Tips on running a long-running campaign

[MoonZar]

Whoops... Bummer, I should have made myself clearer. What I mean is I want to run a campaign starting from 1st and then moving up to higher levels. By "Epic" I meant one that has huge consequences for the PCs actions and with some big earth-shattering scenarios. Sorry.

What I want to do is to plan the campaign out in series, with each series leading up to a huge climax. I'm not sure how well it will work, but I really want to challenge the players in terms of role-playing and to let my world evolve into a huge dynamic living thing - not just the static stereotypical RPG worlds I seem to spend so much time playing in.

So, yeah, I meant epic like Tolkien is epic, not like level 20+.

This important to create a major plots and cut it in many series as you said and then you build a serie one at a time when you need them.

There's no need to rush and try to build everything, you just need to have a general idea of what's ahead and work of what you truly need right now to make the campaign run.

 

[MoonZar]

Another important thing to consider.

In the characters creation phase, make sure that all class and alignment can work well together. If you known that some of the character will dislike each other, maybe you should ask one of them to change thing about their character.

I have see many campaign end because the group was not working well together...

 

[MoonZar]

My suggestions:

-Start small, don't plan some grand plan to the smallest detail. Keep a vageu idea where you want to go, but too much planning will tempt you with railroading, which some players don't like.

-Keep it fun for each player. Find something that each players likes to get from each session (some want power, some want character development, some want to just play, and some want to kill things). and find the best way to harmonize these things that you can. If you keep your players wanting more, they'll keep coming back.

-Don't push it if the players want to do something else. If you have grand plans, but they want something smaller, either plan for this, or discuss it with them and see if you can come to a compromise. Know what THEY expect from a campaign, and make sure they know what YOU expect from it.

-As a corollary, don't run week in, week out. Plan for games in set arcs. Stop after every 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months, whatever. Play from 1st to 6th, then 7th to 14th, etc. and take a break between each. VERY few DM's can DM week in, week out, for years. Play board games, run another game system, have another DM run his grand epic, etc. By the time you get back to DM'ing, your brain will be bursting with new stuff to try.

-last but most important, don't despair if the game group alters. It's great to find that fantastic group of friends who have gamed every week for 20 years since they were 12, but most of us won't have that. Keep the campaign fresh, and don't despair with new characters, etc. rotated in. Look at the Defenders of Daybreak in Piratecat's story hour. The last original character left JUST died, 13 years after the game began. His players have almost all moved away, some moved back, the ranks changed, but the campaign still attracted people. Just because the group changes ranks doesn't mean it's over, and it took me personally years to understand this.

I hope some of these provide useful info and perspective, and good luck!

This a lot of good advise, i would take note about this

 

[DonTadow]

Lots of great advice above...

My 2 coppers is consequences.

A broad, overarching plotline...segmented into general digestible bites...is great. Just don't get too detailed, since the PCs will inevitably invalidated a tightly scripted plot through actions and inactions (and the farther down the plotarc you travel, the greater the effect).

Which brings us to consequences. Present the PCs with several minor plot arcs, tied into PC backgrounds with real-world motivations such as love, honor, greed, betrayal, previous failure, etc. Don't force the PCs to follow any particular plotline...but have there be consequences (good or ill...mostly ill ) for not addressing mini-arcs.

They hear a rumor of a raiding band of goblins but decide to compete in the King's Tourney for gold and prizes instead of chasing the miscreants down? Fine...but they may find the raiding band has killed or kidnapped a friend, relative or mentor. Or another adventuring band tracks down and eliminates the threat, thereby receiving accolades from the local duke and the affection of a PCs betrothed.

I have found that continuously presenting PCs with varied mini-arcs, some of which are related to the overarching plot and some of which are unrelated and letting them choose increases "ownership" of the campaign. Of course, some players get "paralysis by analysis" if presented with too many choices...so you have to know your players.

