Campaign Length

[Lmns Crn]

I am all over the board, really.

I find a one-shot is often too short for my tastes, no matter how nice it may have been. And I have a lot of ideas for characters I'd like to play and games I'd like to run, so shorter campaigns appeal to me because they allow for that variety-- a game with a fairly clear endpoint means you'll soon have the opportunity to try out the next neat idea.

Long campaigns are, I think, a bit of a gamble. I find them really rewarding when they pay off, but also a potential to be long-term tedium when things aren't clicking along, and it's tough to bring them to a place of resolution easily. I think long campaigns are most likely to feel like they've died off, been rushed or aborted, or fizzled out.

[Steerpike]

I think with long campaigns, the nature of the beast ensures that problems are more likely to arise just by virtue of the fact that they have more opportunity to.  That said, I've seen flagging games that have eventually revived, and I think most problems can get worked through.  I'd agree with those that commented that endings are probably the most problematic part of long-term games, though.

[LordVreeg]

No surprise, but I tend to build and run for the long haul.  Live games are known to go on for years if not a decade+, online games also go on for a long time.  It is how I am wired.

[Hibou]

I would like to do episodic, but the nature of roleplaying to me has always been such that one must often spend more than a handful of sessions to really cover an episode, at least online. I'm toying with the idea of making a computer-assisted system for roleplaying to ,aybe change this.

[Hibou]

I am all over the board, really.

I find a one-shot is often too short for my tastes, no matter how nice it may have been. And I have a lot of ideas for characters I'd like to play and games I'd like to run, so shorter campaigns appeal to me because they allow for that variety-- a game with a fairly clear endpoint means you'll soon have the opportunity to try out the next neat idea.

Long campaigns are, I think, a bit of a gamble. I find them really rewarding when they pay off, but also a potential to be long-term tedium when things aren't clicking along, and it's tough to bring them to a place of resolution easily. I think long campaigns are most likely to feel like they've died off, been rushed or aborted, or fizzled out.

This. I love the idea of a long campaign but it is very difficult to pull off because peoples' schedules frequently change. They require a lot of investment to really get going, whereas around here it seems it is best to run campaigns that are easier to get and out of, with shorter story arcs so that completion is more realistic for more players.

[Steerpike]

One way to run a long campaign that's flexible around scheduling is to attempt a West Marches exploration format, where a large pool of players (10+) form parties and go exploring/dungeoneering in a sandbox environment.  The byword there was "no overarching plot, just an overarching environment."  This is the antithesis of a narrative, story-based campaign arc.  There's no beginning, middle, or end, at least not in terms of an ongoing story, nor even a consistent group of characters; the point isn't to tell an intriguing, collaborative story from start to finish but to explore an intriguing world with maximum player control (this style, in fact, is my favourite form of "player empowerment," to use an oft-invoked and perhaps contentious term).

[Rose-of-Vellum]

That's an interesting concept. One I think would work well for a Slaughter-lands game (or similarly uninhabited region like the Aurelian Tundra or Firesong Marches).

[LordVreeg]

I am all over the board, really.

I find a one-shot is often too short for my tastes, no matter how nice it may have been. And I have a lot of ideas for characters I'd like to play and games I'd like to run, so shorter campaigns appeal to me because they allow for that variety-- a game with a fairly clear endpoint means you'll soon have the opportunity to try out the next neat idea.

Long campaigns are, I think, a bit of a gamble. I find them really rewarding when they pay off, but also a potential to be long-term tedium when things aren't clicking along, and it's tough to bring them to a place of resolution easily. I think long campaigns are most likely to feel like they've died off, been rushed or aborted, or fizzled out.

"Place of Resolution"
HAH!
I get amazed and teary and need to celebrate when the PCs solve something that is a few years old....Really resolve?  hahahahahahaha.
If there is anything that I am NOT built to do, this is it. 

[Lmns Crn]

Let's make sure you aren't misunderstanding what I mean, Vreeg.

