Rotate campaigns or stay the course?

[Insight]

You almost have to take a break from the regular campaign every once in a while, lest stagnation set in. But there are alternatives to GM burnout.

Our current group (the main one we'll call it) has been together about seven months. We started this large group with a D&D campaign. I created a lion's share of the game world, with bits and pieces contributed by others. At the outset, we decided that we would rotate GMs during the course of the campaign world. Everyone would GM, and thus, everyone would have some ownership of the game world.

This scenario really helps stave off GM burnout. Assuming you have both buy-in from all the players (at least the ones who will play GM), and a committment to actually take their turn when it comes time, this will work. There is a certain amount of trust required, and I would only recommend this sort of rotation with more mature gamers - less mature gamers might be likely to seek retribution against a former GM for something that happened in his/her adventure, among many other potential problems.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I don't think we have ever interupted a campaign with one shots, except when not everyone could be there like the DM. If it was possible each session we always play in the campiagn.

In my old group, we did this as well.

In both of my new groups, if someone can't make it, we don't play. So both campaigns are always on--there is never a break from the campaign. And even though both of these groups have been playing less than a year, I don't see that changing in the future.

When the current campaigns are done, someone else may run something (in one group, currently tackling the World's Largest Dungeon, the DM has already said someone else has to run something next ), but nothing's been decided yet. Maybe when the current campaigns wind down, we'll start thinking about the future.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

In both of my new groups, if someone can't make it, we don't play.

I don't like that, but that's mainly due to bad experience with certain people. Some people would realize that the campaign won't go on without them, so they don't miss anything when they're not her. Thus, they would often cancel a session for trivial reasons. A couple of people just don't show up anyway (and that was extreme in one set of campaigns: even though we had almost too many people in the party, it would be cancelled almost every sunday because so many didn't show up and didn't tell the DM until 30 minutes after we were supposed to meet. But I quit all those parties and they died slowly after. Now I have 3 games where I play in and all of them are quite reliable )

 

[RFisher]

I my current group we're tending to switch campaigns about once a year.

In the past, I don't think I've ever seen a "suspended" campaign actually restart. I hope to change that in the future.

 

[azmodean]

I run my game once every other week or so, and I'm kicking around the idea of running another campaign with just the core of the group on the off weekends. The rest of the group plays in a BESM game on the off weeks, don't really enjoy the system.

 

[the Jester]

I run my game on average about 1.5 times/week... I run two concurrent parties, one epic level and one low/mid level; we switch between the two groups pretty often, though we rarely flat-out alternate and often I'll run an arc of 5-12 adventures in one group in a row.

Since I started gaming (1981), I've never stopped for more than a couple of months (when all my old players had moved away, or when I moved to a new town). I will try desperately to ensure I never do.

 

[Arnwyn]

Yet another question on how you dole out your campaign. How many game sessions/weeks/get togethers do you spend in one campaign before opening the floor to a different game, be it a one-shot in another venue or a complete change of pace for a little while? I know it always comes down to how you and the players feel at the time, but I’m just looking for some general thoughts on how long you can go before changing up the pace for a time or two.

More than 13 years - same campaign "universe", same DM. We play once every 2 weeks.

 

[Southern Oracle]

After 22 years of DMing, I took a break and let another guy in our group run a Warhammer d20 campaign. When one of the other players was laid up for several months due to back surgery, I started a Star Wars d20 campaign. When the other player came back and another was out for awhile, we started a Vampire game. Now we rotate games about every month, with extensions to finish up plot lines or finish a particular adventure. If someone doesn't show up, we play Betrayal at House on the Hill or Munchkin, or some other group game.

 

[SpringPlum]

In the past, I don't think I've ever seen a "suspended" campaign actually restart. I hope to change that in the future.

A couple of months ago, my group suspended a long campaign that was starting to drag and lose our interest so that we could start our next campaign (which has been going well so far.)

I was extremely reluctant to suspend the campaign since no group that I have ever played with has ever suspended one. But the guys assure me that they have restarted suspended campaigns before and been very successful at finishing them with a bang. Two of the campaigns that they most reminisce about were stopped and started a couple of times.

We play our major campaign every Friday except in cases of emergency or illness. And to keep things interesting and fresh, our "second-string" DM will run a session from one of his campaigns that we keep on the backburner for when we have a spare Saturday or Sunday.

 

[eris404]

Well, first, our group plays every Saturday, so if our group played more or less frequently, I think it would make a big difference in our schedule. Having said that, we rotate through 3 campaigns: World's Largest Dungeon (1st level), KidCharlemagne's homebrew and ummm...Vilehawk (an evil PC game set in Greyhawk). It's a weekly rotation, so each game gets at least one session per month. As for how long a particular campaign runs, it really depends on the DM. I think Vilehawk and the homebrew has been going on for about a year and a half each now, but who knows if we'll see the end of WLD.

I like this set-up because it has a lot of variety and it gives a lot of people a chance to DM. Much of the time, it also gives any DM at least three weeks to prepare, if not a month, between sessions - a good thing since our DMs have to balance work, school and life schedules just like the rest of us. It also lets players play a variety of characters and get to try new roles, classes, etc. Since we're still playing every week, we still get our weekly gaming fix, too.

The drawback is of course that there can be a month between sessions of a particular campaign or longer if a DM needs to cancel for some reason. And, uh, I really want to run a game, but I think a four game rotation would be too much. :\