Valandar, Lord of Eldor, General of
Generals, and 23rd-level fighter, pulled on
his shimmering, golden plate mail +6. He
buckled his girdle of titan strength about his
waist and hefted his sword of disintegration
+6. Then he surveyed himself in his mirror
of healthful reflection and deemed himself
fit to battle the dragon that had been ravaging
the countryside.

In another universe, Gelkin, a 4th-level
fighter, put on his chain mail +3, unsheathed
his longsword +1, and lifted his
shield +2. He woefully thought of the few
gold pieces remaining in his pouch and
hoped to find an adventure that might pay
enough to live on for a while.

The preceding paragraphs give examples
from hypothetical campaigns, one wellbalanced
and one "Monty Haulish." Which
is which may not be obvious.

Valandar was run for nine years of real
time, gained two to three levels per year,
and undertook extremely dangerous quests.
He has an impressive array of equipment,
but none of it has ever made any adventure
a cake-walk.

But Gelkin got all his equipment and
levels during one adventure.

To further illustrate, we visit Valandar
and Gelkin a few hours later.

Valandar, Lord of Eldor, limped into his
chambers, his battered and bloody armor
squeaking as he moved. In his right hand he
held the useless stub of his former sword,
which still steamed from the dragon?s blood.
With a curse on the corrosive fluids in a
dragon?s body, he cast the sword fragment
away. Perhaps it could be made into an
enchanted nail file for his wife.

He gazed forlornly at his blackened waist,
where his girdle of titan strength once hung.
" Under the armor, under the armor!" he
shouted. "Wear magic belts under the
armor!"

He peered into his mirror of healthful
reflection and immediately felt his wounds
begin to heal. His armor wasn?t so lucky.
Perhaps the master smiths could repair it ?
but perhaps not.

Meanwhile, Gelkin, SLAYER of goblins,
surveyed his handiwork. Three dead orcs
and an open chest lay before him. He was
now 5th level and had enough gold for
months. Gelkin pulled his newfound sword
from its scabbard and learned that it was a
vorpal weapon +5 and also had the abilities
of a staff of the magi. "Neat," he said.

Campaigns cannot be neatly categorized
on the basis of a few examples from them.
After getting the definition of some terms
out of the way, this article will examine the
problems that crop up in many campaigns
and how to deal with them.

A "campaign," in the fantasy roleplaying
sense, is a series of adventures with
an overall connection. It usually involves
either recurring groups of characters, settings
in the same world (or related worlds),
or both. 

A properly run campaign is usually called
"balanced." A poorly run campaign is
called "unbalanced." I prefer the terms
"controlled" and "uncontrolled," respectively.
Often, when a campaign has become
uncontrolled for a long period of time, it is
called a failure.

Individual adventures can indeed be
failures, but as a whole, no campaign ever
fails, and any campaign can be controlled.

Recognizing uncontrolled campaigns
Most articles about "failed" or "Monty
Haul" campaigns warn about the dangers
of overly powerful characters upsetting the
"game balance." Game balance is a relative
term. Over-powerful characters from one
game may be under-powered in another.

Obviously, a campaign in which players
use gods of the Egyptian pantheon as player
characters is in a different class from one in
which all player characters are halflings. If
Ra were to enter the halfling campaign, the
halfling players might consider him to be
from an uncontrolled campaign, They
might be right, but a given campaign must
be judged separately from other campaigns.
Game balance therefore depends on the
internal workings of each individual campaign.

1. Have most of the characters achieved
their levels fairly without undue "favors of
the gods," and through real danger to the
characters? "Fairly" can even mean starting
all characters at 2nd level or higher, as
long as all characters have the same chance
(although I prefer that all characters start at
1st level). "Favors of the gods" can include
wishes that raise levels, decks of many
things, and various magical tomes. Experience
gained without risk is a gift. In one
adventure, the DM granted my party full
experience points for burning to death three
defenseless treants. Gaining a level per
adventure, or even per two to six adventures,
is too fast.

2. Has magical or technological equipment
been mostly earned by real effort?
Gaining a magical sword by chopping a tree
down with a herring might count as real
effort. Freeing a sword from a block of ice
with a blowtorch probably wouldn't. Of
course, if the herring were highly enchanted,
or the character has to invent the
blowtorch, it might be different. Magical
items lying unguarded behind normal secret
doors take no great effort to acquire; ones
behind trapped secret panels with special
opening codes would.

