Tips for a long-lasting D&D campaign?

[Gnome]

(OT: there should be a "campaigns" category)

A friend of mine wants to start-up a "vanilla" D&D game down the road, just to experience having run a game from levels 1 through 20. I've run such a game myself, off and on for many years, that's now in Epic levels. It was originally a 2nd-Edition campaign that got converted to 3E, then 3.5.

Anyway, I tried to think of some things that contributed to the longetivity of the campaign, and here's what I came up with:

* Well-balanced part in terms of character roles and power parity between characters
* An interesting Uber-plot which was more in the background early on, but got more and more important the longer things continued
* A setting with lots of adventure possibilities (in this case, it's what's now referred to as the Silver Marches region of the Forgotten Realms)

For those of you who have run a very long-running campaign as well, what do you think made that one last where others fizzled?

 

[GlassJaw]

For those of you who have run a very long-running campaign as well, what do you think made that one last where others fizzled?

Honestly, I think the secret to a long-running campaign has less to do with the campaign itself and more to do with the players. My group recently lost some players. There was no bad blood at all but I do think there was a difference in play style.

So my advice is to make sure everyone in the group is on the same page as far as play style goes. The system is almost secondary. People with different styles can survive for a while but eventually someone will lose interest. I've seen it too many times.

My group had some players that pretty much wanted to play standard D&D only, and that's fine. But some of the other players wanted more role-playing and story and less emphasis on the crunchy stuff.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

(OT: there should be a "campaigns" category)

A friend of mine wants to start-up a "vanilla" D&D game down the road, just to experience having run a game from levels 1 through 20. I've run such a game myself, off and on for many years, that's now in Epic levels. It was originally a 2nd-Edition campaign that got converted to 3E, then 3.5.

Anyway, I tried to think of some things that contributed to the longetivity of the campaign, and here's what I came up with:

* Well-balanced part in terms of character roles and power parity between characters
* An interesting Uber-plot which was more in the background early on, but got more and more important the longer things continued
* A setting with lots of adventure possibilities (in this case, it's what's now referred to as the Silver Marches region of the Forgotten Realms)

For those of you who have run a very long-running campaign as well, what do you think made that one last where others fizzled?

An uber plot that isn't always obvious as an uber plot. We were playing 2 or 3 years into my camapign before the players realized what the uber plot was.

Versimilitude: The evil wizard has bugbears guarding the front door because he has bugbears guarding the front door not because the PCs are levels 3-6.

Running Away is an option: PCs can find out about threats and challenges they can't deal with long before they get to them or have to deal with them, if they are wise they get out of the way. If they aren't , they die.

Character Roles and Power aren't as important as player styles. If you can keep the hacker hacking, the inquisitive soul deducing, the empire builder building, give the drama queen the spotlight now and again then you are going to get a lot more out of the campaign and the players are goign to enjoy it more then they are goign to be concerned about the power parity within the party. Play Parity is the important part.


Lots of places to adventure. Do more work then you are going to need but don't focus too much on things that aren't in front of the Players yet. My last campaign had several dozen ststed out villains and dozens of dungeons with literally hundreds of levels in the entire campaign. But i didn't devout untold meticulous hors working on many of them beyond an expanded outline before the players got wind of them for two reasons:
reason 1- I can only do so much at a time , working up 4 or 5 slightly fleshed out outlines is better then one fully detailed adventure with multiple interlaced subplots all of which may be ignored, sidestepped or foiled by th e players.

reason 2- outlines can be expanded and detailed to fit what is "going on right now" in the campaign much easier then the detailed multi-tiered adventure can.

Victory and Defeat: the players should be able to win and lose and still have the campaign go on. My PCs were mugged by a Fire Giant long before they were able to defeat it in combat, they lost horse and loot to the fire giant but it was perfectly content to let them live after hauling off their goodies. I got more use out of him that way also, his eventual defeat was very sweet also for the players when they were of level high enough to take him on and win.

 

[Percivellian]

I've never played in or DMed a campaign that lasted more than 8 months, but the most important factor in keeping things alive in general has been keeping players interested in the characters. What keeps your players interested, of course, depends on the individual players. Some want to play out hooks in their backstories, some want to accomplish great deeds... some are even content to provide comic relief and keep the party going in combat once in a while, but whatever it is, there has to be ample opportunity to do it.

EDIT: Yeah, JamesDJarvis put it nicely, and more quickly

 

[JimAde]

What Glassjaw said. As the GM there's only so much you can do. A GM can kill a campaign, but only the players can make it live.

