What rpg system would you use for a 60+ session fantasy campaign?

[Celebrim]

I had such fun with 3.0, and I love that edition of the game more than 3.5. I know 3.5 fixed lot of things but I rather liked monsters being both deadlier and easier to kill. And I liked magic having... as one YT video put it... a more strategic component and less tactical.

3.5 had a very few things worth adopting, mostly in the form of weaker spells. Generally speaking, I take the weaker of either the 3.0 or 3.5 version of the spell. But for the most part, the changes in 3.5e were bizarre and ill-thought out, and the situation just got distinctly worse over time with more and more content just thrown over the wall without any testing, and a publication schedule and book formats clearly favoring short term profit over the health of the game.

3.5e died in its own bloat, particularly its CharGen bloat.

 

[Greg K]

Most likely, I would use Savage Worlds: 50 Fathoms (nautical/Pirate fantasy), Beasts & Barbarians (Sword & Sorcery), Hellfrost (High Fantasy), Sundered Skies (post cataclysmic), Savage Pathfinder (for D&D/Pathfinder fantasy), or something home-brewed

However, depending on the group, I might also consider:
1) BoL based systems: Barbarians of Lemuria w/ Sword & Sorcery Codex (Sword & Sorcery) or Honor + Intrigue (Swashbuckling Fantasy) although I am not sure how they would work for a 60 session campaign;
2) Fantasy Age (for something class based);
3) BASH: Fantasy Legend of Steel

 

[GuardianLurker]

@Jacob Lewis You put it much better than I did. Thank you.

I will also expand that a more common problem is how a system handles "scaling" or "power levels". Which might be touching on the long term progression that the OP (@Elvish Lore ) was trying to address, as the high-end is the more common breaking point. The DnD family is notoriously wonky at extremely high-levels, system-wise. There are other systems that are worse. There are even some systems that invert that (the original MEGS version of DC Heroes from the 80s).

But as you rightly pointed out, all of these are a question of pacing and taste. Both of the GM and the players. If your players enjoy the wonkiness, then go ahead play DnD 3.x in Epic Levels. But you can still have an enjoyable, multi-year (60+ session) campaign in DnD 3.x without ever reaching Epic.

Perhaps a better question for Elvish Lore's purpose is "What game systems are not suitable for long-term play? (Given this definition of long-term play.)"

One that's been touch on already is Pendragon, as it fully expects any individual player character to be retired over a long-term campaign. It's still a VERY solid system, and if you relax the "must be the identical character through the entire campaign" restriction, is still immensely suited for a long-term game.

Another would, in my opinion, be Paranoia. Again you run into the identical "same character" issue, cranked up (as your original character isn't even expected to survive the first session). I, personally, would also have a very hard time sustaining Paranoia's tone over a long-term campaign. I find it a game for conventions, however. And I can imagine a GM that could manage a long-term Paranoia campaign. (It's just not me.)

But even with inverting the focus, I'm not sure there's any meaningful results out of the filter. There's just too many TTRPGs out there.

Which brings it back around to your final point. Pick the system you and your players like, and just go for it.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

@Jacob Lewis, while I thought your post was thoughtful, I've seen enough cases of campaigns chosen for various time frames to suggest picking them on that basis may be uncommon for you, but its not generically so (though 60 is clearly a nice-round-number case, but I've absolutely seen campaigns chosen because they'd fit in a particular calender range, often based on things like school calenders, when people were moving, or when some other GM thought they'd have a campaign ready).

That’s a fair point, and I agree—there are definitely cases where planning a campaign around a defined time frame makes sense. I’ve seen that work well when groups know their availability is limited or want to build something self-contained.

That said, those examples lean toward situations where time is a constraint, which is a little different from what this particular hypothetical is asking. The original premise explicitly removes those limits—assuming full time, support, and player commitment—so the focus shifts more toward which systems can actually sustain play over that long stretch, not which ones can fit within a schedule. We're addressing different questions.

 

[soviet]

I played in -- didn't run -- a RM2 campaign for a long while about 20 years ago. What a blast. Yea, very sim but I really missed that style of game and the system did a great job of supporting long-term play.

It's really just pure sim in a wonderful, joyous way. It shows how you can enjoy any creative agenda if the vehicle is designed perfectly for the ride.

 

[Greg K]

I played in -- didn't run -- a RM2 campaign for a long while about 20 years ago. What a blast. Yea, very sim but I really missed that style of game and the system did a great job of supporting long-term play.

I ran a long term campaign with RM2 an a few bits from RMSS (a few spell lists and a some tables from the Martial Arts Companion). Was a lot of fun with that group, but most players in my experience have had difficulty with it.

 

[SableWyvern]

There are any number of systems I would do this with, depending on the exact nature of the game I want to run. It could be any of the following:

• Rolemaster
• Mythras
• ACKS
• Worlds Without Number
• WFRP 4e with The Enemy Within Campaign
• Godbound
• Ars Magica

Edit: On read the thread, I noticed that I forget to include Pendragon in my list.

 

[SableWyvern]

I ran a long term campaign with RM2 an a few bits from RMSS (a few spell lists and a some tables from the Martial Arts Companion). Was a lot of fun with that group, but most players in my experience have had difficulty with it.

It's all just anecdotes, but I've never had any issues introducing players to RM. I haven't had any player have difficulty with it (no issues understanding the game or enjoying it).

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's all just anecdotes, but I've never had any issues introducing players to RM. I haven't had any player have difficulty with it (no issues understanding the game or enjoying it).

I was really interested in Spacemaster many years ago, but before I tried to introduce it to people I decided to create a couple characters--and crashed right into a wall. And I wasn't exactly hostile to complex character gen.

 

[dbm]

Probably the longest running campaign I ever played in used RM2 with all the companions. We played once or twice a week for several years in a continuing campaign, though there was some character loss along the way. We played all the way up to about 60th level IIRC so a lot of the crazy top-end spells got used (though by the end RM2 had 75th level spells and maybe even 100th level? I would need to check). We started at 5th level so the characters had a bit more staying power at the lower end of the curve.

An amazing campaign, we still talk about it 25 years later.