Let's Talk About Short Campaigns

[aco175]

I do not mind a short campaign lasting a summer or something like Lost Mines of Phandelvar going levels 1-5. There is always an option to expand something longer. A planned campaign to last levels 1-15ish and run for 2 years might have problems with time or people moving away or whatever. Maybe depends some on the group. My group has been playing together for many years, so a 2 year campaign might not be a problem.

 

[cbwjm]

I'm fine with short campaigns, I ran one during the lockdowns all those years ago. At least I'd probably consider it one. It was a bunch of the thunder rift modules strung together into a very loose campaign. I would have finished with the party escaping the rift but I think things had gone back to normal so we continued our main campaign.

 

[MGibster]

How do you feel about short campaigns. Not one shots, or single adventures that might take a couple sessions, but actual campaigns (whatever that means to you) that run for a finite period of time of anywhere from a few to a (say) a dozen sessions or so?

That is the norm for me when I run a campaign. For the better part of a decade, we play every week and our typical campaign runs between 4-6 months. I think one of the longest campaigns we've ever had was about nine months. We rotate games frequently, sometimes we rotate GMs, but I'm the primary GM for our group. I prefer shorter, more focused campaigns that end when certain conditions are met.

 

[aramis erak]

The thing that defines a campaign for me is having multiple missions/adventures and continuing characters. And preferably, at least 8 hours (2 full sessions) of play.

The 19 hour single session with 4 published adventures completed I'd say was, indeed, a campaign... D1-3 and Q1. In one, 19 hour long session.

The 12 sessions 3hrs long cinematic for Alien was one mission... and they failed the mission. But they had fun dying along the way. It felt like a campaign, too.

I see several of the D&D 5e books as canned campaigns... Horde, Elements, Apocalypse... because each has multiple distict adventures, and the tone changes slightly in each chunk. Multiple Missions? Check. Continuing Characters? Usually, so Check. More than 8 hours? Uh, more than a dozen sessions each... so check. They're campaigns. Very linear ones.

 

[TiQuinn]

Having come off of two back to back long campaigns each running almost 2 years, I’m totally cool with a short campaign. Right now we’re playing Gradient Descent with Mothership, and it plays more like a shorter campaign. It seems perfect for the system - I can’t imagine a year long Mothership campaign. It probably would work against the system’s strengths.

 

[Li Shenron]

I agree that many modern modules published by WotC are campaigns, not adventures. Curse of Strahd is a campaign.

I think the main point of distinction between adventure and campaign is that campaigns have distinct parts. For example, if you turned Lord of the Rings into a campaign, traveling from Hobbiton to Bree would be one adventure, Bree to Rivendell another, and the Mines of Moria a third (with the bit between Rivendell and Moria mostly being an interlude of sorts explaining why that's the path chosen).

For me to call something an "RPG campaign", it needs multiple story arcs and finish lines, whether they run in a series or in parallel. Boundaries are blurry, but for me none of WotC modules are campaigns, but just long adventures. More specifically, "long" for players but short for characters: they are just incredibly stretched in level range to promote all tiers of play. For me even LotR is a long adventure.

Perhaps my view is more character-based than players-based. I don't care how long it takes the players, I see a "campaign" as something that groups together all the adventures by the same characters group.

 

[cranberry]

I started D&D back in the day with one shot modules and it became my preferred format. Modern adventures can drag on too long, but were the only option available (other than making your own)

So, yes, a short campaign is something I'd like to see more of.

 

[dbm]

I would say we tend to play short campaigns in my regular group. We rotate GMs (and frequently will change system when we change GM) and a stint is often about 12-18 months, playing one Sunday per month for 10hrs a session. A canned campaign usually fits in that kind of window.

I also really like Savage Worlds plot-point campaigns as a structure. They set up an overall arc with 6-7 plot-based adventures and maybe 10-ish standalone adventures; they also have adventure generators in them too. It gives a more ‘living’ feel to the games in my opinion and less of an on-rails experience while also giving huge amounts of GM support.

This amount of game does feel like a sweet spot for us. You can really experience a system and what kinds of character growth it offers, but it isn’t a multi-year commitment if a system isn’t your favourite. Because we rotate GMs and we each have different preferences there is always bound to be someone who would rather be playing a different system given a free choice. But we enjoy gaming together and that is more powerful than slight variations in enjoyment from the system (we would never run a system someone in the group actively dislikes).

I would like to run a more true sandbox campaign again in the near future, I haven’t really run one of those in years. I would still probably aim to fill 12-18 months of session even then.

 

[Reynard]

I wanted to talk a little more about what I mean when I say "short campaign" and maybe give an example or two.

First of all, I generally mean the opposite of an "ongoing campaign." By this measure, most of the D&D adventures would qualify, except that a short campaign, IMO, should max out at say 12 sessions. In addition to length, there is the issue of what makes a campaign a campaign, versus just an adventure. I made the analogy in the OP of a novel versus a short story -- multiple storylines, important subplots, and character arcs for more than just the protagonist -- and I think another analogy would be television in the vein of Buffy: monster (or dungeon) of the week, with a throughline. Any given season of Buffy, Angel, X-Files, or similar shows would be a good "short campaign." With this in mind, the only WotC adventure I would call a "short campaign" is Dragon Heist (which is a bad adventure but good toolbox -- but that's a different discussion).

I used to go visit friend in Pittsburg after we all moved away from Savannah, GA. We would cram 36 to 40 hours of table time into a 4 or 5 day weekend (we were young) -- which represents something like 9 to 12 "normal sessions" worth of play time these days. Because that only happened a couple times a year (then eventually one, and finally none...) I ran short campaigns each time. Many of those were portions of what was a larger mythology, but once in a while it would be something totally separate. One example of the former is the Golden Age story of our D&D world turned Super Hero world. One example of the latter is our Mutant Future "tomorrow project" weirdo mashup thing involving actual angels and forgotten weapons of mass destruction. In either case, I built a framework for the campaign and player choices, random tables, and alcohol fueled spur of the moment creativity defined the campaign.

I took the skills I developed here to conventions with me, running 4 or 5 session mini-convention-campaigns in the much same way (often with slightly more structure and slightly less alcohol; but only slightly). Sometimes these run more like extended adventures or separate episodic scenarios, but often times it has the sense of campaign to it -- and I have players that sign up for those games for that very reason (because they don't have a regular campaign and only get to play at conventions). A good example of this set up is The Valley of Tombs, a place full of small dungeons signposted with difficulty levels (thinly veiled so as to be in the fiction) so the players could decide their risk versus reward. Another was Return to the Isle of Dread (exactly like it sounds). As usual, I rely on the players and random charts and my own inspiration to make these events into campaigns of a sort.

This summer, I am planning on running a short Daggerheart campaign to really put the game through its paces and see if there is any there there, I am not sure what I will do with it yet, but I am looking forward to that as my next short campaign.

 

[Professor Murder]

Again, these terms have no clear definitions in the space, but it does lead to an interesting thought.
Is a "normal" campaign one which lasts the entire lifespan of a given group of PCs? Can characters be played over multiple campaigns?