Campaigns: Saga vs Episodic - Running RPGs
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- There are several ways GMs can approach a tabletop campaign. Do you make it a single plot that takes months or years to complete, or do you try an Adventure-of-the-Week style? Here are some of the potential benefits and hurdles with running a Saga or Episodic format.
Check out my newest novel Ashes of Onyx: amzn.to/30WmrLG
If you want to support my Patreon, go here: / sskorkowsky
![Yoshi Rinrada - 'มาทำไม' [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/r41xbfRLkLs/mqdefault.jpg)
Seth: *Orcs riding polar bears.*
Me: *Takes notes.*
Write that down, WRITE THAT DOWN lol
@@leos.2322 Add the Werewolf-Template to a Frost Giant and let him shapeshift into a Winterwolf.
Add the Werewolf-Template to a Frost Giant and let him shapeshift into a Winterwolf. I did that. It was cool
@@ismirdochegal4804 Ah, yes .. the alluring sound of the frost maiden sing her night song to the moon.
Then you find out your party 10th-level wizard sought to join the frost giants the whole time.
After all of your good vids, just hearing “Hello internet! Seth Skorkowsky here” makes my whole day better
Edit: I have no idea what you’re talking about, MacGyver is the best
Agreed
I agree wholeheartedly.
It's my drug.
Original MacGyver is the best. Not that new... thing.
Octo Dude But of course. I had assumed he was talking about the original
Blender here. Start episodic, transition into serial. The episodes build and establish the world and characters. Over time plot seeds and continuity build up and then I can capitalize on the party's investment in the campaign by connecting dots in interesting ways that could only be possible because of the episodes.
Keep up the good work Mister Skorkowsky. Your channel is easily my favorite RPG channel.
I agree. Same characters (or troupe of characters), same world, but run it like an old school tv series, lots of stand alone episodes, if it works, it will grow. I mean even Tolkien started with just The Hobbit, way before he rolled out the Lord of the Rings saga. The take away is, remember to save something for the squeal.. ;)
Our group runs largely episodic, though episodes can take a few sessions (the breaks between sessions I even refer to as Add Breaks).
Bingo
Blender all the way.
Best of both worlds.
Yeah, on the whole, I agree. I like to have a storyline, but I also love it when my players have directions they would like to take things. Then everyone has a little more skin in the game, and it gives leeway for some really interesting turns.
If Star Trek is the episodic, you're describing the Deep Space 9 of campaigns. That's how I like to run things, too.
The X-Files: the best example of an episodic/saga combo
Episodes involving mutants: episodic
Episodes involving aliens: Saga
Episode involving Peacock family: Disturbing
I ran a pretty successful "five glowing gems" campaign years ago. We started with a dungeon crawl session in which the big reward at the end was a scroll (obviously magical, but in an ancient magical language none of the characters could read). They then found out it was one page of a super-powerful spell lost to the ages centuries before, and now that they'd found the first page they had a responsibility to find the (six) others, to ensure that the complete spell didn't fall into the wrong hands.
The quest ended up taking them from one end of my game world to the other, across multiple environments. The recovery of each hidden page was an episodic adventure unto itself, but we played the entire journey in between and had all kinds of adventures on the road. At one point they spent three or four sessions helping to overthrow an evil emperor and change the fate of a vast desert kingdom, and it wasn't even connected to the quest they were on. They just kinda got caught up in it on their way to the next page location.
What was the spell?
@@MrTybex Magic Missile.... LOL j/k
@@MrTybex I would like to know the spell as well.
I'm here to tell you you're going to LOVE Horror on the Orient Express, especially if you decide to throw in all the flashback sequences
I once cobbled together a version of this for fifth edition eberron before the source books came out and we had a blast.
@@beasleydad heresy
@@beasleydad i... i... i dont know what to feel
Seth gives us a lot of good advice, but nothing so important as "It's probably best that you avoid rewatching Knight Rider". Seriously, just don't.
Y?
Because it's not as cool as you remember it being
I think Stargate still holds up.
@@--enyo-- it does honestly mostly because it didn't try to hard
By the way, the general term for "five glowing gems" is the "Plot Coupon". Players need to collect all the coupons then turn them in for one free plot resolution. (Used by TV Tropes, but it was used in a lot of places before that, and I think started as criticism of fantasy novels, especially those following the LotR style.)
Reminds me of the *Deltora Quest* series.
I thought it was called "macguffins" where you need to collect all of them in order to resolve the plot.
@@Adamlovesvideos MacGuffins are thingies that drive conflict (usually by desire to have it, I.E. a suitcase full of money or "state secrets" like a NOC list), but have no actual impact on the plot beyond being the nominal motivation for conflicting parties to conflict. Plot coupons are when you need to find x number of keys or y pieces of the lost artifact to redeem them for plot advancement (getting through the sealed door) or something actually useful to the plot (the holy artifact of destroying BBEGs and setting right what has gone wrong).
@@WraithMagus I see. Thank you for the clarification. I think both are useful for a campaign, but the way you describe it makes it sound like plot coupons are typically better for saga campaigns while macguffins are better for episodic campaigns. Though I'm willing to bet that both can be used in either if they're done well.
"And then there's West Marches campaigns ... don't ... don't worry about those, yet ..."
I read this as "Spinward marches"
I prefer episodic campaigns loosely connected with actions and consequences. they're easier to make, the players can't derail them (unless they do something really, really stupid), and you can keep doing them for ages without ever repeating yourself or your players starting to lose interest.
Same. I find they’re actually great for the character development side of things, because you can balance the story more with the characters.
I ran a 2-part mini adventure I wrote for teenagers at my local library which was very episodic. Part 1 was killing rats in the local mine and part 2 was defeating a necromancer who was causing trouble just outside of town. Both were postings on a job board in the local tavern. Very trope heavy, but very fun to do for middle schoolers who were just starting out. I feel that tropes are great for your first campaigns and as you gain experience, you can expand. But there is nothing wrong with being very cliche your very first time.
as Tv tropes said, Tropes are not bad, they are just names for common writing conventions.
