Changes

A good campaign tells a story, a series of connected events that lead up to a conclusion, during which the protagonists learn and grow as characters. The first part is an inevitable in D&D- the campaign often runs until everyone dies or becomes so powerful they forgot the world was weak for a second and destroyed it. Most campaigns fall between these two extremes. For example, the authors personal preferance performance is the retirement scenario, when the players have finished their epic quest and decide that since they are tired and filthy rich, why not find some quite getaway to relax in? Agian, the first part of the above statement is an inevitable.

It's the second part that is the bitch. Yes, D&D is a level based system, and nearly every role playing game has a way to get stronger. But do the ''characters'' grow? Does your 20th level caster look back over the drustruction destruction he has wrought and the lives he has ruinnedruined? When the ancient wyrm who fathered the young black dragon your fighter killed 8 levels back crashes into your home, does he feel regret? Does your rogue ever think about all the barmaid he seduced and the legion of fatherless children he created, by seed or sword? My guess is no, that only a small fraction of the people reading this have ever even thought about this stuff, let alone played it out. Unfortunately for story based role playing, this is the killer. That is why nearly every single one of the D&D novels are so vomit worthy- the characters don't change. At the end of the novels, Tordek has a shiney shiny new something and... that's it. He doesn't even reference past events in later novels, never has his shiney shiny new something in the next book, and the character remains a dwarven fighter with no other discerning traits. And that makes some of us sad.