What is a D&D campaign to you?

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm noticing that I come from a different background as to what I think of when I think of a D&D campaign than that of my other DM friend.

Since I've nailed down this perspective, I'd like to see if I'm in a rare minority in my conception and how much ideas of what a campaign means have changed over time.

My friend views a campaign as a storyline. He usually comes up with a lot of campaign ideas, and is fine if it lasts a year or so (considering that a long campaign) or even shorter if it is intended to be a shorter campaign. Because he is always a few campaign ideas ahead of what we are currently playing, he supports characters with very unique concepts that might only work well in certain scenarios. The campaign covers a short time period in the game world also, anything from a few days to a couple of years, and follow-up campaigns with the same characters are completely possible. In short, a campaign for him is like a good long movie trilogy or series, say Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.

My background goes back a few years earlier than his, into the misty depths of AD&D 2e...

My perspective on a campaign is more along the lines of a Sim D&DWorld. When I think of a D&D campaign, the first thing that comes to mind is a group of people playing with the same characters for 20 years, going everywhere in the setting, encountering everything in the monster manuals, running every sort of adventure imaginable, and having an effect on the evolution of the game world. It's a cradle to the grave experience for the characters, who should probably be flexible enough to participate in a variety of different scenarios (rather than just dungeon crawl or political or pirate.) People might move in or out of the group, some characters may leave play and be replaced by others, but the campaign isn't over until we've reached max level and are completely finished with the characters. If they ever show up again they will be as epic NPCs or deities. Kind of like a very long episodic TV series, say Stargate SG1 for a basic gist.

For some reason, I've come from a perspective that my idea would be listed as "Frequency: Common" in the Idea Manual, rather than "Frequency: Very Rare." But I've begun to wonder if I'm mistaken in that assumption.

It's fun either way, but I'm interested in hearing from others. What has been your experience with, and more importantly, your conception of D&D campaigns?

 

[Nellisir]

Crap. Hit the wrong button.

Well, I've never had a campaign last five years, let alone twenty, so I prefer shorter, more focused campaigns. More satisfying to explore one idea fully than several in part. They're all in the same region, and tend to be sequential, so sites & characters reoccur, creating a meta-campaign, but you're not committing to one character forever. Personally, I don't think I'd want to play one character for 20 years

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I usually employ a narrative sandbox style.

Ever since I ran my first D&D game, we have problems scheduling our games, resulting in maybe 10-12 sessions per year, running for three to five hours each. Due to this we never reach the lofty heights of double-digit levels or even epic play, but a camapign runs for several years (typically 3-5) anyway. This means that grand, sweeping, epic stories are next to impossible.

The players are interested in plot and story lines on the other hand. I usually handle this by taking published adventures with a strong story as basis and adapt them to the players. Different adventures are coupled loosely only, because any typical module takes us a year or more to complete. So the players have a say in what we'll play next (sandbox) bot the connection between single adventures is narrative.

 

[Herobizkit]

For me, a campaign is just like a book, or a TV series - it has a beginning, an end, and a cast of characters which brings the setting to life... or are even the setting themselves (in the case of sitcoms, fr'ex).

 

[pemerton]

If by D&D campaign you mean a game run using the D&D mechanics, I am currently GMing my longest-lasting D&D campaign: it is entering its 5th year, and the PCs have advanced from 1st level to 3000-odd XP short of 21st. The campaign will end not long after they reach 30th level - that is the endgame for 4e D&D - but that will not preclude world-changing developments. It's inherent in Epic D&D characters that they will change the world.

But I have run two Rolemaster campaigns drawing heavily on D&D story material (one Greyhawk, the other Oriental Adventures), both from 1st level to the mid-to-upper 20s. One ran for 8 years, the other for 11. The first one - which somewhat fit your description of "people moving in and out of the group, and some character leaving play and being replaced by others" - ended up fizzling out: the mechanics broke down and I wasn't agile enough as a GM to respond, and the plot got so convoluted that even I, as GM, didn't really know what the PCs' principal enemy was up to. One of the players mercifully ended things by deliberately leading the PCs into what he (the player) knew to be a trap (although he played his PC as ignorant) - resulting in a TPK, a revisting by the group of some problematic areas of the rules, and starting up the new campaign.