And they're tropes for a reason, they're so good that people just copy them continuously
Everything is just a reworked trope at this point in human storytelling. People who hate on GMs authors and screenwriters for using tropes don’t truly understand storytelling or literature.
I’m starting an episodic campaign soon and because of time constraints and commitment I’m embracing the trope and cliche. I’m sure our group will enjoy it and we won’t have to think too hard. We’ll be able to get straight into the adventure.
I suggest everyone to try out the anime route: you know in anime they usually go for a few plots before the story starts to form? I think that's a great way to start playing then, eventually, building up the world around the actions of the players rather than having to think about all those thinks immediately.
I think that can work perfectly fine but I think it’s also fine to put them into a premade world. Just because there’s already events in motion doesn’t mean it needs to take away player agency.
One of my GMs was actually also struggling with this concept of doing a big epic-scale campaign. She both felt intimidated to dedicate such a long time to it and would usually want to not shackle both herself and players to doing one campaign for what could span years. Her solution I thought was very clever. She started running a series of 3-8 session mini-series (depending on the engagement we have for the current thing) that show different vertical slices of her bigger universe from different times and locations. One game will focus on an underwater empire of Mermen trying to be culturally assimilated by both a dogmatic church-operated state and a nation of undead, but after wrapping that story for the time being, we go into a game set in the past after a horrible calamity wiped out the previous civilization, us living in it's ruins getting to see how the new world order was formed. This allows us both to witness many of the transpiring events and to cause important events that have impact in her world. It was a clever idea to tell a bigger story through the actions accomplished by many parties across the history of this world.
As for myself? I like to take a leisurely approach to DMing. I tend to set up more like a sandbox of smaller adventures, key characters or meaningful events that take place in wherever the players are and just kinda wait for the players to respond, letting them choose what they want to do with the stuff I plan. I caught this habit with my current group due to how much they wound up creating these session-long tangents for themselves that both slowed down the progression of the current adventure, but simultaneously the players were having too much fun with to stop or discourage from doing. So I began leaning on it, letting them go nuts with their little tangents and express themselves as players fully, while I merely pick and choose interesting bits for my characters to interact with.
AlluMan96 I really like the mini-series method of DMing! Not too long, not too short. Enough campaign to be satisfying and there’s not too much extraneous stuff either
@@wm2429
Having a cohesive world to do it in like she does also makes the mark we as players leave on the world feel more satisfying. One of my characters still exists in her setting and is a player in the larger events of the world. Another player's character has been promoted to a state of legend, where his exploits are the makings of countless stories and songs. By the time this level of status is granted to the player in a normal campaign, it's already over and we'll never see the setting again. With this setting, we not only gain acknowledgement of our accomplishments in the game, but also have active roles in shaping our little corners of the world. It's a longer-term commitment all it's own, but the steps made towards the end goal are made all the more great.
@@AlluMan96 That sounds intriguing, and I guess since it's history if something really dumb happens you can just have it be misremembered, in fact there should be some level of info corruption no matter what. But the control freak in me is still worried this method would end up littering history with king Hot Taco III or the cult of Poopy Butthole...
MacGyver is still awesome. But it is pure cheese for most of the show. I rewatched the whole series three years ago, to the disdain of my wife, and I loved it.
I blame The Lord of the Rings... When I DM'ed in highschool that was my template.
"Sporadic Attendance"... yup, that sums it up for my gaming group quite nicely :-)
I’m in the process of writing a ‘5 glowing crystals’ call of Cthulhu campaign for a group of friends, it’s a nice change of pace compared to my Saga game for my D&D group - this video was a big help as always Seth!
I’ve been running episodic adventures with my players in a homebrew setting, and letting them choose where they want to go next after each ‘episode.’ Each one is self-contained, but I’ve been careful to sprinkle in various clues pointing toward a larger narrative behind the scenes. It only took a few games for them to catch on to this, and now they’re choosing to adventure in areas where they think they will find more clues. Honestly, it’s made it easier on me as the DM and writer of the setting; they’ve done a good job of picking up the small details in each adventure and connecting them to one another. I haven’t had to beat them over the head with the clues, or make them so glaringly obvious. They also enjoy the aspect of exploring the setting on their own terms, and learning more about it as they go; they are excited every week to discover more, and it’s given me a lot of confidence and reassurance as a DM and writer.
My Favourite Way is to have each Char having his own Goal. That Goal can be simple or Epic - the Players decide what they want for a "Plot". Then, I create an Atagonist for them who can be a Person or a Group of People. This often provides me with more than one Plot.
Then I create one or more "Group"-Atagonists: More or less BBEGs who spice up the Episodes and are not created specificly against one Char rather to annoy the whole Party somehow.
After that, I set "Stepstones" for the Players Goals so they do not immediatly get to the End of their personal Journey.
Finally, I come up with some "Introducement-Adventure" where the Party meets. At the End of it I ask them what they are planning to do next - whoose personal Agenda will they follow?
Upon this decision I come up with a new Adventure/Episode which will be somehow get "Sabotaged" by one of the "Group-Atagonist" if it does not contain a specifc personal Atagonist of one of the Chars - yeah, that can end in multiple Atagonists working against the Party at once.
This Way, I always have some Inspiration and my Players "get what they want".
Also, changing Chars are no big Deal due to them bringing the Plot along - if the evil Kings illegit Son is not present, the Party has no reason to pursue his Agenda of taking over the Throne, but still will have another one like the Mage now paying for a Trip into the Jungle to find the lost Shrine of Rh'zzach to finally reassemble the Staff of Ch'rrych for preventing the extraplanar Demon Yogg-hurt to take over his Mind. Even if amidst in a Storyarc, the Char can have "something important to do" and so the Party can have a "in-between-Adventure". F.E. when the Rogues Player is not present, let the other Players have to prove his innocence in a murder Case while he is imprisoned.
