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

[plecostomus]

The DM did burn out in 2021 so there was a ~1.5-year break.
Then we picked back up and, well, this is our progress. We just added a new player. He will be introducing his character on Saturday.
The "2-" is because this is Arc 2 of the campaign. There was also an Arc 1.

The DM believes we will be finishing Arc 2 by August.
He also believed our latest quest would last 4 sessions. It lasted 9, and would have lasted more except we "broke the scenario".

Life is good in the neverending campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

View attachment 431467

The DM did burn out in 2021 so there was a ~1.5-year break.
Then we picked back up and, well, this is our progress. We just added a new player. He will be introducing his character on Saturday.
The "2-" is because this is Arc 2 of the campaign. There was also an Arc 1.

The DM believes we will be finishing Arc 2 by August.
He also believed our latest quest would last 4 sessions. It lasted 9, and would have lasted more except we "broke the scenario".

Life is good in the neverending campaign.

What's the "2-0.5" mean? I'm guessing the other numbers after the hyphen are session numbers, but 0.5 doesn't make sense for that.

I've long since given up guessing how many sessions a given adventure or mission or quest might take. The ones I think they'll get done in no time sometimes take ages while the ones I think will bog them down for many sessions they sometimes find ways of blowing through in a hurry.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Pretty every campaign I start does something different though. And it’s pretty rare that the something is minor.

Most recently, I tried GMing a sandbox campaign. It fizzled due to lack of interest from both my players and me.

Most of mine don't fish that far afield; they're usually just exploring a new (but not radically alien) system or dipping into subgenres people are known to like or at least tolerate.

 

[plecostomus]

What's the "2-0.5" mean? I'm guessing the other numbers after the hyphen are session numbers, but 0.5 doesn't make sense for that.

I've long since given up guessing how many sessions a given adventure or mission or quest might take. The ones I think they'll get done in no time sometimes take ages while the ones I think will bog them down for many sessions they sometimes find ways of blowing through in a hurry.

It was a second Session Zero so we could discuss expectations as the campaign resumed.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If you-as-GM weren't interested in it then it never had a chance.

GM disinterest very quickly becomes all too obvious to the players, followed inevitably by feelings of "if the GM doesn't care, why should I?"; and down the drain the campaign goes.

This is a category fallacy. If anything, the opposite happened. I was excited to create and play the game, but lack of interest from some of the players wore down my interest.

 

[dragoner]

Campaigns do not have to finish, it is not a requirement, a lot just go on until fading away.