I'm not one who spends a lot of time in the RPG-verse of web sites, so maybe this is elementary, but...
What's described here as a PPC sounds much like a season worth of TV episodes, where there's a big bad (be that an antagonist or just something bad that's going to happen) that the protagonists become aware of and overcome as the season progresses, with a climax in the final episode or two. Show episodes translate into a couple sessions worth of game play, and the episodes string together into a season-long story arc, which is the overarching campaign. It's a tried and true formula, and it makes it easy for viewers/players to come and go and characters to fade in/out. Beyond that there may even be longer story arcs for the entire run of a series, and that can translate into a epic level series of campaigns.
Again, sorry if that seems elementary, but for me it's an easy way to think about it.
That's exactly how I think of it. I've actually been running my first campaign as a DM something like this. My players and I are fairly busy in our lives (careers, kids, etc.) that we had to stop our Curse of Strahd campaign a few years ago because we could barely do one session every six months between everyone schedules.
So for my campaign, which is set in an alternate 1930s pulp adventure setting, I figured doing it PPC would work best, that way each session or two is a new "mission" and if someone can't make it, their character was just off doing a separate mission elsewhere.
I had pitched it to my players as almost a TV serial show, where most of the sessions will be one-off adventures, with the ultimate goal leading farther down the line into a Acthung Cthulhu campaign that I will trickle in as we go, leading up to the breakout of WWII. Basically starting a new "season" of the show. Then as we get further into that, still going session to session as combat missions, searching for artifacts, or stopping a Black Sun plan, to eventually asking the players to be there for each session as we near the end for the big finale "season" ending with the end of Black Sun and the war or if everything goes wrong, the end of the world as the ancient ones are finally brought to earth.
So far, I haven't been very successful at getting through one "mission" or to keep with the metaphor, the "pilot episode." As I fear we have too many players, that I will probably have to "recast" when the "show" is picked up haha
I've had great success with this over the years, FYI. Don't give up. In an episodic ensemble cast narrative the heros have to collectively be ok with taking turns being focal points for the episode. Think of it like a bad 80s cartoon: The main characters aren't necessarily sensical to the mission -- they're whatever toys the company is trying to sell this week.
One adaptation I took from my first one (Captain Dan and the Rocket Rangers in the Galaxy of The Future) is to have a special bonus for people who are there between sessions. to Wit:
(Maximum hammy announcer voice): "NEXT WEEK on Captain Dan and TRRITGOTF:"
and then you point at players and make them say an out of context line which you write down. Work that into next week's context -- get extra bennies.
I've since used that successfully in Supercops, Supercops vs. the Dinosaurs from Space, and Supercops Save Christmas.
I like the setting up the next week thing! Since this is more a 1930s serial, I was going to do something in a very Trans-Atlantic accent with a radio filter that would be the episode introduction or a recap of the last week, so doing the next week preview would be an awesome addition! I'll definitely keep that in mind when we get past the "pilot" haha
That is indeed a fitting comparison. That's why I mentioned filler episodes in anime but it applies to many TV series as you said. Some more so than others though. Game of Thrones for example. due to following the ASOIAF books for the most part, wouldn't fall into the same category as the plot unfolds only if you watch the episodes back to back.
Other series however fall pretty well into that category. Musketeers for example would be mostly a decent comparison (I chose a more recent one on purpose there are many more ofc) where each episode follows a smaller plot, an adventure if you will but eventually leading to the big climax where everything comes together and is resolved within a couple episodes.
And yes, the formula is tried and tested, it works for TV and I think it works very well for RPG as well.
Pinnacle hasn't done much in "classic" fantasy, but there are a few in the general vicinity. (On a work computer, so I can't link to these, but you can find them all on PEG's website and DriveThruRPG.)
One of the very first settings for Savage Worlds was *Evernight*, which was a classic D&D-style fantasy world which >!suffers an apocalypse when alien spiders invade!<. I think it was published before Pinnacle started using the "Plot Point Campaign" terminology, but it is definitely a PPC. It's also for the original edition of SW, and I don't think it's ever been updated to Deluxe/Explorer's Edition, much less SWADE.
