Why do so many campaigns never finish? Genuinely curious what others think

[Lanefan]

For me, that has nothing to do with agency. Spending 3 sessions (twenty HOURS?!? of game play) as a rabbit would be so mind numbingly boring that I would very likely be one of the ones dropping out of the game. Cool idea that would get old REALLY quick.

But, yeah, if you're basically never giving XP, then sure, I guess you can play hundreds of sessions without characters leveling up.

The question then becomes, would this in itself be a bad thing?

What if you started the characters at a certain halfway-competent but still mortal level (say, 6th-ish in 1e or 8th-ish in 5e) and said up front "that's it, there's no advancement in this game, we're instead playing for character, story, and fun". Provided the players can shake things up by retiring one character and bringing in another, that could last for ages with the right group and an engaging setting and-or long-term story or stories (which don't all have to come from the DM).

 

[Warpiglet-7]

In my experience, people get bored.

In our youth when we could play frequently, someone would say I would like to play X…usually after things had been stagnant a
While.

Maybe a few weeks break in time and then “let’s play evil guys/good guys/theives/holy rollers” whatever. Someone usually would have a character idea they wanted to try.

 

[Lanefan]

That's just a campaign of Theseus.

The New York Yankees have existed since 1913 (as the Yankees, they were some other name before then). They've turned over their entire player lineup who knows how many times in the 113 years since, never mind ownership and management turnover, and yet they're still very identifiable as the Yankees.

That's how I see a big sprawling campaign. Individual pieces come and go but the underlying identity of the whole remains.

 

[GrimCo]

I would argue that sports club is more like a setting, but individual seasons with that seasons roster are campaigns. Never watched baseball. But in football analogy, AC Milan is setting. The Invicibles (91-96 under Capello) was campaign, with legendary defensive party of Maldini, Baresi, Costacurta and Tassotti and their epic confrontation and win in 94 CL finals over Cruyff's Barcelona was climax of that campaign. New generation came, new party, new rivalries, new campaigns, but same setting.

 

[The Sigil]

It's been said previously, but... trying to schedule something with multiple adults is nigh impossible.

 

[payn]

It's been said previously, but... trying to schedule something with multiple adults is nigh impossible.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Something I don't get about these sprawling multi-year campaigns when using D&D (any edition).

How are the PC's not like 100th level?

I was part of a long running campaign that started in AD&D, converted to 2Ed, and fizzled out during the 3Ed PC conversion process.* In that era, there weren’t really good rules on advancing beyond the tables, especially in the context of nonhumans having class level maximums. (Those could be exceeded, but only at great expense.)

So we played our high-level PCs in the campaign with XP getting awarded only on occasion. We also ran mid- and low-level games set in the same campaign world, with the higher level PCs functioning as NPCs in those sessions.

And TBH, it wasn’t an issue. We were basically fantasy superheroes fighting divine avatars in some of the adventures, and more PC levels wouldn’t have really added to the fun. They might have actually reduced it.



* The 3Ed Conversion Guide Booklet was a great help, but there were simply certain PCs that you couldn’t directly translate into 3Ed. Major character revisions would be needed. We settled on modeling PC capabilities rather than precise duplication of character class & level.