The character you become vs. the one you think you want

[Sysryke]

Had this idea a few days ago, and then read a thread of Reksew_Trebla's that resparked the idea. It's a bit like their question/idea, but in reverse. This is another theory/story crafting topic.

Assuming you could get everyone on board, and not stomp all over player agency feels, is there a way to pull off a successful campaign where everyone dies at the start? There are most certainly multiple facets and steps to this question/scenario, but I'll try to better explain my thoughts.

So, in theory, you have all of your players build the endgame version of the character they want. Max level (or maybe max -1), all the features, gear, powers, etc. that they could possibly want to be the epitome of the concept they visualized for the charcter. Then, start the game, and nearly instantly, everybody dies.

Assuming there's a way to pull this off without inciting a table flipping, game ending, friendship severing revolt, the next step is to now have everyone build new characters who are somehow related to or otherwise linked to their original charcters. Think the joke about the wall of identical dead bards who keep showing up for the final encounter. Instead of being maxed out though, these characters would be built as low/starting level versions of the same concepts. Now the real game begins.

The story would advance through whatever you're wanting to play. Somewhere near the end of the campaign though, an option to restore/ressurect the original characters comes up. I'm curious how different groups might handle this choice. If you've played two characters from the same concept, one in real play and one that was "perfect" in theory, how close would the two be to each other at this point? Which character would you choose to move forward with, the original, or the one you've played for so long?

Just a weird thought in my head. Curious to read peoples ideas. Beyond the what choices would you make part, I'm curious if anyone has any idea on how you could implement that early original character deaths idea as a surprise, without ticking all of your players off.

[yukongil]

I think as long as you pull the bandaid off quick, there shouldn't be a problem, the players are (hopefully) smart enough to figure out something is going on, if you make them build uber characters and then nuke them quick. Now whether or not you can get them to buy into the idea and want to continue it is another matter and I think would require a good deal of trust in the DM.

If I were to do something like this, I'd take their high level characters and then personally rebuild them at whatever lower level I was going to start at (to save time and trouble) and then essentially start the last fight of the game, let it go a few rounds with the Big Bad, have something dramatic and maybe look like it had the possibility of a party wipe and then pause, take their characters and hand them the lower level ones and then try and build back up to that last fight and see how those characters match up to their originals.

come to think of it, I did a version of this in a D20 Modern game, where I had them build their characters to about 6th or so, and then took their characters and made them kids (even made them "kiddie" version of their character sheets) and had them run an adventure as their adolescent forms, to create backstory and history within the group. Worked almost too well, as everyone wanted to keep playing the kid versions. If one player hadn't flaked out and sabotaged the game to be Mr. Coolguy, I had plans to run little one-shots as kids that would be the set up for adventures their adult counterparts would soon face. The game ended before a new player joined, which was a bummer, as I was going to run a "one summer" game with the kids, where they went on another childhood adventure with one of their friends, who then moved away, only to return with their adult character in the real game.

There was a 3.5 supplement called Ghostwalk that essentially started out like this, you killed your PCs and then they "reawakened" as ghosts in another world and then played from there. Always wanted to give that one a try...

[Sysryke]

That's great! I really like some of the ideas you've given me. Won't work with my current group, since we're all sharing a sandbox world with the same characters, but for a later campaign, this could work. Your second paragraph really hit the crux of it, to see how different the played vs. "perfect" characters look.

Your second example with the child versions of the characters is really fun as well. It's almost like a super protracted "level 0" campaign. The part that got messed up for you though, is the other part that intrigues me. After having played the lesser/younger characters for so long, when presented with the choice to have their ideal or the character they've spent the most time with, which character will the player choose?

[yukongil]

they definitely seemed more interested in playing the one they had spent more time with, though it may have just been the uniqueness of the scenario of playing kids in a modern DnD world.

[ErichAD]

I'd probably just tell them ahead of time that I was killing off their high level characters. Tell them something like "When you're making the character for next game, make the level 20 version of them as well so I can see where you want to take it." Then I get to surprise them with some actual play at the high level before going back to level 3 or 5 version. The surprise is positive, they have some more investment in the low level character, it seems better all around.

