D&D General How often do you complete a campaign as a player?

[jmartkdr2]

I've had a number of failures out, but like I said most weren't duration-based reasons, other than the one game system that turned out to break down much earlier than you'd expect (actually, if you count D&D 3e you could argue two).

Even in my experience, when playing Dungeons & Dragons (tm) - campaigns don't end because of the system. They end because real life gets in the way of scheduling. Even at high levels, if you find the system isn't working for you anymore, you tend to find a way to wrap it up quickly so you can make new characters at the fun levels.

I can imagine something like Rifts going so far off the rails that even that isn't really possible, but I don't think that's common.

 

[TwoSix]

Again, I’m not really concerned about why the campaigns end. More simply recognizing that they do.

That you baseline to 40 sessions means you’ve basically implemented exactly what I’m talking about.

40 sessions seems super ambitious to me, but everyone's gotta do what they're comfortable with.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Even in my experience, when playing Dungeons & Dragons (tm) - campaigns don't end because of the system. They end because real life gets in the way of scheduling. Even at high levels, if you find the system isn't working for you anymore, you tend to find a way to wrap it up quickly so you can make new characters at the fun levels.

I can imagine something like Rifts going so far off the rails that even that isn't really possible, but I don't think that's common.

We had a long talk about this among my friends recently.

Our campaigns break down because characters and players need a little variety and real life compounds the problem. When u have missed sessions, it gets harder for me to stay “into” the story.

After some discussion, I think my group may not only trade DM duties more but also focus on modules (self made or otherwise) instead of these long adventure path things.

I am developing a means of interconnecting modules DM’d by different members of end group so we develop some continuity.

It’s not the system though; it’s life, human nature and so on. We are going to modify our approach.

 

[jmartkdr2]

40 sessions seems super ambitious to me, but everyone's gotta do what they're comfortable with.

That's about a year IRL if you're trying for every week (it's never every week, but 80% is probably doable.)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't think of campaigns as ever really having an end. I mean some do come to an end, but I don't look at them as a thing to complete if that makes sense

 

[Thomas Shey]

It’s in general DnD. Umm, why does that matter? But I agree that 40 sessions is likely a reasonable expectation for the half life of a campaign.

Because I think it actually makes a difference when talking about non-D&D games. Its much easier in a lot of systems to get a pretty full experience of the system and options without a long play cycle.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Again, I’m not really concerned about why the campaigns end. More simply recognizing that they do.

That you baseline to 40 sessions means you’ve basically implemented exactly what I’m talking about.

That's why I suspect I'm at least partly missing your point.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even in my experience, when playing Dungeons & Dragons (tm) - campaigns don't end because of the system. They end because real life gets in the way of scheduling. Even at high levels, if you find the system isn't working for you anymore, you tend to find a way to wrap it up quickly so you can make new characters at the fun levels.

I've never actually had one end because of scheduling. In terms of your sentence following, I've had ones that continuing the game long enough to get to a satisfactory ending would have been pretty much painful for all concerned.

I can imagine something like Rifts going so far off the rails that even that isn't really possible, but I don't think that's common.

I can't judge how common it is, just that its happened to me, more than once.

 

[Thomas Shey]

40 sessions seems super ambitious to me, but everyone's gotta do what they're comfortable with.

It doesn't have to necessarily be quite that long, but I usually just don't find time to get the kind of things I want done in something much shorter than that. I can see potentially putting together some functional games in 3-5 sessions, but usually that's too much upfront work for the yield.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's about a year IRL if you're trying for every week (it's never every week, but 80% is probably doable.)

We play every-other week per campaign so usually that's about a year and a half for us, barring holiday breaks, but that's a quirk of how we schedule things; you're generally right.