I do personal goals for my characters and request them for all the characters when I am the DM.
My campaigns are always semi episodic with a long term goal in mind. I do have plans for a longer story but I focus on individual adventures instead, based on what my players want.
Star Trek Adventures has the “Living Campaign” which opened the door to me as a GM, and it allowed me to tie together some old FASA and LUG modules... and this will allow me the time and experience to write my masterpiece
I like running connected mini-series. 2 to 4 sessions exploring thing, then then a connection session then off to the next mini series.
Great video, as always. When I saw it I had to laugh out loud--I have a very similar video coming out tomorrow-- I call it the "Star Wars" vs "Star Trek" campaign model I now look forward to my comment box being flooded with people writing, "Hey! You ripped off Skorkowsky!" Side note--I've run both Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express and "Horror" is easier to run. Go for it!
1) Todd and Mike can pound sand; MacGuyver is still cool.
2) My group and I prefer a playstyle that starts out episodic and slowly morphs into something more saga-like. This lets the players and GM try the setting out and see how they like it, fine-tune their characters a little, and lets the GM get his or her metaphorical feet under them before launching into an epic saga.
Todd doesn't know anything, Knight Rider and MacGyver are still awesome. Dated? maybe, but still awesome :)
The only things that are "dated" are things that were chintzy from its onset (Box from Logan's Run, This Island Earth). There's a certain charm and verisimilitude in past efforts.
Cheesy? Yes, even back then. Entertsining? Yes.
Don't forget that episodics don't *have* to involve travelling around the world! If you have the game based around a place that naturally has lots to offer (ie, a large city), it's perfectly possible to have a series of largely unrelated adventures within that single setting. Think of the old Spider-Man cartoon- he never leaves New York because he doesn't have to, there's plenty to see and do in just that one location.
I love watching you slowly going mad over time. Giving the voices in your head some screen-time is very generous
Loved your "bookend" campaign example with "the fugitive". That's the campaign I am running but could not put it into words so clearly.
Hey, newbie game master here! First of all I want to thank you for getting me into dm-ing, Seth! It's great fun and I really wanted to get into playing tabletop RPGs, especially after stumbling onto your channel and your epic Call of Cthulhu - 101 series, but none of my friends had ever RPed either. So eventually I decided to just give it a shot and run a one-shot of Mister Corbitt for Call of Cthulhu…
That one-shot then blossomed into a whole campaign which took us 5 8-hour sessions over 6 months to complete. It involved the investigators going after rampaging man eating plants, taking ladders to the ‘nads, one of them briefly dying and coming back as a tiny creepy bone dolly and riding a startled cat all the way across Arkham, fighting crazed satanic cultists in hospital basements and negotiating with giant dimension-hopping invisible spiders. I can’t recommend this enough. Wanna experience the craziest adventure you never would’ve imagined possible? Just grab some buddies and some dice and roll, my friend. Just leave your sanity by the door xD
Anyway, our campaign was sort of a mix between the episodic and the saga, with each session having its’ own mini boss of sorts, with the overarching Corbitt-mystery slowly getting revealed piece by piece, as the investigators learned more. And initially I thought I had messed up big time, since a scenario that was supposed to only have taken 4 hours at most was now entering its’ 16th hour and showed no signs of ending. But my players had fun. And I had fun.
Bottom line: Don’t be afraid to dm. You don’t have to plan the entire Lord of the Rings out from the start, just give the hobbits a kick out the door, let them make their own decisions and see where the dice take you.
Oh man, Seth! Everytime you come out with a video it always perfect coincides with what me and my group are doing. Especially your vid about player compatibility and this one! We are moving from our D&D saga to a more episodic (and easier to follow) Call of Cthulhu campaign. Great content as always, man! 👍
TheDilden - Seth got me into Call of Cthulhu. I couldn’t be happier to leave D&D 5e behind for a while.
Damn, sometimes I forget how good the advice in this channel is. Thanks, Seth, it helped me put a lot of things in perspective. Transitioning from being a White Wolf storyteller to an OSR D&D dungeon master is tricky.
You've convinded me to try this on my next campaign. Currently running a saga, and while that is fun (especially with the PCs returning to earlier locations to observe the concequences of their actions), scheduling 5-6 players is very difficult, and I'm getting increasingly afraid to write myself into a corner as the plot just gets more and more complicated.
Shadowrun introduced me to a more episodic way of running the game. Something I found out that it's perfect for a large group of players with inconsistent schedules.
I find out who can make it that week and then I can plan a mission "episode" that features the skills and story of the pc's that will be there that week.
I had 6 players and I would only cancel if 5 people couldn't make it. I had 3-4 people every week for over a year now. We've moved on from shadowrun but are continuing episodic style because it fits the players much better.
I mean.... The players write the story themselves. They just don't know it
This is true,
Anything else is railroading
@@Tony-dh7mz I mean... I get the sentiment, and I'm with you that the players SHOULD be the primary focus in the campaign. And sometimes there needs to be a small amount of railroading to keep people in an adventure if you're running something published (but moreso changing things in the adventure to draw in the PCs personally as opposed to "welp you do X")
That said the GM is still the one prepping everything, making NPCs, building the dungeons, potentially making the map and setting even. To try to say the players are the ones writing the story is a bit disingenuous. It's not wrong, and it has the right heart when saying that (which again, I agree with the sentiment), the GM has a ton of the creative burden and that statement kind of comes off as dismissive towards the GM's role.
