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The Scooby Gang Campaign
Mar. 31st, 2015 10:35 amI feel like I should have something particularly noteworthy to say having just completely the longest campaign I’ve run since high school (about two years, and about 60 total two-hour sessions according to my notes, which run a comparatively-short 50 pages). What started as a series of one-shots intended to be easy post-ARR mutated into a massive campaign.
The original pitch was that the characters were a Scooby Gang, who had solved a few mysteries by determining the monster was Old Man Carruthers in a rubber mask, who then discovered that the supernatural really did exist and were slowly driven insane (but also granted fabulous powers) by that knowledge. I saw it as a decent way to throw in random things from various New World of Darkness books that I’d never used, especially ones that I didn’t have enough ideas to run a full campaign out of. (So bits of Changeling and Werewolf, some things from World of Darkness: Immortals, a character built from World of Darkness: Inferno, a bunch of plots from The God-Machine Campaign and others from Intrusions: Encounters with the Abyss, etc.)
By the end, it became clear that history was being constantly rewritten by the characters’ forgotten college friend John Charles, who had been a wizard who ascended and became God. Once this revelation became clear, they stormed the gates of heaven and knocked him off his celestial throne. Because it turned out the NWoD book that I really wanted to play with was Imperial Mysteries, one of the last Mage books and the one that dealt with archmages changing history and actually visiting the Supernal. The book assumes there are something like 50 archmages (enough to do real political intrigue) and that before a true ascension there can be multiple small trips to the Supernal and back to the Fallen World. I thought, well, what if there had just been the one, given the nature of the Supernal? And what if he was a very good wizard but kind of incompetent dick of a God?
(Blame that last one on forum discussions about Left Behind, though the theme really came together when Jethrien mentioned “the difference between conquering and ruling” as a major point in Game of Thrones.)
Now to take a week or two off while I put together character creation notes for the next campaign, a D&D 4E story which promises to be shorter and will likely involve more treasure the characters can run away from.
The original pitch was that the characters were a Scooby Gang, who had solved a few mysteries by determining the monster was Old Man Carruthers in a rubber mask, who then discovered that the supernatural really did exist and were slowly driven insane (but also granted fabulous powers) by that knowledge. I saw it as a decent way to throw in random things from various New World of Darkness books that I’d never used, especially ones that I didn’t have enough ideas to run a full campaign out of. (So bits of Changeling and Werewolf, some things from World of Darkness: Immortals, a character built from World of Darkness: Inferno, a bunch of plots from The God-Machine Campaign and others from Intrusions: Encounters with the Abyss, etc.)
By the end, it became clear that history was being constantly rewritten by the characters’ forgotten college friend John Charles, who had been a wizard who ascended and became God. Once this revelation became clear, they stormed the gates of heaven and knocked him off his celestial throne. Because it turned out the NWoD book that I really wanted to play with was Imperial Mysteries, one of the last Mage books and the one that dealt with archmages changing history and actually visiting the Supernal. The book assumes there are something like 50 archmages (enough to do real political intrigue) and that before a true ascension there can be multiple small trips to the Supernal and back to the Fallen World. I thought, well, what if there had just been the one, given the nature of the Supernal? And what if he was a very good wizard but kind of incompetent dick of a God?
(Blame that last one on forum discussions about Left Behind, though the theme really came together when Jethrien mentioned “the difference between conquering and ruling” as a major point in Game of Thrones.)
Now to take a week or two off while I put together character creation notes for the next campaign, a D&D 4E story which promises to be shorter and will likely involve more treasure the characters can run away from.
