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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9276151" data-attributes="member: 4937">For me long running means a game that goes more than 120 hours.  So yeah, if you really meet 50 times in a year that would count.The style of play you describe is called "Low Melodrama".  I have never played it except online in MU* environment where because everyone was a PC conflict was discouraged (no NPCs to kill).  It is usually associated with systems that have very complex and deadly combat so that to successfully play the game requires an unspoken agreement to avoid combat, but you can play it with pretty much any system.  My current player group would have absolutely no interest in this style of play.   I also have six players and find it hard to weave low melodrama into large groups of players because it's hard to divide the spotlight up well when you have that many players doing scenes with NPCs of significance to one or two of the players.My currently running campaign is now almost three years old and at 54 4 hour sessions.  We try to play every other week but sometimes skip weeks because of real life intervening.  There are over 250 named NPCs in my notes, but few NPCs reoccur and the PCs have not really developed close relationships with any of them.  The PCs are bounty hunters so the typical story arc is the PCs are given a job by the Guildmaster with a few clues to go on, some background information, and a bounty puck loaded with hopefully the image and genetic code of the acquisition.  The PCs spend a few sessions exploring a small sandbox looking for clues and getting into fights with locals of various sorts interested in for reasons of their own seeing the PCs fail.  Eventually they gather enough clues to chase the acquisition which leads to a large climatic conflict.  The NPCs encountered along the way are named and have stories of their own, but usually little reason to interact with bounty hunters and it's a big galaxy.  The PCs are travelling to entirely different worlds with millions and sometimes billions of inhabitants.  There is the possibility of reoccurring villains or allies but that hasn't really developed yet because really I consider 220 hours of play to be pretty short to develop longer story arcs.  Those 220 hours of play only cover about six months of their lives and are heavily focused on the chases that have occurred not on personal lives or social conflict at the personal level either with NPCs or with each other.Primary styles of play are Exploration and Hack N' Slash with a touch of High Melodrama (big events of social or political significance as opposed to events of personal significance).  And as High Melodrama their reoccurring relationships are more with factions than with individual NPCs.</blockquote>

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