What Media Format Is Your Preferred Campaign Style?

[aco175]

I have been running more published stuff to start, but add homemade tangents depending on the players and where they want to go. I also like to have a few levels or adventures tied to something and then move onto another arc, but leave room for a big plot that ties things together.

I have campaigns going on right now. One uses this method and the other are just one-shots used for filler around the other campaign. I use it to add something to the first campaign or to give out information. I'm not sure if it will continue after the larger campaign ends.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I use Babylon 5 as my role model. I love the are multiple layers of story lines. There is the big-picture metaplot, long term factions each with their own internal & external conflict arcs, the various entities and factions that feel they are immune to current events or are just ignorant, and then the various personal relationship arcs (friend, foe or frenemy) that help make it real.

Plus B5 got rewritten mid-story repeatedly to deal with external events like a key actor's progressing mental illness, various contract negotiations, network issues. being almost-canceled repeated, etc. Which makes a good example for not being overly attached to any specific implementation of a plot.

GMs don't get to write the whole story but a TV script falls apart if key actors don't show up 4 seasons in and DMs don't have to live within a budget for special effects.

 

[dbm]

Babylon 5 is probably the model I reference back to as well in most campaigns. A degree of long term overarching ‘plot’ for want of a better word. Big things happening in the background for the players to interact with and either adapt to or rail against as they wish. Interleaved with smaller happenings; character driven / related events or just seemingly random stuff they happen across with no specific relation to either player backstories or the ‘plot’. Recently I have been running quite a few Savage Worlds ‘plot point campaigns’ and these are pretty much built along that model so a good fit for me.

I do like other kinds of campaign structures too. I am looking forward to running some sandbox style games in the future. I think something like Game of Thrones would probably be a good touchstone for a game like that, with lots of different things happening in an interweaved way. Not quite the same multiple viewpoint approach but similar in that it would involve the PCs looking in different directions, to mangle the metaphor.

 

[Voadam]

and DMs don't have to live within a budget for special effects.

<Looks at his maps and minis>

Well, I would say that depends a little on DM style.

 

[Breaking Star Games]

There is such a huge benefit of episodic sessions when it comes to having players with poor attendance. I think also having a lot of unique villains can allow them to be personalized reflections/foils of the PCs too, which can be better for the overall plot.

Cowboy Bebop is my gold standard for having great episodic episodes connected well with a theme and Spike gets a solid season wrap-up. Faye and Jet could have had more time, but they do a good job showing where Spike goes wrong in dealing with his past. Firefly also does a pretty great job.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, thanks nothing to be ashamed of, we all have quirks and fetishes.

Seriously, though, fundamentally I agree. I recognize many points and zones of contact, but for me RPGs are innately a unique impure hybrid of inspirations that became (is continuing to become) its own thing as much as prose or music.

I do think, though, that the various worlds of serial storytelling have a lot to suggest to us about time management/structure.

I think both of these are sound. I tend to phrase it as "Medium matters. Games are not TV shows are not movies are not books."

But the other end of that is that some of these media are closer than others. TV shows are typically closer to movies than to books, but books and TV shows often have some common elements because they can be long form that make them more similar in some ways. Similarly, I think at least for the typical ongoing-campaign games, TV shows are probably a better model to work from if you want to find useful common ground than movies or books generally (though like most things, there are exceptions).

 

[jian]

Lots of talking and investigation, some interpersonal stuff, low on violence but some impactful fights against the right person. No killing or torture or any of that. More like Avatar the Last Airbender than anything else.

 

[Kannik]

This is an interesting lens to look through! Of all the games we are currently playing, I think they could all be fit into one of these four types:

Epic Narrative: The trilogy-style. You are out to solve/fix/overcome some grand thing. You know it at the start of the campaign. All of the adventures are explicitly pointing in that direction. Things continue building until the crescendo at the end, when victory can be declared.

TV Seasons/Miniseries: As noted above under things like Buffy or Bab 5. While the plot of each adventure are mostly independent, they also forward the underlying story and themes of the season or the campaign as a whole in some fashion.

The Episodic Weave: A variation on the previous. Again, adventures are mostly self-contained, and while some may link to other adventures, there's no grand season or campaign story at play here. Something may be introduced in session 4 and show up again in session 12 to be resolved in session 13. At the same time, session 5 was self-contained and done, session 6 led to something in 7 then done, while session 8 saw something return in 9, and then again in 20... etc.

BD Style: Tintin-graphic novel style, where each adventure is multiple sessions and are mostly self contained, with "only" the characters' themes and growth following through onto the next adventure. If there is an overarching evil big bad, the idea of the campaign isn't to take them out but only to thwart whatever they're doing this time (if they're even involved in the adventure).

(Of course I'm not saying more types don't exist, just that of for all the games my group is currently involved I think they could all be fit into one of those four.)