Epic Games
I have been running an Epic campaign a bit recently, and there are a number of things to keep in mind in these lofty realms of power. I will break down some of the points I am going to look at.
1. Making NPC's
2. Curbing silly behaviour
3. Keeping the game fun
Making NPC's
This is one of the most important aspects of the high level game. I think
that, a few years ago, an epic game was almost unrunnable because of the
sheer amount of work involved in building challenging NPC's. These days,
with the advent of such excellent programs as PCGen,
it has become alot simpler. Making kick ass NPC's is a breeze. You can have
piles of them ready to throw at the PC's.
There are a few things to keep in mind however. Remember for instance, to tailor your NPC's... make them specifically dangerous to the PC's. If you build them with a multitude of abilities which will work great on masses of low level characters... your PC's will breeze through them. Let's take an example, like the Cleave feat. While, for a PC, it is a truly wonderful ability... just how often are you going to be able to cleave PC's with your NPC? The answer is almost never. They have way too many hitpoints and you just can't expect them to fall in droves. So, what should the "PC-Killer" NPC warrior have? Feats like Power Lunge (Sword & Fist) and Power Critical (Masters of the Wild) are some of my favourites. Once the melee starts, NPC's generally don't last too long, so you want to make those first hits count. Let your PC's be charged by the enemy warrio, gaining the benefits of his Power Lunge feat, and using Power Critical immediately on the biggest warrior in the group. Give him a x3 or x4 critical weapon like a halberd, scythe or military pick, and you can really, really, make that first hit count. It makes the PC's think twice. Likewise, when using magic, skip the cloudkills, stack things to up the DC's of your spells, to that they will effect on the PC group. Look into things like greater spell focus, give your NPC's ability enhancing magic items, and look into spells which don't allow saves or Spell Resistance. Also use things like Energy Admixture feats which allows you to do a sonic fireball... something which not many people are resistant to. So, don't be afraid to turn your NPC's into real PC killers. Make it tough for 'em.
Curbing Silly Behaviour
I recently had the problem of the PC group stacking into a lowly tribe of
orcs with nothing less than firestorm spells and meteor swarms. I have only
recently found a way to curb this behaviour, and to explain why powerful
people in the game world don't go around throwing meteor swarms at anything
that moves. The answer is, upon reflection, simple. You just never know
what's going to happen next. To make this clear to a group of powerful PC's
who are throwing around high level spells like there's no tomorrow... make
them feel that there is a tomorrow. When they've killed off a few hundred
orcs with their firestorms, horrid wiltings and whatnot, happily exhausting
their high level spells... through a group of harder enemies at them...
and when they've finished them off with their mid-level abilities, which
are then exhausted... bring in the real bad guys. One or two of these experiences
will make the PC's understand why Elminster doesn't go around the Forgotten
Realms destroying everything with maximized horrid wiltings. It's precisely
that there is a tomorrow, and there's always a bigger fish than you waiting
for a weak moment. In this way, you can make it clear to the PC's that they
should be very careful about which abilities they use for what. They must
understand that though their abilities are vast and extensive... the principle
of "just enough guns" still applies to them. If word gets out
that the group's wizards have used all their high level spells every evening...
well... then when are your enemies going to attack. So, even if the PC's
have hugely powerful abilities... they have no real choice but to keep them
in reserve... and you must schedule your encounters to make this very clear
to them.
Keeping the Game
Fun
This may be the hardest part of the epic campaign. I think the way to do
it is to have convuleted interwoven plots with extremely powerful individuals
with conflicting interests for the PC's to navigate between. The PC's should
move around a backdrop where the schemes of gods, archmages, liches, dragons
and the other high powered folk of the realm are all trying to further their
own personal agenda. In other words, it's a large part roleplaying... keeping
people friendly, cementing alliances and trying to keep interests from conflicting.
IN my campaign the players are attempting to build an alliance to fight
the Zhentarim. In order to make the campaign world continue to make sense,
I have moved the campaign time ahead by twenty years (see the section on
time in the campaign). There are many and large plots afoot... and the players
are part of them... they have to think, balance power and keep the alliance
together. Their stronghold was proven to be desperately inadequately defended,
and this meant they had no choice but to accept a mission from a powerful
archmage in exchange for the means to properly defend their base of operations.
In this mission they are in contact with complex plots being hatched by
dark deities, which may or may not tie in to their desire to rid the realms
of the Zhentarim. In this way the same issues are present as there area
at lower levels, but the role of the PC's in the game world is greater,
which is one of the reasons why it is important to schedule long downtimes.
Conclusions
Those are some of the basic concepts I have to offer about running epic
games. I think one point which cannot be stressed enough however is downtime.
Downtime is the only way to keep your campaign world believable. If your
players have been on a difficult adventure in which they have almost died
twelve times they may come back three levels higher. Only two weeks have
passed however. Is the Tavernkeeper at their local watering hole going to
treat them any different immediately? Probably not. The only way to make
these processes logical in the game world is to give them time. In the case
of the example above... go ahead and give two or three years of downtime.
The adventuring profession should be a life of tedious boredom punctuated
by frantic moments of sheer terror. So, as one last piece of advice, give
the world time to adjust to the players. This applies to epic games as much
if not more so than any other. IN the schemes of these eternal beings, 10
years is nothing.