Why A New Campaign?

We've had fun with Raza. The world was plenty robust, the player characters were memorable, the plot was plenty epic. You may be wondering why at the brink of Paragon adventures I would want to scrap everything. While there were no gaping problems, there are a few reasons for my desire to change.

First off, Raza has been the only world I've ever dungeon mastered with the 4.0 redesign (it was the same even back at 3.9 with "prototype" characters). To put in perspective, I've been running it for 2 years while Matt has started probably 5 or 6 worlds. Olucra, Grothkor, and corrupt Vector have always been my bad guys. Not only have these enemy sources begun to be exhausted, such heavy themes seem to overshadow the rest of the magnificent wealth of new ideas that D&D 4.0 offers. When you have a world that is as heavily themed as Raza, its like I have to home-brew everything--use my own ideas for monsters and new plot devices. I've been anxious to show off some new adventure ideas that simply don't fit in the Raza world. It's almost like I'm doing a disservice to everyone by not "opening the creative door" for more traditional fantasy things.

While people have enjoyed the steampunk elements, no main players have ever really embraced the technological aspects. Not that they should have; we've seen from experience (e.g. Tab Fizzbibble, rangers who use guns, etc.) that guns and bombs are a bit clunky when trying to fit them into the rules. The lack of "Technomancers" probably indicates that people get along just fine with what's in the published rulebooks. Characters may resonate better with a world that is more like them.

Raza was also ill-suited for long term gameplay (i.e. more than 3 times a year). Every adventure that we did fit perfectly with the 3 session allotment but such epic themes would probably seem over the top after a few story arcs. Not that I couldn't have toned down the subject matter. It's just difficult however for characters to swallow "stopping the roadside bandits" or "finding the stolen gem" after having thwarted an Atomic Bomb and killing a resurrected Sterling Mortlock.

Naturally, we could have dragged Raza on, but I have better ideas. I have awesome ideas. In Scourge, I won't let you down.

That is, unless you guys are just IN LOVE with Raza and your characters. I suppose then we'd just keep going with it.

The new campaign will be suited for my permanent return back home. First level characters, weekly sessions, non-forced increasing of level and epicness, and natural story unravelling will be reinstated.