So I'm running this megadungeon, Fortress Eibon, in thee olde home game and Red Box Vancouver. I decided that I'll let pretty much any legitimate D&D/-ish PC run in this dungeon, so it's basically a Flailsnails game.
Which has led to the line of thought, if you're running an "open" real-life tabletop D&D game, such as what I'm attempting with Fotress Eibon, the sundry Red Box Games, Jimm Johnson's Skull Mountain, etc., AND you allow PCs from other campaigns to play in your game, does that not make the game a Flailsnails/Constantcon game?
Now that's not an especially earth-shattering thought. But follow this train of thought. So there's all these real-life tabletop D&D campaigns. BUT they are also Flailsnails games. So when Jackson from Tacoma is on a business trip to Phoenix, he can use his 7th-level Fighter in Pablo from Phoenix's game.
Or Steve has a long-running hexcrawl game and all the PCs are in the 6-8th level range. Judy is a friend of Steve's that has joined the game. She doesn't have a PC in Steve's game yet, but instead of making a 1st level PC, or an artificially leveled PC, she uses a 6th level PC from game she used to play.
Lily has a 5th level PC in Jesus' game. Lily is taking a semester of school in another country. Instead of her PC falling behind in levels in her home game while out of the country, Lily uses her 5th level PC in Flailsnails Google+ games or a game in her temporary country of residence and when she returns home her PC hasn't fallen behind in levels.
Jonah is a Constantcon addict. He is always playing new PCs. Once one of his Contantcon PCs reaches 4th level Jonah uses the PC for a real life hexcrawl game, thereby wilderness adventuring with a character not made out of tissue paper.
None of this is rocket science or a new idea. But what if using Flailsnails protocols made it easier for people to play D&D in real life games? It involves potential mangling of individuals DMs' campaign continuity, "plots," and control, but in return there's a richer pool of PCs.
But what if using Flailsnails protocols made it easier for people to play D&D in real life games? It involves potential mangling of individuals DMs' campaign continuity, "plots," and control, but in return there's a richer pool of PCs
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty much my experience of the game from when I started (Christmas-New Years 1977) although the Space Gamer had an article (GM Declare Thyself) around the same time that differentiated between open (Failsnails) and closed campaigns. The writer made it clear that closed was superior so I suspect the trend away had already started.
Still, I remember people asking "can I play my character" well into the 80s. The last time I remember it mentioned in Dragon was a Roger Moore fiction somewhere between 50 and 80.
I like this concept :)
ReplyDeletevalidation word: Wastri (!)
This is the basis that the RPGA Living Campaigns operate on, and the main reason for their overwhelming popularity. That is, when people are given the choice between playing a one-shot (usually with a pregen) or continuing to level up their well established character.. they'll take the well established character. There's no reason why it wouldn't work as long as you can manage the crossover issues.
ReplyDeleteOh, for a second there I was excited; I thought you were going to start running your dungeon over IRC or something. I'd take a piece of that.
ReplyDeleteThe 1st edition PHB talks briefly about DMs sharing characters between similar campaigns. I think it was more popular in the past and an important part of D&Ds popularity. The old school should be open to it.
It sort of makes a weird meta continuity. Everyone has spells from grayhawk and bounces between different dimensions.