This article does not contain adventure ideas or tricks about how to run high level campaigns.
This article is about viewing high level campaign under a different point of view.
You may want to download the free pdf Wrath of the Immortals to discover more about old school concepts of high level campaign.
Running high level campaigns is not easy because with characters growing in power becomes harder to present challenges and build plots that are not a cliché.
Let’s name some of these cliché.
1) SAVING THE WORLD
I think every Game Master has game-mastered this kind of campaign, or played in one.
It’s perfectly normal. “Saving the world” is the easiest goal we can present to out players and allows the Game Master to create a decent linear adventure with some sidequests.
A “saving the world” campaign usually sees a “crescendo” in the challenges the characters have to face. The sense of urgency, omens and prophecies that become true, and so on…
Until the final battle comes and the party face the true evil.
The characters have struggled and fought a battle against time, day by day, week by week.
The big bad villain is there, waiting for them.
If you are playing such kind of campaigns – or epic campaigns – then you are doing nothing bad.
However you are doing nothing great…
Indeed building this kind of campaigns is quite easy, however running them is risk and not so easy as you may think.
The first problem you may face is having the players involved on the middle and long term.
At the beginning of the campaign I don’t think you will have problems.
However, with the campaign entering the middle term, some players may loose interest and their goal may differ from your goals. In other words players decide they don’t give a shit about saving the world. They may even side with the villain instead of fighting him.
Indeed, when you tell the players that the world has to be save you are also telling them that if they don’t take action then they will die or worst.
It’s a big railroad with some sugar on it to sweeten the pill.
That’s why tales about “saving the world” works well in books, but not so well in Rpg campaigns.
Tales like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Chronicles of Narnia and so on, are all about saving the world.
Each one of the above mentioned tales have a villain (a very powerful one indeed) with plenty of resources, followers and much more stuff.
So, if the narrative style of these tales is good, then the book is good.
In Rpg, things are a bit different.
If you are new to the game and new to game-mastering then it’s fine to play such campaigns, and no one has the right to blame you!
Because you are learning the tricks of trade.
If you are an indentured Game Master, then you have no excuses.
2) ASCENDING TO IMMORTALITY
This kind of high level campaign is quite common and funny to play.
By ascending to immortality, the character basically becomes a god.
You have to know that the concept of character’s ascension to immortality was fully employed and developed in Mystara campaign setting.
Indeed, in Mystara, gods as we usually know them did not exist. Every god was was once a mortal who achieved immortality in one of the available sphere of influence.
About this topic, a module titled “Wrath of the Immortals was published.
Now, let’s come back to our topic.
This kind of campaign presents many challenges, and many interesting opportunities to develop a good story.
You can build a campaign where the characters don’t have to be necessarily the good guys.
However the true challenge is how to build the steps/trials that leads a character to become an immortal.
Building the trials it’s the true challenge for the game master.
The worst thing a game master can do in such kind of campaign is to have the character challenging a god in a mortal duel.
This solution really sucks!
First an immortal being can’t be caught by surprise, because it is all-knowing.
In the very moment a character decided that he/she will challenge one day a god, then the god in question will be aware since the beginning. The plan will fail.
Spoiler// You may debate that in Baldur’s Gate saga the protagonist the protagonist actually became a god at the end of the campaign.
Sure! But the protagonist was actually one of the sons of Bhaal and was competing against his brothers to take the place of his father.
In such a situation all the gods in the pantheon of Faerun knew and agreed that the throne of Bhaal had not to remain empty, and didn’t intervene //End of spoiler
In Golarion Campaign setting, which is Pathfinder official campaign setting, you have a tower located in Absalom where people may attempt the trial that can turn them into immortal beings.
And yet, provided you are successful and survive, the books are not very specific about what the trial (or the trials) is exactly. It’s up to the Game Master to define this detail.
And yet, you don’t take the place of an existing god, you ascend to immortality and a sphere of influence is “assigned” to you according to your affinities, nature or goals you had in your life as a mortal.
So, if you want to run an “Ascending to immortality” campaign you need to clearly define how that is going to happen.