@@kainthedragon1
No insult but you sound very naive,
Railroading is something only the incompetent or inexperienced consider a valid option in GMing,
Railroading cheats the players (why bother doing anything, it’s always going to be X)
Even a printed adventure is just a photograph of that worlds setting, npc’s and motivations etc, if you have ever ran a game with players that are smart and creative you will see them go off road, (you then have two choices, roll with it, because the world is real and organic where the players choices count (yes this is the tougher option for the noobz, but is exciting for those that know what they are doing) or ignore their choice and railroad them no matter what (once they find out you are doing that they will loose interest in the game, (where’s the interest if you don’t have a choice?, once they know it’s only an illusion of free will they will feel cheated)
But, if you really think it’s a good idea for you and your group to railroad them, go for it,
@@Tony-dh7mz deleted my previous reply because after rereading... I think we might be arguing different things and not realizing it. It sounds like when you say railroad it means "run module only as written" to which I would agree... Published materials are just skeletons and how the players interact changes outcomes drastically and often in unforseen ways.
To me I mean it only in the sense of "welp here's the Curse of Strahd guess that's what we're doing" and railroading only insofar as what things (whether maps, specific planned encounters, or setting) are prepped, but what happens being 100% dependent on player behavior from there...
I just meant to point out that the GM is a player at the table (and I do NOT mean DM PC just that they are playing dungeons and dragons, mutants and masterminds, GURPS or whatever at the table), and that they prep everything the players encounter to some degree, and control npc reactions to players, and I was just trying to point out they have a significant contribution to the story as well... That's all, just pointing out that to say the story is built solely by the players isn't entirely true... After all, kind of hard to have a game without a world and GM to control reactions (unless we're talking old school AD&D reaction tables but that's a bit TOO much randomness in my opinion).
I think you all are thinking way too hard about it. Lots of writing the gm does gets thrown out because the players will do something the gm didn't think of. Character back stories that were thrown in for more immersion were all written by the characters and incorporated by the gm. My point is that the gm is just telling the story that the players themselves are writing, they just don't realize they are writing it if the gm is worth their salt.
That knight rider and macgyver callout feels directed specifically at me.
You should have a look at Mutant: Year Zero. It scratches both itches. There is an overriding meta-plot that you can introduce or not as you see fit, several fleshed out adventure/encounters that you can drop in, but it is also very player driven. The players create their home base and some of the npcs they interact with, they choose how to develop this base (do they choose croplands to increase their food supply? Or do they make schools to make their people literate? But the threats from the Zone make those defences look pretty good...) and often choose where they are going and what they are setting out to achieve. It really encourages player involvement in describing the world as they explore. I've been running a game for a while now, and we're having a blast with it. I have 6 players (probably a few too many, but I'm managing) and the nature of the game allows them to drop in and out if some people are unable to play. The level of player investment is really high, because the world feels more theirs than mine to them.
I really like the Mutant: Year Zero format too. And each of the installments are their own scenario that can all eventually intersect in the Zone it the players and GM like. My problem is not all my players like the setting. So I am currently about to start a space sci-fi game using Fragged Empire rules but modeling the campaign off of Mutant, with the Meta-plot, adventure encounters, a zone of sorts and a home base pressure cooker to build and manage.
I like Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu. It is a huge saga campaign, but also very sandbox-y. I'm running the 7th edition now, and I highly recommend it. It has an opening prologue chapter that isn't very connected to the main plot, which is great to let new players get the feel of the setting and the rules before the main plot begins. And from there, the players can chart their own way through the story, without the need to follow some pre-determined path the GM has set up. :)
I also find the hybrid style to work best (for most of the time); it both helps negate the player's fatigue from following the same story thread all the but it also helps the GM to deal with player decisions that contradict the intended "main quest" path by making it a side story.
This video is very helpful for people starting out because I know plenty of people who are nervous about coming up with giant sagas and coming up with something new every single week. My personal journey with figuring out what I wanted to do as a game master was running a small test campaign that I stitched together using different maps and hook ideas while creating a meta story line. The campaign's summary was the gods are playing their version of dnd and your characters are their PCs. It opened the door to not only show bits and pieces of the world but also helped the players learn the system and me to learn how to run things. The main goal was get through this game as intact as possible while going through 'the whims of gods' so every week could possibly be something different. One god that is all about combat says "we're doing a battle royale" and one god that is interested in mystery decides the PCs are going to have to solve this small town 'who done it'. After that, I figured that I enjoyed how many anime run things. They have an overarcing theme/storyline but something they have to do from time to time is put in some downtime for a variety of reasons. I like having this option for downtime because I've noticed sometimes players get kind of burnt out or overwhelmed when there's constant doom and gloom so they appreciate having 'a beach episode' or 'a xmas episode' so that their characters can bond, reflect, and everyone in and out of the game can get revitalized about what's going to happen next. The meta storyline also allowed me to show that players can have input too because this is a game we are playing together and the conflicts that could happen and we could possibly deal with them. It was a nice test run for a variety of topics and aspects of the game. Even dying in the campaign had a very strange bug attached to it. Yeah, the gods could bring your character back but there was going to be a catch that you might not appreciate. So it opened the door that resurrection was a thing in the game but there were consequences to it and hurdles that had to be overcome. It opened the dialogue for what would be the same in the main campaign and what would be different and the options available given the classes that people picked. It made it where people actually thought of being a cleric/paladin without the stereotypical baggage that sometimes comes with it. So that's a tiny bit of my experience. The anime format fit with me and my group pretty well and we mostly figured out what generally worked for us through our weird meta storyline. I hope this helps people out a bit. ^-^
I'm mostly making my first game episodic with a mission based gameplay with each one connecting a bigger saga with their mission giver being the one that ties them to the larger story.
Man, his videos look so freakin crisp now. Come a long way, love that I've been here since the beginning.
