Loooong Campaigns...How Do You Do It?

[Agamon]

My longest game was 3 years, started 6 months before 3E came out. I aim to shorten that now, as I like to tie the PCs into the plot so it becomes meaningful to them. But then when players move away and are replaced with other players that have a less vested interest in the metaplot, it becomes quite meaningless.

So now the games are shorter and I try to tie the PCs in a little less, which is easier with published games, as 2 of my last three campaigns since then have been (RttToEE and AoW).

 

[Silver Moon]

Every once in a while, I come across a reference on these boards to campaigns which last years, sometimes decades.....DMs, how do you keep a game which spans years fresh and interesting to yourself, much less to your players?

Like Kenobi65, my campaign also began back in 1982 and is still running strong. We play on Sunday nights, skipping holiday weekends and are usually every-other-week in the summers due to vacation schedules, but we generally get in around 40 games a year.

Back when I started the campaign I was in college and founded the group to keep in touch with my high school friends who were still in the area. During our first three years we had a lot of players, I had 14 active ones at one point, but as people finished up college and/or had significant life changes the group settled upon a comfortable core group 8-10 players. Right now we have six in group, one since 1984, another since 1983 and the remaining four founding players. In the last decade we've had several couples who have joined, played a few years, then left to be replaced by another couple. In another three to four years we'll be joined by our next generation of players.

How we've kept things fresh is by establishing a home base for the characters and having players start new characters while still keeping their original ones at the base. Each player now has between 4 and 9 characters, with the highest level now being 13th. Mixing and matching characters of different races and classes also helps to keep things fresh.

In 1995 we also started a spin-off campaign, using seldom-played low-level characters and some new 1st level ones. That campaign is set on the same continent but inside of a large city, around 400 miles away from the other team's base. My back-up DM tends to prefer to run modules with that group rather than the "big-guns", although players have switched off characters back-and-forth between the two groups.

A few years back to liven things up we also began a completely new campaign just to mix things up, with whole new characters in a totally different setting (a Western campaign in set in the 1880's but on a world also with D&D races, magic and deities and using hybrid D&D/Boot Hill rules). It was good for a change of pace, and we alternated modules between the two campaigns for a few years until the novelty wore off and they decided to shelf the Western after a total of ten modules covering around 50 games.

So we're now back to exclusively the D&D campaign. Tomorrow we'll be playing our 991st game, the seventh night of our 136st module. This is a high-level game that my wife is running. Depending upon what the group decides we'll either finish tomorrow or move on to her Part Two and go another seven or eight games.

Still not sure what to do for our group's 1000th Game, which we should hit some time in December. I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Buttercup]

I have never managed to keep a campaign running past midlevel for the party. I think DMing for a high level group would be horribly complicated, and I'm not sure how I would manage to challenge such a party.

Also, I don't think I create the kinds of campaigns and plots that lend themselves to multi-year adventuring. Now I think about it, I'm not sure what sort of campaign *would* lend itself to that. The longest campaign I've ever run is just over two years. I'm not sure if that's because my players get tired of their characters or I get tired of the world.

 

[D'karr]

Play with people you like and would enjoy their company outside of the game. Playing with bums can burn you out quick. It is very important to recognize when you need a break and then taking that break when needed. The key to longevity is keeping the players involved. If your overarching metaplot does not really involve their characters then you have an uphill battle.

I've been DMing a group of 6-12 players since 3e was published. The campaign is designed to take the characters into Epic level. If I need a break from DMing, somebody else runs another game for that session or group of sessions.

I just took a short break during the summer and we just started back up. The players were enthusiastic about getting back to familiar territory. The highest level character just reached 13th level.

 

[Aeric]

It's been a long time since I've played with people who weren't my friends outside of gaming. Actually, most of the people I play with these days are friends who were introduced to gaming after the fact.

I've actually had bad luck with taking breaks in campaigns. I can't remember a single instance where we took a break and didn't eventually drop the game out of disinterest. If I wasn't worried that a game would just end, I probably would take more breaks - and have longer campaigns as a result. Assuming interest didn't die during the break, of course.

 

[Buttercup]

Play with people you like and would enjoy their company outside of the game. Playing with bums can burn you out quick. It is very important to recognize when you need a break and then taking that break when needed. The key to longevity is keeping the players involved. If your overarching metaplot does not really involve their characters then you have an uphill battle.

I'm not sure what this has to do with the question, really. I think it's just as likely a matter of taste and style as imcompatible players or bad GMing. More likely, really.

 

[Piratecat]

I'm not sure what this has to do with the question, really. I think it's just as likely a matter of taste and style as imcompatible players or bad GMing. More likely, really.

