Need help with campaign

[tgcb]

I'm planning a fantasy campaign.

I need your help with the following:

I was going to have the players (4-6 people) make their own characters.

I was then going to take the characters and make up variations on them - these being a parent of the player-rolled characters.

At our first game session, I'd hand out the new characters, but not explain much on why the switch (avoiding last names with the characters).

Hopefully there will not be a mutiny and they will play these characters for a number of sessions.

At some point this "prologue" would end and I'd have them play the characters they created - but what happened in the "prologue" will have a profound effect on the "real game". This may sound bad, but I'm hoping one or more of the parents die during the "prologue" and this will have to be dealt with by the children.

Basically I'd like the "prologue" to setup action in the real campaign (like avenging a death, or fulfilling a quest that your father failed).

Can you suggest some things for me:

1) how many sessions should the "prologue" run? (I was thinking about 5).

2) should they know these are the parents up front or let them find out later?

3) I want to "wipe out" at least a few of the parents...how do I make this not so obvious?

Note that a surviving parent may end up an NPC in the "real campaign".

Any other thoughts would be appreciated.

[rleduc]

The first thing I would do is let the players know that this is a short prolog, even if they do not know the relationship between these characters and their “actual” characters. Further, you may not want to be too strict about the parent/child relationship – let the flow of events in the prolog guide who the real characters are – for example in the prolog we may learn that Bob and Joe are brothers, but Bob dies doing X. Later one of Joe’s kids may be off to finish the quest started by Uncle Bob – and so on with increasing complexity.

[Harshax]

If this is a 'Sins of our Fathers' style campaign, then I'd suggest the following:

Prologue: Narrate (hand-out) a summation of the primary conflict affecting the characters

<a session or three>

Epilogue: Narrate (hand-out) a summation of what is left unresolved.

<time passes>

Prologue: How have things gotten worse? What's gotten better? How is the conflict renewed?

Start again with the new characters.

While there are probably many ways to play a generation-spanning game (eg: Pendragon), I assume the biggest draw to be finishing what your parent's started.

Are the relationships strictly parent/child? Can they be elder/younger siblings? I was just thinking of LotR movies, and wondered what it would be like to roleplay Boromir (get killed), and picking up the game anew with Faramir.

[Rob Thomas]

Keep the prologue short, say 2 or 3 sessions. The main event is what it is all about.

You will have to explain the switch of characters, but rather then being specific and saying parents just go with "relations".

The players are probably going to expect some sort of traumatic transition to their real characters so go ahead and kill away. Roll the dice behind your screen and say, "Wow, another critical."

I have never run a parent-offspring campaign, but I have reincarnation campaigns where the players go in with their characters and the whole party is wiped out. The players then get to make a few minor changes to the characters and the story picks back up twenty years later. An option to consider.

[frogspawner]

The players then get to make a few minor changes to the characters and the story picks back up twenty years later. An option to consider.

That certainly sounds better than having to start from scratch with new characters.

[Chaot]

I would talk to your players before you do this.

I would also keep your prologue to a session, maybe two. Make it fast passed, fun and intense as you want, but get it over quickly. The problem here is you're kind of using bait and switch. That rarely comes off well, despite the best intentions.