Failed Campaigns

[Jer]

I have mostly avoided failed campaigns in recent years by not being overly ambitious with my plans. The structure that my regular group is able to fit is a series of one-shots or at most two-shots. Very episodic, with me taking copious notes so that we can have a "last time on" blurb before each session. So our current campaign hasn't failed even though we'll be having our first game in 4 months this Sunday

In the past all of my failed campaigns were due to overambition on my part. Trying to do adventures that last more than one session on the assumption that we're playing weekly founders on the shoals of the reality that even playing monthly is often too much for our group to be able to commit to.

 

[Celebrim]

Multiple attempts at the "Goblin Campaign" for 1e AD&D - a reverse campaign where you play the bad guys.
"War Against the Chtorr" campaign for GURPS. Failed because of a combination of GURPS, less than ideal players, and me wanting a high thespian/melodrama campaign while the players wanted something very different.
"Masks of Nyarthalhotep" for CoC 5e. Actually went about a year, so was on the borderline of being failed/successful. Ended with a disappointing near TPK which wasn't so much disappointing because it was a near TPK as it was just effectively getting shot up by the police. Marks the beginning of me getting really dissatisfied with the dynamics of classic CoC adventures as opposed to having a framework like Delta Green. Ironically, campaign went about a year without actually starting the actual campaign I planned to run, as the more I read "Masks" the more dissatisfied I became with it as a basis of play and kept delaying starting the campaign on the excuse of doing preparatory adventures that would set the stage better. I started the campaign as a way to deal with a bad case of GM burnout, wanting a campaign that I could play more "out of the box" without 10-20 hours of labor every week. Instead, I found CoC adventures needed a lot of rewriting and prep and so it was just as much work as running my own D&D campaign in my own setting.
"Two Headed Serpent" for Pulp Cthulhu 7e. Solved almost all my problems with CoC. Well written campaign that required little prep and provided a framework so that the monsters were the main villains and not law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, didn't solve the problems for my players, who by this time were tired of CoC and very much wanted to get back to their main Fantasy aesthetic of play.

 

[Gradine]

I tried to invade Russia in winter.

I'm very upset that you posted this.

Because I opened this thread with the express purpose of posting exactly this.

 

[CleverNickName]

My most recent failed campaign was a Pathfinder (1E) campaign, which was going to be centered on the "Serpent's Skull" adventure path. The players never really clicked with the campaign setting, and the rules were so intrusive that it was hard to get any engagement with the story. Which was a shame, because I really enjoyed what I had read in the first three books of the series...I think it would have been a lot of fun.

Maybe one day I'll return to it, and use a lighter rules set. I can see it working pretty well in 5E with a little bit of elbow grease (or in BECM, with a lot of elbow grease.)

 

[payn]

My most recent failed campaign was a Pathfinder (1E) campaign, which was going to be centered on the "Serpent's Skull" adventure path. The players never really clicked with the campaign setting, and the rules were so intrusive that it was hard to get any engagement with the story. Which was a shame, because I really enjoyed what I had read in the first three books of the series...I think it would have been a lot of fun.

Maybe one day I'll return to it, and use a lighter rules set. I can see it working pretty well in 5E with a little bit of elbow grease (or in BECM, with a lot of elbow grease.)

Ah, Serpents skull. That AP has some issues. Though, the first module is an absolute classic.

 

[kenada]

I’ve had a number of failed campaigns. Most of them would fall under the types @Reynard enumerated in post #12.

Failed to Launch
I would put our attempt to switch my sandbox campaign to Old-School Essentials in this bucket. We went two sessions, and it was obvious my players weren’t on board with the system’s expectations. It was actually XP for gold that was the big deal because they didn’t like how it pushed them towards “dungeon heists” as the primary direction of play.

There was also a time when we were doing 4e, and it was my turn to GM an adventure. I burnt out after one session of trying to run Thunderspire Labyrinth. I don’t really think it was the system’s fault or the adventures. I just wasn’t in a place to run at the time and only found that out when I tried.