Another benefit of fully episodic campaigns is that it's super easy for someone to guest GM and give the primary GM a break, Hell there might not even be an official GM and the only thing that stays consistent is the characters and basic setting
I really needed to hear exactly this right now. My saga-style campaign that I run is getting out of hand and I'm burning out. I don't want to end it because the players have been so great and all their characters are awesome. I think I can save the campaign by running intermittent episodes every once in a while until I get back in the mood to continue the story. Thank you Seth.
I like the 2005 - 2009 Doctor Who approach. Drop little hints in some episodic games for a big finale, things that will seem insignificant or could be missed entirely by the players. Then, for the end, drop in a short saga.
Seth, you just gave me a great idea: have you guys seen Sliders? It's a TV show from the 90s, about a group of people jumping between parallel universes, trying to get back to their own. They always spend a few days in one world, and then they have to go, because if they miss their portal, they are stuck. That would be the perfect framework for a fun, universe-hopping episodic campaign.
I always do the blender... :)
I call it, the first adventures are season one of my series, like in babylon 5, where everything was set up, and in later adventures everything i laid out eventually comes together to form the overall plotark.
That worked pretty well on my shadowrun campaign i ran last year and that is about to end in 4 or 5 weeks :)
that was a lot of fun, and in late summer 2019 i said - ok guys, everything i laid out from january to about june finally pays off and pays dividents now.
And ohhhhhh boy it did. BBEG had been on screen 3 times till that moment, but wasn't visible as BBEG. A heist they did earlier that year, turned out to be super crucial to the story at large.
and everyone was pretty flabbergasted by how it turned out to be later, since now they tend to recall most events i laid out back there, giving us back all the funny memories.
it also helps that one player decided to write an in character diary of everything out of character view, and we had a showcase, where they put in some items they found during the adventures/runs.
Like a hold-out pistol from boss 1, or a pilots hat as they captured a plane, or that collar of the guarddog from complex 1 they broke in ^^
selfies etc.
it's pretty fun to see how this showcase and that diary evolves.
it also helps that everything is online, since we play on role 20 ^^
We call that a Fetch Quest campaign.
Oh god Seth! Your DM sin is popping up lol. But seriously I do hope you do The horror on the orient express someday soon.
Since I've had a glimpse of this majestic box of a campaign in Seth's hands now I totally want him to do it too.
Savage Worlds uses a system called "plot point campaign". They are episodic campaigns with plot adventures or details at key points. eg. "when the players reach level 4, run this adventure" or "when they go to Egypt, this happens". The campaign I'm about to run even recommends running stand alone adventures between the plot points.
Awesome vids Seth! Thanks for all the AD&D content over the years.
BTW, you got my group playing CoC. Mike Riggoletti and associates have really learned how strange and dark New Orleans van be. They are going to soon find an on going plot simply because there are powerful forces who are noticing their interference.
I think another way to look at the 'five gems' example is the cartoon 'Samurai Jack' . He knows he needs to find the time portal to go back in time so that's the end goal, what follows is a series of episodic adventures that gives him clues as to where the portal could be. Along the way he fights of the forces of evil, saves people, encounters gods, demons, fake portals ect ect.
Really good advice, been struggling with this myself as my group are eager to play but just can't fit a game in. so I've been thinking of running a series of episodic sessions, linked by an over arching plot at the end.
Perfect! Don't forget to have what went on the first time bite the next group in the ass.
A LOT of what seem to us (audience) as grander epic Sagas can be (and probably have been) written entirely as episodic creations... For slightly more recent than Seth's reference here... Think "Supernatural"... Each season has a general arc to get through, and eventually the seasons add up to a greater "growth arc" and then you can follow long enough to "get" the bigger picture of the "whole story"...
If there's a drawback, in GM'ing a LOT of episodic Campaigns, it would be the ability to notice the obvious spots where a favorite TV show or even a Mini-series was obviously being done "episodically" and the writers "wrote themselves into a corner" and had no choice in a cheap outcome... (ah... but I digress)
Okay, McGuffins are a GREAT way to tie this kind of thing together. I don't just mean Seth's "Five Gems" technique, either... SO get a little creative...
Need a reason to tie the PC's to this "new plot line"... Symbols of your earlier BBEG that got away... Frustrated Players will DIVE full-bore on a lingering loose end. You DO have to "reward" this behavior, but you don't necessarily have to give up the end-goal any earlier than you need.
For example, you can have the BBEG building a whole force for the Players to deal with at higher levels... SO you NEED a symbol... Let's go with a "Black Hand". In the first little adventure, a series of investigative and occasionally violent sessions get the PC's to track this "weird cult of the Black Hand" to a hideout... Obviously, we want our BBEG to avoid being murdered... BUT there should be a climactic fight (so a fairly challenging number of these "cultists" can be there.) AND a reward... Rescue who-ever or Loot the Whatever... or a nice spot of both... to finish the plot... AND among the loot, there should be some serious indications that somebody has been there a LOT higher rank than anyone they captured/killed... Lay kind of heavy on "Black Hands" painted, emblazened, even onyx and obsidian settings for some gemstone values... in the shapes of black hands...
The next few adventures can feature nifty little side-quests, and bits of backstory... some odd relatives with struggles to solve (no need to kidnap or murder everyone precious to PC's) and maybe the odd "dark town secret/scandal" to uncover... THEN you finally have a clever idea to tie this BBEG plot together for a leg... and you're anxious to move the plot...
SO... one of the regular "quest givers" has some news about a gruesome bit of activity a town or two over... blah-blah-blah... something remarkably evil... (pepper a few details "the way the BBEG would do it") blah-blah... AND they found something like "this" and drop a big fat Black Hand symbol in their laps.
AND you can then run however many sessions you like on this new "plot movement" before going back to sidequests, antics, a bit of "kobold krushing" so the party feels "bad-ass" and gets to show off a little... maybe a shenanigan or two to buy some time (while you deliciously plod through the details of your BBEG's next moves, new levels of difficulty, etc..