The second long RM campaign ended very nicely, I thought. Over the course of the campaign it turned out that the players' principle goal was to have their PCs disobey various edicts of heaven and overturn karmic forces that were (in their view) needlessly punishing humanity generally, and also a range of important NPCs plus one of the PCs. At the culmination of the campaign the PCs defeated their main enemy (that campaign's Tharizdun equivalent), managed to banish and trap their two secondary enemies in the course of doing so (two archdevils), and freed a god who had been trapped in the void fighting an eternal war with Tharizdun. Initially the PC paladin had intended to take the trapped god's place, but he before trapping the archdevils the PCs managed to trick one of them into creating a karmic duplicat of the paladin, who then took the trapped god's place in the void. The warrior-mage samurai PC was able to marry the dragon he'd been courting since 6th level; and one of the other samurai married a wizard whom he'd rescued from a demon's demiplane and dedicated their offspring to ensuring that the karmic breach between the void and the world would never reopen, so long as they remained people of truth and integrity (as that PC had been throughout the campaign).

It was a nice way to end.

I don't know how my 4e campaign will end yet, because it hasn't happened. But one of the PCs is a chaos-powered drow member of a secret cult of Corellon dedicated to undoing the sundering of the Elves. Another PC is a servant of the gods of law and knowledge (including Bane, Erathis, Ioun and Vecna), who is reassembling the Sceptre of Law (= Rod of 7 Parts) and hence, presumably, dedicated to the elimination of chaos from the universe. And two PCs are servants of the Raven Queen who are waging a continuing war against Orcus, demons more generally, and who wish to liberate Torog's Soul Abbatoir, where that evil god traps and tortures the souls of all who die in the underdark.

So it seems likely that the endgame will involve Lolth, Torog, Vecna, Orcus and various other demon lords and/or primordials in some form or other.

Generalising a bit, I guess my conception of the D&D campaign - at least in gonzo fantasy mode - is that its natural culmination is the PCs succeeding or failing at their goals at the cosmological level.

 

[delericho]

A campaign is just a series of sessions with the same group of players around the table (and usually the same characters). Although there may of course be some drift - a player drops out here or there, and a new player joins occasionally. So, in theory you could have a single campaign with the "same" group of players throughout... but the same group at the end has none of the same faces as the same group at the start!

(I've had this broom ten years. I've replaced the head five times, and the handle six times, but it's the same broom...)

Both the story-path and the sandbox approach are types of campaign. I've done both, and both can be fun. My preference these days leans towards the story-path, but even so I wouldn't claim it was better than the other.

 

[Starfox]

I used to think like the OP does, that a campaign is the name of a living, evolving setting. But I've moved away from that into shorter, more focused campaigns more reminiscent of what he calls his friend's style. Still, there is a "meta campaign" for my Greyhawk world, where events from campaign game make the backdrop for another. Such games usually have different players and almost always different characters tough. Each campaign lasts 1-5 years or so. After longer than that, details seem to become muddled as people's memories of early events in the campaign diverge.

And I am lucky enough to have a weekly group. So 1-5 years means 40-200 sessions.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I consider D&D to have many similarities to serialized episodic television, so I look at a campaign as being like a TV series. It focuses on one group of characters, and follows them through their adventures. The campaign ends either when the characters are done, or (far more likely) when the participants are ready to move on. Like a canceled TV show, a campaign may end on good or bad terms. A successful campaign may spin off related campaigns with different main characters (but perhaps with overlap). Most campaigns are short, because there are so many ideas out there, and so little time. A really short campaign isn't really a campaign at some arbitrary point; it's more like a miniseries or a TV movie. Typically, a campaign is open-ended, while a short-run game has a predefined end. But not always.

The longest campaign I've ever run is probably about a year, with a number of sessions somewhere in the twenties (and perhaps other unrelated games being run during that period). Even that's a stretch for me at this point. Time is precious.

 

[Umbran]

A campaign is just a series of sessions with the same group of players around the table (and usually the same characters). Although there may of course be some drift - a player drops out here or there, and a new player joins occasionally. So, in theory you could have a single campaign with the "same" group of players throughout... but the same group at the end has none of the same faces as the same group at the start!

Pretty much this. In general, a campaign is a series of sessions with continuity from one session to the next.

Both the story-path and the sandbox approach are types of campaign. I've done both, and both can be fun.

Also agreed.

 

[TwoSix]

Pretty much this. In general, a campaign is a series of sessions with continuity from one session to the next.

Yep. The longest campaign I've ever been in was 38 sessions over 2 years. Most of the campaigns I've been in last 15-20 sessions over a year or so.