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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8882692" data-attributes="member: 29398">I also started in university, in the early 80s, and still play with some of those people today.  Oh sure, there was loads of player turnover in those days (which did serve to keep things fresh!) but a long-term core of about 5 of us eventually coalesced with three or four others on the periphery, drifting in and out as life allowed.  Since then there's been a bit more turnover - but nowhere near as much - as new players have joined, stayed in for whatever number of years, and left; and the long-term core has expanded to about ten, spread over several games and campaigns.Also, out of that initial college chaos another group hived off from ours in the mid 80s, that crew lasted about ten years and if anything had a larger core group than we did.  What killed it was that most of the core all moved away at once in the mid 90s.Through playing drop-in broomball for several seasons I learned of another long-lasting group who I think ran from the mid 80s until at least the late 90s.You might notice a theme here, and it held true for us as well: the whole thing nearly died in the late 90s.  What saved it was the other main DM in our crew abandoning his dying campaign and bringing his one remaining player into my also-dying campaign (I had two players left), which revitalized my game.  Then - and mirroring the greater community almost perfectly - within two years things turned around to the point where we had more players than we knew what to do with, a third DM started a 3e campaign (which itself lasted ten years), and away we went.  Currently, all three of us plus a fourth have campaigns on the go, two using our rules, a third using 5e (I think mostly as written) and a 4th using a mashup of our system and Dungeon World.The one thing that has to happen for a long campaign to work is the DM has to stay committed to it, and - as online play is a vastly inferior option - has to stay put in the same town or city.</blockquote>

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