With how most games go at our table, the heroes wouldn't end up much as they were planned. Frequently someone will dip a class to pickup an ability the group is lacking, or pick up some ability they didn't know about at the start of the game. I think the choice would be difficult for everyone.

Edit: You know, they may think it's stupid to change to their ideal form since the old crew totally died.

[Sysryke]

That's a really helpful idea ErichAD. Saves from having to interject an extra building session into the game, and prevents the players from accidently or intentionally altering the lower level characters. The way to make it a positive as opposed to a crappy "gotcha" is the best bit there though.

Maybe the regression triggering event doesn't have to be a TPK. Or, even if it is, just make it very clear it wasn't because of any fault of the higher characters.

[Sysryke]

Hoping I'm not falling into bad form here. I always try and go through the current threads first to see what everyone else is talking about. Had a proper day off for once though, and got enough time to get through all the other threads that caught my eye. So, decided to take a peak at my old threads and see if any ideas sparked. I think this one had a nice start, so I figured I'd bring it back out and see if there are any bites.

[Tim Emrick]

One idea that I had for my last campaign, but didn't use, was having a sort of one-shot prelude, where the players play the last band of doomed heroes to faced the big threat of the campaign. They will likely all die, but if any survive (or get resurrected later), they will become NPCs that the new heroes might be able to seek out for important information about what they will face.

In this case, that threat was the Tarrasque, which in my world resurfaces once every human generation or so, and its rampages tend to drastically alter any region where it appears--more than one powerful kingdom has fallen to its enemies within a few years of being devastated by the beast, for example.

I didn't set things up that way because I wasn't feeling up to running a one-shot at that level yet, plus I wanted to keep the Tarrasque's exact abilities a mystery to uncover during the campaign. (I planned to use the altertnate Spawn of Rovagug stats I found in one of the Golarion sourcebooks, plus a few tweaks of my own to be determined later.) I did, however, work out some background info about the NPCs who battled the Tarrasque the last time, to reveal when the PCs started delving into that history. Sadly, the campaign didn't last long enough for us to get that far, beyond the bare bones that was common knowledge: The Tarrasque appeared near the high elves' capital, so the king and his greatest champions engaged the beast while the rest of the court evacuated. It's known that the king was devoured, and all or most of companions died as well.

If I ever try to restart that campaign, I might go ahead and use that "prologue" after all.

[Algarik]

Another idea could be that the ''high level version'' are presented at first as distant ancestor from a very far future. Every so often you could run a battle or a scene from their ancestors as dream. They slowly uncover what cosmic threat their ancestors had to deal with. The battle should be chronoligacally in reverse. Meaning you start with the big final confrontation with the Big Bad, in which they fail. and you slowly unpack their ancestors journey, maybe even deleveling them if needed.

Keep revealing bits of informations until they reach a point in which the dream they experience is the same battle they will have on the following day. Then they stop experiencing the dream and realise that they weren't receiving vision of the past, but vision of the future. And now they have to find a way to win knowing that they already failing to stop the cosmic villain in the future.

[Sysryke]

Algarik wrote:

Another idea could be that the ''high level version'' are presented at first as distant ancestor from a very far future. Every so often you could run a battle or a scene from their ancestors as dream. They slowly uncover what cosmic threat their ancestors had to deal with. The battle should be chronoligacally in reverse. Meaning you start with the big final confrontation with the Big Bad, in which they fail. and you slowly unpack their ancestors journey, maybe even deleveling them if needed.

Keep revealing bits of informations until they reach a point in which the dream they experience is the same battle they will have on the following day. Then they stop experiencing the dream and realise that they weren't receiving vision of the past, but vision of the future. And now they have to find a way to win knowing that they already failing to stop the cosmic villain in the future.

Interesting but . . . . . Ow! That much timeline talk hurts my brain :p

[KahnyaGnorc]

There are those stories that start towards the very end, seemingly a lost cause for the protagonist, then . . .

"You might be wondering how I got here. Well..."

Then, it goes back and tells the story up to that point, where it turns out the cause wasn't lost, as you, the viewer doesn't have all the information.

(The "Trash" episode of Firefly was similar)