I'm not sure I agree. I strongly suspect that one of the things that has kept our group and campaign together is that we all really love each other's company. The group has bonded really well, and that probably entices people to stick around if the games get draggy or the plot lags.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I have never managed to keep a campaign running past midlevel for the party. I think DMing for a high level group would be horribly complicated, and I'm not sure how I would manage to challenge such a party.

Beware, young Buttercup, Fear is the Mind Killer.

It's really not that bad. Yes, it is a bit more complicated b/c there is baggage. On the other hand, if you didn't power-level your characters then you've had time to become comfortable with the baggage. Kinda like when you first get an apartment and it's empty and then you buy stuff over several years to make it comfortable. Only when you move do you realize how much stuff it is.

IMC there are several BBEGs out there, but it didn't start out that way. I introduced them one at a time. Some were defeated permanently, some not. They built up over time and in a reasonable (for me) pace.

I will point out that I generally have an RP-intensive campaign with combat occuring no more than 50% of sessions. Now it may happen 6 session in a row but will generally be countered by the 6 consecutive sessions of traveling the party does later on. By letting the combats happen on a more relaxed timetable (mainly b/c the party doesn't thirst for the blood of their enemies every session) there is more character- and world-development.

Also, I don't think I create the kinds of campaigns and plots that lend themselves to multi-year adventuring. Now I think about it, I'm not sure what sort of campaign *would* lend itself to that. The longest campaign I've ever run is just over two years. I'm not sure if that's because my players get tired of their characters or I get tired of the world.

Ehh, you need goals, long term and short term. I started with the megaplot (Defeat Dragonlords), a major plot (Return the Divine Spirits), and had "adventures" (Find Lost City of Thordheim) that had internal goals of their own.

Defeat Dragonlords
I. Return Divine Spirits
a. Find Lost City of Thordheim
1. Meet draconians
2. Get Key of O'tarr from Dryad Nerissa
i. Release O'tarr (see g.2.i)
3. Release Archmage Tiflan
b. Defeat Nedrag of Durbin
1. Acquire broken Dragon Orb
c. Defeat Tamarat Once-Elven
1. Meet Glyad Laesh
d. Pursue Japeth the Bleak
1. *PCs break plot by releasing Hellwyrm.
i. PCs must deal with plague at Helena while Japeth deals with Wyrm.
ii. PCs must prep world for undead invasion
iii. PCs must fight undead invasion
e. PCs diverge from plot by going to invaded Sylvanost
f. Crypt of Draconiennes
1. Find temporal stasis device
g. Gain divine support for Japeth's war with Hellwyrm
1. Make Raistlin aware he is a Spirit of Magic
2. Release the real Chislev
i. get O'Tarr released
h-q. Ongoing plot events

I kept the players oblivious to the plot goals so they wouldn't get hung up on "winning" a plot goal. Admittedly some, like the treasure map to Thordheim, were pretty blatant.

My original 2-page plot summary went to about I.a.3 and took about a year to achieve. I used what I learned about the players' idea of fun and the characters' goals to develop b & c (another 4-6 months or so). I came up with d. as the start of my next arcs but they so derailed my plot that those notes became completely useless and the players were drivin' the bus for the next few months.

I regained "control" of the plot with f-g.2.i. where things started happening according to my general plans. They've managed to get ahold of the steering wheel more than once and give it a yank so I can't claim it's exactly how I envisioned it.

So I planned a very loose campaign with plenty of wiggle room so I can adjust it to fit the party. I learned to tailor adventures and pacing to what the party was comfortable with. I occassionally pandered to them to ensure they didn't get bored with the setting or their characters (the game is supposed to be fun, after all). I made sure that if they did something drastic and blatantly public or world-altering that it was actually public knowledge or altered the world. Especially if it was something I hadn't originally anticipated. I incorporated their characters' plans into my plots and avoided being the petty GM who destroys the players pretty toys because I can; I only destroyed their pretty toys when it makes sense. And I never had the nobility fail to ultimately reward the party for their good deeds; smart nobles know not to make heroes turn into bandit-heroes.

 

[Silver Moon]

I strongly suspect that one of the things that has kept our group and campaign together is that we all really love each other's company. The group has bonded really well, and that probably entices people to stick around if the games get draggy or the plot lags.

Well said, I agree completely. We get together for both the game and the social interaction with close friends. I recall a game night a few years back shortly after our friend John's father had died. From the very beginning we all sensed that he needed to talk instead of play, so that's what we did instead that night. I consider that one of our group's finest moments.