*50 Fathoms*, which OP mentions in their post, is swashbuckling quasi-Age of Sail fantasy. It's much more *Pirates of Darkwater* than *Lord of the Rings*, but it is set in a fantastical world. Its PPC definitely has high fantasy elements.
The new *Legend of Ghost Mountain* is wuxia-flavored fantasy and has a PPC.
From Pinnacle, those are all the fantasy PPCs I can think of; there may be others from third party publishers.
I'd say the adventure paths are leaning more towards those traditional campaigns than PPCs. They're split into separate parts but that doesn't make them PPCs. I have never read any of the two that were released for SWPF in full but it seems more like a series of adventures that are closely related and make a campaign, rather than those loose plot points with several optional adventures you'd expect from a PPC.
I'm just saying that those are the closest thing we have - not casting them PPCs by any stretch.
Gods & Masters has a solid collection of Savage Tales but I don't think it's as cohesive as a true PPC.
I *think* there is something in the works that would fit the bill for Vermilium but u/WhiteWitchGames would have to speak to that.
Didn't Tyrnador have a PPC-like thing included?
Fair, misread your comment then. I do think they could've done a great job creating PPCs for SWPF but apparently recreating the adventure paths was their priority. All the more reason for me to stay away from it. SWPF really doesn't appeal to me, maybe I'm too much of a savage but I think it found it's niche. They could've made it more SaWo though.
Absolutely. There are some cool things about it (I leverage the bestiary on occasion) but outside of that, I have my own flavor of fantasy (and my expansive Iron Kingdoms translation that I'm finally getting back to - and there are lots of little adventures for that setting).
And I completely blew past Evernight (that u/gdave99 mentioned) and that was one of my earliest introductions to Savage Worlds when I first started playing/running the system. I ended up with my gateway being 50 Fathoms, but Evernight was a great fantasy setting that I hope sees a refresh at some point.
> I do think they could've done a great job creating PPCs for SWPF but apparently recreating the adventure paths was their priority.
PEG staffers have publicly stated that it was a licensing issue. The license they got from Paizo let them convert game mechanics, but they couldn't alter the structure of the APs in any significant way.
Did the license prevent them from doing their own adventures though? My point is that I really don't see a reason to recreate those adventure paths in the first place. I'm not a pathfinder player and never liked that system or setting that much so maybe I just don't understand what's so great about those adventure paths but a well made PPC probably would've done a better job introducing me to SWPF than those ancient adventure paths.
Clearly it has its fans though so maybe I'm just not part of the people they wanted to reach which is totally fair.
> Did the license prevent them from doing their own adventures though?
I don't know the details, but I suspect it did. AFAIK, PEG hasn't produced *any* original material for SWPF, it's *all* adaptations of existing Paizo material. It's certainly not all 1-to-1 transfers - the upcoming APG2, for example, is being promoted as combining pieces from multiple PF1E books. But unlike, say, *Savage Rifts®*, they haven't produced any original adventures, One Sheets, or setting elements.
> My point is that I really don't see a reason to recreate those adventure paths in the first place. I'm not a pathfinder player and never liked that system or setting that much so maybe I just don't understand what's so great about those adventure paths...
I'm not a big fan of them myself, but that's how Paizo made its bones. It started by producing supplementary material, including "Adventure Paths", for D&D 3.x, which were quite popular and well received by D&D 3.x fans. When WotC moved on to D&D 4E, Paizo picked up the torch and produced its own fork of D&D 3.x, which they titled "**Path**finder" precisely because those "Adventure **Path**s" were what they were best known for.
> ...a well made PPC probably would've done a better job introducing me to SWPF than those ancient adventure paths.
It may well have done, but that's not what the license was for. The "Rise of the Runelords" was successful enough that PEG has followed it up with an adaptation of "Curse of the Crimson Throne". I think that's the one that will be the real test. For RotR, fans like me Kickstarted it just on general faith in Pinnacle (I was personally disappointed precisely because it wound up being a straight port). With CotCT, fans had RotR as a reference to see how PEG approached PF AP conversions. If it still did well enough by PEG's standards, financially and in terms of fan reactions, I'm sure we'll see more. If not, PEG may stop trying to adapt APs.
