D&D General Kitchen sink setting or narrow genre focus for long-running campaigns (2,5,10+ years)

[aco175]

I have been playing in FR for all of 5e and never left the greater Phandalin/Leilon/Neverwinter region. This is the 5th campaign we played and while the players can go anywhere they want, they don't. We did play the elemental evil campaign, so maybe more Sword Coast north.

I can throw in things from all over the world if I wanted, but tend to keep 90% of the local people and flavor and only throw in something if needed. Things like 80% of townsfolk are human and most worship the same few gods.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Never played Starfinder.

It’s like Spelljammer, apart from the spaceships look like spaceships not sailing ships.

 

[Remathilis]

It’s like Spelljammer, apart from the spaceships look like spaceships not sailing ships.

Eh... No?

Starfinder is what people sometimes claim Star Wars is: space wizards. It's got lazer guns and power armor but it's also got magic and monsters. I tend to think of it as taking Star Wars and replacing the Force with D&D magic and sprinkling on elements from Halo, Mass Effect and other sci-fi properties. Whereas Spelljammer is basically D&D in Space. The technology is D&D faux-medieval, you got all your classic D&D species and classes, etc. Basically, it's a nautical adventure setting with some quirky space/astral elements.

Starfinder is sci-fi with a dash of D&D. Spelljammer is D&D with a dash of sci-fi.

 

[payn]

The irony is that Starfinder straight up erased the planet. Completely. Golarion is gone, and nobody knows what happened, where it went, or whether it could potentially be restored. (Indeed, nobody remembers anything for a period of several centuries surrounding Golarion's disappearance.) Anything at the level of gods--meaning, those who should be able to resist memory-erasure effects--refuses to give any information at all, other than that Golarion still exists, somewhere.

For all the blowing-up the Realms have gotten, they've never been outright deleted.

One thing that will drive some folks absolutely nuts is that even regular PF Golarion has some setting spanning mysteries that are never intended to be solved (at least by the publisher).

 

[el-remmen]

I have found that my most successful campaigns (and I measure success based on how long it lasts and how much fun we have) are one where there has been a focus on a distinct area within a larger and more diverse setting context.

My “Out of the Frying Pan” 3e campaign took just over 5 years and the PCs traveled to a particular part of the world and stayed there the whole time.

My most recent “complete” campaign mostly took place all around my version of Saltmarsh and lasted 3 years and another campaign that is still ongoing has lasted over 5 years and it taking place in the same general area.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I've always run focused homebrew settings, with "take the rule-set and supporting materials, and cut away everything that doesn't look like [setting]"

I have a certain admiration for kitchen-sink campaigns and those who run them, while also being very aware of the downsides of those campaigns. I feel very little desire to run such a game myself, however, partly due to those downsides but mostly as a matter of taste.

 

[AlViking]

I don't necessarily see it as an either or. You have an entire world to play with, there can easily be a region controlled by powerful vampire like Ravenloft and another area that's standard city based adventure or anything else you want. Why limit yourself? I typically start with a specific area and theme but then it just kind of depends on what the players want to do. It's worked well for me for decades. I think it matters more to you as a DM on what kind of setting you'll enjoy and are comfortable with, as long as it's not too narrow and the setting doesn't box you in I'm not sure it really matters.

 

[TwoSix]

I prefer games that stick around to the 12-18 month range (around 20 sessions). I find even games that are in "kitchen sink" settings tend to narrow down to a tighter frame over a more limited time frame.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I think the premise here is a little too thin to support the question being asked. A few problems jump out:

1. Defining a “long campaign.”
You set the bar at 2–10+ years, but years are a poor metric. Some groups meet weekly, others monthly. Some run marathon sessions, others barely squeeze in two hours. A 40-session campaign might span a single year or four years depending on scheduling. Longevity is better measured in sessions or arcs, not elapsed calendar time.

2. What even is a campaign?
This isn’t clarified. Is a “campaign” a single, continuous storyline with the same characters? Or is it multiple arcs in the same setting? Many groups rotate characters, GMs, or even systems while staying in one world. Others call a 12-session adventure a “campaign.” Without defining terms, it’s hard to make meaningful comparisons.

3. The binary framing.
You draw a hard line between “kitchen sink” (broad, flexible, potentially diluted) and “narrow genre” (focused, immersive, potentially repetitive). But that isn’t inherent. Forgotten Realms can be run with strict thematic guardrails (e.g. low-magic frontier) and Dark Sun can host wildly varied tones if the GM layers in politics, survival, horror, mysticism, and so on. The categories are more porous than the examples suggest.

4. The supposed link between setting and longevity.
This is the weakest part. Campaign duration isn’t dictated by whether the setting is broad or narrow. What actually sustains long-running play is the group itself:

• Are players invested enough in their characters and story to keep coming back?
• Do they want consistency, or do they crave novelty and rotation?
• Does the GM adapt to shifting interests, or rigidly hold to a plan?
• Most importantly, do people actually have the time and social bandwidth to keep showing up?