You've been fortunate to have a really stable group of players for a long time. Your players have found what they want, long-term, and have built it into their schedules. You know your game's going to last as long as you want it to.

Not everybody (and I would venture to guess, most groups) aren't like that. People have schedule changes at work and can't make the group's time work anymore, they get tired of one game and want to try a new system or a new setting, or they just prefer something on a smaller scale. I've seen games die off because the players argued with each other too much, I've seen them fizzle over November and December because people missed sessions for Thanksgiving (traveling to meet family), final exams, Christmas, New Year's... and by the time it was over the group had met once in six weeks and the momentum was gone.

When I say "bring [campaigns] to a place of resolution" I mean to end them, on purpose, on something that feels like an ending. Rather than letting them end due to circumstance on something that doesn't make sense as a last session.

What I do not necessarily mean is that players have figured everything out, resolved events to their satisfaction, etc.

[LordVreeg]

Let's make sure you aren't misunderstanding what I mean, Vreeg.

You've been fortunate to have a really stable group of players for a long time. Your players have found what they want, long-term, and have built it into their schedules. You know your game's going to last as long as you want it to.

Not everybody (and I would venture to guess, most groups) aren't like that. People have schedule changes at work and can't make the group's time work anymore, they get tired of one game and want to try a new system or a new setting, or they just prefer something on a smaller scale. I've seen games die off because the players argued with each other too much, I've seen them fizzle over November and December because people missed sessions for Thanksgiving (traveling to meet family), final exams, Christmas, New Year's... and by the time it was over the group had met once in six weeks and the momentum was gone.

When I say "bring [campaigns] to a place of resolution" I mean to end them, on purpose, on something that feels like an ending. Rather than letting them end due to circumstance on something that doesn't make sense as a last session.

What I do not necessarily mean is that players have figured everything out, resolved events to their satisfaction, etc.

Well, there are now more clarifications that need to be made.

First off, my point that I am not built to bring the campaign to a place of resolution, I was, more than anything, admitting a weakness.  I expand and continue like gangbusters.  I contract poorly.  I am myopic about building the World in Motion, to the point that I set myself up to be unable to tie off enough loose ends.  I understand better what you are saying now about the different levels of ending; and I appreciate the communication.

I am fortunate to be in the situation I am with my groups, live and online.  But much like many things in the world, it takes luck and the ability to take advantage of that fortune, as well as corroborative secondary attributes.  We can go into the specifics of it, if need be, but the characteristics of the live game that make it successful for the long term also have allowed the Steel Isle game here to go over a hundred and fifty sessions and are allowing the new Collegium Game to continue gaining steam 30+ weeks into the game.  For whatever reason, and I look at this a lot, many of my games and groups in many formats are so blessed by Lucky Ishma.

[Lmns Crn]

That's cool, I just want to be really clear that I don't want "resolution" to be mistaken for simplicity. Which is in some ways an aesthetic goal I pursue, and in some ways an aesthetic pitfall I loathe, but I guess that's another thread.

[SA]

but I guess that's another thread

:-/

[Elemental_Elf]

I have almost always played and DMed in the episodic zone although I have always yearned to both play & DM in the long story based zone.

The issue I have always had is that people are never stable enough for a long term game. Life changes constantly and throws curve balls all the time. If it isn't exams, its vacations; if it isn't work, its family; if it isn't boredom it is a yearning to play something else. Everything seems to work against long running campaigns. No matter how much I have fiddled with the format (more/fewer games per month, longer/shorter sessions, being open to character replacements, etc.) long term campaigns just seem to fizzle long before they come to a resolution.

Recently, my second RPG group reformed itself from the fiery pits of oblivion. Originally, one of my friends was tasked with DMing but, as so often happens, life threw him a curve ball. So, I stepped up to the plate and opted to DM. They players wanted (sigh) to play in Golorion, which is Pathfinder's base setting. Now I have nothing against Golorion but I do find kitchen sink settings a bit passe, especially the newly minted, mass market variety. Regardless, I opted to DM in the setting. Given that the setting is a kitchen sink, I asked the players what kind of campaign they would want. They stated that they wanted Pirates, High Fantasy, Saving the World and Fighting Devils.

