Failed Campaigns

[Reynard]

I think we have all had them: campaign ideas that seemed like they would be great experiences, that just plain fizzled. Sometimes, they lasta couple sessions before sinking under their own weight. Sometimes they don't get past Session 0 because the group falls apart before the first die is cast. Some die on the vine and never see the table at all. What is your "favorite" premature campaign death?

For me, back when or recently after I was writing for Exalted 1E, I had big plans for an X-Men inspired Exalted campaign. I drew all the connecting line between classic X-Men characters and storylines to Exalted's lore and had players choose X-Men they wanted to emulate so I could build them PCs to fit. We played exactly one session, and that was enough to show myself and the group (of like 8 players!) that the system was just way too heavy to create the experience I wanted, especially since almost no one else had ever encountered it before.

 

[R_J_K75]

I never plan out a campaign, I just start with a concept. Players being what they are have a tendency to steer things in another directions so the eventual outcome is far from what I envisioned.

 

[Marc_C]

Star Frontiers. I wanted to do a psy-hunter campaign. The PCs were all psy-hunters. During the first adventure I tell two of the PCs they slowly discover they are psychics... that didn't go well. We played a board game for the rest of the session. That was the end of it. Don't do bait & switch.

 

[Retreater]

Hmm. Let's see. Recently attempted to run The Enemy Within for WFRP, but had a player move away after the first session. With an already small group, that meant the end of the campaign. This is a bucket list campaign that I would love to run one day.

 

[Marc_C]

I think we have all had them: campaign ideas that seemed like they would be great experiences, that just plain fizzled. Sometimes, they lasta couple sessions before sinking under their own weight. Sometimes they don't get past Session 0 because the group falls apart before the first die is cast. Some die on the vine and never see the table at all. What is your "favorite" premature campaign death?

For me, back when or recently after I was writing for Exalted 1E, I had big plans for an X-Men inspired Exalted campaign. I drew all the connecting line between classic X-Men characters and storylines to Exalted's lore and had players choose X-Men they wanted to emulate so I could build them PCs to fit. We played exactly one session, and that was enough to show myself and the group (of like 8 players!) that the system was just way too heavy to create the experience I wanted, especially since almost no one else had ever encountered it before.

Isn't that more a system failure than a campaign failure? You could run it with another system.

 

[Reynard]

I never plan out a campaign, I just start with a concept. Players being what they are have a tendency to steer things in another directions so the eventual outcome is far from what I envisioned.

That's not what I mean.

 

[Reynard]

Isn't that more a system failure than a campaign failure? You could run it with another system.

The "X-Men using Exalted" campaign failed. Maybe the "X-Men using HERO in the world of Exalted" campaign would have succeeded, but that's not the one I tried to run. I'm not sure what else to say.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

For a about a year or two after having discovered D&D, I was solely a player (that was a long time ago). Then I thought "Hey, I already draw tons of maps, kingdoms and invent characters. I could be a DM, it'd be fun!" so I convinced several of my friends to give a try and let me introduce them to D&D. I was probably around 15 at that time.

Then I spent all my summer preparing the campaign like a madman. But I made the fatal mistake that many DM do at one point. I literally created an encyclopedia or characters, how they dress, what they like, what they eat, their personality. Same with locations, history. I created several naming languages, refused to use real animals or plants, everything had to come from my creative genius. The level of detail was out of control.

This stuff is very fun. But in my experience, very, very few people can turn that into a successful novel, comic, movie or D&D campaign. It's not that interesting to other people. So September comes, we have our first session and two things happen. First, I absolutely bombard them with facts. Every moment is an opportunity for me to share something. "Oh, I'd like to order food with the innkeeper", "He presents to you a menu with a dozen recipes, here they are, and let me explain what these animals and plants are". My players were really overwhelmed, and about an hour in, it was obvious that they were not having fun. The second thing that happened, is that in the moment, as I had to improvise, it was hell to try and be coherent and consistent with everything I had written. I couldn't remember all I had written on my characters and well, I wasn't (and am) not much of an actor, so it fell very flat and felt formulaic.

All my friends found excuses not to play the next session, and I was crushed. I stopped playing for about a year. And then I a one-shot as a player at a local game store. And there was a much older and experienced DM that really blew me away. I told him my story, and he taught me the lesson that I hadn't learn yet from my mistake. I was severely overprepared, I put too much effort on stuff that's only exciting to me, and I didn't see a campaign as it should be: a freeform story that has a will of its own.

I'm very happy to have learned that lesson when I was young! I still see some DM my age do the same thing nowadays.

 

[R_J_K75]

That's not what I mean.

So my reply is irrelevant?

 

[Marc_C]

The "X-Men using Exalted" campaign failed. Maybe the "X-Men using HERO in the world of Exalted" campaign would have succeeded, but that's not the one I tried to run. I'm not sure what else to say.

You're supposed to say: "You know what, now that you mention it, you are correct Marc_C."