The truth is you can run Ravenloft for a decade if the group wants to “live in” that story, or burn out on Golarion in six months if the energy fades. The determining factor isn’t the scope of the setting — it’s the culture of the table.

5. The deeper issue.
If anything, the real question here is about player psychology. Most players don’t want to stay locked into the same character and storyline for 5–10 years. They want to try different classes, roles, and experiences. For the rare groups that do sustain that kind of continuity, what’s happening is less a “campaign” in the game sense and more a lifestyle hobby: the table has created a shared fiction they want to inhabit indefinitely. At that point, the particulars of the setting are incidental. The world could be Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, or a homebrew; the longevity comes from the fact that the group has chosen to treat that game as a long-term shared culture.

So if the question is, “Which type of setting better supports a long campaign?” my answer is: neither, on its own. What matters is whether the group wants to keep returning to the same world, characters, and shared narrative. The rest is just backdrop.

 

[earthsea_wizard]

I think the premise here is a little too thin to support the question being asked. A few problems jump out:

1. Defining a “long campaign.”
You set the bar at 2–10+ years, but years are a poor metric. Some groups meet weekly, others monthly. Some run marathon sessions, others barely squeeze in two hours. A 40-session campaign might span a single year or four years depending on scheduling. Longevity is better measured in sessions or arcs, not elapsed calendar time.

2. What even is a campaign?
This isn’t clarified. Is a “campaign” a single, continuous storyline with the same characters? Or is it multiple arcs in the same setting? Many groups rotate characters, GMs, or even systems while staying in one world. Others call a 12-session adventure a “campaign.” Without defining terms, it’s hard to make meaningful comparisons.

3. The binary framing.
You draw a hard line between “kitchen sink” (broad, flexible, potentially diluted) and “narrow genre” (focused, immersive, potentially repetitive). But that isn’t inherent. Forgotten Realms can be run with strict thematic guardrails (e.g. low-magic frontier) and Dark Sun can host wildly varied tones if the GM layers in politics, survival, horror, mysticism, and so on. The categories are more porous than the examples suggest.

4. The supposed link between setting and longevity.
This is the weakest part. Campaign duration isn’t dictated by whether the setting is broad or narrow. What actually sustains long-running play is the group itself:

• Are players invested enough in their characters and story to keep coming back?
• Do they want consistency, or do they crave novelty and rotation?
• Does the GM adapt to shifting interests, or rigidly hold to a plan?
• Most importantly, do people actually have the time and social bandwidth to keep showing up?

The truth is you can run Ravenloft for a decade if the group wants to “live in” that story, or burn out on Golarion in six months if the energy fades. The determining factor isn’t the scope of the setting — it’s the culture of the table.

5. The deeper issue.
If anything, the real question here is about player psychology. Most players don’t want to stay locked into the same character and storyline for 5–10 years. They want to try different classes, roles, and experiences. For the rare groups that do sustain that kind of continuity, what’s happening is less a “campaign” in the game sense and more a lifestyle hobby: the table has created a shared fiction they want to inhabit indefinitely. At that point, the particulars of the setting are incidental. The world could be Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, or a homebrew; the longevity comes from the fact that the group has chosen to treat that game as a long-term shared culture.

So if the question is, “Which type of setting better supports a long campaign?” my answer is: neither, on its own. What matters is whether the group wants to keep returning to the same world, characters, and shared narrative. The rest is just backdrop.

Sure, it was thin on purpose because each answer is going to be really subjective no matter how I spun the question.

1. Whatever defines a long campaign to you and your group.

2. Again, doesn't need to be clarified. Because I am not positing an argument or answer to anything and because I am not looking for answers from just one kind of group who run their games in whatever narrow parameters I could set forth here.

As for my group, a campaign is a DMs game that takes place in the same world over time with various adventuring groups (sometimes played by the same players, sometimes multiple groups of players). Characters will get high in level and retire, only being brought out on special occasions, while the players get to roll up new characters and continue adventurning in the same world.

But that is of course not how everyone plays, so its for the person answers to clarify, not me.

3. It was a bit binary, though I left room for an "in between" as well and gave to examples. The examples were as broad as my entire post, because I can't possibly cover all of the interpreations, and if you've been playing the game for more than a few years you understand all of the implications of my post even with its thing posing (everyone has been able to answer in a nuanced enough way thus far, as expected).

4. "Campaign duration isn’t dictated by whether the setting is broad or narrow." That is actually just your answer to my question then, not a damning of how I posed it. Some people feel that it makes a difference, and I asked whether it "lends itself to the health of a long campaign", not whether it dictates whether it can happen or not.

5. As demonstrated above, long campaign doesn't mean the same characters and story to every group. It can mean many characters and many stories. But yes, it also can mean the same characters and same story. There are groups who like both. And no, not everyone wants a long campaign, but my question isn't about whether people want that or not, my question assumes people who do play long campaigns (whatever that means to them).

You kinda just gave me a very good and nuanced answer to my question but then framed it as if I asked a poor question haha.