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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Boots" data-source="post: 7505981" data-attributes="member: 92239">Eh.  I'll add my own experience to the campaign mix for the sake of elaborating more on the overarching theme that there's no one right way but everyone kind of does the same things from their own perspectives.When 1e was a thing I ran many rosters of players through adventures in a setting of my own creation.  None of these groups lasted for more than a year and many petered out, but the ones that finished a story were in some ways railroaded and in some ways sandbox, but no one complained.  All of these 1e things were done in a way such that they all built on what came previously - so I consider all of them one 10 year or so long campaign, even if only 3 of the easily 50-60 or so players were continuously there.  I've since called that my world's first age.I've done the same with 2e (though by then I had moved to Rolemaster and left behind D&D entirely) and missed much of 3rd edition but by the time I came back to 3rd, the same pattern played out and that ended up being the second campaign and second age.  Again, maybe 2-3 of the 100 or so players that floated in and out of games stuck.As I've said before I'm more a 4th ed person and now that I'm doing one-offs here and there thinking about Rolemaster again but I don't consider any particular group of folks a campaign unless I've gone through heroic through epic tier with at least one of their characters.  It's way easier to feel successful in gaming as a hobby when you set smaller milestones to hit and much more rewarding when you look back over a number of years and realize you have a huge amount of shared fiction.But you can't DM well by limiting what's in your toolbox for use.   There are going to be times when it's necessary and appropriate to railroad (like when you have problem players) and there are going to be times when the DM needs to get out of the way because the shared improvisation and creativity is better than whatever is going on in his or her own head.However, everyone has the opportunity to be one of these DMs that has epic campaigns that last a decade.  It's really not that hard to do.  All that's needed is to keep running games and have the forethought not to throw out what happens in the games you run, even the bad stuff.  The next group of players won't know how good or bad the last group experience was, but the DM can get better with every game run.2cKBEdit: I will also give a tip of the hat to folks that like to be a part of the "Netflix" style stories where it's clear that there are 5-10 things that need to happen to finish a storyline and the group stays together to finish them, then moves on.  I think that were I to start a game right now, that would be exactly how I'd structure it.  Both because I think that this generation of players would appreciate it, and I would have a clear exit from having to play with anyone that walked in day 1 and I had issue with.</blockquote>

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