This is the basic process I've used for decades to let the Players explore the world, allow others to "take over GM'ing" when they have adventures to run... and to encourage everyone at the Table to participate in the GM'ing process to get a feel from both sides of the screen... We only occasionally make specific agreements about "Don't mess with my bad-guy", so everyone can even take up a little larger Plot Arc along their way.
Sure, we do run into "continuity" and "consistency" issues... BUT not nearly as troublesome as you'd think. AND this mention of "My Table's Way" isn't to sell our style to you... Instead, it's more an example. If we can manage the Largest Arcs with episodic approach and TRADING GM privileges, you shouldn't worry too much about "being a bit all over the place" while you build your own adventure Sagas episodically on your own...
...AND hell, if you think it might be fun to swap the screen around... try it out. I admit, I'm a physical Table type Role Player and GM. (It might make a difference) BUT we've encouraged a lot more to take up the screen and GM at our Table as well as others, and helped season more GM's than shut them down. ;o)
@@gnarthdarkanen7464 Supernatural is a GREAT model for an episodic saga. Plus, the music rocks.
@@MonkeyJedi99 Thanks... I thought so.
Bobby's always going to be my favorite Character... AND I just thought it a more likely useful model than about anything else that came to mind for others to "quickly reference" and understand it.
I mean, you can just watch one or two episodes per season and see differences along with consistency all the way through. ;o)
Just ran across this now and loved it. We have been playing Conan 2d20 for the last year and our game is an episodic saga campaign. As players we each made 2 characters in a village on the Frontier that our Jarl was instructed to expand and make work. We choose which character we want to use on each mission/ quest so we end up with various combinations of skills both social and combat which makes for interesting game play and interaction. We are presented after every mission with new choices and the ones we don't take, don't go away, they evolve or resolve with varying consequences to our environment. To mKe it more interesting we have 5 friends playing NPC BBG's who our DM consults on a weekly basis to find out what they will be doing(but doesn't discuss it amongst the BBG's or players). All of this has led to one of the greatest adventures I have ever played in
I'm doing the "Five Glowing Gems" method for my current campaign. We're playing D&D 5e set in the Multiverse of Magic: the Gathering. Once we reached a certain point, I asked each of the players to pick out a Legendary Artifact card from M:tG, and that would be the McGuffin (an artifact magic item) that their character would need to face the final boss. Then we set out on a series of planehopping adventures to collect their powerful magic items!
Everything I run is a Saga and I've learned how to work around attendance or player dropping. You have to be so good at Dm'ing if they don't show up they know they're missing out on something truly special. Creates a sense of "I really have to show up this week!" because they don't want to miss out on the experience. That and also just getting player's that you know are in-tune to the style and narrative of the game you wish to run. I think that's the most important part in obtaining long running campaigns, I have two campaigns that're a year old and they're both absolutely amazing with 70% of the original starting cast still a part of the group and the other 30% are there to stay. Once an established group is found, it's really easy to get player's to "buy in" to a long running campaign as it's already been going for so long the likelihood that newcomer's who join. Will actually stay given the track record.
I'm currently running a Star Trek campaign and I'm writing every mission in a four act structure like the series. However, in each mission I have some detail they have to interact with that ties into what I'm using as the overreaching plot. Thus far, I don't think my players have figured out where some of them are connected and I'm hoping for a real ah ha moment at the end of "season 1."
I usually enjoy doing the episodic saga storytelling in my campaigns like this and one of the things that's really helped me in this are two TV series, Leverage and the Liberians. They both have John Rogers as the show runner and he does a great job of using monster of the week to push the overall story along. The Leverage DvD's have a great set of commentary tracks where he and the other writers and directors talk about story telling, villains, and piecing things together. The 1st season of the Liberians also has the best monster of the week saga's I've ever seen. In order to defeat the villain they needed at least 1 thing from every episode of the season or their plan wouldn't have worked. As a writer and a GM, it's impressive to watch.
Also, MacGyver rocks...
Another one that's really good. there's a system called Through the Breach. Character creation involves reading each characters fortune. This gives each character a five line fate poem. Every session deals with one live of a players fate. When every players poem is resolved the campaign is over. It takes a little bit of work to thematically tie the characters fate to the adventures, but I found it very rewarding and a lot of fun. The campaign is weird west and I know that won't be for everyone, but the tool of giving your campaign a timer worked really well.
I hope the payoff was a good one for the first season! Sounds really fun.
Good breakdown! A good example of a "Five Glowing Gems" campaign would be The Adventure Zone podcast. A great listen if anyone hasn't already... A lot of the game was episodic, but definitely tied together very well at the end.
I find myself describing my campaign format as being kinda like Buffy. Sessions are largely adventures of the week, but they're tied to a common place with ongoing backburner boss archs that players learns bits and pieces about across sessions. It gives my group flexibility in terms of attendance and game style while still allowing them to develop relationships with NPCs and feel longer-term consequences in the world. I also love that they frequently have to share information with one another instead of always getting it from me.
My first DnD group was a blend of these, we pinballed around until we found something really interesting and then let the dm know that this is what we're interested in
Just got the mail your book's out. Wohoo! :D
Oh, and we just found out our Chinchillas got a child earlier this morning.
And both of those within 15 min of getting up, so this is shaping up to be a REALLY good day.
Due to sporadic attendance in my online group, we decided for a West Marches style campaign. The adventures themselves were episodic, finished in a single session. The adventures often provide hooks for the players to follow if they are interested. This, hopefully, leads to a sense of continuity. There are also some stories going on in the background, inter-tribal goblin war, an imprisoned demon and turncoat priests, that the players can get involved with if they want.
The 5 glowing gems campaign...
Or, the four Crystals of Light campaign.
