D&D 5E What does "Campaign" mean to you?

[guachi]

If you are a DM or player and you hear someone say: "Let's play a campaign!", what does that mean to you?

The local FLGS had a message on its Facebook page saying they wanted a DM to run a "campaign" on Thursday nights. I volunteered. It turns out the owner's idea of a "campaign" and mine were different.

If I had to define "campaign" in a gaming sense I'd do it thus: A series of adventures undertaken by a substantially similar group of players and characters over time in a persistent game world.

Unpacking: A one-shot with never-to-be-used-again characters isn't a campaign. One of the old 32-page adventures would be considered a "one-shot" even if it took multiple sessions. Doing one part of the new APs isn't a campaign. Stringing 32-page adventures together would be a campaign as well as completing an AP from start to finish (assuming the other parts of my definition hold)

The "series of adventures" don't have to be connected in any way. We enter a dungeon, kill the monsters, and take their stuff. We enter another, completely unrelated dungeon, kill the monsters, and take their stuff, etc. would be a campaign.

The "substantially similar" players and characters is, to me, a requirement for a campaign. Players in the campaign would be added or removed rarely. Characters might change, but that would usually be upon death of the PC. Players don't come and go as they please with different characters every session (like you can do in AL)

"Persistent game world", while perhaps not the best term, basically means the players aren't in the Star Wars universe with one set of characters one week and the next week in the Hyborian Age in Conan's universe. The players and DM may be the same, but the setting and characters are different. This is not a campaign.

 

[Demorgus]

For me, a campaign is the continuing story of a group of adventurers. Now whether that is by stringing together a series of not related adventures or if it involves a world or even multiverse spanning plot arc, that's all window dressing. I think the key is continuity. Having a core of characters that are available each session and that the players are filling in what happens to the characters between adventures, like down time activities.

 

[Satyrn]

Yeah, your definition fits mine.

I wouldn't be surprised though if someone used "campaign" to mean "A regularly scheduled (weekly, monthly, whatever) series of one-shots since in the context you provided above they'd be advertising a search for players looking to attend regularly.

If it was a one-off one-shot, well, "campaign" would be a terrible description of that.

 

[Morrus]

Yes, your definition is correct. A one-shot is an adventure. A campaign is multiple adventures.

I'm not sure the word is used much any more.

 

[Mercule]

At a gut level, I agree with your definition. Then, I look at my group playing through Princes of the Apocalypse, which is only a single adventure, but I'd still say we're playing a "campaign". So, I have to look deeper.

A campaign has duration. It's not a single session. It's really not even a handful of sessions (unless you apply an adjective like "aborted" campaign). Where is that line? Dunno. Probably at the point where the group becomes a team -- or gets really comfortable not being a team, though those sorts of games rarely last long enough to become campaigns, IME. Which brings us to:

Continuity. A campaign has some sort of continuity to it. Most of the time, this means the same setting, same players, and same characters. Sure, you may have someone drop or add. You may also have a character or two die. Still, there's something recognizable in the make-up, though.

Many years ago, when we had trouble with getting a long-term group together, one of my buddies came up with a rather interesting idea for tying together one-shots. We never did make use of it, but it still comes up from time to time. There's a mysterious order that, in a nutshell, acts as an interdimensional mercenaries guild and/or fixer. The details are largely left behind the curtain, but all adventuring members of the organization have a magic ring. When they're up for an adventure, they put the ring on and, assuming one is available, they're plane-shifted/teleported to a job. Some effort is made to ensure a fully capable group is available, so it's not completely random. There is no guarantee the paladin won't have to work with a dark cultist, but everyone involved at least knows the score and has a reason to start up a conversation about adventuring beyond "Hey, you were pretty good in the bar fight. Want to be munderhobos, together?" All members of the group generally get some info on the job, which could either be fully shared or parcelled out. Anyone who wants out of a group/job can pull the ring off and be sent home, but it doesn't always work immediately (i.e. it's assumed to happen when a player can't make the next session). Only the wearer may remove the ring, shy of a wish. We've come up with more details, like ways to add other folks to your "friends" list, etc. But, those are the high points. This set up also allows for GM rotation, such that I can run Eberron, my buddy can run Greyhawk, and someone else could run their home brew -- all non-exclusive. The only real agreement is that my buddy is the only one permitted to delve into the mystery of the organization, which he doesn't intend to do.

