Campaign Length

ChaosShard · Jan 31, 2008

I've seen posts on a few boards about people playing in, or running FR campaigns that have lasted (or are still being played after) 10, 15 or even 20 years. Now, I've been playing RP games for around 14-15 years, and only two of those have lasted for over a year of consistent play (a 2e DarkSun game, and a 3.5 FR campaign I ran that went from 1-30+). Many of these posters say that 4e will destroy these campaigns, but how many people actually play in games that run nearly this long?

The poll is reflective of the longest campaign you've played in to date.

Also,

What's the average lifespan of the campaigns you run or play in on a regular basis?

and

Will the arrival of 4e FR setting actually cause your group to stop playing in an ongoing campaign, and if so why?

[Edited for clarity, sorry for the confusion, folks! :heh:

]

Cadfan · Jan 31, 2008

I may be an aberration. My answer is "less than one year." This is because I am generally the DM, and I intentionally design the campaign arc to function within a semester, if possible. I prefer closed story arcs to open "wandering heroes encounter random problems and solve them" type story arcs, and so one semester the game will be a war campaign based on Heroes of Battle, and the next it will be a planar adventure focusing on the Plane of Shadow, and the next it will be a thieves guild/ big city politics game, etc.

Doug McCrae · Jan 31, 2008

kheris said:
What's the average lifespan of the campaigns you run or play in on a regular basis?

Six months.

JahellTheBard · Jan 31, 2008

The campaign i'm playing now is in his 6th year ... and yes, it is still fun ... ok, we play just a day every week, for 2-3 hours ... previous campaing ended after 5 years, but only because DM had to leave ....

beholdsa · Jan 31, 2008

I think the speed and sharp power increase of 3.x already killed long-term viability of most D&D campaigns using the advancement rules as written. I doubt 4.0 will be different. But house-ruling advancement is easy.

And as for FR, I say the more changes the better. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Simon Marks · Jan 31, 2008

The question the Poll asks and the question the thread asks are not the same thing.

Poll says "What is the longest campaign you've played in on a regular basis?", which was seven years (but not D&D)

Thread asks "Average length of your games?"

Nymrohd · Jan 31, 2008

My campaign arc will be close sometime between March-April in FR. It's been there for 2.5 years closing in on 3. But yes if we had started this campaign later we would not be able to convert.
I could never really run a long-winded campaign nor do I think my players would like it. We like a narrative style and that usually means that our campaigns have a purpose that the players are striving to reach. And we both enjoy increasing the power level every so often.
I can only see running a campaign for 4+ years if we suddenly had a lot less time to play and if that came to be I'd rather quit altogether.

I think I will prefer playing in 4E with campaigns being quite a bit faster (since we will not loose so much time in combat). For me the more story arcs you get to complete the better. Defeating the BBEG is always satisfying and retiring players can be so as well. And when your player's new character have a chance to interact with their retired players (no not their characters' parents, I hate that cliche) it is always fun for both DM and players.

Wyrmshadows · Jan 31, 2008

My players play their characters until either they die or they choose to retire them. For the most part, by the time their PCs have a significant history, they also have significant impact on the setting so there is always something to do.

As a DM, I might have a story arc that lasts years but whether the story arc ie. the campaign ends in 2yrs or 10yrs, the characters still have others stories to tell and other things to do. 6 months?!?!? Feh, my player's PCs have just developed some real depth in that time.

So many tales, so little time.

Wyrmshadows

ThirdWizard · Jan 31, 2008

Simon Marks said:
The question the Poll asks and the question the thread asks are not the same thing.

I haven't answered because of this; they're very different things. Which is the right question?

Average Length is about 1-2 years.
Longest Length is about 8 years.

EricNoah · Jan 31, 2008

Average length when I run is 1-1/2 years.

Longest one I was in that was run by someone else was ... let's see, from the start of 3E to now (and I anticipate 6 more months). So ... 7-8 years. But that's not a fair gauge because nowadays that group only meets about 4 times a year. A game that is more "regularly" paced lasted about 3 years, which I think ultimately was the longest.