Some tips to think about
A) The character is predestined. The chose one in other words! his/her fate is to become an immortal and the gods know and wish that guy to be one of them. Provided the character doesn’t die trying of course.
B) One of the gods in your Pantheon has been demoted because its followers are few and thus its powers are fading away. The god is becoming a dead god, or a sleeping god if you prefer. Its throne is vacant and prophet starts appearing and roaming the lands, preaching about the coming of new Messiah…while the truth is that the other gods now have to move their asses in order to find a substitute of the dying god.
Remember, power doesn’t allow vacant seats.
C) This one represents an interesting scenario to delve into. Your world is godless.
There are no gods at all and thus no clerics. Druids exist of course, because they control the elemental forces of nature – air, earth, fire and water – but their powers are limited. In such a scenario the seats of your Pantheon are empties, so they can be filled with gods, and your players may make the attempt.
Now, tip A) and B) have a problem if you are playing with many players, because you can’t have all of them walking the path that leads to immortality…the pantheon would become a crowded place and that would be ridiculous, unless you are picking tip C) of course.
So, a campaign where a character ascends to immortality may work with few players, three or four.
However we have not answered the fateful question…
How a character becomes an Immortal
We need to watch at history, our history, I mean the history of human-kind and see if it has something interesting to offer.
Let’s see some historical, religious and mythological figures that supposedly ascended to immortality.
Come and see!
Hercules
Everyone knows Hercules (or Heracle), the demigod son of Jupiter the womanizer.
Now, Hercules had a big advantage that characters usually don’t have.
He was a demigod since the beginning of his career.
The twelve trials of Hercules had the goal to redeem the son’s of Jupiter of his sins – he slaughtered his wife and sons because Hera drove him temporarily insane.
We can look at his trials (or labors) as a benchmark to create quests for our player willing to become immortals.
Trial type: defeat legendary creatures single-handed
Jesus Christ
This immortal figure is known all over the world. So, without being offensive, we’ll try to analyze what turned Jesus Christ into a god, let alone the Holy Trinity and all other stuff.
Jesus did two things that made him immortal.
The first, he founded a religion by predicating all over the middle east.
He gathered followers in the number of thousands, until the echo of his precepts survived after his death and eventually overcame the barriers of time until the whole Roman Empire converted to Christianity first, and Catholicism then.
The second trials was sacrifice. Jesus Christ eventually employed his death to redeem all human kind.
Three days after his death he “resurrected” only to ascend to heaven as an immortal.
Trial type: found a religion, sacrifice.
Roman Emperors
Well, not all the emperors of course, only a few deserve to be considered as immortals (according to Romans beliefs).
Indeed, Romans believed that obtaining glory through victory on the battlefield could lead to immortality. One of the first square the Romans built was Mars’s Field and Mars (or Ares in Greek) was the roman’s god of war.
That’s why some roman’s emperors received the title of “Divine”, especially after having accomplished military conquests that no one could.
You had to earn this title of course, it was not for free.
Basically, all those generals and emperors that extended roman’s territories and brought prosperity and glory to Rome, were considered “Divine”, and the pursue of this goal was what turned Rome into a thousand-years empire. Indeed, all of us are Romans, in our habits, our traditions, and our politic. Republic and Senate. The Roman Empire legacy is still alive, more than ever.
Trial type: build an empire.
Buddha
We all know about Buddha. He can be considered the strongest philosophical and religious figure in Asian countries.
Buddha was a prince, a rich one indeed, who spent a lot of time enjoying life and doing nothing but appeasing his senses.
One day he decided it was time for a change. He started a new life, a life of meditation and contemplation. People believed in him, followed him, and ta-ta, Buddhism became a religion.
One day Buddha disappeared, possibly ascended to immortality or, who knows, he reincarnated in someone else just for fun.
Trial type: found a religion
Gandhi
Gandhi is quite famous. He is the man who inspired India’s nationalism and a whole nation to fight for their independence against the British Empire.
He did it against any odd, because at those time the India’s technological, military and economic gap, compared to Britain, was wide.
