How often do you reset?

[Laman Stahros]

I choose under 20, but I can only count two campaigns for that. All of my gaming before 2003 was in the US Navy and I had to reset every few years (if not more often) due to players moving away or my having to move. That was the worst part about gaming in the military. All the blasted moving.

The two that I counted were/are 3.5 campaigns, one of which lasted 15 to 20 sessions (I think) and the other is still on going (20 - 25 sessions or more and counting).

 

[Hussar]

The idea of fast resetting has given me a bit of an inspiration.

My problems with my own homebrews has always been a loss of focus after a while - usually about a year and a half or thereabouts. Not a bad run, but, it's always been a disappointment to me as a DM that my camapaigns have usually ended with a limping whimper rather than a bang.

Here's my new idea. Campaign Vignettes. Short term campaigns - longer than one off's - more like 15-20 sessions to complete. Plan the campaign ahead of time to end in a very short while. With that timeline, you're looking at 3, maybe 4 levels of advancement max. Wash, rinse, repeat. I can see this being especially appealing with a published campaign setting.

I've always found that I had FAR more material than I could ever use when I got into a setting. Mostly because my campaigns would center around this or that area, last for a year and a half, and then restart. By the time I got to the restart, I was sick of the setting and wanted something new.

This way, I can pick and choose points in the setting, use the background for the setting and plunk the party down in medias res into this or that campaign arc. I finally get to use a large amount of the material gathering dust on my shelves! As an added bonus, the players get to test drive lots of different characters. Something is broken? Ah well, doesn't matter that much, we're going to reset in a couple of weeks anyway, enjoy being God for a while. Hand an artifact to that 4th level party? Why not? Sure, it'll be wonky, but, then again, it's not like you are going to be sticking around to see the fallout.

Different vignettes could interact, at least at a background information level. Players in this vignette could hear stories about what they did in the last one. That sort of thing. It also alleviates the problems of PC death quite a bit as well. Since I am restarting so often, it's not like PC's get any sort of plot protection. They die when they die. If they can afford the res, so be it. Otherwise, build in replacement characters into the vignette.

I'm really jazzed about this idea. I'm bouncing the idea around in my head for a while and eventually, I'm going to apply it to Scarred Lands. Since I run online games over OpenRPG, it's pretty easy to pick up some part time players as well.

Thanks guys. This has really juiced my batteries.

 

[Maldin]

Unfortunately, there isn't a selection for my campaign. It started in 1980 in Basic, very quickly converted to 1E AD&D, then later converted to 2E (where it remains). Twenty six consecutive years of the same continuous campaign. Now, many of the groups (player and PC) have started and trailed off over those years (as people join in and eventually move away - doing 3 degrees in 3 different universities, you see alot of people come and go), however the original characters are still going (and some of the original players), and everything (new groups and old groups) are all tracked on a still continuous timeline (and often meet eachother or hear about eachother's exploits)

In other words, 26 years and no reset in sight!

Denis, aka "Maldin"
=============================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Sammael]

My campaign is currently at 4+ years and 136 sessions, and it will probably last at least another year (50+ more sessions).

I don't see myself running another campaign of this scope again any time soon, but I generally consider campaigns that last for less than 30 sessions not worth running (or playing in) at all.

 

[Stalker0]

A lot of my college games would last a semester, as after that people had different schedules, some left to study abroad, intern, etc. So 4 months with a game a week, or about 16 sessions. Thinking about it, it always felt a lot longer than that, but then again we gamed for far longer than 4 hour stretches.

 

[Hussar]

From what I'm seeing, about a third of people cut campaigns at the 20 session mark. Certainly not a majority, but, not an insignificant minority either. Would make for very different gaming than I'm used to.

 

[airwalkrr]

My longest running campaigns have gone 30 sessions or more, but these are the exception. My longest campaign was probably my Heroes of the Flanaess campaign in which I got the party up to around level 8 the first time around before personality conflicts and a jailed player (literally) ground the campaign to a halt. I later replaced a few members and basically picked up where we left off, only with different characters whose objective was to rescue the previous characters. We spent about 5 sessions in the defiled lands of Rauxes before scheduling conflicts prevented the group from meeting again. A third group consisting of only one original member began again and this campaign ran for over a year, involving probably around 30 or so sessions since we had to skip a week here and there. The third group was basically a complete reset of the campaign with the same plot. That group made it to level 12 before a couple consistent no-shows brought the campaign to an end. It was the kind of campaign that really didn't work without the original PCs and no one felt that new players stepping into their shoes would do them justice. Overall, the campaign went on for nearly three years including probably around 70 sessions and two resets.

A group of friends and I alternated running adventures for the Shackled City concurrently with this campaign for a while. We got half-way through and to 11th level before we all got swamped with RL issues. We still have our characters in case we ever pick it up again, but it isn't likely as one of them has moved away. That campaign lasted for about 30 sessions.

My most recent campaign, based on the Fate of Istus module, lasted for about 20 sessions before going down the tubes, mostly due to my own inability to prioritize time properly. I have also been running the Age of Worms campaign for over a year now (despite a two month hiatus) which has probably been at least 30 sessions. I've tracked each session in a journal so I could probably count but don't feel like it right now (and no the journal isn't online sadly).

I am currently also running a campaign to playtest a series of d20 adventures tentatively slated for publishing with 12 to Midnight. So far we have played four sessions but the group is strong.

I have run probably close to 30 different campaigns between 1998 when I started playing AD&D and now. Most have ended within 20 sessions, but a good number of them have gone on to 30 or a bit beyond, so I voted under 30. I wish I could have a more dedicated group, but living in a college town doesn't make that easy.

 

[librarius_arcana]

hundreds of sessions, no resets.

-- N

Same here

 

[EyeontheMountain]

When I was in University each campaign was at most a semester long, so about 20 sessions or so.

But now that I play withthe same two guys, we easily make 45+ session gams (a year or more. Our current campaign just hit 24th elvel (starting at 3rd) and about a year in real time. We should get 20+ more sessions out of it befroe we pull the plug.

 

[Rustam]

replay the same campaign?

reset?

as in, start-over with new characters to play thru the same campaign?

...it's never happenned...

however, our longest run in a campaign has been 73 sessions with ending character levels of 21-23.