How deadly do you like your game (as a player or DM)?

[nevin]

Hiya!

Ok...I think I'm starting to see something here. Tell me, when did you start playing RPG's? Any version of D&D in particular? I have a guess...but I want to see how close I am.

At any rate, IMNSHO, there is no such thing as "length of a Campaign" in the original sense of the term. A Campaign, in original D&D terms, is the game in which everyone is playing. It has nothing to do with a story or plot, per se, just a group of people getting together to play in a consistent, continuing fictional game world with an advancing timeline. That's it. The use of Campaign being for "a series of events and modules with beginning, middle and end of a particular, specific storyline". I refer to these as "Campaign Arc's"; because they are simply story arcs taking place within the Campaign proper itself. YMMV.

For example, I technically still have my original 1e AD&D Greyhawk Campaign running...which I started back in 1982. Admittedly, we haven't picked it back up in about 20 years, but if Dean, Mike, Mathew, Chris and Roger wanna "do some 1e for old times sake" (yeah, we're all old with families and all that comes with it...sigh...), they'll whip out their oh-so-cleverly named characters (Tron, Hawk, Agoran, Dargoth Tuskmonger and, er, Roger the Barbarian; and me, Denakhan) and we'll pick up a couple months after we just defeated Lolth on her home plane (re: Q1, The Demonweb Pits). ... ... ... So, that campaign didn't "end"...that particular STORY in the Campaign ended (Re: what I call a Campaign Arc), but not the campaign. Which brings me to...



I think this is a matter of perception. I think GoT is a pretty dang amazing series. Yes, they did drop the ball on the last season (TV, I've never read the books), but a solid series with lots of unexpected twists and turns.

I would posit that GoT actually has a LOT in common with a good "D&D" campaign; it's got a beginning, some stuff in the middle where PC's die, leave, come in, etc, and then an end to the initial story hook ("The return of the 'true heir' to the Iron Throne"). There are sub-plots going on all over the place...winter is coming, white walkers, three-eyed raven, lost son of the last king able to hold the other kingdoms together, revenge, lust, incest, betrayal, and even the redemption of a "whoring drunkard noble, expected to die in a puddle of his own puke....redeeming himself and, in the process, his family to a degree", as well as the opposite...a noble born daughter fleeing, hiding and becoming a cold-blooded magical assassin, skulking about in the dark.

If you look at GoT from a "gamer perspective", it's obvious who the PC's are. Each has their own "hook" and sub-sub-plots...goals, desires, fears, strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes this works out (re: the ones who survive until the climax at the end of this story)...and sometimes...not so much (Red Wedding anyone?). IMNSHO, this would have been an AMAZINGLY well run "Campaign". The GoT Campaign could still be 'going', with John Snow, Arya, Cercie and Jaime, Bram, and Samwell ...all continuing on playing in the Campaign in the aftermath of the "return and downfall of the Queen of Dragons".

Anyway...sorry for the distraction there. Just found it interesting the idea of a "campaign" being "Getting a PC from level 1 to 20 via progression through a single storyline" now being so common and standard that it's actually shaping Players and DM's minds into what D&D "is". Go back to the 80's and even 90's, and any DM that ended a session with "...and you all live happily ever after. The end", and closes his books would be looked at in a confused way. Then the Players would say... "Uh...what? We still have an hour and a half left to play. I mean, now that the Dragon Queen is destroyed, I want to clean up then head back to Greenbow to check on the innkeeper and his wife; I gave them my word that when this was all over I'd help them rebuild...for a cut of the business, of course. Gotta have a retirement plan, right? So...what happens next...do we get a discount at the best inn here in town? We DID just save the world, after all..."

I get that in this modern age the DM would reply with a confused look on his/her face and say "Huh? What do you mean... 'next'? The story is over. Make new guys...".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

When a game ends for whatever reason I work the characters in as NPC's. Any body coming back with a different character may hear or even meet those former heroes. It gives me a fairly deep bench of well developed powerful npc's for my campaign world

 

[Zsong]

Then I suppose it depends on how you want to look at things. My first campaign was inherited when my mentor and DM left town, and was honestly a Monty Haul campaign. Once the party was 30th level I'd had enough, but that didn't mean I didn't want to continue to run Greyhawk. I end it by running a world shaking event that changed things in preparation for 2E. That campaign was over, even though the same players continued playing in Greyhawk with the events as canon.

This is where in my opinion you don’t know what “campaign” means. If you are still playing the same characters within the same timeline you are still in the same campaign. you don’t start a new campaign when a new adventure begins. Even if u were playing completely new characters and those other characters existed in the history of your games setting it would be the same campaign.

 

[Shiroiken]

This is where in my opinion you don’t know what “campaign” means. If you are still playing the same characters within the same timeline you are still in the same campaign. you don’t start a new campaign when a new adventure begins. Even if u were playing completely new characters and those other characters existed in the history of your games setting it would be the same campaign.

Ah, see to me this is a question of the difference between a campaign and the setting of a campaign. Traditional D&D terms use campaign as you mention, but this is a misnomer by Gygax due to his wargamer roots. A campaign is by definition "an operation or series of operations energetically pursued to accomplish a purpose." The change of the use of the term campaign over time to mean storyline/single use game is bringing the term back to its correct usage. This change began during 2E, so this has been going on for a long time. You might disagree with it, but it's not my design.

As for the setting of a campaign, I have a Greyhawk setting that I've used for decades over every edition except 4E (which I only ran a one-shot adventure for). Other than my 2E campaigns (thanks to the abomination called the Greyhawk Wars), I've incorporated events from prior campaigns as canon for my Greyhawk setting, giving it a sense of continuity as the players see their actions, and the actions of past players, impact the setting. This can't realistically be called a campaign, however, since most of the characters are from various editions, not just new characters of the same game.