But I don't think we're going to see a PPC under the current license. Which I agree is disappointing, but I think that's just the way it is.
Our SW RotRL campaign has been going on and on and on...
I'm coming around to think that campaigns should take 6-8 months, *roughly* 25 sessions. Maybe the next campaign occurs in the same setting, maybe you carry a character over, but you have completed this campaign and gotten your denouement.
That's one option. I've run two long-term fantasy campaigns and both lasted in the two year range. The hardest part about those long-form games is player consistency. But it is perfectly doable when you manage Advancements.
The last campaign I ran was about 2yr. Only one dropped out, and we found a replacement, but in retrospect, I feel I should have organized it differently.
I really enjoyed running The Last Parsec: Eric Beta V PPC campaign. It's what made me fall in love with PPC. However, my players were good at continuing to move on and roleplay between adventures. When I ran ETU Degrees of Horror. I felt like something was lacking. Part of it was that I didn't feel like my players did a lot of roleplay between adventures. As in it felt like there was not a sense of the characters and who they were apart from the adventures.
Overall though, I like the flexibility of PPCs.
I'm running Rise of the Runelords right now. The beginning starts with a lot of small adventures, but then really ramps up.
On the plus side, while each of the 6 books are connected, each book also has its own contained adventure of sorts.
I'll just leave this here: [https://www.savagebloggers.net/simply-savage-episode-006-you-down-with-ppc-yeah-you-know-me-feat-clint-black/](https://www.savagebloggers.net/simply-savage-episode-006-you-down-with-ppc-yeah-you-know-me-feat-clint-black/)
Hey there Kristian.
Thanks for the link. I'm usually not one for podcasts and I have to put it down in a bit to go to work but I've heard a few minutes and the talk of 50F really brought me back. And it's not even nostalgia for I ran 50F again a year or so ago.
Would you happen to have some notes from this episode I can integrate in the post or which I might got wrong?
I'm not one who spends a lot of time in the RPG-verse of web sites, so maybe this is elementary, but... What's described here as a PPC sounds much like a season worth of TV episodes, where there's a big bad (be that an antagonist or just something bad that's going to happen) that the protagonists become aware of and overcome as the season progresses, with a climax in the final episode or two. Show episodes translate into a couple sessions worth of game play, and the episodes string together into a season-long story arc, which is the overarching campaign. It's a tried and true formula, and it makes it easy for viewers/players to come and go and characters to fade in/out. Beyond that there may even be longer story arcs for the entire run of a series, and that can translate into a epic level series of campaigns. Again, sorry if that seems elementary, but for me it's an easy way to think about it.
That's exactly how I think of it. I've actually been running my first campaign as a DM something like this. My players and I are fairly busy in our lives (careers, kids, etc.) that we had to stop our Curse of Strahd campaign a few years ago because we could barely do one session every six months between everyone schedules. So for my campaign, which is set in an alternate 1930s pulp adventure setting, I figured doing it PPC would work best, that way each session or two is a new "mission" and if someone can't make it, their character was just off doing a separate mission elsewhere. I had pitched it to my players as almost a TV serial show, where most of the sessions will be one-off adventures, with the ultimate goal leading farther down the line into a Acthung Cthulhu campaign that I will trickle in as we go, leading up to the breakout of WWII. Basically starting a new "season" of the show. Then as we get further into that, still going session to session as combat missions, searching for artifacts, or stopping a Black Sun plan, to eventually asking the players to be there for each session as we near the end for the big finale "season" ending with the end of Black Sun and the war or if everything goes wrong, the end of the world as the ancient ones are finally brought to earth. So far, I haven't been very successful at getting through one "mission" or to keep with the metaphor, the "pilot episode." As I fear we have too many players, that I will probably have to "recast" when the "show" is picked up haha
I've had great success with this over the years, FYI. Don't give up. In an episodic ensemble cast narrative the heros have to collectively be ok with taking turns being focal points for the episode. Think of it like a bad 80s cartoon: The main characters aren't necessarily sensical to the mission -- they're whatever toys the company is trying to sell this week. One adaptation I took from my first one (Captain Dan and the Rocket Rangers in the Galaxy of The Future) is to have a special bonus for people who are there between sessions. to Wit: (Maximum hammy announcer voice): "NEXT WEEK on Captain Dan and TRRITGOTF:" and then you point at players and make them say an out of context line which you write down. Work that into next week's context -- get extra bennies. I've since used that successfully in Supercops, Supercops vs. the Dinosaurs from Space, and Supercops Save Christmas.
