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

[Lanefan]

I'm going to disagree with this somewhat mildly, because a sandbox (or something in that direction) campaign where nothing ever gets resolved will--I think reasonably--feel "unfinished."

An open-ended campaign where things never get fully resolved can still come to an end when all involved simply conclude it's run its course, either because what seems like a logical break/end point has been reached or because it just runs out of gas.

I mean, I don't run anything like pure sandboxes, but after the starting situation the players are absolutely in charge of the direction things move--what things they choose to engage with--and I've always felt things have resolved.

The trick is to set things up such that when one thing gets resolved there's already three or four other things on the burner that need resolving. Lather, rinse, repeat and boom - you're ten years in.

Also, of course, there are the tables that fall apart for social reasons within a handful of sessions, which will definitely have a feel of campaignus intterruptus.

Vastly different IMO from a campaign that's already had a long run petering out.

 

[Lanefan]

Trying to not only commit but actually follow through spending hundreds of hours with the same four or five people over the next year or two is not easy. And, often group membership can get pretty fluid - particularly for students. IMO, if a group of (say) five players starts off a campaign, and then six months later, you've replaced 3 of those 5, well... often it's just easier to start over.

Disagree. Just keep on keeping on, running for whoever shows up. Eventually a semi-core group will coalesce, in the case of students even if it's just those players who stay in town for the summer (or, better yet, who live in town full-time).

Player turnover is a thing, and not always bad. I never assume the players who start a campaign will be the same as those who are in it five or ten years* later.

* - in student days, replace years with months.

 

[Lanefan]

I've seen my fair share of these, both as a player and as a DM. Sometimes, you watch cool tv show or read interesting book and go "Wow, this would make cool game". So you pitch it to your buddies, you play couple of sessions and it just doesn't resonate with group. Or it goes in completely different direction than one you wanted it to go and just don't feel like running it at that point.

I've also seen proto-games where a few sessions in everyone involved (maybe except the GM) realizes that the GM just hasn't got a shred of competence, and bails out. Ditto for when the GM quickly realizes GMing just isn't their gig, and proactively shuts 'er down.

 

[Lanefan]

I’ve run maybe 20-30 year+ long campaigns,

I misread this at first and thought you were saying you'd run twenty 30+ year campaigns, making me wonder just how old are you?

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Disagree. Just keep on keeping on, running for whoever shows up. Eventually a semi-core group will coalesce, in the case of students even if it's just those players who stay in town for the summer (or, better yet, who live in town full-time).

Player turnover is a thing, and not always bad. I never assume the players who start a campaign will be the same as those who are in it five or ten years* later.

* - in student days, replace years with months.

That only really works if the campaign is not tied to any characters at all. I don't run games like that. If half the original characters left a campaign, I'd start a new campaign rather than try to force a bunch of totally new players to try to catch up to speed on events that they have no context for.

IOW, if none of the original players are in a campaign, that's the end of that campaign and the start of a new one.

One PC? Sure, the campaign can survive that. Two PC's? Probably not. 3? Not a chance. That's, to me, a campaign ender right there.

 

[Lanefan]

That only really works if the campaign is not tied to any characters at all. I don't run games like that. If half the original characters left a campaign, I'd start a new campaign rather than try to force a bunch of totally new players to try to catch up to speed on events that they have no context for.

Difference between players and characters here.

Character turnover, particularly at low levels, is a simple fact of life: they die. Frequently.

Should also note that I'm by no means married to the one player-one PC concept. They're allowed (and at low levels, encouraged) to play two at once, and are also allowed to retire out characters and cycle them back in later.

IOW, if none of the original players are in a campaign, that's the end of that campaign and the start of a new one.

Depends how long the campaign is, I guess. My current one has been going for ages. 4 players started it. 10 more have been involved at some point or other, and of the 4 players in the game today only 1 started the campaign - and he took a multi-year break partway through, then returned.

A very good analogy is the membership turnover in some long-running bands. It's the same identifiable band, even though not all - or maybe even none - of the current musicians were around when it started.

One PC? Sure, the campaign can survive that. Two PC's? Probably not. 3? Not a chance. That's, to me, a campaign ender right there.

Now you're talking about characters again. In the first adventure of this campaign, other than one lucky PC that survived all the way through the rest of the party turned over completely. Twice. And we all laughed our damn fool heads off the whole time. Same four players the whole way, though; and they got really proficient at rolling up new characters!

Worth noting, though, that some of that character turnover was self-inflicted via party infighting.

 

[Artamo]

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

IMO, new players and new tables. The campaigns we’ve completed all had the same core group of players who all liked each other, meshed well, knew each other’s schedules, and so on. Whenever that was changed - a new group of players, someone coming joining an existing campaign - it felt the probability that someone didn’t click with someone else or someone’s schedule started to not work out with the game rose considerably.

 

[GrimCo]

Player turnover, that can be campaign killer also. In one of our campaigns we got from lv 1-12 and were near the end game when one of the players had to take brake from gaming. No point in continuing without him since that story finale needs all of us. In other campaign, only one character remained till the end. Both me and other player have lost at least 2 characters each and campaign continued on till the end.

We have new campaign with only 2 players and DM with 3 player hoping in when schedule allows him. We made small adventuring group of 6 characters, 2 are our main ones, 4 are unstatted but if any of main ones dies or one of us want's to try something new, we can use one of those 4. Campaign ends only if 5/6 characters die.

 

[bsss]

I personally think "not finishing" in any context, sandbox or otherwise, is about whether or not the game had any kind of denouement. If it just peters out or ground to a halt unresolved, that feels unfinished. If the campaign-long story and BBEG are concluded/defeated or the sandbox characters hang up their boots and retire and the game stops there, those both feel like conclusions.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Now you're talking about characters again. In the first adventure of this campaign, other than one lucky PC that survived all the way through the rest of the party turned over completely. Twice. And we all laughed our damn fool heads off the whole time. Same four players the whole way, though; and they got really proficient at rolling up new characters!

Frankly it's both.

Unless the campaign is completely divorced from the PC's, then completely replacing the lineup of PC's is, IMO, a new campaign. I don't run campaigns like that anymore. My campaigns are tied around the PC's as tightly as I can. Losing a PC means that the campaign will likely radically change. As in, while it might share some DNA with the original campaign, it will be significantly different in tone and content.

Losing players though? Yeah, that's a new campaign. If you've completely changed the lineup of players, that's a new campaign to me. I hate bringing in new players into existing campaigns simply because they lack any context for what's going on in the campaign. One player early on? Ok, that's fine. Lose more than half the players after say, 5th level? Yup, campaign folds.

I have neither the energy nor the interest in jumping into a campaign halfway through, either as a player or a DM.