3. Do most of the characters find the
greater share of the individual adventures
challenging? By "challenging" I don't
mean vaporizing Lolth as an appetizer,
destroying Demogorgon for the main
course, and annihilating Yeenoghu for
dessert. By "challenging" I don't mean a
crippled goblin killing three out of six characters.
By "challenging" I mean an adventure
that makes the characters exert their
abilities to a great degree, makes them
worry about survival, and gives some of
them wounds to remember. An adventure
doesn't have to kill any characters to be
challenging. My adventures kill characters
rarely, maybe once every twenty adventures
or less. Challenges can also be mental --
puzzles to solve, traps to figure out, amd so
forth.

4. Most importantly: Is most everyone
having fun? This includes the DM as well
as players. Not all players enjoy a particular
DM's style, and vice versa. Not everyone in
a group will always care for the particular
adventure they're on. Some players like
certain types of adventures and prefer DMs
who oblige them. Some prefer hack-andslash,
some like "thinking" adventures,
some like very controlled, narrow-purpose
adventures, and some just like to roam and
have random encounters. The different
types of players are not necessarily incompatible.
One player's favorite saying was
"wake me when the fighting starts." He
wasn't the least interested in solving riddles
or bargaining with merchants; he let the
others do that. His character fought and he
was happy. On the other hand, another
player preferred to leave the fighting to
others while he lived by his wits.

Each "YES" answer to the above questions
is worth 1 point, each "no" worth 0.
Total the points and continue with the following
section.

5. Are any characters too powerful?
Power is a relative term. 
A <Superhero> with 18/00 strength, 70 hp, and a
sword +3 is godlike compared to a 1st-level
fighter with average strength, 5 hp, and a
normal broadsword. The same 8th-level
fighter is weak compared to a 15th-level
fighter with a girdle of storm giant strength,
140 hp, a holy avenger +5, and plate mail
+5. "Too powerful" means characters who
easily win their fights. Every character has
easy lights, but if they are always easy and
the characters rarely have a serious challenge,
then they are too powerful.

6. Are there too many powerful magic
items in the campaign? This includes technological
devices and other high-powered
special equipment such as items of artifact
status, spheres of annihilation, +5 weapons,
and anything that lets characters win
fights all the time. By too many, I mean
each character having such items. Even
lesser items could amount to the same
thing, if characters have wagonloads of
them.

7. Do the characters have too much
money? Enough gold to unbalance the
economic structure of a country is too
much. Enough money to buy everything of
substantial value in the capital city is probably
too much (unless the characters already
rule the city). The money inherent to high
social class (nobility or royalty) isn?t usually
a problem.

8. Do the characters have too much manpower
available? This can mean any kind of
henchmen or hirelings, human or otherwise.
This can be related to having too
much money. The situation I refer to is in
the dungeon. Many players like to hire
cannon fodder to set off all the traps and
test all the potions. Worse, they like to have
small armies do all their dirty work, like
killing all the dungeon inhabitants. There is
a place for armies on the battlefield. Adventures
usually work best when the characters
themselves must face the dangers.
 

For questions 5-8, each "YES" answer is
worth -1 point; each "no" is worth 0.
Total all the points from both sets of questions
and consult the results section below.

Results
+ 4 = Excellent campaign. Depending
on the imagination of the DM (and the
players), it could be a great campaign.

+3 = Good campaign. It has a problem
or two, but probably nothing a little effort
couldn?t fix. If it lacks fun, then it may be
mechanically correct, with no heart.

+ 2 = Fair campaign. Many campaigns,
especially first-time ones, are of this type.

+ 1 = Mediocre campaign (and likely to
get worse unless some serious fixing is
done).

0 = Poor campaign. Any good points
are balanced by equally bad points. Then
again, there may be no good points, but no
particularly bad points

- 1 = Awful campaign. Bad points outweigh
the good ones. It may be played
because flaws are overlooked. It can still be
fun.

- 2 = Terrible campaign. At best it could
still be fun and challenging, but it isn?t
likely to be that way for long.

- 3 = Miserable campaign. Hopefully
still fun, but it?s probably fading fast and
played mainly out of habit.

- 4 = Pitiful campaign. No longer even
fun, unless you enjoy being tortured. Its
players are extreme die-hards, or the DM
may be an egomaniac who refuses to admit
anything is wrong.
 

If your own campaign has a rather low
score, don't be depressed. Despite the problems
a campaign may suffer, it can't suffer
failure unless allowed to do so. Campaigns
can be severely damaged by lack of proper
control, but any damage can be fixed. Even
a - 4 campaign can be regenerated.

