Starting this thread for Raven Crowking.
As commented in the TPK thread, I don't generally use the term campaign. I prefer the Episode/Season/Series division that I first encountered in BtVS and more recently appeared in the Dr. Who RPG. I'll mostly talk about Buffy, as while I own the Dr. Who game I've not had a chance to delve into it.
This terminology rather blatently borrows a TV show set of descriptions rather than military or wargame connotations that a campaign has. The divisions are all about pacing and the unfolding plot. A single session generally involves a single mystery, adversary, event, or challenge, and is referred to as an Episode. While there can be the occasional To Be Continued cliffhanger, most of them are relatively self-contained stories. In a more sandbox game, you might explore a dungeon or wilderness area until you ran out of time. If you end in Room 9, you'll pick up next week entering room 10.
In an Episodic game, this generally doesn't happen. The group will explore or resolve whatever matter is at hand, wrapping up the events by the end of the night. To make this work the GM has to think on his feet - if they're getting too close to the end, you need to throw some complications at them. If its taking too long, you need to cut some chaff, or failing that come to some sort of climax and call it a 'to be continued' game.
Why would I do this, rather than just simulate a fantasy world? This style works well with the realities of modern life. Games are frequently cancelled - people have to work late, their sitter can't make it, their basement floods, whatever. If the entire group is in room 9, it makes no sense for Glarg the barbarian to vanish because his player's folks are visiting from Oklahoma, and NPCing him is unsatisfying if done with any reqularity.
With an Episodic game, I don't leave them in room 9. With the exception of the cliffhanger, the PCs have all returned home and it is much easier to swallow that Glarg isn't there. Further, if the game is cancelled entirely, the PCs aren't scratching their heads to remember stuff in rooms 6 and 7. The important stuff for this Episode happen this episode.
We take these collections of Episodes and string them together to make a Season. Now they could be unrelated tales, but its more fun IMO to have some commonality. Maybe the D&D characters are working against the orcish horde, or the Call of Cthulhu characters are investigating the same cult. Eventually this action is brought to a head and the grouo either defeats them, is defeated, or in some other way resolves the conflict.
Now that that's done, you can move onto something else, or continue. Just start a new season, maybe after some downtime, with a new threat. This is a Series, a connected series of Seasons.
There's also less emphasis on setting. I don't generally spend a great deal of time on setting details, partly because most of my games are modern or semi-modern, and we have the real world as backdrop. But even not, I tend to only make up what I need, make up much of it on the spot, and if there's some detail the PCs haven't interacted with, then it is not important.
As commented in the TPK thread, I don't generally use the term campaign. I prefer the Episode/Season/Series division that I first encountered in BtVS and more recently appeared in the Dr. Who RPG. I'll mostly talk about Buffy, as while I own the Dr. Who game I've not had a chance to delve into it.
This terminology rather blatently borrows a TV show set of descriptions rather than military or wargame connotations that a campaign has. The divisions are all about pacing and the unfolding plot. A single session generally involves a single mystery, adversary, event, or challenge, and is referred to as an Episode. While there can be the occasional To Be Continued cliffhanger, most of them are relatively self-contained stories. In a more sandbox game, you might explore a dungeon or wilderness area until you ran out of time. If you end in Room 9, you'll pick up next week entering room 10.
In an Episodic game, this generally doesn't happen. The group will explore or resolve whatever matter is at hand, wrapping up the events by the end of the night. To make this work the GM has to think on his feet - if they're getting too close to the end, you need to throw some complications at them. If its taking too long, you need to cut some chaff, or failing that come to some sort of climax and call it a 'to be continued' game.
Why would I do this, rather than just simulate a fantasy world? This style works well with the realities of modern life. Games are frequently cancelled - people have to work late, their sitter can't make it, their basement floods, whatever. If the entire group is in room 9, it makes no sense for Glarg the barbarian to vanish because his player's folks are visiting from Oklahoma, and NPCing him is unsatisfying if done with any reqularity.
With an Episodic game, I don't leave them in room 9. With the exception of the cliffhanger, the PCs have all returned home and it is much easier to swallow that Glarg isn't there. Further, if the game is cancelled entirely, the PCs aren't scratching their heads to remember stuff in rooms 6 and 7. The important stuff for this Episode happen this episode.
We take these collections of Episodes and string them together to make a Season. Now they could be unrelated tales, but its more fun IMO to have some commonality. Maybe the D&D characters are working against the orcish horde, or the Call of Cthulhu characters are investigating the same cult. Eventually this action is brought to a head and the grouo either defeats them, is defeated, or in some other way resolves the conflict.
Now that that's done, you can move onto something else, or continue. Just start a new season, maybe after some downtime, with a new threat. This is a Series, a connected series of Seasons.
There's also less emphasis on setting. I don't generally spend a great deal of time on setting details, partly because most of my games are modern or semi-modern, and we have the real world as backdrop. But even not, I tend to only make up what I need, make up much of it on the spot, and if there's some detail the PCs haven't interacted with, then it is not important.
