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

[payn]

Right, I forgot about that change. But looking at the hardbacks, it seems they're on par with the 3-installment APs in scale – most are 1-10, though there's the occasional 11-20 and even some weird outliers like 5-14.

Yeap, the downside is I might only want 1 of the 3 installments but I cant buy that. I need to drop a stack on a fat chunk, which I might not want to run much of.

 

[GrimCo]

@payn

Personally, i'm more for miniseries (2-6 ep/sessions) or limited run series approach (8-12 ep/sessions). Clear begging, middle, end, single "quest" with definite ending, succeed or fail, story ends.

I ran "procedural" style game with my other group with 7 players. It worked great for almost 2 years. Every week from September till Christmas and then from mid January till end of July, i would tell people week in advance what day session is, time was always 18-22 with hard cut off at 22:30, my place, we played if at least 2 players could play. Only time all 7 of them were present were sessions 0 and 1. After that, it was usually 4 players, lowest was 3+me, highest 5+me. We stopped cause COVID started and just never picked it up again.

 

[payn]

@payn

Personally, i'm more for miniseries (2-6 ep/sessions) or limited run series approach (8-12 ep/sessions). Clear begging, middle, end, single "quest" with definite ending, succeed or fail, story ends.

I like one shots a lot. Particularly with things like Free League has been tossing out. My version of the limited series is more like 12-24 sessions or double what you been doing.

I ran "procedural" style game with my other group with 7 players. It worked great for almost 2 years. Every week from September till Christmas and then from mid January till end of July, i would tell people week in advance what day session is, time was always 18-22 with hard cut off at 22:30, my place, we played if at least 2 players could play. Only time all 7 of them were present were sessions 0 and 1. After that, it was usually 4 players, lowest was 3+me, highest 5+me. We stopped cause COVID started and just never picked it up again.

I dont like the episodic procedural for television or RPG. Even when I do sandboxes, I usually have a meta goal and try and wrap them up in 12-24 sessions. YMMV.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

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?

If you play, say, 40 sessions/year (weekly sessions planned with 12 weeks off per year, so, like 3/month) of 4 hour sessions, that's 160 hours of play per year. Times 10 years, that's 1600 play hours. If the PC's are 16th level, that means that the characters are leveling up once ever 100 (?!?!) hours of game play? Like one level up ever six months of play? Even if you're concurrently running 3 characters, that's still only leveling up every 33 hours of play.

My players would strangle me if I tried to slow things down to that much of a crawl. Eight or ten sessions to get from level 1 to level 2? And that's the fastest pace? Yikes. How do people do it?

 

[Staffan]

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?

If you play, say, 40 sessions/year (weekly sessions planned with 12 weeks off per year, so, like 3/month) of 4 hour sessions, that's 160 hours of play per year. Times 10 years, that's 1600 play hours. If the PC's are 16th level, that means that the characters are leveling up once ever 100 (?!?!) hours of game play? Like one level up ever six months of play? Even if you're concurrently running 3 characters, that's still only leveling up every 33 hours of play.

My players would strangle me if I tried to slow things down to that much of a crawl. Eight or ten sessions to get from level 1 to level 2? And that's the fastest pace? Yikes. How do people do it?

I think there's a difference in people's ideas about what a campaign is.

The currently prevailing idea is that a campaign is a specific "story" (even if that story in some cases is mostly apparent in hindsight) featuring a mostly static set of characters. But I think those with super-long campaigns see the campaign as the world itself – more of an eternal soap opera. Characters come and go – some retire, and others semi-retire into positions where they don't do much adventuring anymore, and those characters are replaced by others. So any given character probably doesn't have a huge number of hours under their belt, even if the campaign as a whole does.

Also, back in AD&D leveling up was a lot slower, particularly at high levels. I think I've seen a reference to the expected pace being hitting 9th level ("Name level", where you start considering building a keep/temple/tower/guild) after about a year of regular play, and the pace after that slowing down to about a level per year – partially because of high XP costs, and partially because once you settle down you're going to be doing a lot less of the kind of activities that give you XP.

 

[AstroArtificer]

Or you never actually date...I mean, play RPGs...you just lurk on internet forums and complain about your lack of dates...I mean games.

By myself and ... ready to play an elf?

 

[AstroArtificer]

Damn, funny how we both came up with archetype-based solutions! This is really good. Yes, I completely agree that setting player and GM expectations through archetypes is the way to go.

I did it through creating my own game system (One of Us Will Die) so it's definitely different. On my side, it was a little more selfish because I made it a narrative heavy game, which means my players are filltered to the sort that enjoy that sort of gameplay. As a GM, I personally prefer playing with Bards and Clerics so I made the system cater to them, but that's where I stopped with playstyle.

The next level of level of categorization, I took was asking the question as to what story these players wanted to tell with their characters, so I created the game's character classification system based, not on the abilities a certain character had, but on the sort of story the players wanted to tell.

Each archetype had it's own playbook, and was basically a template based on how these archetypes play out in fiction. The example below is The Lover, which a player would choose if they wanted to tell any kind of love story.

View attachment 431080

There are also other character archetypes such as The Scorned (which tells a revenge arc), The Child (which tells a coming of age arc), The Sinner (which tells a redemption arc, or alternatively a villain arc) and the list goes on. I came up with twenty archetypes.

