Campaigns & Story Arcs

Long-form stories shaped across multiple characters, sessions, locations, missions, and events.

Some stories grow beyond a single scene.

A problem uncovered during a mission may lead to an investigation spanning several worlds. A political dispute may draw in rival organizations and develop over months of roleplay. A personal conflict may gradually involve friends, enemies, employers, families, or factions until it becomes part of a much larger story.

Campaigns & Story Arcs provides a central record for these longer-running narratives.

Use this section to discover active stories, understand what has already happened, find characters and organizations involved, locate possible ways to participate, and follow the consequences that develop through play.

Campaign records are not scripts for predetermined outcomes. They document an evolving situation and the roleplay that grows around it. Objectives may fail, alliances may change, characters may leave or become involved unexpectedly, and a story may develop in directions no one originally anticipated.

A Mission is built around a more focused objective, assignment, investigation, expedition, conflict, or problem.

A single mission may stand alone or form one part of a larger campaign. Several missions might pursue different objectives within the same broader conflict, and the result of one mission may substantially change what becomes possible in the next.

An Event brings characters together around a particular place, occasion, or developing situation without necessarily giving everyone the same objective.

Events may belong to a larger campaign, introduce new participants, reveal important information, create complications, or generate storylines that continue long after the event itself ends.

A Roleplay Hook is an opportunity to begin or enter a story.

Some hooks connect directly to active campaigns. Others begin as small, independent situations and only become part of a larger story if the roleplay develops in that direction.

A hook does not need to become a campaign to be worthwhile.

A campaign page should make the current situation understandable at a glance while preserving enough history to explain how it reached that point.

Depending on the story, a campaign record may include:

• Status — whether the story is active, on hold, or concluded.

• Participation — whether new characters are currently welcome, involvement requires coordination, or the story is closed to additional participants.

• Timeframe — when the campaign occurs within StarForgeRP continuity.

• Premise — the situation or conflict at the center of the story.

• Current Situation — what characters presently know or what circumstances are actively developing.

• Participants — characters with a significant connection to the campaign.

• Organizations — factions, groups, governments, companies, crews, or other organizations involved.

• Locations — planets, settlements, facilities, vessels, or other places important to the story.

• Connected Roleplay — missions, events, hooks, scenes, or other records belonging to the larger narrative.

• Major Developments — significant decisions, discoveries, victories, failures, losses, or changes that have occurred through play.

• Consequences — lasting effects relevant to characters, organizations, locations, relationships, or future stories.

Not every campaign will need every field. The record should contain what is useful for understanding and continuing the story rather than collecting information for its own sake.

Campaign status describes whether the story itself is currently moving forward.

• Active — the campaign is presently developing through roleplay.

• On Hold — the campaign remains part of continuity but is not currently progressing.

• Concluded — the campaign has reached an ending point or is no longer being actively continued.

A concluded campaign does not need to end with every problem solved.

Characters may fail. Enemies may escape. Investigations may remain incomplete. Relationships may be permanently damaged. A local conflict may end while creating a larger problem somewhere else.

Concluded means that the campaign itself is no longer an active storyline—not that every consequence has disappeared.

Campaign status describes whether the story itself is currently moving forward.

• Active — the campaign is presently developing through roleplay.

• On Hold — the campaign remains part of continuity but is not currently progressing.

• Concluded — the campaign has reached an ending point or is no longer being actively continued.

A concluded campaign does not need to end with every problem solved.

Characters may fail. Enemies may escape. Investigations may remain incomplete. Relationships may be permanently damaged. A local conflict may end while creating a larger problem somewhere else.

Concluded means that the campaign itself is no longer an active storyline—not that every consequence has disappeared.

Campaign status and participation are separate.

An active story may welcome new characters, have room only for specific kinds of involvement, or temporarily remain focused on its existing participants.

Where useful, campaign entries should make this clear.

• Open — believable new involvement is currently welcome.

• Coordinate First — participation may be possible, but players should discuss how their character could reasonably become involved.

• Closed — the current story is not accepting additional participants.

These labels describe access to the campaign, not ownership of its outcomes.

Once characters are involved, the story should continue to develop collaboratively. Participation does not guarantee success, a particular outcome, or a specific role within the narrative.

The strongest way to enter a campaign is usually through a connection that already makes sense for the character.

Look at the people, organizations, locations, problems, and ongoing pieces of roleplay associated with the campaign.

A character might become involved because they know someone already participating, belong to an affected organization, work in a relevant profession, frequent an important location, have information someone needs, owe a favor, receive an assignment, share an enemy, pursue a personal interest, or simply find themselves affected by the situation.

A new participant does not need to become central to the entire campaign.

Sometimes the most believable involvement begins with one conversation, one job, one investigation, one favor, or one complication.

Where a campaign is marked Coordinate First, contact the relevant players or organizer before assuming that a character has access to restricted information, private locations, sensitive operations, or established relationships.

A campaign record describes what has developed; it should not dictate everything that must happen next.

Plans can fail. Information may prove incomplete. Characters can misunderstand a situation. Alliances may shift. An intended antagonist might become an ally, a minor problem may become much more serious, or a seemingly important objective may become irrelevant after circumstances change.

Players should have room to respond to those developments rather than working toward a predetermined ending.

Campaign pages can be updated as the story changes so that the archive reflects what actually happened through roleplay.

When a campaign creates lasting consequences, those changes should also appear where they matter elsewhere on StarForgeRP.

A character dossier may record an injury, promotion, betrayal, relationship, or change in allegiance.

An organization page may reflect a change in leadership, resources, reputation, territory, or internal politics.

A Galaxy entry may record damage to a location, a change in control, the discovery of a new site, or another lasting local development.

Significant events may also appear on the Timeline when knowing when they occurred is important to understanding later continuity.

The campaign record preserves the story that connected those changes. The rest of StarForgeRP preserves what the story changed.

Concluded campaigns remain part of StarForgeRP's shared history.

Their records provide context for later character histories, relationships, organizations, locations, rivalries, unresolved problems, and stories that build upon what came before.

Ending a campaign therefore does not make it irrelevant.

A former storyline may become the reason two characters trust one another, why an organization has changed its policies, why a location lies abandoned, why an enemy remains at large, or why a future conflict begins years later.

Preserving that history is what allows the setting to feel persistent.