Hey all,
So, who's running or playing in an extended campaign (no, I'm not going to define what I mean by that)? How's it going? Does your group generally do extended stuff? Any thoughts on what makes them work (or not) and helps keep them fresh?
We've just finished 527 in the Great Pendragon Campaign (the wiki is here (https://sites.google.com/site/pendragoncampaign/)), which is some of the best gaming of my entire gaming career. In part it's great because of the depth now of character history and player engagement. It's not of course open-ended, it's Arthurian myth and it'll end with the death of Arthur, but it's long enough that in many senses it might as well be.
Anyway, extended campaigns, who's in them and how's it going?
Envious. I've wanted to run the GPC since it came out.
I'm currently in the middle of the third year of a Cthulhu Myths campaign which started as a series of one-shots, but eventually grew into an ongoing thing. I'm currently leading the players up to the Stock Market Crash, which coincides with the final stages of a war between a cult devoted to Nyarlothotep and the Yezidic Cult of the Caananite god Moloch, both attempting to bring forth a physical incarnation of their deity, usher in the apocalypse, yadda yadda.
I've got an irregular Tribe 8 sandbox game that's been going on for two years.
Three sessions into the Enemy Within campaign for a new group. This will be maybe the fifth time I've gone through it. Thus, tweaking it to add in more Skaven and Fimir.
I count my Loudwater campaign as extended - http://frloudwater.blogspot.co.uk/ - started April 2011, it's fortnightly, it's had 46 sessions so far with #47 on Tuesday. It's intended as a 5-6 year 4e D&D campaign centred around the Forgotten Realms town of Loudwater, going from 1st level to 30th over something in the region of 120 3-4 hour game sessions. It's also intended to cover 30 game-world years, and hopefully some Pendragon style dynastic stuff will develop, though the 30-year period was chosen so that everyone can potentially keep their PCs throughout the campaign. It's a mix of regular D&D dungeon-delving with politics, nation-building, probably warfare, etc.
I'm finding that some of FR's usual flaws such as the uber-NPCs work really well for this game; I can GM for 30 levels in the same campaign world, and even same area, and not run out of threats. No need to move the campaign to the Planes etc as the PCs get to high level, though at least short jaunts outside the local area are expected. The impossibly high level NPCs who are so annoying in most games work fine here, because the players can reasonably expect to be their peers and superiors one day.
We can never seem to get a long-term campaign going. We only meet twice a month and I usually GameMaster. My attention drifts into other areas and I guess I suffer from gamer ADD. I always start with the best intentions, but I always seem to wander.
Quote from: TristramEvans;671866Envious. I've wanted to run the GPC since it came out.
I'm currently in the middle of the third year of a Cthulhu Myths campaign which started as a series of one-shots, but eventually grew into an ongoing thing. I'm currently leading the players up to the Stock Market Crash, which coincides with the final stages of a war between a cult devoted to Nyarlothotep and the Yezidic Cult of the Caananite god Moloch, both attempting to bring forth a physical incarnation of their deity, usher in the apocalypse, yadda yadda.
I've got an irregular Tribe 8 sandbox game that's been going on for two years.
Three sessions into the Enemy Within campaign for a new group. This will be maybe the fifth time I've gone through it. Thus, tweaking it to add in more Skaven and Fimir.
Two years of Tribe 8 makes me very jealous!
Twice I started a Tribe 8 game and never got past the third session.
Love that setting.
Quote from: Bill;671942Two years of Tribe 8 makes me very jealous!
Twice I started a Tribe 8 game and never got past the third session.
Love that setting
As do I, and it took me a long time to find players. I think the luck I've had in BC with certain games I could never find a group for before has to do with stumbling upon a large number of girls who role playing. My Tribe 8 group is 3 girls (gf being one), my Cthulhu group is 2 guys and 2 girls, and we're trying to convince the girl who GMs our Vampire game to join us in Warhammèr.
Alas, in BC, I've also been completely unable to find anyone for a supers game, which was always a constant for me up until this point.
Currently playing in a home-brew high fantasy world that's been going on for about 30 years, fairly steadily (if slowly). Started off as D&D (not the absence of an A at the front), converted to Hero maybe 20 years ago.
We've also got a Top Secret game that's been going on about as long, under a couple of gamemasters, in the same settings (if not the same characters). It's very on again/off again, though.
There is no secret formula to "keeping them fresh," I don't think. Pay attention, make note of things that cause reactions from the players (in character or not), and use it in future sessions.