Some might say, "You don't know what
you're talking about. Our campaign is still
fun, and that's what counts!" It's true that
fun is the most important aspect of the
game. Without it, there isn't much point in
playing.

But eventually, the flaws in a fun campaign
are likely to worsen to the point
where no one is having fun any more. If
brought under control, the flawed (but fun)
campaign will be even more enjoyable. The
following section offers some solutions to the
problem of uncontrolled campaigns.

Repairing uncontrolled campaigns
First, pinpoint the problem using the
section above. This article assumes that the
player characters have gotten out of hand in
some way, without laying the blame on
either the DM or the players.

If the characters are too powerful, determine
how so. Are they of vastly high level?
Do they have high ability scores? Unusual
powers? Powerful magic or technological
items? Enormous wealth? Great armies?

Ability scores and levels go together to
create physical power in the AD&D® game.
A 1st-level character with a 19 strength still
dies as easily as any other 1st-level character.
Only when awesome ability scores are
backed by high-level hit points do we get
the "superman" effect.

I don't consider ability scores less than 19
to be a problem, unless most or all of them
are 18's, which is not only boring but unnatural.
Only unbelievable luck, cheating,
or magical increases will produce such a
character.

Prevention is easier than cure. I never let
my players roll ability scores with more
than three dice, except for demi-humans
(best three of four dice in strength and
constitution for dwarves, the same in dexterity
and charisma for elves, etc.), nor do I
allow the raising of one score by the lowering
of another. Of my own 50-odd characters,
I have one paladin and one illusionist.
I?ve always thought they were meant to be
rare, and have always made it so.

I do, however, allow the increase of ability
scores by training, so that low scores
may be increased while level increases.
High scores are rarely increased. Of course,
fighters do not raise intelligence, nor magicusers
strength. Intelligence is limited to a
+2 increase, the only ability I limit (except
for comeliness, which usually increases only
if charisma does).

Characters who are on their way to godlike
levels and attributes can be reined in by
many means. Levels can be drained by
undead who have strong connections to the
Negative Material Plane. If undead present
no great threat, a gate to the Negative
Material Plane could be opened. The characters
would be forced to close the gate or
perish. In closing the gate, the characters
could be drained of both attributes and
levels. If kept away from restoration spells
long enough, the level drops would be permanent.
Lost ability scores could be gone
permanently, partially restored by the forces
of good, or regained over a period of time.
A quest for a greatly desired item could
break PCs both physically and mentally
(lowering some ability scores by a few
points) but give them the item they desire.

Sometimes, one or more characters in a
group may be too powerful for that group.
This can be a sign of the campaign going
out of control, but remember, anyone can
be a wimp or a warrior. Power is relative to
the strength of encounters, the strength of
the party members, and the average for the
campaign as a whole. A weak character
from one group can be powerful in comparison
to another group, and vice versa.

Almost everyone in my campaign has
three or more characters of varying power
levels. Most characters have a regular set of
companions they adventure with, and the
players don't try to bring their tough characters
in with a weak group unless it fits the
scenario I'm planning.

Characters will not usually outstrip their
companions greatly if the characters all
started together and adventure together,
providing all had equal chances for good or
bad characters. Although characters may
excel by luck, skill, or both, often the overpowered
characters come from another
campaign or from higher-level groups in the
same one. This is the usual way of it in
campaigns with which I am familiar. Sometimes,
characters advance beyond their
fellows simply because they have adventured
more. This often occurs when a
player group is broken up by college, career,
or the relocation of families.

Whatever the reason, a DM will occasionally
be faced with a player who wants to
bring in a character from another group.
Although there is basically nothing wrong
with that, some DMs will not allow it. No
DM has to let any character into a campaign
if he doesn't want to do it. The DM
is the final authority in his campaign. Although
my campaign has had its share of
problems, I?ve never had trouble from
crossover characters. While I've allowed
almost any characters into the game, I've
placed them with equivalently powered
groups or else trimmed their powers until
they were made to lit in with the other PCs.

Anyone entering a game controlled by
you is subject to your rules. If players don't
wish to have their PCs' powers altered or
reduced, they don't have to play in your
game. Players may have their PCs weakened
only for the duration of their stay, or
they may accept permanent alteration of
their PCs. Make sure the players are informed
of this before they bring in their
characters. A favorite technique of mine is
to have the means of arrival to my world
(gates, spells, mystic explosions, summonings,
etc.) be the means of their alteration.
For example, NPCs may take magic items
in trade for transporting characters to my
world, good gods may ?cleanse? evil characters
so they can adventure with good
ones, mystic explosions may alter characters
in attributes and levels, and dimensional
"police" may forbid certain items to be
brought into my world.

