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Honestly, I think about more than skill challenges! In the queue of my mind right now: convergence. I mention this and what I speak of explicitly is merging together of two or more campaigns. I’ve done this once before and it was a pretty amazing experience that people I’m in touch with from that time still talk to me about.
At the heart of the convergence campaign is the notion of a shared world for multiple campaigns. It sounds like Living Forgotten Realms at first, doesn’t it? Here’s the difference in what I’m thinking, though: LFR and other Living campaigns offer a meta-plot continuity and individual player continuity. My adventurer could travel with any number of adventurers through any number of adventures. My character has a history, the world has a story, but there’s no campaign contintuity. I can’t say “our group was doing this” necessarily. I can run RPGA in my home games and provide it there of course, but that’s not really the point of a Living world. Nothing wrong with this style of campaign, and there is a lot cool stuff you can do within that framework. If I could ever get an RPGA number (a very long, boring story) I would be pretty hardcore about participating in LFR.
But what if the model for a shared world campaign consisted of multiple campaigns in different parts of the world, that come together at scheduled times? If each campaign represents a seperate faction, these times of convergence can be times of cooperation or conflict.
Let’s build this up a little bit. Staying simple, we’ve got two kingdoms at war. One is a human kingdom, and the other is a dragonborn kingdom. The two kingdoms are in conflict over some resources. We have two campaigns, one in each kingdom. Each campaign’s central progression is set to put the players deeper and deeper into this conflict, until there is a session when both player groups encounter each other. What can happen here are that they must unite to fight against a powerful for that has been pulling the strings all along, or the dragonborns and humans must fight each other.
Either way, this blending of the campaigns represents a break from the usual campaign high points, and offers potential for mega-fights (how often is your BBEG a group of other PCs?) and intense roleplaying with the classic scenario of two groups from different worlds learning that they have more alike than they are different. The two groups of players could clash at first, but join forcees to face the lich lord or the black dragon who is attempting to reach godhood.
There’s a lot to say about this, but in the meantime, have you ever done anything like this? What did you think of it?
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A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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Since Eberron came out, all my core games have all taken place in that setting. I’ve never tried convergence as you’ve described it, but we have been able to build consistency into the world.
Every time we start a new campaign in Eberron, we keep the little details intact. Any NPCs that were fleshed out or any specific towns or villages we travelled to, remain as we the players remember them. Since we rotate the DM responsibilities it helps the new DM jump right in and use these familiar people and places. Often the NPCs talk about the previous PCs and that certainly creates good overlap between the campaigns.
In our current game, the DM has elevated his last PC, a 10th level Wizard, to Epic level. She has become a power-player in our game and we still don’t know if we can trust her. So in a way there is some convergence.
I haven’t tried that specifically, but several players have remarked that my 4e campaign could be the past of the world in which our Iron Heroes campaign is set, and the future of the world to which a friend’s proposed tri-stat campaign would lead. If we had more time and less specific ideas for our respective campaigns, I think it’s something that would be fun to do.