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

With published campaigns, I think many of them are just too damn big. I started an East Texas University campaign last... February, I think, and we just finished the freshman year this February. That's a whole year for 1/4 of a campaign. Sure, our sessions aren't all that long (2-3 hours) and we occasionally get pre-empted if too many people have other things with work or family and stuff, but I think even with more dedication it would have taken at least half a year.

Staffan said:

With published campaigns, I think many of them are just too damn big. I started an East Texas University campaign last... February, I think, and we just finished the freshman year this February. That's a whole year for 1/4 of a campaign. Sure, our sessions aren't all that long (2-3 hours) and we occasionally get pre-empted if too many people have other things with work or family and stuff, but I think even with more dedication it would have taken at least half a year.

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This was exactly my thinking as well. Campaigns are just too long.


When we look at legacy games and their campaigns, there a typical campaign is 10-12 sessions for most such games as it looked like the ideal length.


This also makes it possible to have no fillers and all feel dense. And its in generally just more fun to play 2 good games in 24 session than 1 good game since you have more variety.


I feel this "long campaigns" and also "slow progress" is also a bit a relic of the past.

This may have been brought up already, but I find in certain games (coughdndcough) the characters start to feel so powerful so fast that I quickly begin to long for the simple days of being 3rd level when finding a +1 weapon was a big deal.

Bill Zebub said:

This may have been brought up already, but I find in certain games (coughdndcough) the characters start to feel so powerful so fast that I quickly begin to long for the simple days of being 3rd level when finding a +1 weapon was a big deal.

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I’ll always be fond if 3E/PF1 E6 for this reason. Then again, what do I know? I’ve been happily running Traveller for a long time now.

I too feel there is a difference between something I'd call an "abandoned campaign" which was stopped in the midst of a narrative vs a more episodic or "independent" adventure-based campaign where things were indefinitely paused after the end of one of those adventures.

For the former, usually it's time/schedule/life events. Something gets in the way and it falls apart, either all at once or after a few months of trying to reschedule and it doesn't work. We wanted it to keep going, but life lifed all over us.

For the latter, usually it's because we took the opportunity to jump into something else, and then something else, and then something else, and the campaign stays in stasis until we return to it. If we do. The peril of being a group interested in many different things.

I would like to differentiate between campaigns not completing and people leaving a group.

We've had people leave the group in the past because they either:

• Didn't fit in with the rest of the group (had this happen with an old friend from school).
• They felt they were too 'adult' for it (moving into another phase of their lives, where they thought pnp RPGs didn't fit), sometimes they have a change of mind a few decades later.
• They were no longer welcome due to certain behaviors.

We suspended the group for a decade or so when everyone was suddenly very busy when were not used to it being that busy, mostly due to work, and family obligations. But the last couple of years the person that has kids is able to plan around family stuff. Realizing they need some fun for themselves as well.

We still run into occasional temporary issues on this front:

• Sometimes we move things around due to family obligations for one person (a birthday/party).
• Vacations.
• A year and a half ago I was not a nice person to play with (stress), so I bowed out for a few months.

We're an old group, been playing with these people for ~35 years, and when we didn't play pnp RPGs, we played boardgames. Traditionally three of us take turns DMing, and last year the fourth person (left) in our group tried their first time DMing a D&D adventure.

When we were younger we all made our own adventures, often even our own world/cities. But playing the same thing for many, many months could cause issues. Either boredom, burnout, or other people wanting their turn DMing. Another thing we did was play the same party across multiple DMs.

A couple of years ago we started playing D&D5e again, first one DM, then another DMing the same party (which already created some issues). Then I had to bow out for a few months and they continued playing, but they created a new party to play with while I was gone, they had a great time, but were happy when I rejoined and we continued where we left of before we left. Eventually our fourth DM would have their first turn and continued with the same party. The previous DM didn't want to play their old character again (got bored of it and it just wasn't enjoyable anymore for them). The first time DM started strong, but fizzled out rather quickly... Having underestimated how much time DMing took and how quickly you could burnout on DMing (we've all been there).

Next, it was my turn, and instead of continuing with the existing party, I wanted to start with a clean slate. Why? Because I didn't want to inherit what the previous three cooks had cooked up. Too many cooks, with each their own ideas and directions, just like I have. So we started at level 1, a new campaign, a different location, a different style. It was an experiment, but a successful one, and people still enjoy it. But having learned from previous campaigns, I didn't expect that to last forever, so I left room for some stuff in the campaign to 'mix things up', but I still felt that wouldn't be enough. I also had a desire to DM/play other things (outside our standard D&D FR campaigns). Eventually someone went on vacation and someone else wanted to DM a one-shot Heist in D&D, we had a two session game and we had a LOT of fun. We spend a LOT of time analyzing what went right and what went wrong, but also why we felt it was a breath of fresh air...

Our conclusions are:

• Do not run a campaign with multiple cooks each doing their own thing, it makes the world seem disjointed, the party a mess, and frustration is created by all the DMs as others step on toes or ignore previous storylines.
• Parties were we introduce new members and old ones 'retire' for a DM swap don't work as well. Existing characters have a synergy, adding a new party member is problematic, it either forces the new player to exactly fit into the existing synergy (which isn't fair to the new player) or they don't fit well in the party.
• Having short breaks from the main campaign, doing something else, can be very fun!

So we have decided that when we DM something it's somewhere else from where the other DMs are DMing in a world. No more continues campaigns, if someone else DMs we put the other campaign/party on pause. We can have one-shots of 2-3 sessions of other DMs doing something different from the current main campaign. But people need to pitch that to the rest of the group, do we like that idea, fine, we'll play!

This fixes many of our issues with boredom, DM burnout, vacations, etc.

Morrus said:

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

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It's never this for me, my players are always where the game falters and fades away.

payn said:

I’ll always be found if 3E/PF1 E6 for this reason. Then again, what do I know? I’ve been happily running Traveller for a long time now.

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It's one of the reasons I'm feeling so enamored of Dragonbane right now. Very flat power curves.

Bill Zebub said:

This may have been brought up already, but I find in certain games (coughdndcough) the characters start to feel so powerful so fast that I quickly begin to long for the simple days of being 3rd level when finding a +1 weapon was a big deal.

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I dunno, I always look forward to the PCs getting to be high enough level that A) they get interesting (including being able to choose their own interesting goals) and B) they can handle stuff. I'm a weirdo, though, and I actually enjoy running high-level 5e.

I think there's much more focus, accumulated experience and theory on how to start a campaign than there is on running one over a long period of time. And almost every video, articles or content that I've seen for long-term play was more in the realm of narrative/writing story arcs, which, in my opinion has very little to do with how TTRPGs are played.