Creative and unusual campaign plots

[Yora]

So, you want to plan a campaign. Not just a bunch of generic rescue the princess and find the treasure quest put end on end, but a long running story of a group of characters attempting to reach a certain goal.

Idea 1: A high level mage or warlord gathers an army and wants to conquer the world, and must be stopped before he completes his magical ritual of world domination.

Idea 2: ...

I've run out of ideas.

Be it novels, video games, TV-shows, movies... Almost all of them follow this one same plot.
Lord of the Rings: Defeat Suron before all is lost.
Star Wars: Defeat the evil Empire.
Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Defeat the Dominion before everything is lost.
Record of Lodoss War: First defeat the evil Empire, then stop the Wizard from destryong the world.
Baldur's Gate: Kill the Bhaalspawn before one can finish the ritual to become an evil god.
Metal Gear Solid: Defeat the Big Bad before his doomsday device is ready.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Kill the Angels before they can destroy the world (with a twist, but anyway).

This could go on for pages. There are of course lots of other plots out there, but these are usually rather short and after 90 minutes or 300 pages the story is over and you might see the same characters again in a different story.

But are there any other long-term plots that do not end with defeating the Big Bad in an all or nothing fight?

[Psyx]

But are there any other long-term plots that do not end with defeating the Big Bad in an all or nothing fight?

Off the top of my head:

Raise the stature and power of your own noble house / organisation.
That campaign finishes with a coronation!

Stop the Big Bad End Guy turning up in the first place, because he's absolutely immortal and unkillable. (cf: Every CoC plot, ever)

Live long and fruitful adventuring lives. Retire having married the proverbial prom queen.

Explore some new continent or city. Return home with potatoes and tobacco. Become rich and influential.

Be bored and trapped immortals, trying to find a way to die. (Not that I'm listening to William Control's 'Dorian Gray' at the moment or anything...)

[dsmiles]

TES IV: Oblivion: Close the gates to Oblivion before the big bad gets loose.

[Tyndmyr]

Worry less about plot, and more about the world. Let the plot emerge from interactions, rather than being planned in advance.

[Yora]

Actually I am looking for campaign ideas mostly to make a world.
Just throwing together a lot of countries, organizations, and monsters is easy, but it seems to me that to make it all interesting and not feel like generic kitchen sink stuff, you allready have to have an idea what types of campaigns will take place in the world.

Stop the Big Bad End Guy turning up in the first place, because he's absolutely immortal and unkillable. (cf: Every CoC plot, ever)

TES IV: Oblivion: Close the gates to Oblivion before the big bad gets loose.

Isn't that basically the same? Portals opening and ancient monsters waking usually doesn't happen by itself, but rather because someone is actively trying to make it happen.

[Angelmaker]

In my current campaign, the group has an ancient artifact, which thrives upon conflict, utlimately unleashing a cataclysm on the known world, when it has gathered enough power out of those conflicts. So the ultimate goal is to stay away from battle as far as possible.

I guess, this is at least a little original, however, since it´s D&D 4E, it´s only the usual skill challenges + or - 3 encounters a day albeit with a little twist.

[Duke of URL]

But are there any other long-term plots that do not end with defeating the Big Bad in an all or nothing fight?

The main problem is, those plots are used all of the time because they work, for both storytellers and players. Saving the world is a great, epic-feeling goal, and therefore, the world must be saved from something. Having a "face" (and therefore, a statblock) of this pending apocalypse makes the challenge surmountable by providing a target to take down to stop the events from going too far.

I'm a fan of the morally ambiguous. Such as a war where both sides can be looked at as the "good guys" or the "bad guys", depending on the perspective. The players can choose to aid one side over the other, find some way to forge a peace, or eliminate both sides and take over themselves (or on behalf of a 3rd party). Or less of a war, but more with dealing with a significant number of high-powered beings, whom the players can ally with or war against as they choose, rather than having a single world-ending BBEG.

Alternatively, make the long-term story about personal growth, rather than "save the world". Admittedly, this is less "epic", but that doesn't mean any less fun to run or play. Perhaps survival itself is a goal -- the "enemy" (or more simply, the forces arrayed against them) is beyond their capability, but simply finding a way to escape the danger can be the long-term objective. Or the characters are trying to rise within an organization (or are creating their own), and must grow in personal strength while cultivating the right contacts and allies.

There's also the "science fiction" route: take a more standard campaign setting, but make one significant change to the way the world works, and deal with the logical fallout of that change. Put the characters in the situation of living through this change, and having to react to it to survive and prosper.

[Tyndmyr]

Actually I am looking for campaign ideas mostly to make a world.
Just throwing together a lot of countries, organizations, and monsters is easy, but it seems to me that to make it all interesting and not feel like generic kitchen sink stuff, you allready have to have an idea what types of campaigns will take place in the world.

