Loooong Campaigns...How Do You Do It?

[Aeric]

Every once in a while, I come across a reference on these boards to campaigns which last years, sometimes decades. After reading a recent thread by Piratecat about the end of his 14 year long campaign (here), I just have to ask: How the heck do you do it??

I just finished running a year-long campaign that was co-DM'd by my best friend. I ran a little over half of it, but by the end of it I was glad for it to be over. I was ready for something different, not to mention a turn as a player again.

I enjoy running games, and I love the idea of running long-term, epic campaigns. DMs, how do you keep a game which spans years fresh and interesting to yourself, much less to your players?

 

[Zweihänder]

That's odd... Maybe I'm to free with XP?

By the end of my campaign (which lasted about 10 months), the party was about level 18... Of course, we met every week for about 6-8 hours, so that might have sped things along.

If that isn't long-running, then I have no answer to your question.

 

[Hussar]

I've had the same problems - campaigns petering out after a year or so.

What's kept my current camp going is the fact that I'm using a campaign in a box - the World's Largest Dungeon. The players love it and as the DM, I'm truly loving the fact that I am now completely prepped for the next 10-15 sessions. This has been the most fun I've had DMing ever.

So, my advice, use something like the Adventure Path's or WLD or the like and then you have a very long campaign to play with.

 

[silver_wizard]

If too much experience is the problem, why don't you cut back a bit? Say, instead of giving the full amount, give a fraction (e.g. half or 1/3), but be honest with the players right from the beginning. I've seen this work miracles.

Also, restore story-based XP awards to their pre-3E prominence

 

[Zweihänder]

I did the second thing, which, without doing the first thing, actually made the problem WORSE. My compatriots don't seem to grasp the value of quest-completion XP...

 

[Gulla]

Every once in a while, I come across a reference on these boards to campaigns which last years, sometimes decades. After reading a recent thread by Piratecat about the end of his 14 year long campaign (here), I just have to ask: How the heck do you do it?

I've never run anything for 14 years, but I always start out a campaign with an idea of the scope. In 3 weeks I will end my current D&D campaign and it has been running for a little over 5 years. I always knew the major plotarch and estimated it to last 4-5 years.

So my secret is having a long plotarch that will be the theme of the campaign, and make sure that most of the sessions and minor plots have some hint of this. And having good friends as players so I avoid all the "my players/GM are morons" problems.

The other secret is talking to the players about what they want along the way. Take a session and talk player-to-GM about metacampaign issues. Do we agree on the mood of the campaign, is there too many dragons, too much/little fighting, is it OK to have romance, how do we handle the polymorf-class of spells/abilities, any rules that ruin the game for anyone etc. Incuded in this is that all my players (I think) tell me when something is reducing their fun.

Håkon

 

[Aeric]

It's not a matter of running out of material or reaching high level too fast (by epic, I meant the scope of the story, not necessarily epic-level play). When my last campaign ended, I still had plenty of stories to tell, and I know my players wanted to continue. I was just burnt out. I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to continue running the campaign. I needed a change. Maybe my endurance level is just lower than these marathon DMs...?

 

[el-remmen]

The answer to how to "do it" is: Luck.

I'm not kidding. You need a confluence of dedication, time, enthusiasm, play-style and the ability to "buy-in" to the long-term scenario and real caring about what happens among the players.

I don't think anyone goes into a campaign planning it to last 14 years. I mean, you may hope it will last as long as X (in my case 5 years), but you can't know until it happens or doesn't happen. For every campaign I have run or played in that lasted 3 or 4 or 5 years (my longest) there have been a handful of false starts, early TPKs and loss of interest.

 

[sckeener]

I am not sure about others but I tend to think of campaigns that run that long as worlds and not campaigns.

A campaign should have a theme, plot, or goal and a campaign that lasts for 14 years hopefully had more than one goal or theme that entire time.

Have I run the same homebrewed world that lasted for years with the same characters, yes. I ran one world called Tellior with 3 other DMs for 26 years (my DMing part was only 8 years.)

One problem we ran into was converting characters. Some of the characters were very high level which for 3rd edition at the beginning was strange (ELH wasn't out yet).

Most campaigns\worlds that last that long are RP games. The players and the DM feel connected to the characters/npcs...their stories. A random die roll (crunch games) usually do not generate memorable events. All that one will remember is I survived the Age of Worms if you play a crunch game...but if the players interacted with the NPCs...they will have stories.

I tend to write soap operas into my games. I want the players so distracted by the game that it affects their real world lives. (I can remember a time when I couldn't use any IMs at work for awhile because I was getting bombed by 3 of my 7 players all day long) The nice thing about soap opera writing is that the players usually then start writing my adventures for me...

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Longest ive had game run d20 that is, was about 8-9 months. From levels 1-36. I am currently planning in my head to pick it up again. The only reason it even stopped was because they got so power nothing material could challenge them and when something did, they erased the current time line. So i have to be clever to re-enact it.

Now ive had interacting campaigns where characters from other games or decisions from other games affect the current one and that lasted 3-4 years?

My OWOD game has lasted 5 years and has gone through 5+ DMs' as we switch off and on.