling and dandy, and great fun to do, too.
If only their adventure wasn't so obviously derivative, I'd have a go at tidying it up and publishing.

[Shraik]

I really think tis great your making a novel. I seriously love games like this, from playing in two of them.

The first can be described as order within Chaos. The DM made it like a TV show, every week an episode, every 26 episodes a season, for 5 seasons. People dropped like fruit flies in the game. We had people come and go from time to time. There were 4 players who played from start to finish. They played the same characters the whole time with them dying about 40 times in total, at times needing to be physically put back together. We met at least one character from everything. Sephiroth to Fat Bastard to Team Rocket to The Saint of Killers. We had been broken by the end, I myself being able to cast spells so cold that cold immunity was pointless and could reach 0 Kalvin. We lost characters like Crazy.

One eaten by Fat Bastard, One became (Censored), One was possessed by Puck(Midsummer Night's Dream) and ripped apart when he decided to leave, died from alcohol explosion when the ship was hit by a fireball

People got maimed, both mentally and physically, like crazy also. Running into a wall of force at Mach 4, Watching your planet get destroyed by Necromongers(Chronicles of Riddick), con drained to three, Fecal Explosion, Character was merged with plane like ship into a Cartman/trapper keeper thing, head caved in by a stalactite causing hallucinations of Bob;God of Eggplants©, having the hulk internally damage someone with a pebble, and more.

I have to say, our DM is a nutjob, experiencing Fever Induced Hallucinations as a Child (he's gotten better). It has lead to some fun time... and some fun, but outright disturbing times(Illithid Erotica, Vestigial Twins, A dungeon based off Puns, A person being trapped for years and transmuting his feces into food).

[Ominous]

I had one character last five Call of Cthulhu sessions.

[ocato]

I had a generalist wizard last pretty long. From L1 to around L9. This was pretty good considering the DM was famous for character killing. The character did survive quite a few bad luck/exciting events.

The wizard was true neutral, and often helped the party rogue rob people in order to fund his magical research. He would the leftovers of his share to orphans. It was a character from my earlier days of D&D and my mastery of alignment wasn't exactly masterful. While robbing a rich (and dastardly) noble, the L10 captain of the guard came at us, poor low level PCs, in the DMs attempt to get us to stop robbing rich people in order to buy scrolls so I could have obscene amounts of spells in my spell books (we'd already robbed a master wizard and two county judges infamous for corruption). I blasted him in the face with color spray, he was stunned and fell down the stairs, and the DM rolled a tumble to avoid him getting hurt and rolled 1s until the corrupt jerk broke his neck.

For another example, he survived what we called "the vision." In that a Gorillion ran up and ripped him into a thousand pieces. Then the party... fighter? I forget what class he was, but he piped up and asked if he got an AoO for the monster running past him to hit the Wizard in the back of the line. So then the DM grudgingly gives out the appropriate AoOs for the whole party and the monkey-jerk is slain at my feet, his last breath used to grasp my robe (instead of murder me.)

Later, we are fighting some fire-breathing dinosaur (I recall it was not a dragon, but semi-dragon-esq) and it was schooling us pretty hardcore. The DM had ruled in the past that fire-breathing creatures could do so in an anti-magic field because their fire-breathing was organic. They had two glands in their neck with explosive liquids that turned into a flaming napalm when they were combined. So, my wizard was in the thing's mouth and we were looking down the barrel of a TPK, so I cast a fireball centered on myself. Fortunately I made the concentration check to cast a spell while being chewed (DM made up some sickeningly ridiculous number and I just Natural 20'd it) and proceeded to blow the creature's head up. When all was said and done and we did the altered math for exploding head fireball, my wizard hit exactly -10 HP. He was then given a bonus HP for an act of complete badassity, putting him at -9. The paladin laid hands on him immediately and the day was saved. Hurray!

Then, for his 9th level, I took my first level of Loremaster. The character proceeded to step on a piece of floor that gave way, and he sunk in a column of water and almost drowned. His potion of water breathing saved his life, but the spell book was ruined. So Gimpy the wizard proceeded through the rest of the session, getting pounded on, scorched, speared, and teased, until finally he cast one of his precious spells (he was trying to save them so he could make a new book). He cast daylight, which honked off some drow archer we didn't know was following us, and the jerk shot poor Wizardy in the back a couple dozen times.

No one in my group ever looked at, considered, or mentioned the Loremaster again.

[Saph]

OK. Wrote an introduction for the diary, describing the characters and a lead-in to the first entry. You can read it here (http://dnd.meetup.com/779/boards/view/viewthread?thread=3974525&lastpage=yes#).

Tell me what you think and whether you think it needs anything else to be easily accessible. Any suggestions appreciated. :)

- Saph

[Chronicled]

Read the intro and starting the diary proper.

The link to the diary section (at the bottom of the intro) is broken. You have two "http://"s in there, one of which doesn't have the colon. Easily fixed.

I'll add more comments soon enough.

[Saph]

Odd. Seems that the quote marks you need for links on this board stop links from working on the other. Fixed now. Thanks!

- Saph

[thorgrim29]

I had a dwarf fighter survive from levels 3 to 7 once.... then he got killed by a dragon or something. Another game, currently running, I play an artificer that is the sole surviving memeber of the original party, and of the one after (chaotic morons......) at level 3.....

