The Other Precondition

If "The Mists of Lamordia" does indeed come to a satisfactory end by the end of June, I will consider running another campaign, after a sufficiently long break. That said, I have one other precondition for doing so: I need to come up with a campaign.

Right now, I have several half-baked ideas for a campaign, but nothing that immediately grabs me. I know I want something shorter in scope, something much more episodic, and also something low-level and easy to run. But I'm yet to hit on something that really inspires.

And that's what I need: a solid premise for a campaign that I want to run, plus a suitable "side dish" to both make the campaign stand out and also give the characters something to do beyond just killing things and taking their stuff.

Another Week of No Games

The session of "The Mists of Lamordia" intended for today was cancelled due to several no-shows, meaning that this is another week of no gaming. Because of several holidays, the next session is planned for the 28th of April.

Meanwhile, "A Quest for Memory" has missed several weeks including this week. We're scheduled for next week, and after that we're looking at the 20th of April.

All of which is unfortunate, but not disastrous. That said:

• I estimate that "The Mists of Lamordia" has about six sessions. I'm thinking that if we don't get though it by the end of June, that's a sign that the scheduling is just too difficult, and it's time to call a halt to the Work Game - that is, there won't be a next campaign.
• If "A Quest for Memory" doesn't resume by the end of April, I'm calling it a day on that one, too. I'm also thinking it's time to bring that towards the endgame, regardless.

A Thought About Halflings and Narnia

I was musing about halflings the other day, and one of the random thoughts that popped into my head is that they'd be an ideal way to model all the various animal-folk that populate the Narnia stories - Mr Beaver, Reepicheep, and so forth. Amongst other things, that would solve the perennial problem with strength scores and small characters, since so many animals are proportionately stronger than humans.

That said, I'm disinclined to change the depiction of halflings in Terafa at this stage (as I'm broadly happy with their story there), so I'm not entirely sure where, if ever, I would use this idea.

Another One for the List

A couple of weeks ago "The Mists of Lamordia" reached the milestone of 10th level. It's likely that this will be the final time the party levels up this campaign, though it's just about possible that they might once more. Either way, this means that this campaign can be added to the very small list of campaigns to reach double figures - and it's the first 5e campaign to make the list.

As a reminder, I believe there are now five campaigns in this category:

• There was a very old Dragonlance/Spelljammer 2nd Edition campaign that ran to 15th level.
• My first full 3e campaign made it to 12th level, I think.
• The highest level I've ever run to was "Shackled City" in 3.5e. The characters were 18th level in the final session, and would have reached 19th had we tallied the XP at the end.
• Also in 3.5e, "The Eberron Code" ended with the PCs at 15th level.
• And now, "The Mists of Lamordia" is a 5e campaign that has reached 10th level.

After the Mists Part

With "The Mists of Lamordia" coming to its end, I've started giving some thought as to what comes next. I must admit, I'm sorely tempted to call it a day at that - hang up the mantle of DM and walk away. But the players seem to be really keen to keep playing, so maybe...

Three  things are pretty clear though:

1. I'll be taking a lengthy break before starting the next campaign. Certainly until we're back in the office, and probably a good bit beyond that.
2. We could really do with some additional players!
3. The next campaign needs to be a good bit simpler, or at least more episodic, than either "The Mists of Lamordia" or even "Storm King's Thunder" - both of those campaigns just had too much lore and too many moving parts for players to keep it all straight.

Assuming we do play on, I have some stuff concerning character generation to put forward:

• We'll generate our own "standard array" during character generation - basically, we'll go around the table rolling 4d6-drop-lowest once each until we get 6 stats, and then everyone will have those to use.
• We'll need to expand the options of class and subclass quite a bit, allowing the Artificer and probably all the subclasses from Xanathar's and Tasha's. With the Bard and the Sorcerer, in particular, we've kind of done the PHB options to death.
• I'd really like each PC to have a different class this time! Having two FIghters in the first campaign and two Sorcerers in this has not been ideal.
• I'd also really like each player to choose a race they haven't used before (with the exception of human - that's always an option) and a class they haven't used before.

But none of that answers the biggest question: what to do? Something different, I feel, but what?