Start with the people. Exceptional individuals are what make history. They need not be exceptionally good, or exceptionally evil, but they do need to have at least one secret, unusual motivation, etc. The man who just wants to make his father proud...but his father is on the wrong side of the grave. The henchman who longs to one day be a noble, and pilfers loot from the adventurers he serves.

Get lots of them together, and see how they interact.

[Zaydos]

1. A god was slain, and his dying blood washed across the plains and flooded the rivers. Now a great plague spread by the god's blood threatens the world. The PCs must find a way to counteract this plague before it destroys the world.

2. The PCs are reincarnated from an ancient demon lord and his dark essence suffuses their entire being. Slowly but surely it will drive them to madness, and to become rampant slayers who exist only to spread destruction across the world. They must find a way to stop themselves before it is too late; unfortunately when they die it will revive the demon lord.

[Xiander]

The odysey (not sure i spelled that right)

The players are very, very far from home, and in the middle of unfreindly territory. How will they find the path to safety. And what awaits them when they get home.

That´s very different and can be epiced up as much as you wish.

[Theodoxus]

my meta plot involves an artifact that was split into 20 parts and spread across the multiverse. The heroes are reassembling it so they can use it to go back in time and stop their creator (they're living constructs) from building the forge in the first place (the act of building it causes him to go mad and build constructs that will destroy the planet - think Dark Suns Rajaat only using constructs instead of humans).

So far they've managed to piss off the elemental gods, travel to the Pathfinder world and most recently Barsoom - they've currently managed to travel back to their original starting point in Forgotten Realms... always following the clarion call of the Trandium.

[hamishspence]

TV Tropes inevitably describes quite a few of these:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Plots

[Cyrion]

There's also the "science fiction" route: take a more standard campaign setting, but make one significant change to the way the world works, and deal with the logical fallout of that change. Put the characters in the situation of living through this change, and having to react to it to survive and prosper.

I use this sort of thing a lot. I had a long-running Renaissance Italy campaign based on the ideas that 1) Colombus didn't come back and 2) magic worked. I thought about the potential political and cultural implications of that, and that gave me lots of adventuring seeds- lots of "save the princess" and "foil the BBEG" little things, but also some good, unique things. My curent world-in-the-making involves dealing with mobile geography. That's going to give me a "What the #&$*#s going on?" plot to start with that can segue into a cultural shift series of plotlines.

[big teej]

I don't think I saw this mentioned, soooo

instead of followin the 'cliche' plot of 'stop the big bad conquering army/etc'

how about

LEAD a conquering army!?

thats a goal for my planeswalker barbarian.... who is slowly but surely cllawing is way to that being a level appropriate task....

[El Dorado]

I don't think I saw this mentioned, soooo

instead of followin the 'cliche' plot of 'stop the big bad conquering army/etc'

how about

LEAD a conquering army!?

thats a goal for my planeswalker barbarian.... who is slowly but surely cllawing is way to that being a level appropriate task....

I could SO get into a campaign like that.

[Zaydos]

Learn the true secrets of magic so as to create a utopia/the Tippyverse/take over the world.

Revive the god of peace to end continual war that has ravaged the world for years.

Have the PCs be some exotic new race and have them quest to discover where they came from and how.

[Psyx]

Isn't that basically the same? Portals opening and ancient monsters waking usually doesn't happen by itself, but rather because someone is actively trying to make it happen.

No. Don't confuse 'challenge' with 'combat'. The final piece of the thing to prevent the thing popping up might need to be stolen from Fort Knox, or paid for with a big pile of cash gathered from art thefts and con-jobs.

Escape is a good one as well. Look at 'The Prisoner'.

[Yora]

Escape is good for a single adventure. But once you're free, what do you do?

[Duke of URL]

Escape is good for a single adventure. But once you're free, what do you do?

"An adventure" is a fairly inexplicit measure of duration. Take a look at the SliverClawShift campaign archives -- the first campaign, and frankly a whole lot of the second, involves just staying a step or two ahead of doom, even though the larger metaplot in both eventually features some form of world-ending BBEG conflict.

[Demonix]

Actually, I had a campaign that centered on restoring the God of Death to his rightful place.

At some point at the beginning of the campaign, the god of death was defeated and shattered, with various pieces of his essence being scattered on the campaign world. These essences fused with corpses, creating "special" undead that were compelled to find each other.

There were going to be a lot of variances in these shards, some being mindlessly compelled, others that knew what they were, and everything in between.

Unfortunately, I designed the campaign in 4th ed and my players didnt like 4th ed mechanics. :( I even had a split encounter with half the players in a hallucinagenic tea ceremony while the other half try to defend them planned out...that would have been awesome.

[HunterOfJello]

Make it an evil campaign. They're more fun and encourage way more roleplaying by the players.

Once you have an evil campaign going the motives and types of adventures that players would be interested in participating in changes.

