I've run many campaigns that have gone for 6-10 YEARS.  

So here's my tips about how to manage to run a really long and exciting campaign!


[video=youtube_share;RPEGfNUFjMc]https://youtu.be/RPEGfNUFjMc[/youtube]

I liked the bit about actual backstory being what you experienced during earlier play in a long-term campaign. Sadly, it's not for those of us who like keep changing games.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081316I liked the bit about actual backstory being what you experienced during earlier play in a long-term campaign. Sadly, it's not for those of us who like keep changing games.

Well, run two different groups (or the same group doing two things at the same time): One that is a long-term campaign, and the other that is a rotating series of short-term games.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1081316I liked the bit about actual backstory being what you experienced during earlier play in a long-term campaign. Sadly, it's not for those of us who like keep changing games.

Out of curiosity how much backstory do your payers write on average?

I've found that for me, nothing longer than a paragraph, just enough to hit some high points. If is is a game where family and connections play a great part, a flow/genealogy style chart of a half to single page is more than enough to note the real connections.

I have found using flow charts to track NPC's, highlight various connections and relationships to PCs, to be a great way to keep track of things in a campaign of any length.

And Pundit is right in not wanting to try and fill in every detail of the campaign world. In my current Star Wars campaign some of the most hilarious moments has come from on the fly improvisations of NPC's. But, I am far more comfortable 'improvising' as a GM, when I have an underlying structure to fall back on. Especially when PC's do the unexpected and you have to go with the flow.

Indeed in one of the longest games that I've been in, and is currently running, my character has no backstory. He's not the stereotypical orphan or anything. I just didn't write anything. A lot of the recent games before that I made up detailed backstories, but the game folded for one reason or another. i just got frustrated with what i felt was spending more time creating backstory than getting to play the character that I just didn't bother this time. Now this game is one of the longer and more involved ones I've played. Go figure.

Quote from: Jaeger;1081927Out of curiosity how much backstory do your payers write on average?

On average? None. The only time I experienced written backstory in recent years was in a Spirit of the Century (FATE) game I participated in as a player. Session 0 was collaborative background writing, of course. Other than that, background is generally verbally agreed upon with the GM, giving him plot hooks. It's more a rough outline where the character has been before and what he has done.

Example (and none of this has been written down): My character in ASOIAF used to be a famous, prize-winning archer as a young man and later served with the Second Sons in Essos for some time (from where he returned with his Arakh). Since he was a street urchin before being "discovered", he is now in charge of not only the house's elite archer regiment but also a small detachment of rag-tag criminals. He now got the shakes though, so starts to decline as an archer but is a very capable commander and brilliant strategist nonetheless. He's got a loving wife and children to which he is faithful while at home but not on journeys (hey, it's game of thrones).

That much is enough for the GM to drop plot hooks or NPCs (former ally/adversary from Essos anyone?). Anything else can be further elaborated in play as the campaign moves on - either by me or by the GM. As an example, our GM last week asked us to each detail a NPC of our house - I chose a very old, one-legged knight who served with me in Essos but who just couldn't stop going into battle himself until he got severely wounded.

Also goes to show that the distinction between trad games and story games isn't clear cut at all times.

Quote from: Jaeger;1081927And Pundit is right in not wanting to try and fill in every detail of the campaign world. In my current Star Wars campaign some of the most hilarious moments has come from on the fly improvisations of NPC's. But, I am far more comfortable 'improvising' as a GM, when I have an underlying structure to fall back on. Especially when PC's do the unexpected and you have to go with the flow.

Well, as a GM, I like a mix between prepared content and improvised content myself. Prepared content has many advantages but is always too limited in scope.