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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gwek4580" data-source="post: 8612459" data-attributes="member: 93781">I'm always been a bit of a "serial monogamist" when it comes to roleplaying. I HAVE run some sorter games, but they've usually been breaks between longer games. I've run at least a half dozen games that have lasted more than 50 sessions, with my longest (in terms of years) being a 10-year, 120+ session Star Wars campaign that ran four "seasons." I didn't always track number of sessions, but I think two of my superhero games clocked more sessions (back when my group used to play weekly instead of monthly). I've found that some of the keys are flexibility, but also having the right framework.Using the right medium as a storytelling model can help with pacing. For example, many of my early campaigns were superhero games, and I structured them like comics, with each session being an "issue." On one hand, that allowed each session to be a discrete story, or to end with a cliffhanger, but it also meant that the story was a rolling tale that didn't necessarily escalate. Which is fine for superheroes; there's always another supervillain about to come along. Once time, I did a fantasy campaign that ran about four years and was structured as a trilogy of books. That allowed me to shift the tone and escalate the stakes of the story twice, and the end of each "book." TV - especially streaming/"prestige" TV provides a great model, where you can have a series of interlocking/overlapping stories, escalation to a season (and potentially mid-season) finale, and a new Big Bad (or at story arc) with every new season.The flexibility comes in dealing with the players and allowing them the power to disrupt a carefully planned story. What I try to do these days is make sure each player has their own agenda and potential character arc... preferably sometimes at odds with one another. In my Star Wars game, one player was a Jedi Padawan sent out to the fringe, while a second was a ruthless pitfighter who wanted to put an end to slavery. These two sometimes had compatible goals, but were often very much at odds in terms of methods. A third player was a gunslinger on a path of vengeance who often found himself pulled between these two. The fourth player was a conman who wanted to build a criminal empire. He was happy to work with anyone who wanted to work with him as long as there was money involved. One season culminated in the Jedi becoming the Sector Watchman, the gunslinger killing his nemesis (in a public event), and the pitfighter killing an influential businessman who was secretly behind a slavery ring. Although the Jedi achieved a goal in her "promotion," her first task was to bring two of her closest allies to justice for the very public murders they had just committed.One of the biggest challenges in a really long-term campaign is escalation of power. Eventually, the players will become so powerful and/or influential that very little can challenge them. Don't be afraid to let them (to use old D&D parlance) "build a stronghold." Early in my Star Wars game, the players were all crew on a ship together, a la Firefly. As the campaign progressed, they became owners of the ship, with more ability to set their own agendas. By the end of the campaign, the Jedi was, as noted, Sector Watchman, with a network of operatives. The pitfighter had started his own anti-slavery organization, composed of many of the slaves he'd freed earlier in the campaign, and the gunslinger, after having killed his nemesis, decided he wanted to do something good, and became a lawman, leading a loose coalition of gunslingers, rangers, and rogues. (The fourth player eventually left and was replaced by a succession of other characters, culminating in a Jedi who was sent to keep an eye on the Sector Watchman, almost like an Internal Affairs agent).</blockquote>

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