Saving a princess from a dragon becomes pointless or profitless. Stealing the princess so that the party can ransom her to the King might be a better option. Or the group my ally themselves with the dragon and work as its temporary minions in hunting down other groups of adventurers that might be after the princess.

[Traveler]

Here is my two cents.
In the campaign world, the PCs were hero's of different time periods that defeated different villians. They have been brought back all at the same time because someone has gone and done the same with the villians a little earlier.
Now, because you can't raise dead people who died of old age, the heroes lost most of their power (levels) and actually have to gain it all back while defeating their collective ancient enemies.
And then the building catches on Fire! Campaign starts there.

[shadow_archmagi]

The players are part of a caravan traveling through the vast open plains.

They stop at a merchant outpost and meet Mr. Townsend, a big man (figuratively. He's a gnome) who worked his way up from a simple shop to a huge trade network. Your caravan consists mostly of his men.

Townsend hires the players to wipe out a troublesome village of gnolls that have been raiding his caravans.

The players have the option of trying to fight the entire village, or assassinate their shaman, who uses magic to Create Water so that they don't starve to death. (The trade network is fueled by decanters of endless water)

Once the village is destroyed, they get paid and continue onward to the city of mages. There, they can do a handful of side-quests before being sent on the plot-continuer:

A mage with an interest in archaeology sends them to the Cold Mountains, where they're to bring back relics from a dead civilization. Unbeknownst to the players, the civilization was mind flayers, and one of the jars they bring back contains a mind flayer larva in stasis.
NOTE: This is as far as the game I was running actually got so I’m missing the middle portion of the campaign, but I do have the end-game here:

1. With the last of the nature-shamans destroyed, Townsend has no one to oppose his use of necromancy. He animates the entire (former) population of the plains and uses his zombie army to mass produce goods. The players bring this to light, and he is eventually stopped.
2. One peninsula is a sanctuary for monstrous races and ruled over by a Lawful Neutral lich-king who hosts world-changing events to assuage his boredom. Possible choices include:
a. Great Race
b. Great Tournament
c. World’s Largest Musical
3. The gnomes, who vanished hundreds of years ago, are revealed to live in a flying city above the elf peninsula, using their crafting ability to produce massive amounts of tribute in return for their continued safety.
4. The mind-flayer larva infests the archaeologist and becomes a mind-flayer. Although initially neutral, his need to murder sentient beings combined with the revelation that elves destroyed his civilization provide his motivation to try to get the other races to attack the elves. He also instigates a gnomish rebellion. (Which results in their freedom)

[Psyx]

Escape is good for a single adventure. But once you're free, what do you do?

It can be a lot more than one adventure. Look at 'prison break', too.

The 'prison' can be large: Like hell, for example. Or a large island. That gives scope for free-roaming adventures while in 'prison'.

Once out, then maybe staying ahead of the foes. Or going back in again with a mind to overthrowing the place. Or getting the rest of the prisoners out...

[Hat-Trick]

Along the lines of leading conquering armies, you could instead command a dungeon which is raided by heroes every so often. The plot comes down to defending your home and trying to keep dungeon politics under control.

[Zaydos]

Along the lines of leading conquering armies, you could instead command a dungeon which is raided by heroes every so often. The plot comes down to defending your home and trying to keep dungeon politics under control.

That makes me think of a webcomic I've read (dungeons and denizens).

[Jastermereel]

Even if the main plot is a little cliche, there are other ways to get your players invested.

In my campaign each of the players, to varying degrees, has a personal motivation that I plan to make use of along the way. Sure, they'll eventually deal with the Red Hand (before all is lost), but along the way Adrian the Goliath Barbarian will improve diplomatic relations for her people, Naomi the Saurian shifter will take revenge for her slain mate and rescue her kidnapped child, and so on and so forth. It took a little work trying to figure out how to weave their threads into a largely pre-imagined plot (not railroading - I'm just working from a module and trying to be flexible).

That's not to say that there aren't cliches on that scale. Revenge for a slain mentor/love/child, earning respect of mentor/parents/etc, but it puts some of the creative burden on the players to come up with something new, or not as they may choose.

Tying the characters' back-stories into the main quest can get your players to feel it is less "The DM's Story" and more "My Story".

[Cogidubnus]

TV Tropes inevitably describes quite a few of these:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Plots

You didn't...

I myself love the exploration idea.

A campaign I recently applied for has us start by going on a quest, then getting sucked through time to the future when magic has almost died out and technology rules. I guess we'll have the opportunity to choose between living in that world, trying to get home, or rebuilding from the ground up.

[hamishspence]

You didn't...

I've never gotten the "don't link to TV-Tropes" meme- sure, the site's a little addictive- but when it has the info, it makes sense to provide a link.

[Cogidubnus]

I've never gotten the "don't link to TV-Tropes" meme- sure, the site's a little addictive- but when it has the info, it makes sense to provide a link.

I know. But know I'm on Freud Was Right now. I don't know how.