The Campaign Builder's Guild

What's your favourite length for a campaign? Discuss the whys and wherefores here.  What specific format or model of campaign do you enjoy?  Hexcrawls?  Investigation?  Cloak & dagger intrigue?  Domain management?  Something else entirely?

Mine is probably sandbox games, with episodic games a close second.  I find the story-based arc a bit rigid for a long game and one-shots often too short to be really satisfying, but my experience as a player in one-shots has been limited to a few instances (a session of Paranoia, another based on Grimm's Fairy Tales).  I generally prefer running urban games with very richly detailed cities but there have been some enjoyable exceptions.

I voted episodic/mini-campaigns. I like a mix of sandbox and story. Story works best in short duration, while an over-arcing goal can still exist that covers the entire campaign, trying too hard to stick to story creates a 'railroad' situation, that I prefer to avoid as GM and hate as a player. While some people love complete freestyle, sandbox settings, my players need some direction (I as a player don't really need direction, but I'm alone in this aspect of being a creative player at my table) so the pure sandbox just doesn't work with my players. For a longer campaign experience, we generally connect a mini-campaign in series with other mini-campaigns.

I have to clarify that my mini-campaigns are a bit longer than 3 - 6 sesssion however. For me a mini-campaign is 3 experience levels of play, so more than likely 6 - 18 sessions of play, but usually under 6 months of play.

I voted for "long story-based campaign arcs" but I think I am somewhere in between that and "mini-campaigns," really. I like it when a game has a definite story arc-- a beginning, a middle, and an end. I also like it when the game can end on a high note (somewhat bittersweet, usually!) rather than fizzle out when players lose interest, so I feel like not trying to go too long and having a defined end point in mind is important. I tend to stick a bit closer to a story than some people, probably, but I try to avoid railroading by giving players a lot of input, both in-character and meta, as to where that story goes.

I can also see the appeal of a longer-term episodic game, where characters keep encountering new "monsters of the week," but, I question how much this is really a long term campaign as such and not just a bunch of episodic games that you decide to run in succession-- at any point, you can "end on a high note" by deciding it's the final episode, and going out with a bang-- or just put it on ice for a while and then play another episode a month or a year or whatever down the line, like the way Sixguns works.

Quote from: sparkletwistI can also see the appeal of a longer-term episodic game, where characters keep encountering new "monsters of the week," but, I question how much this is really a long term campaign as such and not just a bunch of episodic games that you decide to run in succession-- at any point, you can "end on a high note" by deciding it's the final episode, and going out with a bang-- or just put it on ice for a while and then play another episode a month or a year or whatever down the line, like the way Sixguns works.

I'm seeing as more a mini-campaign than being truly episodic. My published Kaidan - Curse of the Golden Spear trilogy of modules fits what I'm referring to here. It isn't 'monster of the week', its a contiguous story/plot that is carried over 3 full adventure modules - like a full campaign, but one that only lasts for 3 modules/experience levels of play. I guess its to support my desire to run campaigns, but ones that don't last for years and years, nor requires characters to attain epic levels (20+) by end game - I hate epic play, as much as I hate GMing epic play. I also like many stories, not one that never seems to end.

Quote from: Gamer Printshopsupport my desire to run campaigns, but ones that don't last for years and years

This is basically what I like, too.

The "monster of the week" thing was in reply to something Steerpike said that, upon rereading, I realized he didn't actually say in this thread, so it's probably a little out of the blue and confusing.
[note]Steerpike, I hope you don't mind me quoting you here.[/note]

Quote from: SteerpikeI tend to think of the long-term campaign as being kin to something like Buffy or similar "monster of the week" shows - there may be Big Bads and arcs here and there but there's always another monster, another adventure round the corner

No worries on quoting me, sparkletwist.

I guess what I mean by "monster of a week" is that in a sandbox style game the way I play it there's a never-ending supply of adventure to be had; the world, in a sense, is "inexhaustible," infinitely productive of new adventures.  In a sense this is similar to a very long episodic game, but it tends to be freer (players can choose where to go and what to do much more than in a brief game), and shorter and longer stories tend to overlap and intertwine to a larger extent than in a more purely episodic game.  This does have the disadvantage that the campaign's end probably won't be a climactic moment of sublime perfection, although I think ideally at some point the adventurers will decide that their achievements are significant enough (or perhaps their wealth great enough) that they can retire; or, alternatively, some or most of them might be dead.  At the end of the day they can simply decide to walk off "into the sunset" at some point: perhaps not the most satisfying ending from a closure point of view, but an ending nonetheless.

That makes sense.

I've also noticed that in practice my games tend to combine several of these play styles, for example, playing a medium-to-long campaign that had a definite start and end and then mostly retiring the characters, but occasionally bringing them back for episodic adventures later on (the TV analogy would be Star Trek TNG where there was a series then they made some movies after that) which could, on some level, mean their whole chronicle was a bigger sandbox-feeling sort of adventure.

Interesting replies.  I feel like I should have added an option for the 10-20 session medium-length campaign, perhaps.

I chose sprawling, open ended sandbox campaigns, but I'm really somewhere between those and long story based campaign arcs.

I like the closure a storyline can bring and enjoy playing within those "confines" but I also enjoy the openness of a world and the feeling that I can turn and do something else if I want to. I like the idea that things are always happening around me when I'm playing, even ones I can't, as a player, actively control or even effect at times; everything feels real and alive. If I'm in a game with a long, over-arching plot I'll stick to the given storyline, but I prefer as much freedom as possible to achieve the ends the GM and I settle upon, which is where I think the open sandbox comes into play. Plus I just like to build sandboxy worlds.

We don't describe minutiae at the table (nor roll many dice), so a concentrated six hour session can seriously cover as much territory as the Hobbit. Playing all of that within one cosmos produced wizard and The Book of Images and Green World Stories and ARRUNTULLA, but that's a whole cosmos, and ultimately not a very cohesive (or coherent) setting. I say stuff like: "so, a million years ago you slaughtered the Vibrant Sunmen, and now in the blackness of reality the shadowgods guide humanity's cold kingdoms". The history of our universe in play spans billions, maybe some trillions of years.

So... is that a concatenation of one-shots, bookended mini-campaigns or a sprawling, open-ended sandbox?

If it all takes place in a single session, I'd call that an unorthodox one-shot but a one-shot nonetheless.  My question refers to the time it took to act out the events of the game, not the internal chronology of the game itself.  Although it is intriguing to think about how even a one-shot can be sprawling and open-ended!

EDIT: A concatenation of one-shots, though, I'd be inclined to call a mini-campaign.  To be a real one-shot, I think, the same characters shouldn't reappear in subsequent sessions.

I like mini-campaigns the most. Really though I'm happy playing in any type of game as long as the story is interesting and everyone is having fun.

Yeah, I picked, "mini-campaigns" too.  While I like the option of things being allowed to go on for as long as people want, a more episodic format, where the players can finish at least one "arc" of the quest in a session of two is my favorite kind of game to play in.  It's also what I've been trying to run lately for my girlfriend, who is new to RPGs.

I enjoy unleashing the players on the world and seeing what evolves.  That's why I voted "sprawling sandbox".

I prefer a game to focus on a story (or the makings of a story) and I also like that focus to be maintained - which can become more difficult the longer the game lasts. Therefore I believe shorter games are generally better than longer ones, although one-shots can be too short to reach a satisfying conclusion.