The End of the World as We Know It!

So tonight is probably the last session in my 3.5 D&D campaign, entitled - The Shadowlands. The campaign has run for about seven years, and the players and their characters have been ramping up for the chance to save the world from the Gloom - evil creatures that want to return the world to primordial chaos and endless night.

We have gone through a few characters and a couple of players over the time, but the group has been remarkably stable and dedicated for years. This is the big payoff and I am pretty nervous about delivering an epic climax to the game.

I don't want to get into a 'Let me tell you about my game!' thing here. My intent was instead to write a little about how I am going to change things up rules wise for tonight - looking to maximize fun and excitement rather than slavish rules-mongering [not that I slavishly rule-monger normally, you understand].

First - I don't intend to use a battlemat or figures for most of the night. Now this is not all that new for the players. We sometimes don't bother with figures, even in a game like D&D 3.5, which is written with them firmly in mind. The players are all 13th level, and have flying steeds or spells and often deal with flying or extremely mobile foes [teleporters, insubstantials, etc], so the utility of setting out figures for determining Attacks of Opportunity, Flanking, etc, is not as high as it would be in a ground-based game with ground-based foes. Instead, i try to be lenient and logical about how many foes they can catch in area effect spells, or when they are trying to disengage from a big bad in order to come around for another dive, etc.

I also try to stress, epic, cinematic stuff over rigid rules enforcement. If a PC does something awesome [a movie-worthy moment] I would rather work that in than say, "Oh, you are struck by the shadow as you try to do that, sorry, and lose 3 Strength." I want a final battle like Beowulf fighting the Dragon, not one where the players are afraid to attempt anything because their enemies seem endless and overwhelming [even though that may appear to be the case].

With that in mind, I have created a resource for tonight's session called Hero Points [as opposed to the Eberron-style  Fate Point resource that they previously had]. Each players gets 3 Hero Points for this session. Spending one grants an automatic success for a single roll the character makes. Generally, if they use one, it is gone. BUT, if they use it in heroic, epic, movie-worthy-moment fashion, they get the Hero Point back and can spend it on future rolls. Is this powerful? Sure. But it encourages the players to think in that epic way, instead of worrying themselves into inaction or continually playing it safe. I want the game to end with an epic confrontation, something that the players have been using their characters to set up for about the last year, getting all their friends and allies in a row. Obviously the players want something close to what I am looking for too.

What I am hoping, is that the Hero Points do not remove all fear of death or loss from the situation. If the players think things are in the bag, all my intentions could fall flat. I plan to set the stage at the beginning of the game by telling them some of what I have written here [heck most of them probably will have seen this by then], which should encourage them to try truly heroic epic stuff. However, referring back to the Beowulf example above, it is important to understand that he did not survive that fight. He persevered, wounded and poisoned, acid or fire burned, slaying the dragon with the aide of the sole retainer brave enough to stand by him. Then he died. The players need to know that death is hovering over the table, awaiting the demise of all combatants, PC and NPC alike.

I will let you know how things go.