This warms my Final Fantasy loving heart.
I think another big plus side of episodic or even semiepisodic sessions is it can really give players satisfaction from completing something. Even if there is some hook or cliff hanger, most episodic stories have a very distinct episode challenge to defeat. No waiting 6 months to feel like you've even done anything
I once ran a west marches game, and the group Dwarf made it into a Five Gems Campaign. He decided that, a few years before, he had broken a table. He had promised the bartender that he would replace it with a special table: the Ivory Table, a table upon which adventurers had scratched a map of the local region. It was now in pieces, so he traveled about in search for the missing pieces. It was positively hilarious
I don’t often have a long story plot line going into my campaigns, but I don’t do episodic either. I think up the story of the next session and how it will turn based on the actions of the players, and then plan the next session at the end of the current session.
An old magic the gathering card’s flavor text describes my RPG writing style pretty well: “I don’t have a plan, just a goal. The rest will figure itself out.”
Funny; I'm just outlining a campaign for OSE that we'll be starting over the summer. Worked into the backstories of several PCs are hints that will link up to the long term goal of acquiring a number of rune stones that they'll need to combat the machinations of the big bad far down the road who they will (much later) realize is also seeking these rune stones to activate an evil artifact he has acquired. But the first couple stones are going to be in treasure hoards in their first couple adventures....Great minds, Seth.
I've just committed to the Dolmenwood setting with my new group for OSE
I recognize that plot armor guide! It’s from Terrible Writing Advice!
Best RPG channel on YT. Thanks for all the excellent content! Cheers.
I had a campaign where one of the players was tasked with seeking out and destroyinf the orbs of dragonkind. For each adventure module I ran I put one of thr orbs somewhere in the treasure
Thank you for this video. You've helped me steer my campaign plans in the right direction.
My big campaign took place as a level by level increase of different episodes on one continent in which the players could roll a new character whenever they wanted until level 10. All the while hearing tidbits of stories of the other continent.
After the 10th episode the king called for a warship to invade and chart the mysterious new world continent. While aboard this ship I allowed the players to cycle back to any prior character they had and boost it to level 10.
Upon landing in the new continent they discovered a portal to hell had opened and demons had established a kingdom and the long saga progressed from there.
Seth, always good content and advice. Finally picked up Mountain of Daggers, and loved it. Keep up the good work!
The advantage of doing a LOT of short Episodic games is that you get to try out different character ideas. The worst bane of a long Saga type of game is that you might get stuck with a character that you don't actually like. The bane of Episodic games is that you rarely get to see high level/end game characters, while the advantage of Saga games is that you have the opportunity to reach high level/end game content.
14:09 An accurate depiction of the average gaming group.
No enough empty pizza boxes or beer bottles. and not expired snacks either
Wanted to let you know my group is now starting Call of Cthulhu. I personally write my own stories, and am starting with a more episodic chronicle. I am also taking a look at real world stuff in the 1920's for inspiration. So thank you for reintroducing me to Call of Cthulhu.
Thanks Seth for the clarity.
I like the breakdown you do with these meta subjects. It helps naming things and structuring thoughts.
I'm a blender, but too often, I rely on a completely created world with a little wiggle room, but not enough - and I have sporadic player attendance. Great tips on how to design around these difficulties!
This video has come at just the right time. Just looking at starting DM'ing and episodic sounds like a good way to get into it.
The first campaign I ever played in had a lot of new players, and our GM only had a few games under her belt. It started as a dramatic saga about saving the world from dangerous moon-cultists but we went off the rails more and more until the GM basically said "someone else will probably figure out the cultists", booted us across an ocean, and started writing episodic adventures.
You rock, Seth! Great advice for newcomers and equally great refreshers for vets.
A good mixture of both can be really effective - my characters visit wildly different locations and have very different adventures (like Monster of the Week) but all the adventures tie together into the overall grand quest (for my guys, it's stopping the Old Gods)
Nerdarchy gave you a shoutout in the video they released today.👍🏻
I play dnd as a saga and CoC as episodic
I agree with you, Macgyver is awesome!
One of the "five gems" campaigns that I've always wanted to run or play in is "The Rod of Seven Parts" from the AD&D days. It is on a shelf in my closet right now next to the boxed sets for "Temple of Elemental Evil" and "The Ruins of Undermountain" (both 1 and 2). All I have been able to do is use parts of those in my campaigns so far.
Great vid. I'd love it if you could do a follow up with ways to mitigate some of the weak points of each style. Like how to deal with plot armor without killing the beloved characters.
Keep up the good work! Cheers!
Seth! I love watching your videos and have used them to build my confidence and finally venture into the brave new world of being a GM! Thank you so much!!
As a fan of White Wolf and the World of Darkness it was exciting to hear you mention them! Do you think you'll ever do a video on any of their systems or games?
Super late to watching this, but I wanted to thank you for making this video, Seth! I am a very new DM, and I've struggled with plotting my first campaign; which is a Ravenloft one, using a blend of new and old content. It's fun content, but there's sooo much! So hearing your advice has allowed me to plot more effectively for short and longer term play of my first game. I think I'll aim for a "Blended + 5 Glowing Gems" type game. Tried and true methods of running a game! Thanks again Seth, your advice and experience is much appreciated as always :)
Happy to be of help. Good luck on the campaign.
Another type of blended campaign that I generally run resembles a season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Structurally it's episodic but in the background is an overarching plot to stop the Big Bad. I love this approach because while I'm able to indulge my desire to run a saga it allows me to lean on published modules (with minor alterations) to use as individual episodes. As an adult faced with the attendance problems you describe I find this works very well because no individual character is ever going to be essential to an adventure.