Having said that, I think the best thing the GM can do is, as Percivellian said, make sure there's something for every player.
[OT]
I'm currently struggling with this in my own D&D game as there is one PC I just can't get a handle on. Everybody else is royally ticked off at the BBEG for all different reasons, but this last guy is just kind of going along for the ride.
[/OT]

 

[Grimstaff]

What Glassjaw said. As the GM there's only so much you can do. A GM can kill a campaign, but only the players can make it live.

Having said that, I think the best thing the GM can do is, as Percivellian said, make sure there's something for every player.
[OT]
I'm currently struggling with this in my own D&D game as there is one PC I just can't get a handle on. Everybody else is royally ticked off at the BBEG for all different reasons, but this last guy is just kind of going along for the ride.
[/OT]

Sometimes the best way to keep a long term campaign going is knowing when to take a break. A couple weeks off with another game every 3 or 4 months is a great way to keep the magic alive. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Never wait for a down beat to take a break, always end when the players are having a great time, throw a cliffhanger at them and say, "Bob, why dont you run that Warhammer RPG module next week, I'm gonna need a couple of weeks to tune this up." After your break, the anticipation will have reached a fever pitch and should provide more than enough momentum to carry you through the next rough patch.

 

[Janx]

Meeting regularly is important. Don't let too much time go between sessions. More than 2 months is likely to kill a campaign. If you do take a break from the campaign, be sure to get together and play something else, to keep the group cohesiveness alive.

Play with your friends. I'm playing in a campaign that's been running since 1993, all with my friends of 20+ years.

Janx

 

[dren]

Game with friends, especially when you enjoy spending time together. Game with people who enjoy playing the game.

Everything else, including the dice rolls, are secondary to the fun.

 

[Crothian]

I have stories that never end. So there is always the snes of something for the players to do, they never really feel like they are done. I use lots of plots that intertwine and can be quite complicated. Plus I tell my players if this campaign goes to level 40, that's fine with me. I think letting them know that the campaign can go one for as long as people want to helps.

 

[StupidSmurf]

Interesting. We've done a campaign re-launch, and it's set in the Silver Marches.

Here's what I do in order to sustain a long-running campaign.

1. Continuity and Consistency. Have a good back story, have facts make sense, have things fit together nicely, so if/when PCs discover stuff, the players will marvel at your organization and story-telling abilities!

2. Ogres have layers; so does a good strong campaign. In ours, it started with a nobleman who brought together this disparate group of characters, who all happened to be at a roadside inn having lunch. The nobleman sent them out to his ancestral keep to retrieve a valuable family heirloom (Layer 1). Upon further adventuring and discoveries, the group realizes that the noble was actually dead (!), and they were seeing his ghost. Apparently, he wants to revive an ancestor of his, and he needs the ancestor's ashes, stored in the family heirloom (Layer 2). This ancestor was a vampire/necromancer who is the only one that can revive a powerful dracolich that ravaged the Silver Marches a half a millennium ago. The ghostly noble wants this guy back, and needs the blood of five innocents to conduct the ritual (Layer 3). The Cult of the Dragon is behind this scheme. They extracted the vow from the noble while he was still alive, so now, in death, he's a ghost, and makes one attempt every 24 years to do this deed. This is the nobleman's fifth try. (Layer 4). See what I mean?

3. Flesh out the area. Although I'm using the Realms, and the Silver Marches sourcebook, I've added my own stuff. There's a small town I've created along the Evermoor Way, and populated it with NPCs, services, a temple, etc.

4. Put in side quests. Along with the town, I've "seeded" the surrounding area with a few monster lairs/fixed encounters. The townsfolk recently have had a problem with a dusk attack by a flock of stirges.

5. If you're using the Silver Marches, incorporate the stuff that's already hard-wired in the area. My group has already run afoul of orc scouting parties from King Oblerud (sp) Many Arrows, goblin raiding parties from the eastern area of the Marches, and a Cyricist cult in Everlund. It gives the campaign a feel of being fully integrated in a world.

6. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Create some interesting NPCs who can serve as friends, foes, or fence-sitters. Familiar faces lend to the air of continuity and realism.

7. Nothing happens in a vaccum. While the PCs are doing their things, the NPCs/power groups aren't just frozen in time, waiting for the heroes to come along and interact with them. Plans, schemes, reactions, and counterattacks have been set in motion, though the players don't know that. For instance, that nice little town I created as been burned down and the temple desecrated and and sacked, but they don't know that yet. And yes, it came about as an indirect result of their actions.

Anyways, that's my 10 cents worth. Hope it helps!