The aim of this system was to set expectations for both the GM and the player. The GM would know precisely what sort of tale the player is trying to tell, so a good one would know exactly how to challenge them, surprise them, reward them, and most importantly how to torture the heck out of them. The player would also be given absolute shameless freedom to play that role because the system rewards players for playing into their archetypes through dramatic moments. For example, someone I know who was often seen as annoying for talking so much about oppressive systems so much during D&D games picked up The Rebel and did the same. It felt more natural in this setting because many of the Rebel's story milestones (which are how the player characters advance) involve them speaking out against the unfair oppressive system this character lives in. I no longer felt like I had no idea what to do with this player because now that I know exactly what he wants, all I need to do is constantly validate his character through constant oppression. We didn't need to have a long discussion. He just picked up a playbook, and we were on the same page.

It became a game where players advance by being as theatrical and dramatic as they want to be. On top of that, I added a social deduction mechanic (the game's main gimmik) where the players must constantly observe each other because one of them secretly knows their character is going to die at the end of the story. The object of the game is to figure out exactly who it is.

I then added a campaign mode that has a fixed ending (because each campaign and one-shot ends with the tragic death of one of the characters) and a progression system based on story milestones unique to each archetype. Everyone gets to play the way they want to, and because it's a social deduction game, the players are encouraged to pay a lot of attention to one another. It's what keeps them coming back.

Now when I run games, I use this system, and my players are filtered down to my favorite kinds of players, and expectations are set through their choice of playbook. It was what FINALLY got me a group that would sit through the entire Curse of Strahd campaign with me, and a few of them even admitted it was one of the best RPG experiences they've had.

The kickstarter page has more info. We're currently in pre-launch. You can see it here. I really like how we both had similar ideas but completely different solutions.

I really love the art! It's crazily evocative. But you really hit on a hidden insight there. It kinda reminds me of Tristan Fishel's Proactive RPG, where they ask for character motivations. If you know their short and long-term arcs, you know what "story" to give. It seems like your game system codifies that. You're right in that players and GMs need to set expectations in order to make a good game together. Identities are a good way of going about that. Will def be keeping my eye out for your kickstarter!

 

[AstroArtificer]

I think its a nice framework and love the closing "Not find good players, but find compatible ones" is really a great goal. I also appreciate that you call out dimensions of play style instead of specific definitions.

I think it would be a good read for most players to get them thinking in a meta sense of their RPG enthusiasm. Not quite understanding why they are at the table or what they are searching for is a real problem. However, playing to find out is also rewarding in of itself. Sometimes you can only figure it out by doing. Unfortunately, as we have seen in this thread, it often comes at the expense of others.

Which is why I dont mind short experiences with strangers at all. I enjoy seeing folks figuring things out. The long-term campaign though, is frustrating for someone like myself who doesnt enjoy the philosophy of episodic play in perpetuity.

Thanks for giving it a read. I definitely appreciate it. This is gonna sound really heady, but most people never seem to think about why they like things. They never step back and think, "Why is it that this gives me so much pleasure?". I have blindness to myself at times, so I totally get why most people would, too.

I do like my one-shots as well. All things are good in moderation. But when it stretches out into an infinitely long campaign, then yeah my patience begins to get stretched

 

[AstroArtificer]

Definitely learned a lot from everybody here, just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has gotten this far, or just joining in. This is a wild conversation, even from this alone, I can tell how varied everyone's GMing/Player playstyle is. That's part of the reason why I went down this rabbit hole. "I want to play a TTRPG" means something different to everybody. We have folks who like sandbox games, episodic, long form, shortform, all of the above (and the kitchen sink).

I don't think there is a silver bullet for anything, much less GM burnout, since it is varied. But I do like what @payn said. It's always worth a conversation. Even with friends you've been playing around with for a while, it's good to check in and see how they are enjoying the campaign. I'm bad at reading people, so I get surprised by what I learn with this framework. But yet again, really love the conversation that's happening here

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

I think there's a difference in people's ideas about what a campaign is.

The currently prevailing idea is that a campaign is a specific "story" (even if that story in some cases is mostly apparent in hindsight) featuring a mostly static set of characters. But I think those with super-long campaigns see the campaign as the world itself – more of an eternal soap opera. Characters come and go – some retire, and others semi-retire into positions where they don't do much adventuring anymore, and those characters are replaced by others. So any given character probably doesn't have a huge number of hours under their belt, even if the campaign as a whole does.

Also, back in AD&D leveling up was a lot slower, particularly at high levels. I think I've seen a reference to the expected pace being hitting 9th level ("Name level", where you start considering building a keep/temple/tower/guild) after about a year of regular play, and the pace after that slowing down to about a level per year – partially because of high XP costs, and partially because once you settle down you're going to be doing a lot less of the kind of activities that give you XP.

I suppose. If you consider "campaign" to be the setting, where the players are playing, what I would consider to be multiple separate campaigns, then sure. But, I do get the sense that people don't start back at 1st level every eight or fifteen months of play for ten years. But, yeah, I think that you are right and people are working from very, very different definitions of what a campaign consists of .

To me, if you've replaced every PC and every player, that's not the same campaign. That last campaign ended when the last player left, if not considerably earlier.