The campaign practically wrote itself.  :wink:

However, knowing that I do not want to DM this campaign for any more than a year (an ambitious goal admittedly) and my players wanted to use the fast level up chart, I knew I did not have time to piddle and putz around fighting goblins for some obscure and out-of-the-way Baron (or the equivalent there of). I desired to make a campaign that would have a definitive end point in mind yet have a diversity of quests that enriched the narrative. If I were to pick an example from pop culture, I suppose I desired to make a campaign not too dissimilar to a Mass Effect game. There is an over-arching threat with a host of quests that funnel into completing that over-arching plot. Around that adventure are smaller quests that feed into the first and make for a more enjoyable experience (than a linear narrative of A->B-C-D->End). However, I mus admit that such concepts are wholly unfamiliar to me in the realm of DMing, since I am at my heart a lover of sandboxes (which are, in all honesty, anathema to this form of campaign design).

I chanced upon a blog that discussed the 5x5 method of adventure design. Essentially you have an over arching plot idea, then five quests allow you to accomplish that task. The example the author gave was:

 

Defeat Sauron's Army at Minas Tirith

       1. Find Minas Tirith, meet the King. (Minas Tirith)
       2. Save Faramir.  (Osgiliath)
       3. Meet Elrond and retrieve Narsil.  (Dunharrow)
      4. Brave the Paths of the Dead and convince the Army of the Dead to join up. (Paths of the Dead)
       5. Use the Army of the Dead to defeat Sauron's Army.  (Minas Tirith)

This would be one of the 5 quest-lines in the 5x5 design. Ideally, each quest-line would intersect that the same location at different points along the quest chain. To move away from LotR (as it has been a while since I read the books), let us say that the PCs started their adventure by saving a village from a goblin warband then fought several other hunting parties in the Woodlands. Having proven themselves worthy, the local Baron tasks the PCs with infiltrating the goblin horde's mountain Fortress (whom they stole from the Dwarves) and slay the Goblin Chief. After the audience, the PCs are greeted by an old Dwarven Warrior, now in service to the Baron. He asks the PCs to search the Fortress for the Axe of Durgath Battlegrinder, the lost King of the Dwarves. With such a potent symbol of the Dwarven golden age, the Warrior hopes to gather his kin together and retake the Fortress.

The questline to defeat the goblins would be on chain link 2 or 3 at the point when the PCs met the Baron. The quest-line for the reunification of the Dwarven People would be on chain link 1.

By interlacing the different quest lines, you create a more dynamic play area and avoids some of the pitfalls of more linear story telling (i.e. boredom (as you can say you may not like fighting goblins but you do like dwarven politicking)). Variety is the spice of life after all. it also keeps me, as a DM, honed in one the end goals, rather then allowing such things to languish out in the aether of "someday this will all pay off."

Following the discovery of the 5x5 article, I found another that used the method in terms of actual adventure design. That author's focus was on using the 5x5 method to detail the nitty gritty of five different quests, i.e. map out five individual plot point to accomplish a single quest. The interlacing (from above) does not occur using this method. The five plot points could be as simple as five different dungeon rooms or talk to V, go to W, slay X, Y & Z.

What I decided to do was co-opt both of these systems and merge them. So now I have 5 Over Arching Stories, 5 Quests for each Story and 5 Plot Points for each Quest. Hopefully it works out. If not, oh well, it is not like I didn't try to make a long term campaign work.  :)

[Steerpike]

While I like the idea of the 5x5 and I'm sure it can certainly function as a powerful design tool, I doubt that a long-term campaign is going to cleave neatly to a 5x5 framework.  Given a long enough campaign, characters inevitably are going to start skipping steps, adding steps in for their own reasons, coming up with alternate ways of completing quests, forming their own goals, and otherwise messing with that formula.

That's not to say, though, that starting with a 5x5 framework is a bad idea.