The Best Game for A Long Campaign

[aramis erak]

What do you personally think is the best RPG for running long (5+ years) campaigns in. Why? Have you done so? Are you still doing so? How's it going? If you aren't running or playing in a long campaign, have you ever? Do you want to?

I can't imagine running a game longer than 2 years... I've only done that with two games... Cyclopedia D&D, and FFG Star Wars.

Cyclopedia, I get bored with the game before the players - highest level Cyclopedia PCs I've run for were 12th (elf) to 19th (thief). D&D 5E became too cumbersome for me about 8th level party. 3E about 5th or 6th; 8th was a royal pain.

The older I get, the less I'm willing to fight through setting-specific writing block, and the more likely I am to try to find a good ending point.

THat said, FFG's Star Wars, at a consistent 5-10 XP/session, is good for 2 years or so.. at 1.5 years my PCs were getting hard to challenge mechnically, and that was making the game side less fun for everyone at the table.

Others I've used for over a year include Arrowflight 1E, AD&D 1E, FASA Trek, WEG Star Wars, MegaTraveller, Traveller: the New Era.

WEG's d6 system generic books are pretty close to WEG SW 2E - Space is pretty much the expected and announced changes for WEG SW 3e, but sanitized hastily of the SW IP. If one is stingy with CP, or one's players spend a lot of CP in play, it's good for a while. But power creep eventually makes it less and less fun.