Moving mini-arcs forward along a pre-set timeline (absent PC intervention) is a good way to build a dynamic, breathing and believable world. If they fail to accompany a diplomatic mission to a neighboring kingdom, the diplomatic party is ambushed...leading to war between the two counties. Consequences may not play out for months (or even years)...but having things come back to confront or haunt the PCs can be lots of fun.

Likewise, show them how small successes impact the world. If they save the wayward daughter of a local merchant, he greatfully introduces them to a contact in the Duke's court who employs them to help open a new trade route. If successful, they are award a spice concession that provides some steady income. This is much better than getting the ubiquitous "100 gp reward" from the merchant.

Start small...present varied options...see what the PCs bite on...consider circumstance, reward and advanced timeline...see how the players react. As you progress, look for (non-cheesy) ways to tie seemingly disparate mini-arcs together to support your overarching plot.

Good luck,

~ OO

This is excellent advice. Long term campaigns are usually a good balance between trying to make sure that you havea lot of good plots, but, also making sure that your pcs SEE that they are effecting the plot. In my campaign, I began by planting seeds of an impending war, not thinking that the pcs would care much about he war. Now the main pcs are playing the politics game to attempt to stop the war and they are directly effecting one city's viewso n it through thier actions and roleplaying.

 

[gizmo33]

My setting is low fantasy/magic, but is full of secrets, mysteries and intrigue, with lots of possibilities (I think), but how can I keep my players focused over a long period of time?

Mysteries, intrigue, and lots of possibilities and you're wondering why you can't stay interested or keep your players focused? All the other advice on this thread makes sense, but I'm wondering whether or not something else is going on.

Perhaps your ideas are better suited to a novel than an RPG. I throw half of my ideas out for that reason. Maybe spend some time trying to figure out which of your campaign ideas would be well suited to a game and use those to build the adventures. It's one thing to have an interesting campaign world - but that isn't guarranteed to make for interesting games.

One thing that really helped me was to bring back more mystery to the game - there is an excellent Dragon Magazine article from the old days that covers this (I'll try to find it.) The other thing is that you should probably play more instead of GM. Play with an eye towards figuring out what makes an interesting game. Spend some time on the other side of the screen, and think about the things you *wish* your DM did and do those in your game. If you think it would have been cool if that one evil patron had another, more powerful figure backing him, for example, use that in your game the next chance. Nothing makes me want to DM more than playing in someone else's game.

 

[TerraDave]

A lot of good advice here, but as someone who cant finish a campaign and seems to only be able to think in long (or "epic") terms, I thought I might be able to add something, or at least repeat what is already posted ...by writting what turned into a huge post...

The flexible metaplot with built in intermediate goals: start with something that will finish soon enough, but have some ideas on what it will link to, knowning that some details will be unknown. This may sound hard, but in fact it means you don't have to plan out every detail, and can "fake it" as you go along up to a point (but see below). At the same time though, if you do have something planned and want to do, then hook the PCs in and do it.

The long running threads: valuable items, locations, hostile and freindly NPCs...these can all be used to help the campaign hang together, but again, stay flexible

plot-weaving through time work new stuff in and old stuff out. Little things grow in importance, and old things get resolved. Of course, little things can stay little, and old things can come back. Plot weaving also helps as unexpected developments come along...

charecter advancement: if the players think that the only way to get high level charecters is to keep playing, you can hold their interest. And people tend to get attached to charecters...but this can be a problem if, say, they die. Also be ready for...

the changing power level: essentially, the campaign is constantly refreshing itself as new kinds of challenges (or at least monsters) have to be overcome. This helps keep it fresh, but makes DMing more challenging, though that isn't always bad. You also have to think about "advancing" NPCs...

disasters: and then the loved PC is disentegrated, or even worse the key NPC is disintigrated...or the whole party is disintigrated. These can be bummers, and that is the problem. You can always make new charecters, and can make ones litterally or figuretively related to the originals (and ones that are just about as good). You can always adjust you metaplot. But you will have to deal with hurt feelings, perhaps including your own.