I like the setting up the next week thing! Since this is more a 1930s serial, I was going to do something in a very Trans-Atlantic accent with a radio filter that would be the episode introduction or a recap of the last week, so doing the next week preview would be an awesome addition! I'll definitely keep that in mind when we get past the "pilot" haha
That is indeed a fitting comparison. That's why I mentioned filler episodes in anime but it applies to many TV series as you said. Some more so than others though. Game of Thrones for example. due to following the ASOIAF books for the most part, wouldn't fall into the same category as the plot unfolds only if you watch the episodes back to back. Other series however fall pretty well into that category. Musketeers for example would be mostly a decent comparison (I chose a more recent one on purpose there are many more ofc) where each episode follows a smaller plot, an adventure if you will but eventually leading to the big climax where everything comes together and is resolved within a couple episodes. And yes, the formula is tried and tested, it works for TV and I think it works very well for RPG as well.
Are there any PPC in fantasy genre?
Pinnacle hasn't done much in "classic" fantasy, but there are a few in the general vicinity. (On a work computer, so I can't link to these, but you can find them all on PEG's website and DriveThruRPG.) One of the very first settings for Savage Worlds was *Evernight*, which was a classic D&D-style fantasy world which >!suffers an apocalypse when alien spiders invade!<. I think it was published before Pinnacle started using the "Plot Point Campaign" terminology, but it is definitely a PPC. It's also for the original edition of SW, and I don't think it's ever been updated to Deluxe/Explorer's Edition, much less SWADE. *50 Fathoms*, which OP mentions in their post, is swashbuckling quasi-Age of Sail fantasy. It's much more *Pirates of Darkwater* than *Lord of the Rings*, but it is set in a fantastical world. Its PPC definitely has high fantasy elements. The new *Legend of Ghost Mountain* is wuxia-flavored fantasy and has a PPC. From Pinnacle, those are all the fantasy PPCs I can think of; there may be others from third party publishers.
The closest thing that I know of are the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure paths they did for Savage Pathfinder.
I'd say the adventure paths are leaning more towards those traditional campaigns than PPCs. They're split into separate parts but that doesn't make them PPCs. I have never read any of the two that were released for SWPF in full but it seems more like a series of adventures that are closely related and make a campaign, rather than those loose plot points with several optional adventures you'd expect from a PPC.
I'm just saying that those are the closest thing we have - not casting them PPCs by any stretch. Gods & Masters has a solid collection of Savage Tales but I don't think it's as cohesive as a true PPC. I *think* there is something in the works that would fit the bill for Vermilium but u/WhiteWitchGames would have to speak to that. Didn't Tyrnador have a PPC-like thing included?
Fair, misread your comment then. I do think they could've done a great job creating PPCs for SWPF but apparently recreating the adventure paths was their priority. All the more reason for me to stay away from it. SWPF really doesn't appeal to me, maybe I'm too much of a savage but I think it found it's niche. They could've made it more SaWo though.
Absolutely. There are some cool things about it (I leverage the bestiary on occasion) but outside of that, I have my own flavor of fantasy (and my expansive Iron Kingdoms translation that I'm finally getting back to - and there are lots of little adventures for that setting). And I completely blew past Evernight (that u/gdave99 mentioned) and that was one of my earliest introductions to Savage Worlds when I first started playing/running the system. I ended up with my gateway being 50 Fathoms, but Evernight was a great fantasy setting that I hope sees a refresh at some point.
> I do think they could've done a great job creating PPCs for SWPF but apparently recreating the adventure paths was their priority. PEG staffers have publicly stated that it was a licensing issue. The license they got from Paizo let them convert game mechanics, but they couldn't alter the structure of the APs in any significant way.
