Are you/Have you been involved in a really long-running campaign? Tell me about it

[MarauderX]

Had a game for 6 years using OD&D... we watched as 1E grew in popularity, and 2E came out but didn't use either. OD&D was it for us, and strangely as DM I developed skills w/points similiar to those in 3E. We have split up and I have taken an extended break as DM in order to convert straight to 3E.

We worked the PCs up to about 20th level from 1st using the old XP tables and modest adventure awards. We couldn't relate to the punks with the trumped up PCs from 2E, as the players would talk about the adventures more than they would their characters, which is the way it kinda should be IMO.

 

[Angcuru]

*sigh* Sadly, I have no such story, nor do I think I ever will with my current group. But perhaps I can contribute to the conversatiob by showing why I think no such campaign may occur. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DM!!!

A - DM skill. When you have a DM who always has the exact same personality types and speech patterns for all NPCs, constantly gets out of game to insult and joke about the players, centers the game around combat, and rarely goes into detail i.e.(you stab him and he dies; there's some cliffs; she's acting whorish; etc.), an such stuff, it's difficult to get very interested in the game.

B - Our DM rarely sticks with a campaign for more than a week or so. Even then, they only last for a few months. I'm always getting calls from him staying things like "I WANNA RUN A STAR WARS GAME RIGHT AWAY!" when we just started playing a game of Exalted. This pattern of his has killed off at least half a dozen mildly entertaining games.

Note to self: Find new DM.

 

[thundershot]

My campaign has been around since... I was in 7th grade. I'm 28 now, so that's 15 years. Yes, the players and characters have changed much over the years, (and reality destroyed and rebuilt) but it's been the same continuity...


Chris

 

[Wycen]

I definitely think the key is that the players are friends outside of gaming. I haven't been in any long term game, long term in the realms you are talking about. Maybe the longest was 5 years and it would either be Vampire the Masquerade or Champions. I'm not sure which simply because keeping track of the date never occured to me.

 

[Black Omega]

As a GM, my longest game has lasted five years, but was paused twice so i'm not sure if that counts. It was rather fun, though. The group went from rugged individual mercs to the official heros of Luxembourg. It was Champions, of course.

My current game is closing in on two years old. And could probably go on for years more except I'm bringing it to an end when the group hits twentieth level. I have plenty of ideas for running other games, but I'm a sucker for sticking with one game. I love building charactizations and storylines.

 

[S'mon]

My D&D campaign continuity has been running since 1986, only 1 of the original players is still active in the campaign world (Upper_Krust), and then mostly via his PC Thrin who's been around since circa 1987, started at 3rd level, now a deity and largely retired from active play. Current regular player group's PCs are 11th-13th level; the longest-running PCs have been around since circa mid-2002, they started around 6th level and are now 13th.

 

[Silverglass]

I am still playing in 2 campaigns that started in 1983 which I joined in 1985 when I went to university.

One is a periodic rules light homebrew where there are a slew of original characters still around but the lower level parties get played most often.

The other is an epic campaign homebrewed off D&D but more deadly, where the high level party has ticked off a whole religion, lost our base of operations and the 34th level PC wizard to demonic attack, assembled the Wand of Orcus (and boy did we regret that), been banished to hell (on a demiplane with only one gate out) and had to fight our way back and is currently trying to babysit our new PC demon lord through his progression to power as a counterbalance to the attempted demon takeover of the Prime Material plane, the unfortunate complication is that he is a werewolf demon and has an unfortunate tendency to try and chow down on his allies once his enemies are dead (including his new worshippers, the fool).

Play has slowed down severely from the twice a week at university to about 2 sessions a month for those who can get there or the occasional games weekend for everyone who is scattered around the UK. My PC has finally achieved his first goal of running his own temple, although it has taken him 30 years of game time and the effort of reaching Fighter 20/Sorceror 25/Cleric 33/Monk 15 (which is less gross than it sounds as you don't get hit points per level but the monsters do much more damage and have about 5-10 times the hitpoints of their 3rd ed equivalents).

 

[Thresher]

I started playing in a semi-regular one at around 1993, it was a spin off from the events of another one which was running for a year or 2 before that.
Over the years some of us moved away, namely me, so its 3hrs travel each week to get there and back, but being a fuel injected suicide machine with a fast car means its an excuse to drive. So its on and off when we can throw together the time to catch up with each other.
2E, while it had its good points crippled the game at around 21'st level to the point where we decided to give it a rest for a year or 3 and played shadowrun, vampire and SLA industries which didnt have levels and didnt get borked regardless of how long they ran for.

Then 3E came along, and being the jaded, irritable prick I am I didnt really feel like playing another run of D&D (which I in some elitist opinion, I must admit, felt it was kiddy role playing and still do to some extent) so I stopped playing for a bit and wrote game supplements and fiction for SLA, and played that and whatever else 'but' D&D.
Such was my bitterness from 2E.
Well, we ended up playing 3E and dragging out the old characters again for another run, I was dubious and not without good reason, new system, stupid rules for 2E-3E conversion written by bastard maniacs and it took me a few months to get used to the new game and un-gimp my former fighter-wiz, which was carried for awhile until I found my feet by the rest of my friends.
(Though, if I ever find the person responsible for 3E multiclassing, god help you...)

Anyway, we've run the oldies up to 32nd level and taking a break for awhile until we can figure out how to house-rule and un-bork D20 to make it work. So instead theres a 2nd game with a different DM of goodly low level gimps running around in Greyhawk that the high levels changed greatly.
Also as side project there is a game set in the same era post high levels where the party is an unholy pack of evil scumbags and Im enjoying it immensly, though I have been told by the GM that perhaps Im enjoying it too much and if he finishes his psych degree will be able to determine just what my major malfunction is.
Actually, I can tell him that now
Hygric, Im and evil and horrible man... muhahahah!
So, if its not my 32nd fighter wiz. Then Im playing a 6th level LG Ice barbarian fighter rasied by dwarves, or on the really naughty nights its a 7th level Succubus/Incubus defiling innocents and making other PC's dry-heave... but the game goes on!

3E is a very fun game from L1 to 20.
After 20, well if your willing to try/cry very hard and often then it can be worthwhile too.

 

[Nighthawk]

I was a part of a six year 2E AD&D campaign in the 90s. While the game mechanics were a distraction, it was a joy to participate in. The GM, a devout fan of H.P. Lovecraft and a passionate fan of real-world history, created his own campaign world that blended both things into a memorable campaign. I especially liked the supernatural elements of the campaign (that, and the romanesque Orcs). It also helped that the majority of players worked well together and were into the story elements of the game put forth by the GM. I have yet to be able to have this experience duplicated.

 

[diaglo]

3-4hrs per session; 5 sessions per week; 50 weeks per year; for 10+ years. highest level 11th.

i refereed for 14 players. but most sessions were me and 7 or 8 players.

mostly Original D&D. although, we did incorporate rules from the other editions.

i'm still irked at Gary for pushing the Advanced game. my players fell hook, line, and sinker for it. and wanted to add (imo) too much from that game.

we used material from many sources. but mostly our own. all characters start at 1st lvl. magic was low. roleplay was high. the players became their characters when we gamed. they wrote their history as we played. they added their own hooks/ plot devices. they revisited favorite npcs and towns.

they built or created their own legends.