We played the last session in my Keep on the Borderlands ’83 sandbox last night. Two groups, somewhere between 20 and 30 sessions over a whole year, it’s been an amazing ride. My notes and fronts were messy as hell and I wasn’t sure how to end it, so this is how I prepared. (Yes, this is an air café receipt.)
Threats included mind flayer marketing executives and their bugbear mercenaries, a modron ‘angelic’ invasion planning a nanocalypse on the whole region, a pirate speljammer, the Bloodstone Idol, the Eye of Gruumsh and the Apocalypse Dragon. I stayed away from most of my notes and stuck to asking questions and building on answers.
And I’m glad I did. The modrons, idol and dragon never showed up and the climactic scene felt really fresh: a raid from the ship onto a Drow tower, with assorted spiders, poisoned blades and evil magicks. Also, having the Underdark as a backdrop gave the session a special, very TV show finale feel.
The heroes saved the day and the Border, freed the Keep from Mindless, Inc. and decided to open a tavern in the village nearby.
I’m looking forward to visiting this setting again, thirty years in the future, when everything is cyberpunk’d up. (Cause 2013 is when cyberpunk happens – finally an excuse to run Sixth World!)
Cool way to brainstorm your fronts! I’m encouraged by how long your group has gone on… one of my concerns about DW has been that the “basic” feel and core to level 10 mechanics make it better as a fun free form game rather than a longer epic campaign.
The mechanics definitely support long series. The player who played the most (16+ sessions) is still on his way to level 7. I wouldn’t call that an epic campaign though – in the world, the whole thing took maybe two weeks.
But I suppose it depends how you pace your sessions, Clinton Pong. I tend to let the players fail forward and we spent whole nights letting that snowball roll… =)