Eventually India managed to get free from Britain’s joke and in some way Indians realized that India could become a true nation. They found their “soul”, and Gandhi started all this.
Now, Gandhism itself is not a religion, it’s more a way of doing things if you pass me the term. I think that under different circumstances and with a different global background he could easily have outperformed Buddha.
Trial type: inspire a nation.
The Pharaohs of Egypt
When we talk about Pharaohs, we are talking about Pyramids. Both subjects walk together.
Pharaohs goal in life was to build their own tomb for their afterlife. Their tombs had to be outstanding buildings, capable of standing the test of time…and it seems they did it, didn’t they?
However, in Egyptian beliefs, a Pyramid was much more than a tomb, it was the gate to heaven and thus to immortality.
Trial type: build a wonder.
We could investigate many more figures, but the above mentioned are enough for now. Do your research if necessary.
Summarizing…
We have seen a few figures that can claim to have attained immortality, each one did this by completing trials that a common man would consider impossibles.
a) Defeat Legendary creatures single-handed
b) Found a religion
c) Sacrifice for a greater cause
d) Build an Empire
e) Inspire a nation
f) Build a Wonder
All these trials have something in common.
None of them is a last minute decision. None of them!
So, a player can’t wake up a morning, once his/her character is about to reach level 20, and declare that it’s time to become an immortal.
Nope! It doesn’t work this way.
Path to immortality is – try to guess? – a Path!
A Path that starts since character creation, something the player has to plan.
Every step the character takes must be coherent with this path, or the quest will fail.
I repeat, this kind of campaign can be amazing, but it requires planning and collaboration between the Game Master, the players and the player that is going for immortality.
Oh, I almost forget a detail!
Once the character attains immortality you retire it from the game. It’s over.
I mean, you don’t play D&D as a God! What’s wrong with you!
3) KINGMAKER
Yes, you are guessing right. As the title suggests the characters are now powerful enough, indeed, they are teenager no more, they are adults and wiser.
A kingmaker campaign assumes that the characters have accumulated wealth, power and reputation to claim lands and territories for their own, including the people living on these lands of course.
Has any D&D rule-set ever tried to implement this kind of game style?
Well, the answer is yes.
The rule-set was D&D 1ed., and the book that contained this information was the Rules Cyclopedia. It included all the tools required to play this kind of game.
Basic rules indeed, but it was better than nothing and you could homebrew your stuff.
D&D 1ed introduced what was known as “Title Level”.
Every class (or race) had its own title level.
It was basically a level where a character attained the required reputation to become a Baron, a Count, a Duke or whatever.
This usually occurred once you reached 9th level (keep in mind that D&D 1ed maximum level was 36).
At 9th level you had the right to ask a King if he granted you some land to grow your barony, you duchy or county.
In return you had to swear loyalty to the crown, to clean and keep safe the land from wondering monster and bothering villains, and to pay some taxes to the king.
Few and simple rules explained how to manage population growth, income and other stuff. It was cool, but simple. Needless to say that all those old school players that played this game style implemented infinite home rules to improve the system…many of them probably ended up playing something else, but that is another story.
However, important detail, the same rules explained that while running your barony you could go on with your life as an adventurer and do all the cool things the adventurer do.
While away from your castle – provided you had one – someone was managing your treasury and keeping the situation under control.
And considering that in D&D 1ed you earned experience even from the gold your earned, the income you got from your dominion turned automatically into juicy experience points.
Now, this was D&D 1ed.
This game style wanted to add something, not to substitute it.
Rules Cyclopedia was telling you that adventures was not the only source of fun, and that once you become a public figure you have alternative path to follow.
In other words, you can’t run away from your responsibilities, not even in D&D.
Diplomacy, intrigues, espionage, treason, all this become soon part of your life as an adventurer.
At some point, characters stop to be just adventurer, they become heroes (or villains) and people will look at them for what they are, no matter what the characters wish.
Conclusion
I hope this article has provided you with some tips for your campaigns and inspiration for your game style. If you think that something is missing, just let me know.