What's the secret behind D&D's ability to sustain long term play?

[Primitive Screwhead]

IMO, its a setting deal, not a rules/mechanics deal. I have enjoyed pursuing level advancement in FASA's Alien's.. with the chaotic results that that provides.. as much as in GURPS, WEG SW, and even.. yes.. I wanted to advance in Paranoia. At least to Orange if not Yellow

I tend to describe it in plot depth. My favorite setting, CP2020, can have 6 levels of plot running behind a campaign, with a myriad of players on the field.. all with diverse motivations. Each adventure could be the puppetering of some nefarious entity, or could indicate a struggle between super powers.
I have walked away from a CP2020 game with a headache from tracking all the stuff that ended up being unseen by the players {the effects of all those plots became evident and it wasn't until later that a player put the loose ends together} It was one of the best games I have ever ran.


Shadowrun tends to be less complex and upfront, but still 4 to 5 levels of plots are fairly common, with the excellent Harlequin campaign as an example.

Star Wars is more clean, fewer players on the field.. and most of them in the open. 2 to 3 levels of plot are normal.

DnD tends to have 1 or 2 plots. The one for the current session..and potentially the metaplot story arc.

End result.. its simple.

Since its simple, more players are available.
More players, more games
More games, more campaigns..

 

[eyebeams]

Size of the play network. Personally, my long term games have been AD&D1st/2nd and Mage: The Ascension. 3e/3.5 have not been as conducive to long term play, usually because the players I know are split among multiple iterations of D&D.

 

[Crothian]

Here's where Xombie Master's point comes in.

But I'm impressed. I know that I didn't have the fortitude to take the system that long. But while I guess your example runs counter to my explanation of why I see Palladium as an exception, it sort of demonstrates rule 1.

Don't under estimate the power of stroing characters, defined plot, and ignoring stupid things. The game turned political and heavy role playing and investigation. But the game did end when I said enough with the stupid rules.

 

[Crothian]

DnD tends to have 1 or 2 plots. The one for the current session..and potentially the metaplot story arc.

How do you run a game with so few plots? I already have 4 meta plots, and at least one side plot for each of the five players and a number of little plots that are the week to week adventures until they choose to go after a big plot or personal plot. And beleive it or not, my goal for this campaign was to keep the plots the fewer and more simplistic then I normally do. And I have.

 

[Akrasia]

.... While I'll grant that some things in D&D are too complex, and that there's still plenty of room to improve D&D, I cringe when I see people talking about simplifying the game. Simplification of D&D could very well be a bullet in its head.

Well, 3e D&D's "robustness" was the bullet to my head -- at least as a DM. :\

"Robustness" might be great for the players (or at least those who master all the relevant rules), but after running two 3e campaigns (each of which lasted about a year, and each of which my players enjoyed very much), I will never do it again.

I'm too busy these days, and prepping/running 3e is just too much of a pain in the arse.

Robustness might be nice for (some) players. But for myself -- and many DMs I know in my situation (including most of my first 3e campaign) -- increased 'simplification' is the only way to go. This is why I'll GM C&C or WFRP 2e in the future -- but never 3e again.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I did say 'tends'

I was not counting player driven side plots.. those vary from table to table.

I prefer running 4 major plot lines and at least 3 character plots active in any given game session. This gives me enough hooks to force play forward when/if it gets stagnant.
Then 1 or 2 major plots that are not active, but have foreshadowing present.

Unfortuantely, my current table has only 2 players who prefer this style of play.. so I am running a very simplistic game.

 

[Black Omega]

System wise, I'm probably a bad person to comment on this since we've gotten away from DnD and d20 completely in favor of Hero System.

My Rokugan game lasted three years and the system did have advantages for that. GM's are important, of course, but keeping player interest up is at least as vital. As Monte said, levels are a good carrot on the stick to keep people looking toward the cool stuff they want to buy. The system itself made combat take longer but never to the point where it ruined the game. I don't plan to run any more DND/D20 games but it's really more a matter of system style preference than anything wrong with DnD.

 

[Samnell]

"Robustness" might be great for the players (or at least those who master all the relevant rules), but after running two 3e campaigns (each of which lasted about a year, and each of which my players enjoyed very much), I will never do it again.

I'm the exact opposite. I've tried playing rules-light games in several varieties back in the 2e days. I found that the only appeal they had to me was a single core mechanic. So far as I'm concerned, they all became obsolete the day D&D game out with a single core mechanic. Good for you that people still put them out, but they fail to give me what I want out of gaming.

And I'm a DM. So this isn't a pile of work I'm outsourcing to some other guy. Nor am I particularly mathematically inclined. I don't find mastering the rules themselves particularly difficult either. D&D is easy DMing for me.

But hey, we both have games that meet our needs. Vive la difference.

 

[Akrasia]

.... I don't find mastering the rules themselves particularly difficult either....

Well, my point didn't have to with my 'rules mastery' as a DM. My frustrations had to do with:

(a.) prep time (which, even with the various 'short cuts' I devised, was still too much of a bore and a chore for me, esp. once PCs progressed beyond 5th level); and

(b.) slowness of the game 'in play' (combat especially just took too long for my tastes; and since some of my players were 'casual players', they often needed to be reminded of the rules during the session, and/or had to take time to figure things out).

But as you said, vive la difference.

As for the 'appeal of D&D' more generally (including pre-3e versions, C&C, etc.), I think it's mainly two factors:

(1.) Levels (as mentioned by many others already); and

(2.) Variety (D&D can support many different kinds of adventures and settings -- over the course of a single campaign).

 

[Xombie Master]

Dnd goes great lengths to allow all characters to be truly different. I guess in CoC there's not that much distinguishing you from other characters, your all meat to be slaughtered so to speak.

Players also like to have "exclusive abilities". That is, they like to have powers that other players don't have. In Unisystem or Call of Cthulhu, all players can have all skills and abilities. I guess players have to work harder to stand out in games like that. As a ZM for AFMBE I go to great lengths to let each individual character shine above the rest, if even for a moment. That let's them know that what they chose as a character is important in the whole scheme of things. In DnD not everyone can have cure light wounds so your importance is laid out for you when the need for magic arises.