Why do so many campaigns never finish? Genuinely curious what others think

[AstroArtificer]

I came across this striking Enworld post the other day, and I have been thinking about it a lot. Apparently, 37% of players basically never finish a campaign, with around half of the total participants rarely finishing games overall.

That's crazy, right? That would almost imply that fizzling is the norm for campaigns, not the exception. There are, of course, some obvious answers. Some campaigns are open-ended and run for years. Life stuff gets in the way. Scheduling. But it doesn't seem to paint the full picture.

As I read more of the thread, a recurring theme kept showing up. Campaigns kept fizzling because people just didn't want to continue the campaign anymore. Commitment wasn't there, chemistry wasn't there. It's easy to say you'll join a year-long campaign, but way more likely you'll flake out along the way.

For me personally, I have had the benefit of finishing some long campaigns. But I have equally had my fair share of fizzled campaigns, as both player and GM. I've always been happy to develop these deep character arcs and narratives for campaigns, only to sit down at a table where people just want to kick down doors and loot stuff. I have GMed campaigns where the players were more interested in fighting each other than the plot hook in front of them. These weren't bad players or GMs, but I think we all just fundamentally wanted something different from the game. Nobody had asked the right questions before the campaign started, and honestly, I'm not sure any of us even knew what questions to ask. I just didn't know how to say what I wanted.

Without that shared language, I think we end up at tables hoping for the best, and quietly disappointed when it doesn't happen.

Has this been your experience? What do you think actually kills most campaigns?

 

[Morrus]

GM burnout. Especially when something new and shiny is on the horizon.

 

[Reynard]

I have certainly run campaigns that collapsed before completing. More often, I rush a failing campaign to finish earlier than expected.

I think failure is usually a result of having too much of a plan ahead of time -- like running an Adventure Path or campaign length Adventure. If you you play it by ear, a campaign is much more likely to end organically.

 

[jdrakeh]

Real life. When we were young, we had fewer responsibilities or at least responsibilities that were easier to shuffle around. As adults, we have to deal with children, jobs, and school. Sometimes in multiples. I know that's what has derailed most of the campaigns I've played in or run that didn't wrap up neatly. Back when we only had to deal with one of these things at most, getting to game night was a lot easier.

 

[bsss]

A lot of ambition faced with the crippling reality of scheduling, burnout, life changes, new shinies, ...

And similar to Reynard, my latest plan has been to have a panic button to slam for a campaign when one of those problems gets real, and until then I'm just trying to ride out the good times as long as I can.

 

[aco175]

My issue is that I finish what I thought would be the campaign and then the players want to continue on. This lasts a couple levels and I begin to burn out or lose interest and start planning a new campaign.

We do not play many official book campaigns but the ones we did start, we finished.

I can see many places like college or summer games start with an idea to make a campaign and then life gets in the way.

 

[prabe]

Seems to me "life gets in the way" is a good summation of a lot of campaigns that end before they resolve--kids, jobs, other more-adult responsibilities can, will, and do get in the way.

Bad table chemistry (in all its shapes and colors) probably also covers some territory, here. A lot of people will be unwilling to sit at a TRPG table with fellow-gamers they do not like.

And I think a lot of "GM Burnout" type stuff ends up coming from GMs who think they need to make the entire world, or plan out the entire campaign, before Session One. That's a lot of work, and if the players start trying to be interested in something the GM hasn't prepped--whether that's world stuff they want to see that the GM doesn't, or some form of wanting to chase down some story other than the one the GM has planned for the campaign--then the outcome seems likely to be some form of the campaign ending prematurely: A) The GM loses interest in where the PCs are going, and either hard-ends the campaign or shows visible disinterest; or B) the GM forces play to go where they want it to go, and the players lose interest--possibly ending up with a premature campaign termination.

 

[thullgrim]

GM Burnout.
New Shiny.
I get bored a want to change things up.

I’ve gotten better the last couple of year though. Rigorously cutting down the systems I run has helped. I think the shortest thing I ran in the past 2-3 years 12 sessions and that was Blades in the Dark.

Sometimes it’s players too. Adults have commitments and schedules. Sometimes things just can’t be made to work. Gaming regularly takes discipline, like exercise. Once you stop or it becomes to difficult to manage it is frequently dropped.

It’s hard sometimes as the GM. Work all day, and it was a tough day today, I still have a game to run tonight. All I really want to do is turn my brain off and watch something mindless on Netflix but I know if I cancel this week, next week is even easier to cancel and then it’s 6 months and trying to start over again.

 

[jian]

GM burnout. Especially when something new and shiny is on the horizon.

Yup, coupled with starting a new game you wanted to try and realising it isn’t working for the table.

I’m usually the GM and aim to run campaigns that only go to 10 sessions or so, because it’s enough time to tell the story and try out a new system or setting. Many of our campaigns are set in the same world or with the same characters, but I think only one PC at our table has been played for more than 30 sessions total.

Part of the issue is that we play online and it can be hard to get everyone there even every other week.

(And honestly, we’ve generally managed to run about a dozen 10-session campaigns with satisfying stories and endings over the last 10 years. It works well for us.)

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

DMs are the main determinant of whether a campaign will finish in a clean and final manner but I would be misleading if I didn't state that some play groups just suck the enthusiasm of running a campaign down the drain so much and so fast that even a properly hastened finish isn't even a concern.