Saturday, March 20, 2010

Fuck - so much for that campaign

So, I find out tonight that one of the two other GMs in our circle just started running his group through a certain module. Said module has been the main focus of my campaigns for the last two or three years (or, at least, setting things up so one or more parties were ready to take it on). Maybe half my group is the same guys as his group; I totally can't run this module, now. I have NO IDEA what to do next. I feel like quitting AD&D for another system for a few might be the right way to go - just too much of my campaign work over the last couple years now leads to something I now can't use. Fuck. This shit sucks.

-DYA

8 comments:

  1. That sucks, but we can't help until we know what the module is...then maybe someone can suggest a replacement. I'll at least give it a shot.

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  2. This may be inane, but is there a way to run the overlapping PCs as if they're experienced guides, but change the module somehow? "Hmm, it wasn;t like that before..." or to run it as a paralell-universe story or timewarp? Like use the coincedence to your advantage?

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  3. Awww, you guys are gonna force me to be all constructive about it when I was just making drunk and negative posts at 2 in the morning. LOL

    Ok, the deal is that I have two campaigns set in the Flanaess (one running KotB on the Ulek/Pomarj border - the "good" game - and one in Greyhawk City - the "evil" game). Both of'em have extensive "seeds" leading, ultimately, to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which I find out last night half of my players are now playing in. :| I don't usually let make-believe intrude on real life like this, but I can't help but feel like I've had the rug pulled out from under me. (Funny coming from Mr. Sandbox P. Playerchoice, but it was nice to have a whole campaign to run - looks like my boy's taking Against the Giants, too, so that's that out the window.)

    So anyway, in the light of day this is squarely in the back of my mind where it belongs - although the fact that I'm in a car full of skinheads going to a morning matinee show at the Middle East may have something to do with that; I feel about 16 right now. (Which is inaccurate by +/- 100%.) Going forward (which I know I'll be doing, I'll just have to do some artful misdirection away from the Hommlet area), I'll either work in some other modules or spend mor time with the sandbox prep. I dunno.

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  4. Could you just have both parties plundering the same site, and perhaps even run into each other in a big tournament / duel / running battle? So instead of a NPC potentially hostile party you have two live PC parties. Sure you'd likely have to swap some things around or treat it as a weirdspace, but no dungeon has to be set in stone and ToEE and AtG are two of the most known classic modules.

    Mind, I don't like running modules, and mainly use them as sparks or setting detail if at all.

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  5. This was one reason I always made my own adventures. My players were always buying the damn modules just as fast as they came out.

    Don't give up the ship! Unless you're sharing the world with another DM, this is YOUR ToEE. Put your own creative stamp on it. Make it more horrifying than they could possibly imagine.

    I have run this module a few times, and every time it was a new challenge. Heck, I once even threw the players back in time to when the Temple was at its height of power. Now THAT was scary! Especially for the cleric who had found an old broken holy symbol like his own under tattered old robes and bones in the present day Temple, only to be later transported back in time and he feared his doom was predestined.

    Better still, go the other route...have an evil overlord trying to ressurrect the Evil hordes once again...

    Ciao!
    Grendelwulf

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  6. Start talking to your players about this other DM. Find out when they play. Find out what he does for a living. See if you can develop a picture of his/her daily schedule. Start casing the house they play in. Look for basement and first floor windows that might be easily accessed. On one of their game nights, while they are distracted by his sub-par DMing, creep in and listen. When he takes a bathroom or snack break, waste him, and take the table for yourself.

    There can be only one!

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  7. Just like there are retro-clones of rules sets, there are retro-clones of modules. For instance, my players had already played Keep on the Borderlands, so I recently ran them through JN1 The Chaotic Caves by J.D. Neal (at BasicFantasy.org). It fits into the campaign world seamlessly, but all the details are different. And the players loved it, in the same way they love the reimagining of Batman etc.

    I suspect that there already is, or one could create, a retro-clone of TOEE. The 0onegames.com Blue Print products include a whole series of retro-clone maps of 1st Ed D&D locations, http://www.0onegames.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=12

    I would recommend you drive onward with your campaign, and just use a retro-clone of TOEE in place of the original. Good luck!

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  8. I'd take the module and run it after the following things happened:
    1: a band of adventurers got in and killed almost everything
    2: new monsters resettle the place over the decades
    3: your current group somehow gets hold of the map from group 1

    Anyway, the same thing happened to me, only the other DM bought and started running the module (RtToEE) to our shared players about 1 week after I told him I bought it to run it for all of them.

    But yeah, at least it wasn't the focus of all my campaign ;)

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