Long term Campaign Help

pogre · Nov 21, 2003

Hi folks,

I need a little help from those of you in long term campaigns. Two years or more is long term in my book. I'm starting to fade a bit and lose my will to game

It's not too ill-timed as my Track & Field season is about to start. Previously, however, I always made plans to somehow keep my campaign going over the Spring, but this time I am really welcoming the excuse to suspend the campaign.

I have good solid players now and if I could just get enthused I know they would stay loyal to the campaign. The question is how to stay enthused?

In my younger days campaigns would last as long as the players were around and willing. I had a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign that lasted for seven years for example. I may not have had enough time at different points, but I never grew tired of gaming or the campaign.

Now, I need some help from veterans. How do you keep your multi-year campaign going?

For those of you thinking, "He just should take a break." I agree to a point. However, I think if I take a break we could be talking years here not weeks or months. Plus, it was so darn hard to get a decent group together after my brother left, and now I finally have another one going I hate to throw it all away.

Thanks for any instructive advice you can lend me!

spunky_mutters · Nov 21, 2003

I think it really depends on what's causing your burnout. I know that when I'm feeling a burnout approaching I need to step back and look at the game I'm running. I'm usually just letting momentum carry things at this point, and not really having fun. I find that I need to refocus the campaign occasionally to make sure that I keep introducing the elements that I find fun. If the players get too set in their ways this can be a bit of a battle, but you seem to be happy with your players.

Assuming you're the only DM, you might try mixing things up a bit. One-off games in another system or something while you retool what's happening in your main game (or just give yourself some breathing room from it). I like to do mini-campaigns where I'll do characters, plot, everything, but set it in the main campaign world. It gives the players a chance to explore other aspects of my game world, and it gives me a chance to try out things that I'm interested in, but don't want to risk the main campaign on. Sometimes one of these little side parties will take off, but more often than not the players will want to get back to their main PCs. Either way, mixing things up helps me to combat burning out, and lets me get more of what I'm after from the games.

pogre · Nov 21, 2003

Thanks spunky_mutters valuable, well thought out suggestions.

spunky_mutters said:
I think it really depends on what's causing your burnout.

I wish I knew why I was in this gaming malaise.

How often does your group meet? How long do you play?

Hairy Minotaur · Nov 21, 2003

Well when this happens to me, I do one of two things depending on what's causing the drying up of the creativity well:

1. Take the campaign to a different plane. When I'm running out of ideas for he campaign, this one always seems to help spark my creativity back up.

2. Take the game to a mega level. I confess I use this one to help through the really dry times where I think up excuses to cancel the game. This involes having the players manage a kingdom, or run a war, or even run a shop or inn. They're doing all the work, and you're just there to moderate, sometimes you don't even have to be present.

pogre · Nov 21, 2003

Thanks HM.

Hairy Minotaur said:
Take the game to a mega level.

I wish I could do something like this, but I would certainly lose a couple of folks if I did.

BTW - working on a certain undead guy as we speak.

spunky_mutters · Nov 21, 2003

We play once a week for about 5 hours. It takes a fair amount of effort to always prepare for whatever tangent they decided to follow last week, and sometimes if a particular session is unsuccessful (by my standards), I can feel the burn building. I need to create a feedback loop where successful play feeds my creativity in planning. When the game slows down it affects my enjoyment, and I find that I need to actively combat it by overplanning for the next session.

I'm not talking about overarching metaplots, or grand schemes, but the little things that make play enjoyable in between. It takes a lot of work to fill in all of the little details, and this is where I find that the rewards of play are a good stimulator. Creating a few NPCs, detailing some interesting locations. Even if they never encounter them, I can reuse them. It's essential to have that bag of tricks filled up so that when you really do reach those low points you can carry yourself through.

Of course that doesn't always work. For those cases I would fall back on things I suggested in my first post.

Inconsequenti-AL · Nov 21, 2003

I was in a similar position about a year ago (again!).

Ended up checking round to see if any of the players would run something... a couple of them did and we had a really good time of it, played some DnD and a couple of different systems.

The bonus upside is that I've managed to steal many of their better GMing habits, which has helped my game out no end

Piratecat · Nov 21, 2003

I solve this problem by regularly shifting gears - political to planar to underdark back to planar.... This allwos me to explore different types of plots, and that freshness of design keeps me really enthused.

Mystery Man · Nov 21, 2003

pogre said:
I wish I knew why I was in this gaming malaise.

Is it the kind of malaise the insane envy and the genius lament?

How often does your group meet? How long do you play

I DM a Forgotten Realms game once every two weeks starting at 5 and going till whenever, so far steady for 1 year and 2 months. I've only had to cancel one time, very seldom do players miss a game, and only a couple of times have I been short 2 players due to RL.

It's the best time frame for me as a DM to get things ready (career, children, other) and it keeps the game fresh.

alsih2o · Nov 21, 2003

pogre said:
Hi folks,

I need a little help from those of you in long term campaigns. Two years or more is long term in my book. I'm starting to fade a bit and lose my will to game It's not too ill-timed as my Track & Field season is about to start.

TOTAL HIJACK-

man, they start every sport earlier every year. seriously, i remmeber when footbal started in august, and was ver by thanksgiving. track started with the daffodils and ended when school did. man, i guess this is one of those "in my day" stories where we actually had it easier....

Long term Campaign Help

pogre

Legend

spunky_mutters

First Post

pogre

Legend

Hairy Minotaur

Explorer

pogre

Legend

spunky_mutters

First Post

Inconsequenti-AL

Breaks Games

Piratecat

Sesquipedalian

Mystery Man

First Post

alsih2o

First Post

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