My players and I are currently playing a "pre-game" for a whole campaign I have written. I want the players to be aware of the "how did it get to be this way", so I make them play two games 4000 and 2000 years before the campaign settings.
We have already played the first game, which went quite fine, but I had to somehow iron rough edges because the characters don't fit well into the epoch. Typically, I replaced on the fly "flamethrower training" with "archery", and "advanced computing" with "hieroglyphic writing". I plan to change them back to the proper skills in the main campaign.
I have also made some adjustements to the world politics (based on my desired state), with the following issues: I don't want to kill the characters, which requires a little artifacting (super-being froze them for 2000 years, fitted well in the game).
Therefore, my first two games are NOT played with the normal rules of the game, nor with the same background, nor with the same "characters" since I will massively overhaul them based on player experiences and decisions
Whatever their choices, they always arrive to the same macro-ending, but garner different experiences and items on the way, all of which impact the next games.
In order to keep the sense of "driving the story" active with the players, they can pretty much do anything, alienate anyone they want, get anything they wish (and can reasonably get). An example: They actually have gotten themselves a nice 40-guard escort with a (little?) scheming and manipulating that I was not quite ready for... which rendered my little bandit fight scene somehow easier for them. I kept it in however, since I reasoned it was a strict consequence of their behavior.
Do you have advice on how to make the continuity effect work out?