Hypothetically speaking, a group of 20 players used the above for three years, with players largely centered around three cities, but with enough travel that they all intermingle quite a bit, and some of the characters make it to 15th level. Does that qualify as a campaign? Honestly, I don't know. Mostly, I want to punt and say, "It depends on other factors." If one city generally has the same GM and 90% of the players, I'd say so. The guild thing just acts as a way to fit in messed up schedules and work in the occasional guest or troupe-style play. If the GMs rotate a lot and each GM uses a different world and the players jump in and out, with lots of different characters, then it probably isn't. It's just a meta-layer on top of the other settings or a shared table rule for allowing people to just show up with whatever character they want.

There are other variations, like playing the children of previous characters or advancing existing characters several years/levels to take on a new sort of challenge. The Rings game was the most wild example that came to mind, though.

Short form, I think continuity is the key word for a campaign. A random assortment of players, especially when they may or may not show up all the time, does not make a campaign. I'd also say that rotating GMs generally doesn't lend itself well to a campaign, either, even if each GM sees through a whole adventure at a time. No continuity == no campaign. And a game doesn't become a campaign until it has momentum that continuity is even relevant.

So, after all that, I'm going back to agreeing with your assessment that the makeup of the real-world and game-world principals (i.e. GM, players, PCs) is the best way to add continuity.

 

[Greg Benage]

How old was the owner? An old-school campaign might have had the "persistent game world" (though it might have looked a lot like the Upper Midwest with a big dungeon under a castle) but with many different players and characters coming in and out over time.

I didn't start playing until 1980 and ironically never played in a campaign like that (and haven't since) until I joined one in college, and sure enough it was run by an OG who had been a wargamer in the 60s and then started playing D&D in the mid-70s. Point being, I don't know how common it was first hand, but it seems to fit my limited anecdotal experience and what I've read about the First Campaigns (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, etc.).

 

[Maxperson]

For me, a campaign is the continuing story of a group of adventurers. Now whether that is by stringing together a series of not related adventures or if it involves a world or even multiverse spanning plot arc, that's all window dressing. I think the key is continuity. Having a core of characters that are available each session and that the players are filling in what happens to the characters between adventures, like down time activities.

This. I try to theme a campaign so that it feels more like a large story arc spanning levels 1-16+, but sometimes it's just having fun doing whatever the PCs want for those levels. The primary factor in my opinion is the duration over several levels.

 

[Ed Laprade]

So what was the game store owner's definition?

 

[Shiroiken]

How old was the owner? An old-school campaign might have had the "persistent game world" (though it might have looked a lot like the Upper Midwest with a big dungeon under a castle) but with many different players and characters coming in and out over time.

I didn't start playing until 1980 and ironically never played in a campaign like that (and haven't since) until I joined one in college, and sure enough it was run by an OG who had been a wargamer in the 60s and then started playing D&D in the mid-70s. Point being, I don't know how common it was first hand, but it seems to fit my limited anecdotal experience and what I've read about the First Campaigns (Greyhawk, Blackmoor, etc.).

My first campaign was like this, for the most part. I took over the DM duties after the DM moved, but eventually the group settled down to 4 semi-regulars and 1-2 irregulars because the semi-regulars only wanted to play their best (i.e. highest level) characters which had quickly overshadowed everyone else. I was too new a DM (as well as an immature teenager), so I didn't handle this as well as I should have.

Anyway, this usage became pretty much obsolete by the time I switched to 2E (I took a few more years because I already owned all the 1E books and didn't want to buy new stuff). After that one, every game I've played in has had pretty much regular players with a single character each. While I'm a huge fan of regular players (especially when they're a good group), I'm going to try to convince my group to switch to an old school style campaign next time (where everyone has multiple PCs).

 

[Ancalagon]

I agree with your definition. Now there is nothing "wrong" with what these people are doing, but it's not a campaign.

 

[guachi]

So what was the game store owner's definition?

He wanted, though he didn't say it at first, to have another day on the schedule to advertise for AL play but instead of the 2-4 hour adventures it was running to have a day for one of the hardback adventures.

To me, running the hardback adventures doesn't make it a "campaign" if, like in AL, the players and characters can come and go as they please. And running the AL 2-4 hour adventures doesn't make it not-a-campaign simply by being 2-4 hour adventures.

So I started what I considered a "campaign" that currently has a too-large party of seven, though we've not actually had seven at any one session (hooray for the holidays!). Then I no longer was recruiting new players, because I already had too many. But the owner was still advertising the game as "open play" even if that wouldn't fit my idea of a campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

A campaign is like a sports team: different players come and go (in D&D these are the characters), less often different front-office types come and go (in D&D these are the players), but the team or franchise keeps on trucking as an identifyable entity.

A one-off is like an exhibition game: you throw some players on the field and see what happens - once.