changes smaller then disasters...but people are going to move away, new people might be interested in playing, and you might get really sick of what you had planned, or just decide to do something different. You don't have to restart the campaign, but again just be ready for changes....and remember they are good things, because they also keep the campaign fresh.

consistency so how do you pull all this off? One key is maintaining internal consistency in the campaign. A lot will be happening, not all of it according to plan. Take notes and review them. Make the world seem relatively coherent...or at least as coherent as you can.

support don't go it alone. Use supplements, modules, Dungeon and Dragon, Enworld. There is nothing wrong with a campaign that is a series of modules or a mega module. And there is nothing wrong porting modules into an ongoing campaign, even if they are a little tangental...

keeping it fresh and summing up Now that I have written all that, the basic idea is simple. The things that can be problems in a long running campaign like charecter turnover, the DM shifting the focus (or needing to shift the focus to prevent boredome), or the change in the power level, are also the things that keep it fresh. Your job is really to adopt the developing story to make it seem as if all this stuff really fits together.

 

[Chaldfont]

I say, "Just let it happen". This happened with me. I got some friends together to start playing D&D again when 3.0 came out. We are still playing the same campaign.

I don't have a lot of time to spend prepping, so I use a ton of Dungeon magazine adventures. I just pick out ones that are the right level and that sound fun. Then I look at the plots and NPCs and try to fit them into our main plotline. I have to make up the occasional session when I can't find a good adventure that fits the bill, or to glue Dungeon adventures together.

Our plot grew organically from PC backgrounds (a young boy raised by a myserious nameless sorcerer, a druid tribesman escaped from slavery, etc) and their first mission: go buy magical supplies from The Hermit for a sorceress who would later accidently summon a pit fiend which took over their home city.

As previously said, its a good idea to take breaks. Our campaign is broken into three "seasons" where we took breaks to try other settings (Scarred Lands, Eberron) and games (M&M, D20 Modern).

 

[barsoomcore]

Lots and lots of bad guys. Just make 'em up. Yeah, they're probably working together, or some of them are, or maybe they're stabbing each other in the back (they're bad guys, after all). Don't worry about that too much -- you got lots of time to figure out what's ACTUALLY going on.

But you'll never have too many bad guys. I promise you.

My number one advice is: don't try to have it all figured out before you start. Just throw together as much cool stuff as you possibly can. You've got years, right? Fine, don't worry about how it all makes sense. It will. You're smart. And you know what? Your players will do half the work for you. Listen to their speculations. They'll feel smart when they think they're figured you out.

Lots of bad guys. All the cool stuff you can think of. Half-a-dozen great players. Let simmer for three years and voila! Great memories, all around.

 

[The_Gneech]

But you'll never have too many bad guys. I promise you.

As a corollary to this, never let the players encounter a villain in person unless you're prepared for the villain to die on the spot. Have lots and lots of villainous henchmen who can get sliced and diced with impunity.

-The Gneech

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Even aside from an overarching plotline keep your world fluid, have events happen that are unconnected to the PCs, and that may or may not have any bearing on the plotline. This can keep a setting alive for both you and the players.

For example, a local baron dies, and is replaced by his son who is an immature jerk - not a villain, just a jerk.

Copper is discovered in the hills west of town along a rain gully, and mining it spoils the water of the river that flows through town every time it rains.

A dragon has swooped down on a town 300 miles away and has started demanding tribute...

The poor quarter of the town catches fire, dozens are killed, and not many of the people of the town seem overly concerned about this - 'those people breed like rabbits anyway!' Not arson, just somebody who fell asleep while trying to stay warm.

It doesn't have to be much, just something to give the feel that time is marching on.

Ronin Arts has a Campaign Planner series (now in new paper flavor!) which can help with keeping track of things like this, they have become some of my most used supplements. Sheets for secret societies, beasts of legend, urban events, and site and event based encounters are particularly handy for me.

The Auld Grump