If, despite everything, your campaign has
characters far beyond the rest in terms of
personal power, other options exist. The
easiest solution for me was to craft adventures
with a very tough, central adversary
surrounded with lesser underlings. As a
matter of course, a powerful character
would seek out a fight with the major foe,
while everyone else mopped up the lesser
beings. The tough guy needed the help
because he would have been swamped
otherwise. Everybody fought, everyone was
busy, everyone was happy.

Another way is to create adventures in
which a character's power is useless. An
adventure requiring the solving of riddles is
one example,-since-the player must depend
on his own cleverness, rather than the character's power, 
to solve problems and finish
the scenario. This balances things well for
everyone. 

If a character is still too powerful for a
particular group, there are other measures
that can be taken. The DM can talk to the
controlling player, who may agree that
something should be done to make things
more workable. It could be a matter of ?
giving up some items or taking voluntary
cuts in some powers or abilities. The character
could be retired until the rest of the
group catches up, or it could be played with
a more powerful group, if one exists. Or the
character can go adventuring alone, which
gives the DM a chance to make more demanding
adventures without killing weaker
characters.

The character may also be run as an
NPC by the DM if the player agrees. The
DM would then assume control of the character,
possibly allowing the player to use it
on special occasions. If the player wishes to
be helpful, he may give powerful items to
the gods or to wizards until such time as
they are needed again, or the items may be
sacrificed to stop a great evil. Personal
power could be passed to others or mysteriously
returned from whence it came.

Some characters might simply not use
certain powers or weapons. The great warrior
Vendil, for example, uses only his 18/00
strength and his bare-hands on most oppomeets,
saving his sword +5 "for a truly worthy foe."

If the player doesn't see the problem with
his character, the DM may have to take
other actions. Killing out-of-control characters
is one solution, but I believe in being
fair. Destruction is easy; any DM can kill
any character if he really wants to, but I
abhor off-handed destruction of PCs. I
believe in giving every character a fighting
chance for life. Try to solve problems creatively;
creation is always harder than destruction,
but is worth it. Above all, be fair!

If the main problem is an excess of powerful
magic items, it can be handled in
much the same manner as physical prowess
was handled. It is only the psychology of
owning magic items that is different. For
many players, magic is the most interesting
thing in a fantasy campaign; the roleplaying
aspect of the game often takes second
place to the power and glitter of magic
items. Instead of developing the character
as a person, it becomes far easier to define
him in terms of his possessions.

To satiate the cravings of players for
magic items, the DM can create items that
are-flashy but not powerful -- i.e., they will
impress local peasants but not slay dragons.
This process also satisfies the desire of the
DM to create new magic items. If done
properly, the DM can create items that
become more powerful when their owners
behave in certain manners. Thus, the players
are forced to role-play with their characters
more often when-they must act noble,
macho, or crazy.

Another type of possession is money.
Occasionally, characters will acquire enough
money to make them an economic power to
be reckoned with. This may unbalance the
DM's setup of the game. In my campaign, I
once used a pre-packaged module featuring
a dragon that possessed a tremendous hoard
with great heaps of gold. Since no gold
piece value was given, I decided that 100
million gp was appropriate. Naturally, the
group destroyed the dragon, leaving four
people with 25 million gp each. Well, since
gold was worth more in my world than in
the typical AD&D game world, I soon
decided I had made a major mistake. Here
are some methods I could have used to fix
the situation:

Steal it back. Such a large amount of gold
(5,000 tons) takes a lot of wagons, equipment,
and time to move. Such a lengthy
project would be hard to keep secret.
Thieves could get wind of it and hijack the
caravans moving the metal. If an army was
hired to guard it, the mercenaries might
turn traitor and hijack the gold themselves.
Even if the group decided to make the
dragon's lair their base and not move the
gold, other treasure seekers will eventually
come after it once they learn the dragon is
dead. Powerful forces may decide they
deserve the gold, forcing the PCs out. Other
dragons may come to avenge their brother
(just possibly lured by the treasure, too).
Gold is a powerful lure, especially in such
amounts and especially to dwarves, who
may decide to claim the gold out of sheer
greed or as a just "inheritance." After all,
the gold belonged to someone else once, and
the original owners (or their descendants)
may show up, too.

Swindle it back. The characters suddenly
discover friends and relatives they never
knew they had. This leads to charity, bad
investments, and outright fraud.

Handle it. The sheer responsibility of
having to deal with wealth could become
burdensome. If the players are faced with
the prospect of dealing with their wealth as
businessmen, the accounting work might
make them decide to chuck it all.

