How do you stop a DM from starting NEW campaigns all the time?

If you have a DM who starts new campaigns all the time because he/she gets "bored" of the current campaign how do you stop him/her?

I've got a DM who wants to start a new campaign but we've barely played the current one. When I roll up a PC I want to develop his character and play him to Epic levels. I don't want to have to fold him up and put him on the shelf with all the other short-lived PCs I have in the wings. I find it very frustrating as a player if I am denied developing my PC.

If the DM has grown tired with the campaign but the players haven't, do the players have a right to tell him they don't want to start a new campaign? Or, is the DM the creative genius and it's his ultimate decision if he/she wants to end/begin a campaign?

Thanks.

Yes, players have the right to not play what he wants them to play. Tell him to commit to an idea. DMing is not easy and I have found that DMs that do this just aren't prepared for what it takes. They either don't thing things through enough or come up with a nice initial idea and have no place to take it. You might considering asking him to let someone else try the DMing for a while if he cannot sustain a campaign.

You start your own damn campaign, and keep running it for three years.

-- N

I've seen this a lot. In fact, we did this a lot in college. So, the first answer I would say is, if you're in college, this seems to be typical. It seems natural to go through a phase where you constantly have new ideas that you want to explore.

However, this may not be the case, which leads me to the second problem - the DM doesn't know how to design a good campaign. Believe me, this is far more common a problem than you might think. There's not a lot of "help" on this topic in the books, so it can take a lot of experience to do it right.

My first suggestion would be to sit down as a group and talk about what you want. If the DM thinks everyone is happy creating new characters all the time, then he may not be aware that there is a problem. Alternatively, you may be the only in the group who has issue with it, in which case you may ultimately need to find a new group.

I find that inexperienced GMs will run a sort of "episodic" game. There are two types of games - serial and episodic, and maybe something in between. The examples would be "Star Trek" in which every episode is completely unique unto themselves, "The Young and the Restless" in which every episode builds upon what happened in the last show (game). Or something in between like "X-files" where there is a story that continues, but occasionally there are little side treks that have nothing to do with the backstory.

It may be that your GM is running episodic games, in which case it can be extremely difficult to come up with unique and interesting games every single week.

Encourage him to work on a serial game, and continue the plot over the course of the year, and to develop a flow-chart of where he wants the party to go. Encourage him (and maybe help him pay for) to get the World's Largest Dungeon, since it will do what you desire.

Above all, discuss it with your group, and understand everyone's desires. This is the key to having a good game.

Hmm...you could always ask the DM if he would consider continuing the campaign if things were more interesting, like if you, to pick an example from out of thin air, used the Book of Tzentch to mind-rape another PC into chaos-worship...

OK, that was all just a joke. For my part, I find the opposite is the case: I'm the DM, and although players don't get bored of doing the same campaign each week (and a vocal minority always wants to play the same one), most of the players get crazy ideas for new character types and hanker for a new campaign, at which point I tell them that it takes too long to make one, so why don't they DM once in a while and make that new character of theirs an NPC. I'm not sure if my situation really helps you, but it works for me, since my players won't touch DMing with a 20-foot pole, so my suggestion quiets them down immediately (not that I wouldn't be ecstatic if they actually offered to DM mind you).

dead said:

If the DM has grown tired with the campaign but the players haven't, do the players have a right to tell him they don't want to start a new campaign? Or, is the DM the creative genius and it's his ultimate decision if he/she wants to end/begin a campaign?

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Ok to answer the obvious, YES its his decisions as to which games he wants to run, how long he runs them and all that jazz. Its not because he has creative genius or anything special, its because he says " i am running x..." and players say "i want in."

if you don't want to play, don't join in.

its that simple.

ok so its not maybe seeming that simple, but it really is.

if you know he wont keep the game going long, and you know that will bum you out, don't join in.

maybe start your own game, running long term.
maybe find another long term oriented game under someone else.
maybe ask this gm at the start how long he wants this game to run, and see if you can get a longer commitment out of him.

and even maybe, come at his new game with a short term attitude, where you focus on running a character with more drastic changes underway, that play out sooner instead of long slow developments. Maybe, given your circumstances, its you who should change, not the others.

you certainly can work towards changing your preferences and style much better than you can work on changing other peoples.

I think Crothian and Nifft are about right.

There are flighty people with "Hey, I've got a great idea for a Campaign" aspirations that are just flat out wrong on the "campaign" part. They've got the shell or fascade of an idea, but nothing fleshed out enough for real production. Or they're just so shallow or jaded (or ADD) that they're not capable of carryng the idea to completion.

When dealing with someone like this, you have to chose not to subject yourself to the constantly revolving campaign "ideas". Start your own campaign and run it for three years, as Nifft says. I bet you'll find Mr. ADD gets just as bored with your setting (whether homebrew or FR or whatever) and wants to play something else after three to six months. Let him. Show him the door and let him find another group. Chances are he'll be moving on to another game system in a couple of years anyway.

Another option is the next time the DM needs to "Change Campaign", find out if you can have your current character "transported" to the new campaign. That way you can continue to develop your character, while the DM can explore new worlds/conflicts ect.

Rystil Arden said:

Hmm...you could always ask the DM if he would consider continuing the campaign if things were more interesting, like if you, to pick an example from out of thin air, used the Book of Tzentch to mind-rape another PC into chaos-worship...

Click to expand...

That strikes an old wound.

I'm not just thinking of this situation, though. I'm thinking of other situations in general. Because, in the past, I've had a lot of my friends start campaigns but they don't sustain them long. I like long continuous campaigns where the world and the characters develop.

I know some other gamers who like to run a short-lived campaigns but all the players know this is what they are in for -- just a short bit of fun. (These folks are your more "deep-immersion" gamers, though.)

Lets also take another little look at it. If the players don't care about the campaign world why should the DM. I make up cites, NPC's, nations, secret groups and what not and the players can't even remember or don't care to remember the NPC that hired them. Or the village in which they are at. It gets pretty tiresome. So instead of investing lots of time in making a campaign you make just enough to make it interesting to you and continue to the next one.

If all you are is a character concept with no soul, who cares what campaign you play in.