What Media Format Is Your Preferred Campaign Style?

[Reynard]

This might be a little bit of a weird question, so bear with me.

If you had to compare your preferred way of running or playing in a campaign to a format found in other media, what would it be?

For example, mine is 90s-00s ensemble television semi-serial action adventure drama a la Buffy or Angel. that is, focused on a group of characters where there is a mix of monster of the week adventures as well as "mythology" episodes that tie to the larger story of the campaign, broken down into "seasons" that might map to tiers of play in D&D but otherwise just be about moving on to the next cool thing after resolving each "big story." It is not a perfect mapping, obviously, and every campaign is going to focus more on certain aspects of the formula, but it is there. Another element of this I like is that characters often start out as strong but flat archetypes, but backstories and character focused NPCs and such come up over time, adding depth and complexity to the characters that they did not possess at the beginning.

Other "media types" for comparison might be Doorstopper Fantasy with deep world building and intricate plotline, or Open World Video Game where the point is the discoverable environment, or Howard-esque episodic adventures not even necessarily told in chronological order.

So what media format best maps to your preferred campaign structure?

 

[MGibster]

Maybe X-Files style? Where I start off with a strong premise and the promise of unraveling a mystery only for everyone to realize a few sessions in that I don't know where the story is headed.

Deadlands: Spaghetti Westerns.

Star Wars: Old serials like Flash Gordon or Radar Men from the Moon.

Dungeons & Dragons: A combination of Shrek and a bad parody movie. In my Greyhawk campaign, I just had a Gygax inspired Storm Giant living in a gaudy mansion with a bevy of swanmays in the grotto. Oh, and the giant was doing a mound of cocaine. I have fun with the game, I just can't take it seriously anymore.

Delta Green: Movies that show the mental toll spying, criminal behavior, or violence has on participants, especially if it involves the bizarre. Think Citizen X, North by Northwest, Syriana, or Munich.

Alien: Well, obviously I'm trying to run this one like the movies. Alien or Aliens? Depends on the scenario.

Legend of the Five Rings: Akira Kurosawa movies as well as other Japanese samurai movies from the 1950s and 60s. Scenarios where the PCs are forced to chose between their duty and something they desire or they believe is morally correct.

Vampire: I won't lie, I'm going for Ann Rice mixed with Trainspotting.

 

[Reynard]

Maybe X-Files style? Where I start off with a strong premise and the promise of unraveling a mystery only for everyone to realize a few sessions in that I don't know where the story is headed.

Deadlands: Spaghetti Westerns.

Star Wars: Old serials like Flash Gordon or Radar Men from the Moon.

Dungeons & Dragons: A combination of Shrek and a bad parody movie. In my Greyhawk campaign, I just had a Gygax inspired Storm Giant living in a gaudy mansion with a bevy of swanmays in the grotto. Oh, and the giant was doing a mound of cocaine. I have fun with the game, I just can't take it seriously anymore.

Delta Green: Movies that show the mental toll spying, criminal behavior, or violence has on participants, especially if it involves the bizarre. Think Citizen X, North by Northwest, Syriana, or Munich.

Alien: Well, obviously I'm trying to run this one like the movies. Alien or Aliens? Depends on the scenario.

Legend of the Five Rings: Akira Kurosawa movies as well as other Japanese samurai movies from the 1950s and 60s. Scenarios where the PCs are forced to chose between their duty and something they desire or they believe is morally correct.

Vampire: I won't lie, I'm going for Ann Rice mixed with Trainspotting.

Some of these suggest more tonevthan structure. What do your D&D campaigns look like, for example. Serial vs episodic; deep vs shallow worldbuilding; that sort of thing.

(Unless you meant that your X-Files analogy was across the board.)

 

[MGibster]

Some of these suggest more tonevthan structure. What do your D&D campaigns look like, for example. Serial vs episodic; deep vs shallow worldbuilding; that sort of thing.

I tend to run short, to the point campaigns. Think Babylon 5 where there's an overarching story with some adventurous interludes that have nothing to do with the main plot.

 

[payn]

My PF1 APs ran a lot like serial series of the premium TV era. I definitely leaned in that direction as I prefer it to episodic style of the last century. My current Traveller sand box Pirates of Drinax is moving in the direction of DS9 and B5 in which its a hybrid of serial and episodic.

Im finding I do really like single film length games and wish folks ran them more. I dont need everything to be an on going campaign. Sometimes a really great story and time happen in a single night.

 

[Elvish Lore]

My campaigns resemble American DC/Marvel superhero comics where sessions/arcs are issues and any one session and arc may introduce Plot X, continue Plot Y, and finish Plot Z. The next session/arc might introduce Plot AA, continue Plot X, finish Plot Z.

It's a constant churn of fronts, threats, plotlines and subplots. Plots rise, play, and resolve.

There's a central mythology to campaigns that plays out in very long arcs so even if 80% of game play is Plot X, Y, Z, I do have a plot/storyline involving the Big Picture that often spans the entire campaign.

To be clear, all this talk of plots makes me sound like I script everything. I totally do not. 90% of these things are improv play, come from the players, just saying that's the structure we usually aim for... rise, play and resolve happen in each arc, just like comics.

 

[Autumnal]

Lately, I’m inclined to say, linked short stories offer a handy format. For those unfamiliar, Nathan Ballingrud’s book Wounds is a particularly fine example, with six stories that turn out to share important things along the way.