How often do you restart/change campaigns?

[Agback]

G'day

On a rough estimate I have run about forty or fifty campaigns (including miniseries campaigns but not one-shots) in the 22 years I have been GMing. Sometimes I have two campaigns going at once, other times I take a break from GMing: I guess that balances out. So I figure that my campaigns last on average about six months, though certainly a couple have lasted at least two years.

I end campaigns when they reach a natural conclusion; or when I am (or my character-players seem to be) bored with the genre, setting, plot, characters or whatever; sometimes I terminated them early because they don't seem to be working, or because a critical blunder on someone's part has left the PCs in a hopeless situation; and a few times campaigns have ended because RL considerations (eg. people leaving town, one of my fits of depression...) force them too. I'd guess it is about 50-50 for campaigns ending because their story is told or prematurely.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Deadguy]

How long do my campaigns last? Well, the simple answer is "it varies enormously".

The shortest campaign lasted 2 sessions, and died a death from player apathy. Actually I think the real reason was that the players didn't get on in the setting (Trinity).

The longest so far? Well, I ran an on again-off again Vampire game for 8 years, and I am playing in an Ars Magica game that's entering its 11th year at the start of next year. That one is slated to go on for at least another 50 game years which means, at our current rate, we'll be playing it for the next 40 years!

When I start a campaign I tend to expect it to go on for a while. I prefer campaigns to one-offs, and I like them to be long to develop characters. It is very staisfying to see a character grow and develop over the course of a game. Thus I guess the average duration of the games I am involved in tends to be 2 or 3 years, and as you can see, some last a lot longer.

 

[The Forsaken One]

We usually just last 2 or 3 months, wish it were longer but the most of the other players just don't get that IC that they devellop a personality and get to like and want to play the char. It's mostly all about the action. (after 3 years of gaming with them...)

 

[Thanee]

Longest running campaign would be our Shadowrun campaign, that did last a good 7 years.

Other than that, I can only guess - somewhere between 6 months and 2 years.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Numion]

Our first 3e campaign lasted for about 9 months and ended around level 16-17 due to generally running out of steam.

Our second 3e campaign is still going strong, and the PCs hit the epic level just yesterday, after one year of gaming.

 

[King_Stannis]

average for our group is between 6 (if there is a TPC) to 15 months.

 

[Henry]

I would say the longest campaign I've ever been party to was one I ran - it was a 2nd edition campaign that lasted for about 18 months (from April 1998 to November 1999) - and even then it was in two parts, with several new players in the second half. In general, they usually last us 6 to 9 months of about 4 nine-hour sessions per month. After that point, one of three things happen:

1) People move or get tied up.
2) Someone comes up with a different campaign idea they want to try.
3) Something else comes along that dominates our attention (a spurt of Magic the Gathering fanaticism, or Battletech-fever, or some similar).

 

[Ashrum the Black]

I've been running my latest campaign for the last year with small breaks to have somebody else run some one shots. The group has changed a bit, but at stable core always seems to be there and wants to play.

My last campign before that ran 6 months before we stopped, and that was because of an abortive attempt on our part to join another gaming group.


Ashrum

 

[bwgwl]

i'm with you Morrus -- 6 to 9 months seems to be the lifespan of my campaigns when i GM. the usual culprit for ending a campaign is "GM burnout" -- i just get bored with it and want to try something new. sometimes that means starting up a different game, or more likely, that i want to be a player again...

i think the longest campaign i've played in was a year and a half.

 

[arwink]

I've finished two campaigns since the introduction of 3e. The first was a converted 2e game that lasted a little over two years all told, that ended because the players had hit the higher levels and there were two newbies joining the group.

The second lasted a little over a year, and ended due to a combination of player friction and a TPK. We were setting up the rescue mission to grab the bodies, and one the players just sat up and said "you know, I don't want to do this anymore..."

AFter that, I took a break. The current campaign should last a little over a year, all going well.