What the best way to commemorate a campaign?

[DRD1812]

I'm coming to the end of a long-running campaign. I'm talking 10+ years IRL of adventuring through a mega-dungeon. I've thought about writing up all the session summaries and turning that into a leather-bound volume for each of my players, but the cost (both in time and money) is prohibitive.

So help a gamer out. What's the best way you've found to memorialize your adventures?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

[Mark Hoover 330]

Now you're just going to make me cry. Decades ago I ran a Marvel Super Heroes campaign for my HS buddies. We all made characters based on ourselves, picked one power with a couple power stunts, and had adventures through HS and into college. We called ourselves Justice and our motto was: when you think of crime... think of Justice!

One guy in our group was an artist for a living. When we wrapped the campaign, he took an old photo of us from HS and made a comic book splash page out of it, adding in our character costumes from the first days of the Marvel campaign.

I'll spare you the mushy stuff; suffice it to say that life happened, there were angry words and years of feuding between us. It took until my 40's to reconcile everything but I managed to reconnect and apologize, make friends again amongst us all.

My friend passed from ALS last year, just before I had a chance to get Justice back together again for one last adventure. On the wall of art his family put up at the service after the funeral was the team pic of our heroes. He was SUCH a great man and artist, and a terrific friend.

Anyway, I vote for making something real, something tangible. It could be a drawing or a story, maybe a special coin or die, maybe even recording a song or a unique piece of clothing. More than that though, and this is going to sound cheezy... stay friends with the folks you gamed with. Make a point to have a beer or a coffee or something. Enjoy the friends you made along the way.

[VoodistMonk]

Hand-sketched group photo of all the characters in the party. Sign it. Date it. Make copies for all the players and put them in frames.

[DeathlessOne]

VoodistMonk wrote:

Hand-sketched group photo of all the characters in the party. Sign it. Date it. Make copies for all the players and put them in frames.

Very much this. Commission an artist if you need to. One of my favorite adventures in recent memory was taking my friends through the Iron Gods adventure path and them having started up a very fine Tavern complete with Leshy employees and the center piece of the Tavern was a great oak tree that mirrored all four seasons in different parts of its branches.

Getting a portrait of the party toasting their success beneath its branches while the Fungus leshies are breaking up a brawl in the background, while their pets are watching the whole thing from the branches... Would be amazing to see.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Coming in a close second from the team picture of Justice, there were the Campaign Award Sheets another buddy of mine made. He ran a 2e D&D campaign using a Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut module. When the game finally concluded at 20th level, he gave each of us a certificate that summarized a few of our PC's accomplishments, related the full backstory and powers of the unique magic item that had leveled with us all this time, and then gave a couple paragraphs of epilogue for our individual PCs.

My character started as a Halfling Homesteader, a type of Fighter kit with some survival and navigational skills as well as crafting so that they can found a new halfling settlement. My "living artifact" was a pair of blacksmith's gloves that always seemed to protect my hands from getting singed while smithing. Over the course of 20 levels I managed to found Stouthammer Falls and get married, so my epilogue talked about returning home, finally able to hang up the sledgehammer I'd been carrying as my signature weapon in favor of a mallet and tongs, having kids and living happily to the end of my days with a statue of the hammer and gloves in the town square.

[Tim Emrick]

As someone's who's been drawing since infancy (and even earned an art degree) I almost always draw portraits of my own PCs, and have occasionally done so for other players' characters. Once in a great while, I have managed to do a group portrait of the party, but that's an order of magnitude more involved than a single character. It's the fan-art version of herding cats. ;-)

At one point, I did conceive a triptych of painted portraits for the three full-time PCs in one of my longer-running campaigns, but that project never got past a few rough sketches to work out some of composition ideas. (Not to mention I have gotten super lazy about painting since college. Nobody's fault but my own, of course.) I had posted my session summaries online, and reread them all some years later when I had to migrate the content to a new host. There were a very gratifying number of nostalgic moments as I did that! I had a small but committed group of imaginative players, and they inspired me to craft some stories that still hold up pretty darn well, if I do say so myself.

[Lathiira]

My GM painted minis of our characters for the end of the campaign, as well as some other NPCs. I have one of the villains sitting on the shelf :)

[Valandil Ancalime]

For 1 campaign I kept campaign notes on the computer and would email notes/stories every session. At the end I edited them to be readable, printed them out and put them in plastic 3ring binders.

[VoodistMonk]

I was going to bring up getting custom [metal] minis made of each character, and presenting them to their respective players. I'd probably have them done in bronze by a place like Hero Forge, and not paint them.

[pad300]

The obvious answer to your problem is to TPK the party; much easier than all this memorial stuff...

[VoodistMonk]

pad300 wrote:

The obvious answer to your problem is to TPK the party; much easier than all this memorial stuff...

Oh $#!+, this made me laugh entirely way too much.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Coming to the end of a ten year game, possibly 12 year by the time we're actually done, 1st level to Immortal (if all goes well).
We have made two custom miniatures for each of the PCs and have been looking around to find an artist to do a decent job but a surprising number of them say 'no furries' and they seem to think rakasta are furries while we maintain they are not, they are feline people.

THe next D&D game we run after this will have the new PCs be worshippers of the new Immortals.

[Valandil Ancalime]

VoodistMonk wrote:

pad300 wrote:

The obvious answer to your problem is to TPK the party; much easier than all this memorial stuff...

Oh $#!+, this made me laugh entirely way too much.

Same here.

[Lathiira]

pad300 wrote:

The obvious answer to your problem is to TPK the party; much easier than all this memorial stuff...

I'd at least hope their actions are worthy of a memorial. At least a song!

[DRD1812]

VoodistMonk wrote:

I was going to bring up getting custom [metal] minis made of each character, and presenting them to their respective players. I'd probably have them done in bronze by a place like Hero Forge, and not paint them.

Ordering something seems to be within my skillset. Maybe this + the campaign aware certificate idea....

[DRD1812]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Now you're just going to make me cry... stay friends with the folks you gamed with. Make a point to have a beer or a coffee or something. Enjoy the friends you made along the way.

Now you're going to make ME cry. My paladin was my best man. We're all having our annual Secret Santa part this Friday. Tonight is group craft night on the Discord. They're good people, and they're the reason I think it's best to play with your friends.