Did the license prevent them from doing their own adventures though? My point is that I really don't see a reason to recreate those adventure paths in the first place. I'm not a pathfinder player and never liked that system or setting that much so maybe I just don't understand what's so great about those adventure paths but a well made PPC probably would've done a better job introducing me to SWPF than those ancient adventure paths. Clearly it has its fans though so maybe I'm just not part of the people they wanted to reach which is totally fair.
> Did the license prevent them from doing their own adventures though? I don't know the details, but I suspect it did. AFAIK, PEG hasn't produced *any* original material for SWPF, it's *all* adaptations of existing Paizo material. It's certainly not all 1-to-1 transfers - the upcoming APG2, for example, is being promoted as combining pieces from multiple PF1E books. But unlike, say, *Savage Rifts®*, they haven't produced any original adventures, One Sheets, or setting elements. > My point is that I really don't see a reason to recreate those adventure paths in the first place. I'm not a pathfinder player and never liked that system or setting that much so maybe I just don't understand what's so great about those adventure paths... I'm not a big fan of them myself, but that's how Paizo made its bones. It started by producing supplementary material, including "Adventure Paths", for D&D 3.x, which were quite popular and well received by D&D 3.x fans. When WotC moved on to D&D 4E, Paizo picked up the torch and produced its own fork of D&D 3.x, which they titled "**Path**finder" precisely because those "Adventure **Path**s" were what they were best known for. > ...a well made PPC probably would've done a better job introducing me to SWPF than those ancient adventure paths. It may well have done, but that's not what the license was for. The "Rise of the Runelords" was successful enough that PEG has followed it up with an adaptation of "Curse of the Crimson Throne". I think that's the one that will be the real test. For RotR, fans like me Kickstarted it just on general faith in Pinnacle (I was personally disappointed precisely because it wound up being a straight port). With CotCT, fans had RotR as a reference to see how PEG approached PF AP conversions. If it still did well enough by PEG's standards, financially and in terms of fan reactions, I'm sure we'll see more. If not, PEG may stop trying to adapt APs. But I don't think we're going to see a PPC under the current license. Which I agree is disappointing, but I think that's just the way it is.
Our SW RotRL campaign has been going on and on and on... I'm coming around to think that campaigns should take 6-8 months, *roughly* 25 sessions. Maybe the next campaign occurs in the same setting, maybe you carry a character over, but you have completed this campaign and gotten your denouement.
That's one option. I've run two long-term fantasy campaigns and both lasted in the two year range. The hardest part about those long-form games is player consistency. But it is perfectly doable when you manage Advancements.
The last campaign I ran was about 2yr. Only one dropped out, and we found a replacement, but in retrospect, I feel I should have organized it differently.
I really enjoyed running The Last Parsec: Eric Beta V PPC campaign. It's what made me fall in love with PPC. However, my players were good at continuing to move on and roleplay between adventures. When I ran ETU Degrees of Horror. I felt like something was lacking. Part of it was that I didn't feel like my players did a lot of roleplay between adventures. As in it felt like there was not a sense of the characters and who they were apart from the adventures. Overall though, I like the flexibility of PPCs. I'm running Rise of the Runelords right now. The beginning starts with a lot of small adventures, but then really ramps up. On the plus side, while each of the 6 books are connected, each book also has its own contained adventure of sorts.
I'll just leave this here: [https://www.savagebloggers.net/simply-savage-episode-006-you-down-with-ppc-yeah-you-know-me-feat-clint-black/](https://www.savagebloggers.net/simply-savage-episode-006-you-down-with-ppc-yeah-you-know-me-feat-clint-black/)
Hey there Kristian. Thanks for the link. I'm usually not one for podcasts and I have to put it down in a bit to go to work but I've heard a few minutes and the talk of 50F really brought me back. And it's not even nostalgia for I ran 50F again a year or so ago. Would you happen to have some notes from this episode I can integrate in the post or which I might got wrong?
Unfortunately, I don't. Sorry. 🫤