Back-fix it. Create an after-the-fact condition.
Perhaps the dragon cursed his hoard
to make it unusable after his death. The
gold may disintegrate in time, it may prove
to be fool's gold (especially after being
spent, leading to angry mobs), or it may
simply bring misfortune to its owners. I
don't like to invent after-the-fact safeguards;
it's sloppy, but it may be necessary.

Here are some methods that I did use to
divest my players of their gold:

Tax it. The players considered this the
same as stealing it. The local king took 10%
as taxes, which replenished the wardepleted
kingdom, but didn't really affect
the characters that much. Some forms of
taxing I didn't use were tithes to the local
churches (another 10%, easily) or "finder's
taxes." Since the gold was originally stolen
by the dragon, the kingdom could claim at
least 50% of the treasure as a finder's tax,
to put the money back into the economy.

Sacrifice it. I invented a method of destroying
gold which made the PCs want to
do so. One character's land contained a
tower he wanted to claim -- but in the
tower's basement was a demon of enormous
power, held by a device powered by the
destruction of gold. To destroy the demon
itself required a deposit of about 4,000 tons
of gold placed in the device. With some help
from the king, the PCs destroyed the demon
and gained the tower, probably saving the
world as well. This left them about 250,000
gp each, plus their lands and castles.

Use it. The king had given the PCs land
and made them barons, with the understanding
that they would build strongholds
and defend the land -- which just happened
to be in a hazardous area the king could not
afford to protect. Another 3,000,000 gp was
eventually spent here. More could have
been spent if the characters were allowed to
support large armies and build vast fortifications.
Of course, that could easily have
led to the problem of too much manpower.

Make characters take chances
If the players enjoy having their characters
hire "monster fodder" to do all dirty
work, there are ways to discourage this. If
they like to have NPCs test potions, draw
swords, and press buttons, make sure the
NPCs now and then find devices like magic
swords that grant wishes to the first to draw
them. Create potions that have a good effect
on the first sip, then turn poisonous or
cursed. Make traps that blast everything
around them, sparing only the person activating
them. The key is to keep the PCs
the DM and is certainly allowable, if the
PCs are not totally spared such dangers.

Another deterrent to using "trap-testers"
is taken from the old Empire of the Petal
Throne game. If characters constantly have
NPCs check for danger, the NPCs will lose
respect for their masters and quite possibly
rebel. Worse (if the characters value their
reputations) is what would happen if word
got out that someone else is doing the PCs'
dirty work. The characters will lose face in
public and eventually be branded as cowards.
For characters with high positions (or
the desire for them), this can be disastrous,
especially if a disgraced character is (or was)
a charismatic leader.

Of course, people may volunteer for such
dangerous duty or they may do it to earn a
living (like royal food-tasters). This is up to
the DM and is certainly allowable, as long
as the characters are not totally spared such
dangers.

If a character controls an army, he will 
almost certainly want to take "a few of the 
boys" along on an adventure.  Sometimes 
this is fine and even necessary, but it becomes 
annoying when too many "boys" 
come along.  Adventures designed for a 
small group of characters become boring 
with an army going through them.  Even 0-level 
soldiers can be a pain to referee, if 
there are enough of them.  

Armies are meant to fight armies. If the
characters insist on taking an army, give
them an army to fight! Armies also have
certain inherent disadvantages in a dungeon
situation. They cannot move quietly (without
a lot of magic), they?re hard to hide,
and they're difficult to fit into rooms. Even
fifty men will easily fill a typical dungeon
corridor.

In general, clever opponents are harder
for a group to deal with than a straight-up,
combat-type monster. Even weak monsters
can be a menace with organization and
strategy.

As a final tip on control, everyone who
makes waves gets noticed by someone. The
bigger the wave, the more people notice.
The top gun in a group is always a target. A
character of mine is a personal foe of many
Sons of Set, as well as a few demon princes.
To date he has always been triumphant, but
he knows that someday, eventually, they
may get him.

Once more, for emphasis: Any campaign
can be controlled, or brought back under
control if something has gone awry. Usually,
the time and effort involved in recontrolling
a campaign will still be less than
it would require to scrap everything but the
world map and start over. You may decide
to create a new campaign at one or more
junctures during your DMing career, and
that's fine;. there's nothing wrong with
starting fresh, whatever the reason. But if
you're doing it because you feel you have
to, then it'd be a good idea to examine
some other alternatives first, such as the
ones outlined here.

JULY 1986