Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Campaign Souvenirs

When groups game, campaigns come and go but how many groups create some type of keepsake for really good campaigns? I've done this on three occasions:
1) A notebook for each player which kept the "campaign log."
2) A cassette soundtrack featuring liner notes describing the modules/event each track was played during.
3) Personalized pencils with the adventuring group's name.
4) As #2 but in cd form.

To be honest, I'm probably the only one that's really enjoyed these (especially the music collections) over the years but I maintain that years from now one of the players will stumble across one of these items and be blessed with a hit of nostalgia, saying to him/herself, "Good times." That's what keepsakes are all about, right? Maybe I'm just an oddball but has anyone done anything similar?

3 comments:

Mike said...

I've never done anything like that ... but what I've done in the past was to take all my players out to dinner (usually at a diner) at the end of the campaign, so we can talk about the highlights and really fun moments of the game.

That's also when I "pull aside the curtain" and give info about the game that their characters didn't know. Stuff like "Where *was* the magic sword hidden, anyway?" and "Why did the dragon hate paladins so much" all finally get answered. It basically becomes the equivalent of a DVD commentary track for the campaign.

I always paid for dinner for everyone. Diners usually got chosen because - in addition for food being really cheap - they tend not to kick out tables of seven or eight even if they're hanging around for a couple of hours, and back then they let you drink lots of coffee and smoke lots of cigarettes. Good times.

God, that was a long time ago.

(And this also only happened when I *intentionally* ended a long-running campaign. Plenty ended either by accident, or never intentionally ended ... they just withered away and died.)

Bret said...

Interesting, and a very cool idea! I forgot also that for a holiday treat I commissioned a local cake maker to draw the Protectorate name and sword symbol on a cake for us. She probably thought I was nuts but the pastry was delicious!

Brad said...

I think the campaign souvenirs are very. I still listen to the CD and actually have the pencil at my desk. I haven't been able to bring myself to sharpen it yet.

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