[Chronicled]

Fun read, and good job making it feel like an actual diary. There were a few somewhat confusing parts (including a new person who seemed to be in the party during the ice demiplane dungeon but wasn't mentioned in the intro), but nothing too bad. One thing that felt odd was how often people were "killed" only to be healed up normally--I assume that was when they dropped to <0 HP?

There's numerous ideas in there that I'm writing down for later use when I'm back in the DM's chair; for instance, the goddess's kiss leaving a permanent mark.

Thanks for making it available for us! :smallsmile:

[herrhauptmann]

I had one character last five Call of Cthulhu sessions.

That's.
That's just.
Wow.:smalleek:

[Talic]

Well, our long-running Forgotten Realms campaign that some of you have been reading odd excerpts out of (it's the link in my signature) finally came to an end today. The party got wiped out (yet again) except for me (yet again), and we finally decided to call it and begin a new campaign at low levels.

The campaign lasted for about 15 months, playing most Saturdays, not including breaks, going from 1st-level to 12th. That's pretty long, if nowhere near record-breaking, but I'm going to put in record claims for three of the features of this game:

Longest campaign diary. I write novels for a living, and the campaign diary's been something I've done on Saturday evenings just for fun (although like always, you learn a few things too). The final word count with the last entry finished is 42,000, or about half the length of one of my books.

Most deaths survived by a single character. My elven wizard, going from level 2 to level 12, has seen 24 other character deaths while she's been in the party, and on three separate occasions has been the sole survivor of a TPK. (Just to add to the irony, this is a character whose main focus tends to be on keeping everyone else alive, who's saved every other party member at least once, and who's gotten some of them resurrected. Didn't make any difference, only prolonged the inevitable.) By the end it had gotten to the point where the other players were making jokes about having their next characters worship her as an unkillable demigod. For her part, she'd become convinced that she was under some sort of curse that brought bad luck to everybody in her vicinity except herself, like Himawari from xxxHolic. Out of over two dozen characters that travelled with her over the course of the campaign, a total of three survived, of which two were retirements.

Most unlikely character to survive all the way up to 12th-level. Niriel was almost ridiculously Good-aligned to the point where she not only wouldn't lie, but would answer just about any question absolutely honestly, no matter who was asking. She was also incredibly naive, tried to be friends with everybody, even monsters, assumed everyone she met was trustworthy until proven otherwise, and wouldn't do anything she considered evil even when given the choice between that and dying. Somehow she ended up outliving everybody else.

Any of you who can beat those, post your stories. :P

The campaign finished with four out of the six players killed by a group of bluespawn godslayers and redspawn arcaniss, the fifth away (he couldn't make the session), and my character the 'guest' of a great wyrm green dragon. The deal I got given was that I was to stay with her and keep her company until she got tired of me (in which case she'd eat me), or I insulted her (in which case she'd eat me) or enough time had passed. In exchange she'd help me with what my character was trying to achieve and teach me about dragon magic. Or I could say no, in which case she'd also eat me. The really weird thing is that it's not even the first time something like this has happened, although last time it was a family of red dragons instead. At least greens are Lawful rather than Chaotic. If you're curious, the story of the final session is here (http://dnd.meetup.com/779/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2626275&lastpage=yes#). The very beginning of the diary (though not the campign) starts with the party at 4th-level, here (http://dnd.meetup.com/779/messages/boards/view/viewthread?thread=2626275&pager.offset=0).

Can't really decide what to do with the diary now it's done. Campaign journals aren't interesting enough to turn into a book unless you're a D&D geek, know the characters in the game, or both. So maybe I'll just leave it as is for a while. If you have any suggestions, send them to me. :)

- Saph


One player in one of my games survived 33 other player character deaths before biting the big one.

Other than that, you've got it.

[Ominous]

That's.
That's just.
Wow.:smalleek:

Those were my thoughts exactly at the time. Looking back on it, I think the DM had to have been going easy on us or something.

[Saph]

Fun read, and good job making it feel like an actual diary. There were a few somewhat confusing parts (including a new person who seemed to be in the party during the ice demiplane dungeon but wasn't mentioned in the intro), but nothing too bad. One thing that felt odd was how often people were "killed" only to be healed up normally--I assume that was when they dropped to <0 HP?

Which character was that? I might go back and put an extra note in the intro.


There's numerous ideas in there that I'm writing down for later use when I'm back in the DM's chair; for instance, the goddess's kiss leaving a permanent mark.

Thanks for making it available for us! :smallsmile:

Glad you liked it! :)

- Saph

[Chronicled]

Which character was that? I might go back and put an extra note in the intro.

Glad you liked it! :)

- Saph

Nevermind, I just missed the line in the diary where she was introduced (Altara, the cleric who ventured into the Sphere of Annihilation).

The comments/banter from the other players were also fun(ny).

[RandomNPC]

i've got about the same record for lifespans.

a friend of mine survived from 1-14 as a dark elf druid. The starting party was:

human necro
human fighter
dark elf druid
dark elf sorc
dwarf cleric
dwarf fighter

the sorc died in the first game, the dwarf fighter left after a relationship ended, the humans left soon after. later on the other dwarf retired, leaving the druid as the only original character.

the party gained:
a human pally for 1 round of combat
1/2 elf bard/arcane archer
human rogue/assassin
1/2 orc barbarian
human warmage
gnome warlock

and a few others, i think.