Lan-"and an adventure path with nothing else to it is somewhere between the two"-efan

 

[Jester David]

I define a campaign as any number of D&D sessions or adventures connected together and sharing a common continuity, however tenuous that continuity might be.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I'm make my definition short and sweet: "A campaign is a DM's running of his/her 'world' in a generally chronological order with no definable end".

The players could play new PC's every weekend, with all new mini-dungeon bashes, with no easily discernible 'storyline'...and as long as each adventure takes place in the DM's "world setting" and he/she is keeping track of time in it consistently...that's a "campaign".

In my humble opinion, anytime the players and DM sit down at a table and decide "This is the story, this is where you start, and this is where you end/complete the story"... is not a 'campaign'. If it has an actual 'end'; as in after they defeat the final end bad guy behind the whole thing, the DM stops DM'ing that group of PC's and 'ends' that time line. So yes, this means that I do NOT consider any AP to be a 'campaign' because it isn't. An AP is simply a longer series of adventures strung together. Taken as a whole, it has a beginning, middle and END. If it has an end (to the PC's and the time line), it's not a campaign.

If the DM continues with the same PC's, or henchmen, hirelings, protoge's, or even all-new PC's...but keeps the timeline going...then he is playing a campaign.

Hope that makes some kind of sense.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Croesus]

One item I haven't seen mentioned is having the characters set down roots in the game world. Whether it's taking over an abandoned keep, or protecting "their" town from marauders, or setting up a spy network, the PCs do more than just go on adventures. They take possession of some part of the world and make it theirs.

Not technically required for an RPG "campaign", this is a crucial element for me. If my character is just running around on adventures, I'm just not that invested in the campaign. If, however, my keep is under threat - oh yeah, I'm there. Just a matter of buy-in, commitment, whatever. Probably a holdover from the 1E days when PCs gained keeps and followers at name level.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think that the definition of what is a campaign has to be at least a bit adaptable to the circumstances of play. If you're playing in a public forum then you have to allow for more turnover with players and their characters.

 

[Eltab]

I don't really have any quarrel with the serious analysis(es) above.

To me, a campaign involves mostly the same players, mostly the same characters, working towards a long-term goal that takes more than one session to complete. Goals like "Keep Tiamat out of the Natural World" or "Become the new Lords of the Land" or "Build mercantile empire and get mind-bogglingly rich" or "Fight off / destroy invading orc hordes" or "Throw the One Ring into Mount Doom".

 

[iserith]

My Saturday night game, The Delve, consists of a town, a dungeon, and a dark forest in between. Play consists of talking about downtime activities at the start of the session, then traveling through the forest, then delving the dungeon. Before the end of the session, the characters return to town. This cycle repeats every session. There are no "town adventures" - only what happens in the forest and in the dungeon.

There are 10 players and 20 characters. Only four players are permitted to play in any given session and each person has on average two characters, so the roster can change week to week depending on who plays and what characters they think are best to achieve their goals. Each session is 4 to 5 hours. We're on Week 15 of what is looking to be a 20-week game.

Is this a "campaign" by the definition put forth?

 

[S'mon]

I'd assume persistent world, persistent PC group, and an intent to GM a double-figure or higher number of sessions - I call a 12 session campaign a 'mini-campaign', full campaigns are typically 30-100+ sessions but I wouldn't balk at a planned 15 session campaign. Below 10 sessions it might be a mini-campaign of linked short adventures, or a single adventure.

I wouldn't balk at someone using 'campaign' in the more Gygax/Arneson sense of a persistent world/setting with highly variable PCs and/or players, but it wouldn't be my default assumption when I heard the word. I think if it was intended to be something other than persistent setting + persistent PCs + 10 or more sessions then I'd appreciate clarification up front. Of course many campaigns don't go into double digit sessions but usually the intent is there.

 

[Yunru]

A campaign is a continuity, be it a one-shot adventure, or a string of entwined adventures. For me, at least.

More specifically, it's a party's continuity. The world can change, characters can change, but as long as it's the same party, it's the same campaign. Sure the end party might not look like the starting one, but as long as the change was natural...

EDIT: Hmm, this is not getting my point across very well.

You have this organic thing I call "the party". It comprises of the characters, their goals, ambitions, quests and experiences. As long as we follow the same party, we're playing the same campaign. "The party" can change and evolve over time, as long as it's not outright replaced. Two players can't make it any more, that's fine, even if the party's only five big. The characters are less, but the rest is still their: the goals, ambitions, quests and experiences. Compare with a TPK. Everything is lost, there's no... culture, I guess you could call it.