D&D 5E What is a "Campaign" to you?

[Reynard]

This came up in the "Lazy GM" thread and I am curious what folks think.

In the context of playing D&D (or other RPGs, but let's focus on D&D, Pathfinder and similarly structured games) what does the term "Campaign" mean to you. If your buddy says, "I want to start a new Forgotten Realms/Eberron/Golarion/Homebrew campaign" what do you immediately assume he or she means?

Is a campaign defined by the PCs? The setting? The story? The real world participants? Is it limited in scope or broad? Does a campaign imply something specific about playstyle or structure? Adn with all that, what IS NOT a campaign or not expected in "campaign play" to you?

There are no correct answers and we should avoid judging other people's answers too harshly, but I am curious how EN Worlders at large define "campaign."

 

[iserith]

This came up in the "Lazy GM" thread and I am curious what folks think.

In the context of playing D&D (or other RPGs, but let's focus on D&D, Pathfinder and similarly structured games) what does the term "Campaign" mean to you. If your buddy says, "I want to start a new Forgotten Realms/Eberron/Golarion/Homebrew campaign" what do you immediately assume he or she means?

Is a campaign defined by the PCs? The setting? The story? The real world participants? Is it limited in scope or broad? Does a campaign imply something specific about playstyle or structure? Adn with all that, what IS NOT a campaign or not expected in "campaign play" to you?

There are no correct answers and we should avoid judging other people's answers too harshly, but I am curious how EN Worlders at large define "campaign."

A campaign is a string of adventures joined together with a fairly consistent group of adventurers - the protagonists of the campaign - that are following a narrative from start to finish. It produces an ongoing story that can last for months or years (of real time and game time) during which time the adventurers grow in might.

The campaign is defined by the DM, bought into by the players, and takes place in the campaign setting. The story emerges as the protagonists, controlled by the players, take part in adventures that comprise the campaign. A campaign might be limited to a number of adventures that follow a predetermined storyline over a set number of levels or an open-ended campaign that ends when it ends with no plot to follow at all or anything in between (and beyond).

I would not define a one-off adventure as a campaign.

 

[El Mahdi]

A campaign is a continuing story with a semi-regular set of characters. It may involve unrelated adventures, but there is a story continuum based on the involved characters (and their players). A campaign is to adventures, as a series is to episodes.

 

[Kramodlog]

A campaign is a continuing story with a semi-regular set of characters. It may involve unrelated adventures, but there is a story continuum based on the involved characters (and their players). A campaign is to adventures, as a series is to episodes.

This!

 

[El Mahdi]

P.S.: A campaign is defined by both the DM and the Players. Their combined contributions create the ongoing story. The areas of contribution vary from group to group. In some groups, setting, world creation, plot, etc., might all be strictly the purview of the DM, and only the PC's and their actions are the purview of the Players. In others, Players have more narrative control and input, while DM's may have more input on PC creation and development.

The common thread though, despite divisions of responsibility/purview, is the continuing story that develops through everyone's input.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Porn. Or Rock Music. Or a literary genre.

Hard to define, blurry at the edges, but there are clear examples.

 

[Reynard]

A campaign is to adventures, as a series is to episodes.

This is my preferred analogy as well. Sometimes, you get a pilot and no series commitment. Sometimes, you are on the air 3 years too long...

 

[jgsugden]

It is nebulous. I might have the same group of players, the same rules, the same world, and the same PCs - and consider it a different campaign. On the other hand, I might change some of the players, the location, the storyline, and the rule set and consider it a continuation of a prior campaign.

As in most situations, if a label doesn't need to be precise, you're better off not venturing into the rabbit hole and trying to be precise.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

When I started out (BECMI before CMI) and then AD&D there was always that 'name level' concept - like a career path - where you were destined to become a noble or an archmage or the master of the thieves' guild, and your battles changed in nature as you levelled higher (I particularly enjoyed the 'there can beee only waaaan' Druid path in AD&D) - kind of like life, I guess.
Whether held together by a strong cementing storyline such as the War of the Lance or Tyranny of Dragons, or (like mine) held desperately together by toothpaste and bogies*, a campaign is the story of the lives of the characters as they grow from zero to hero (or at least their journey from diced to sliced) in the shared world everyone at the table helps create.
I'd love to play a campaign where the PCs are retired to NPC ruler or legend status and the adventures continue with their offspring/students/etc in a TNG/DS9 style. Not been lucky enough to do that yet.

*bonus XP for anyone who gets the reference

 

[steeldragons]

"Campaign", as I've always understood/used it, simply meant what a particular group of PCs [at least to start, replacements and additions are a given expectation] was going to do.

It could be/cover any amount of in-game space, any setting, scope, number of DMs, tone, or even out-of-game time...they're all "campaigns." Most times, there is no set objective or expectation of levels covered beyond a general "starting level." To whit...

"I'm taking a break and Jim wants to DM/has a plot idea/has wanted to DM for a while. Everyone roll up 1st level characters." How far are we going to get? What the overarching plot actually is? How long/many months will we be playing this? None of that matters. What the setting is, restrictions/additions to character options, Houserules we will/won't use? That's all expected to be known/shared prior to play beginning. But that group of [starting] characters with Jim as the DM, that's a campaign. Likely to be referred to as "Jim's Campaign" when spoken about among the players...to differentiate from "My Campaign" or "The Desert [setting/world/characters] Campaign."

"Hey! Let's do a Dragonlance game. Here's the pregen/book characters or [here's the setting spec's] come up with your own. Figure 4th level to start and we're going to run through/follow DL1-10...see how far we get/where that takes us. Though Chris might make some tweaks along the way so you can't really go strictly by how the books went." That's a campaign.

"I wanna play an Underdark adventure. Tommy loves the underdark and has a thousand ideas for a high-level/power adventure he's been working on for while. So we're all set! Everyone grab a PC you already have or come up with a new one, no lower than 10th level...if you want to live past the first session. Bwahaha." Whether this is purely Tommy's made up stuff, using all/only official Forgotten Realms Underdark/Drow stuff, or running us through D1-3 to get us to Q1, doesn't really matter. That's a campaign.

"I'm tired guys. Could be take a break from the big overarching plots and world-saving? We just do a simple roll up. Start at 1st (or 4th or 8th or wherever you want) level and have a good old-fashioned dungeon delve one-shot?" YOU SURE CAN! That's a campaign. If everyone has a great time that session and wants to continue? Fine. If someone really falls in love with one of those characters and wants to use it in some more consistent game, that's fine too. Take that one-shot character and dream up what they're like at 10th level to use in Tommy's underdark game, that's cool too. But even if they are all played, slain or forgotten, that night of that one-shot dungeon adventure, that was [at the least the potential beginning of] a campaign too.

"DUDES! I just bought the "Railroadallinarow in Onehardcoverbook Adventure Path"! Levels 1-25! Looks awesome and should keep us busy for the next 9.25 months [if we follow it exactly/level when it says]." That's a campaign too. Not one I would necessarily care to be in...but it is a campaign.

A "module" can be one piece of a campaign or the entirety of it or, to break things down further, just one piece of an "adventure."

There can be multiple adventures within a campaign.

An "Adventure Path" is a whole [probably single] campaign broken into multiple adventures/modules in a box.

A "game" is synonymous with a "session." A game/session is, likely, only a part/fraction of a particular module or adventure, and thus a singular [probably small] moment of a campaign...unless the campaign in question is a one-shot in which case that game/session is the whole campaign.

That's how I look at it anyway.