Define the term "campaign"

[the Jester]

Closer to A, but neither A nor B.

To me, a campaign is the set of adventures that take place in a setting or series of connected settings. There needs to be some form of continuity, but it needn't be continuity of characters, players or even the world itself necessarily. Nor need the campaign include only one "story" (whatever that means in the context of rpgs, he said with a derisive snort).

For instance, my current campaign world is Cydra, but you could make an argument that my campaign extends back to Greyhawk and about 1981.

 

[kaomera]

When I started playing AD&D, a "campaign" was simply all of the adventures run by a given DM. You'd have Steve's campaign, Rob's campaign, Chris's campaign... You'd need permission from the DM to move a character from one campaign to another.

 

[Ariosto]

In practical old-time D&D use, the distinction was usually pretty academic, as reference to the "Blackmoor campaign", the "Greyhawk campaign", the "Forgotten Realms campaign", etc., included all adventures undertaken in the setting.

It may be worth noting that the "setting" in the early days had no separate existence to speak of. It was not a "setting product" for sale. There might be two or more referees cooperating, but the default assumption was that a campaign and a setting and a DM were a package deal.

This specialized sense (derived from the war-game hobby, e.g., Tony Bath's famous Hyboria campaign) is the one that makes sense to me in references to "your campaign" addressed to the referee.

The term could also find its more commonplace usage in reference to specific military, political, advertising, etc., campaigns that took place within the larger context.

The "party of adventurers" in the old style is an entity that may exist for but a single session of play, which may in turn encompass but a single expedition.

There being but a single "party" of players in the game-world, continuing from one session and adventure to the next, may be usual today. It is a change that in turn affects many aspects of the game. It may in such a case be more meaningful to speak of the campaign in terms of "the" party. Even "the setting" may for practical purposes be coterminous with the party-campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

"Something else".

Campaign: one or more series of adventures undertaken by one or more at least vaguely-interconnected parties or groups of characters in the same setting/world, usually under one DM.

My current campaign has 4 active parties - of which I run two at a time, each gets its own weekly session - each of which has its own working name (currently Northern, Eastern, etc.). They're interconnected in that each party has at some point had at least two characters that have adventured with members of at least one of the other parties.

But it's all one campaign. The players (as far as I know) if asked what game they're in don't say they're in Northern, or Eastern, whatever; but in Decast.

Now, if I were to wind up or TPK all those parties and shut 'er down for a year, then start again only 200 years in the same world's future - or past - or in an entirely different part of the world, then I'd most likely define that as a different campaign; sure the world/setting is the same but the backstory etc. is going to be completely different.

Lan-"a campaign gets you elected, doesn't it?"-efan

 

[Umbran]

If we were to say that WWI and WWII were the same military campaign, then I'd accept the "world setting" version of the term. But they weren't the same military campaign.

 

[billd91]

If we were to say that WWI and WWII were the same military campaign, then I'd accept the "world setting" version of the term. But they weren't the same military campaign.

Yeah, well a military campaign is usually even more limited in scope than a series of adventures with the same characters so I'm not sure I'd base the definition of campaign, with respect to RPGs, on military definitions.

 

[Hussar]

I agree with the story. A campaign needs to be more than just loosely linked adventures, there needs to be a common theme or story running through them all.

Yet what this story is actually like depends on what game I am running. For Star Wars, I use the three-act formula and begin in space so I can give my players the feel of being in a Star Wars film.

Campaigns also need to have endings, as good stories have good endings.

Mmm, I'm not sure if there needs to be a common theme or story linking them. Episodic campaigns, for example, have no link between adventures, other than the characters. One episode might have a totally different theme and story than the one previous.

Yet, I'd still call it a campaign.

 

[Orius]

A campaign setting is the setting, a campaign is the adventures. Just because some people use words wrong on the internet doesn't mean we need polls for them!

I voted something else because I disagree. I don't think it makes a difference is campaign is used interchangeably. After all, meanings of words change, over time so it doesn't bother me, particularly in the jargon of a sub-culture hobby.

Like I said over in the slow advancement thread, I don't see that it really matters much given how many uses of the word "level" there are in D&D.

 

[wedgeski]

I voted in agreement with the OP but when I think back to how I've used the term through the years, the meaning tends to have changed as we've got older.

We had 3 DM's in our group growing up so "campaign" usually associated with the DM running it. "Are we playing Rich's campaign this weekend?" In those days it would have been D&D or MERP but we definitely associated the campaign with the style of the DM, not what setting or system we played.

As the years went on, and the three DM's began to be associated with specific settings, that question would change. "Are we playing Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms next week?" In this case the adventuring party would remain a constant even if the DM occasionally changed for a guest shot from someone else, and the campaign was most definitely the linked adventures, associations, and general legacy of the party.

Nowadays, we've kind of left published settings behind in favour of homebrew, and strangely the campaign is wrapped up in *who plays*. If enough people are missing we'll postpone the next session of my homebrew and play some random one-shot instead. It might even be in the same setting. But it would not be considered part of my campaign, and the events that took place wouldn't have any bearing on the ongoing adventure.

All very odd, and I've never really thought about it before.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Campaign - General term referring to one DM’s adventures as a whole rather than individually. An ongoing series of games based upon a created milieu.

- 1e DMG

As you would expect, the 1e definition doesn't assume persistence of PCs, only of DM. There's no one objective or other link between the adventures, which differs from the military sense of the word.

Oddly enough, there's two uses of the term by Gary Gygax that go against the above definition:
1. Rob Kuntz took over as DM of the Greyhawk campaign. By the definition above different DM means different campaign.
2. I've seen Gary refer to his Temple of Elemental Evil adventures as a different, second, campaign, Castle Greyhawk being his first.