Collapsed Under Its Own Weight
I’m going to include TPKs in this one. I had a Rise of the Runelords campaign end in a pretty stupid TPK. The players had gotten to the end of the second module (The Skinsaw Murders) and were climbing the tower at the end. The get to the top and engage the boss (a pretty nasty lamia matriarch). The ranger charges and gets killed on her Attack of Opportunity. I’m like: huh, that didn’t do much damage. The party had taken some damage from traps and didn’t heal it up. I point this out and ask them if they want to go ahead and do that, and they said no. The ranger’s death started a cascading wipe that ended with PCs’ jumping to their deaths from the tower to avoid whatever designs they thought the lamia had for them.

Our Shattered Star campaign didn’t exactly collapse under its own weight. We hit a point late in The Asylum Stone where I was like: this module sucks; I don’t want to run it anymore. The way we had been playing Pathfinder 1e is by treating the way the system works as sort of like physics. When that adventure decided to do something completely weird with an enchantment, it was jarring. That AP also had a really awful encounter with a seugathi that I retconned out of existence when it ended in a TPK. It’s supposedly a CR 6, but its insanity aura has a ridiculous saving throw. While the party members are beating on each other, it’s blasting them with wands. When I saw the TPK coming, I go to the group: this encounter is naughty word. For 6th level characters, it felt incredibly unfair. At least everyone was cool with pretending it didn’t happen.

I’d also put the Pathfinder 2e version of my sandbox campaign in this bucket. It didn’t end in a TPK, but I hit a point where I just didn’t want to run the system anymore. Designing monsters and traps was too much, and I really disliked that I didn’t feel proficient with the system even after a year of running it. That’s what lead to the aborted take using OSE. We ended up using Worlds Without Number for a while, which eventually lead to my devising a homebrew system to do exactly what I want for my game. I’m not sure how good of an idea that was to save me time, but the sunk cost fallacy means I’m definitely not stopping now.

Killed by Toxicity
I was running my group through the Scales of War AP for 4e. It was okay, but a toxic player ultimately killed it. I’ve talked about it here before, so I won’t go into detail. That player was also toxic as a GM when he ran. I just got tired of it one session, and I ended the campaign and group. A few of us got back together with some new players, and that’s when I ran Kingmaker.

 

[Celebrim]

Ah, Serpents skull. That AP has some issues. Though, the first module is an absolute classic.

I feel almost every Paizo adventure path has the same sorts of problems. Often a great setup with a module that either is or could be with a little work an absolute classic, followed by a grinding treadmill with poor direction, poor assumptions, insufficient minigames, poor balance, etc. as it tries to force it's way up to 20th level.

 

[John R Davis]

Yup. Serpents Skull.
Find the secret lost city only for it to have a theme park already built when you get there.
Very up and down AP.

 

[payn]

I feel almost every Paizo adventure path has the same sorts of problems. Often a great setup with a module that either is or could be with a little work an absolute classic, followed by a grinding treadmill with poor direction, poor assumptions, insufficient minigames, poor balance, etc. as it tries to force it's way up to 20th level.

I dont think any PF1 era APs even went to 20! A testament to how difficult it was to write high level adventures for 3E. The last few modules feel like megadungeons with a thousand encounters to challenge the massive toolbox and power of 3E PCs. While I agree every AP did have some challenges and opportunities, some were much worse than others; Like Serpent Skull.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In 2e I had countless campaigns that fizzled after a few sessions. I remember I so badly wanted to run an Underdark campaign, but when I finally did, it just didn't grab the players' interest in that first session, and it went nowhere.

My very first 5e campaign failed hard for a couple of reasons, some my fault and some not. It got so bad that my gaming group was at risk. The only thing I could do was scrap that campaign and start completely over.

Sometimes I miss having so much time to game with that I could just spin up a campaign, no matter how niche or random, that sounded cool and see if it stuck.