Hey, I’m afraid I’ve painted myself into a corner with this campaign idea I’m hoping to start in the next couple months. I’m building a homebrew world that I was initially planning on having the players magically transported to at the start of the campaign. I don’t want them to be native to the land because the world has strange laws of physics that I want the players to have to discover and play with as they go. The problem I’m having is that I’m worried that this setup will make it difficult to incorporate player backstories into the game, unless I somehow find excuses to teleport characters important to the players into this world, as well. Will it feel forced and maybe unsatisfying to the players to have Player A’s brother magically show up, or Player B’s childhood nemesis somehow appear. Has anyone else had a similar problem or have some creative solutions? Thanks!

I posted something a few days ago about puzzle difficulty. Here is the puzzle I was thinking about: You go into a room with 5 rows of 5 flags hanging from the ceiling. The flags are all of different colors. Some one color, Black, white, all the colors of the rainbow, and some are patterned. Choosing the right flag leads to success in your objective. Pulling the wrong flag creates a consequence. Pit suddenly opening, a creature appearing or the like. The only clue is... "Who is Robert?" Which flag do you choose?

I just finished 4 days of training and a 3 hour test for work. Don't you hate it when adulting gets in the way of life?

For those of you who use puzzles. How do you decide how complicated or difficult they should be. I have an idea that I love, but I know it will be difficult for my current players. To edit, The puzzle is you come into a room with 5 rows of 5 flags hanging from the ceiling. The flags are all of different colors. Some one color, Black, white, all the colors of the rainbow, and some are patterned. Choosing the right flag leads to success in your objective. Pulling the wrong flag creates a consequence. Pit suddenly opening, a creature appearing or the like. The only clue is... "Who is Robert?" Which flag do you choose?

That is, how many TTRPG campaigns that you were a part of reached a conclusion where you'd say the fiction of the game was finished? Story told, done, complete, etc? Instead of fizzling out (due to scheduling conflicts, loss of interest, moving on to a new game, etc). I'm trying to figure out if my experience is typical or not. I've played in or run 20+ campaigns since I got into TTRPGs about 20 years ago, but I've only ever "finished" 3 campaigns. One-shots don't count! I mean something that was meant to be episodic and take a long time to unfold. (I made this a post instead of a poll because I'm interested in specifics if you have them!)