Hey everybody!
I wanted to make a gracious thanks for the help you all provided me the other day with my dilemma regarding the final fight for this story arc! It was fantastic and I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes down!
Now I have a second quandary that I could use some thoughts and advice on… Long story short… I’ve had this campaign idea for Years, and so far it is has been totally awesome watching them chase the Lich.
Now… The “Deity” the Lich worships and is searching for, is a Dimensional Beast that came from far out in space. Think Cthulhu-esc.
And he is attempting to do one of two things…
1) Take that dimensional hop to find signs of him beyond the world they are in… Think a massive futuristic space adventure. Which I think could be really awesome for the story… For it to develop in that fashion. And for something different for a little while. OR…
2) Taking a leap forward through time, which everyone knows is a big no-no. But he is a Lich and would be able to endure it far easier than any mortal. Trying to escape these heroes who have thwarted his attempts at releasing his “Master”. I have a nice chart for rolling up horrible potential outcomes… Whether it’s 10 years or 200 years in the future. Which I imagine since the caster is an NPC… They couldn’t copy or re-open the spell/portal perfectly and there was some kind of alteration…
Anyways… I think both would be awesome! The trouble is, I don’t know how my players would react. Since personally, I think just following the story as it comes would be really cool… But “leaving” the fantasy setting and their current characters could be a huge bummer or mood killer for them. And when I say “leaving their characters” I mean like going from Paladin to an Ace Space Pilot.
Which… I’ve already formulated an epic idea of Why they can do that. Rather than creating new characters for this segment or arc.
So your thoughts would again be greatly appreciated.
I just want to point out that you may want to write “-esque” not “-esc”
Yeah. You need to talk about this with your players. We aren’t the ones who will be playing in this game, so our opinions about which option seems cooler don’t matter. The opinions of your players matter. Ask them what they want to do.
I’m with Chris Stone-Bush, though if you absolutely insist on doing this behind the curtain (which, again, is not the best option for a huge out of nowhere shift like this), go with option two. “You can keep your character, bit you basically can’t play your class anymore” is not a cool thing for a GM to pull.
That first option is basically playing a different game, and that’s something you absolutely must discuss with your players before moving forward with it. Don’t be this guy: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/04/20/a-matter-of-scale
Subway Steward Protectron It was late lol
But thank you
Chris Stone-Bush
James Etheridge
Those are excellent thoughts, and I have been considering this very thought for 2 weeks now. Which is why I would give them the option of diverting to option 2 if they didn’t like it… My reason for not saying anything ahead of time would be ruining the surprise.
It would be like if G.R.R. Martin said “The Queen of Dragons is going to die in the next book, you guys cool with that???”
But at the same time, it would also be like him saying “Turns out the Queen of Dragons and all the dragons are actually aliens!! Oooooo”
Ergo my question.
But you’re right it would be question for them, I just don’t want to ruin that potential surprise.
So following this thought path (Without saying anything to them at first…
Let’s say they follow him through this portal… They defeat the Lich (in the Scifi realm), bright lights flick on, and the aliens/humanoids come out into the scene… I pause and ask… I would like if you would pursue this part of the story, despite the shift? What do you guys think? If not, we can divert to the original/alternate direction (back in fantasy).
To continue your analogy, that’s like GRR ending a book by revealing that the dragons are aliens and then polling readers on twitter to ask if it was a good twist or if he should retcon it into a dream sequence. I personally wouldn’t find that satisfying.
Also, tangential but equally important, you seem to be assuming as a foregone conclusion that the PCs won’t defeat the lich before he escapes (into this so-far unrelated sci-fi campaign you want to run), which isn’t really being a fan of the characters or playing to find out what happens. Remember your agenda and principles!
You don’t have to reveal the secrets, Anton Dominic. Just ask general questions. Say something like, “Hey everyone. I’ve been thinking about changing the setting of the game to either science fantasy or time travel. Do either of those sound interesting? Or do you want to keep the fantasy setting?”
Chris Stone-Bush
That was a fantastic idea, so I did it. And they are definitely open to the idea after this story arc ends. They really want to take down this Lich lol
Cool! I’m glad things worked out for you Anton Dominic. 😀
Chris Stone-Bush
When I first mentioned it, it must have seemed like I meant “immediately” rather than After they finished their current mission/adventure.
But it was smart advice and a good move to bring it up in that fashion without really exposing any secrets or surprises.
Though talking with a friend last night, it did spark a really amazing idea of How and Why they could hop like that from there world… And all the rest of the “spacey stuff” exist.
Something like… The “deity” or whatever it is… Was about to devour the Elven planet long ago. And through “magic” or tech, they managed to put their world out of sync with the rest of the galaxy… Thus it moved on, and for some reason their entire world changed in this fashion.
It wasn’t the immediacy I was concerned about. It was the sudden change of setting, and possibly genre, without asking your players about it first. If they signed up to play a fantasy game, it seemed rather unfair to suddenly change that on them with no warning. Especially if it meant their characters would change.