In my current campaign players have 3 versions of their characters: One low level, one mid level and one high level. The campaign started with them being naked in a prison cell with no memories of their history at all. They freed themselves and found some epic items that their feeling was that they must belong to them. After that they fought an enemy that they must have come across already, because he knew them, and then headed off to a village nearby. They can use tokens to get their memories back piece by piece, and I will create adventures for them depending on what they want to memorize. We are still in the phase where they met each other and had some minor adventures, but - who knows - maybe we will find out how the elf got her epic bow soon. :-D
I do a bit of a funnel. Early sessions I let the characters pick the path they take with no real set goals, but then I start adding in goals according to their play style and start narrowing in focus. I throw in some adventure cues and design a few encounters along the way.
I’ve been asked about this a lot by new/potential players. This is a really good video for explaining it.
Rewatching a few months later. The point around 12:00 comes up a lot in a few CoC Facebook groups I’m in. A new person will post something like ‘I just discovered this game, I’ve never played before but I found a bunch of people to run for. I’m really excited, do you guys have any tips?’
And yeah, the responses are almost unanimously along the lines of ‘Woah, slow down. Play a few games first, and then start with running one shots or some shorter scenarios to get into the swing of things.’
I think as you say a lot of people come from D&D (particularly 5e) with a perception the only way to do a TTRPG are these saga campaigns.
I have run huge saga style games (multiple years) where I had an overall plot, usually a beginning, middle and end. These are a lot of fun. The players know they are having a big impact on the world. I have also run very episodic/sandbox style games. Players drove what would happen based on what their characters wanted to achieve. And they were also a lot of fun because I would only build what I needed based on what they wanted to do. It also gave me a chance to run episodes that might be very much like an old movie or TV show (for instance re-enacting Yojimbo).
I believe another source for the focus on Saga is the Pathfinder "Paths". Six books intended to be played for six to eight months using the same characters that will level from 1 to around 18 and the characters will retire at the end and a new "campaign" will start with a new Path and new characters. I have seen a lot of folks use this as the "one and only correct way to do it" lately.
When I was writing my Weird West TTRPG, I called One (Or two) Shots a Lyric (also Limerick and Verse work here), Adventures or short modules were called Ballads (or Song), and Campaigns were called Epics (or Saga). Ballads had a nice western sounding feel while also referencing Tolkien and GRRM as well as invoking writing terminology and old world poetry. I felt it also gave a nice understanding of a game and how in depth it should be and how much work to put in.
A Lyric/Limerick/Verse is short statement, possibly a joke, about a person or group. The entirety of my plot and story should be feasibly written in 2-5 lines. If you imagine it musical, the rhyme is the theme and Aesop. A memorable limerick is possible, but it's going to take a lot of editing and re-working to make it stand the test of time and mean something or be extremely funny for the target audience. Writing reliably memorable limericks take an immense amount of skill, but ever once in a while a random individual can write something profound. Either way, it won't waste much of someone's time, so you're better off just throwing it out there and seeing if something sticks.
A Ballad/Song is longer and more complex telling a complete story. The entirety of the plot should be able to be written somewhere between half a page to a few pages and a detailed recount story could fill a short book or movie. Or in the words of Justin Timberlake and Madonna: You've only got 4 minutes. Again, if you image it as a song, the rhyming schemes and repetitive nature should be hammering home the theme and concept of your plot. This can have multiple themes/rhyming schemes, but a memorable one plays with one or two. A memorable song is very possible. Some will like it, some will hate it, and someone might love it until the end of time. It's not too hard to write a song and even someone new to the scene can write an instant hit.
An Epic/Saga is several stories interacting with each other weaving complex narrative and will take time to uncover and understand the themes and Aesops. Each player should have their own special arcs working in tandem with the story while reinforcing the literary elements of the main plot. Several songs or stories should be not only working together but building upon each other. Your story could fill a thick book. It could be a trilogy. It could be a full series. It will have a plethora of minor themes all swirling around a central themes. Think Tolkien, GRRM, the Dune series, and all the other complex classics. Some parts might not be as memorable as others, but it is going to take skill to not make it feel like a bloated mess littered with plot holes. When you're done with it, even if it wasn't your audience's favorite, they will never forget it and if you're lucky, it will be something they'll compare everything else to.
It's a bit odd calling them that in public, but privately, it has vastly helped my writing by judging what kind of a story I want to tell or how long a plot will take and how much room to I have to tell my story. If it's a Lyric, most my time will be spent editing an idea down and condensing it to the core message. A ballad has a bit of wiggle room for the story, but I won't have too much time to play around with the backstory of my characters. An epic has all the time in the world to play with ever facet of each character and have several antagonists. It also fits nicely with the idea that an epic is several connected ballads which is a series of connected lyrics. I felt it worked better than One Shot, Adventure, and Campaign. Still haven't finished my TTRPG though. You got me distracted on a Cyberpunk 2077 epic.
In regards to your Five Glowing Gems style campaign, I believe the literary term for the "gems" is Plot Coupons. They're not MacGuffins or plot devices because what they are matters, but they are kind of like plot devices you collect and cash in at the end of the story.
That actually inspired me to maybe try a Lancer campaign if I ever get myself hyped up enough: It will be episodic with the general concept of the players being part of the crew of a giant cosmopolitan ship commanded by an unshakaled NHP which the crew sees as a God and send them on vairus adventures.
This is a really good video and something I never really thought about until you put it into words. I am one of those people who was introduced to TTRPG's through D&D but when it came to being a GM I cut my teeth on Call of Cthulhu (which your videos are what made me really want to play it). I ran a campaign for a little under a year and it was very episodic, each session my players would be able to start and finish most adventures, but as I got better with the rules and my storytelling I was able to end the campaign with one big saga that lasted 10 or 12 sessions. I had my BBEG be one of my player's character from a dark future. It was a lot of fun.
That's it. I'm writing an 80's action tv star mashup! Magnum. Simon & Simon, MacGyver and Matt Houston.