One trick I learned from the GM who ran a 10+ year C&S campaign (and most of the Top Secret campaign) was eliciting playing contributiosn to the setting. He didn't keep a lot of records on anything. He'd make of point of making sure the players knew that if we wanted something to still matter in the future, we had to keep track of it. Relieved him of a lot of burden, and we're competitive enough between players that we keep each other honest. I've never really mastered that trick well.
He also had a tendency (which I have largely mastered) is to listen in on player discussion of what's going on (especially useful in Top Secret), and let them give me ideas. I find I can run Top Secret by coming up with some bizzarre event to throw down in front of the characters, without any idea of what's going on myself, and let them try to figure it out. Things are always "fresh" when you've got five or six other people tossing ideas out at random.
Been running my current campaign for about a year and a half - mostly online, some in person, and a con session. I've lost track of how many sessions, unfortunately - we try to play weekly, but sometimes we miss a week, and other times we double up. I do know we've had over seventy different characters and about sixty different players come through the campaign so far (it's an open table, essentially).
Of course, this is going by the earlier definition of campaign, ie "whenever I run this setting, with everything affecting everything else", as opposed to the later definition of "same group of players most of the time" etc.
I ran a 2.5 year "Apocalypse High school (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=24097)" game set in a far-future aftermath world. It was epic, and I really need to finish off that thread I was doing...
I'm currently running a "Ghost Stories" game that's sort-of-kind based on Scooby-Doo where the characters are insurance investigators for an AIG clone, but with actual ghosts. I've been running that since February, so it's only about 5 months old, but we've done a lot of good gaming.
I like longer games -- I think they give a better sense of character and world and give everything time to develop into something really excellent. I'll think about what helps make these things work, and I'd say that -- for me -- prep helps. I spend a decent amount of time each week preparing for the game, and that means our time is well spent and I'm on top of my game.
Cheers,
-E.
Quote from: D-503;671863Hey all,
So, who's running or playing in an extended campaign (no, I'm not going to define what I mean by that)? How's it going? Does your group generally do extended stuff? Any thoughts on what makes them work (or not) and helps keep them fresh?
We've just finished 527 in the Great Pendragon Campaign (the wiki is here (https://sites.google.com/site/pendragoncampaign/)), which is some of the best gaming of my entire gaming career. In part it's great because of the depth now of character history and player engagement. It's not of course open-ended, it's Arthurian myth and it'll end with the death of Arthur, but it's long enough that in many senses it might as well be.
Anyway, extended campaigns, who's in them and how's it going?
Reposted from earlier...
Well, I can speak to this to some level. My two live groups play every three and every four weeks. We're older now.
The Older of the two of them was a weekly session for about 6 years first, before it went into once a month mode. The younger one started bi-weekly and went to every three weeks after a few years
Sessions are normally 5-7 hours.
The youngsters, the Igbarian Campaign, started in 2003, just passed the 10 year mark. We're up to 114 sessions in that one.
The Older group, the Mistonians, started in 1995, and this one counts as my longest. As mentioned, they played a lot more early on, but family and corporate life are realities. Just short of 260 sessions in 18 years, as there have been a number of hiatuses. And they still have 2 of the original characters.
They play in the same campaign setting, though far apart. The Setting and system started in the end of 83. This is germane, since they use the same system, and it was developed and adjusted to accommodate this.
I don't want to pull too far away from the OP, but I had run a few longer class based games, and the power ramp up and issues made it less fun after a point. I also wanted to have a game where skills other than combat had more of an equal say. I also like grittier, deadlier games. Miston allows each player to control 1-2 characters, but they have lost some 11 PCs. Igbar has lost more like 20.
SO the first thing is that IO don't believe most systems have it in them to go long term. A granular, small growth, gritty game can go longer because of the slowness of growth.
Heavy social gaming makes it go longer, in that the PCs can't just adventure, they have to have a real reason to adventure, investing themselves in their setting. The GM must make sure the details of each session get woven into the setting notes, so that everything matters.
One of the players in my online fantasy campaign (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/the-chronicles-of-caledain) mentioned recently that it had been going for 5 years.
5 years?! It's never that long! I mean, ok, when the campaign began I'd not even started going out with the woman to whom I am now married, and we've gone through 3 separate 'editions' of the homebrew system I'm using but still, I mean...
Well, damn.
I'm running Rise of the Runelords, and had no idea how long it would be. I kinda thought we could knock it out over the summer. As it turns out, we may not finish chapter 2, and we've only missed one week.
My current regular campaigns are both still relatively young, they're each about 2 years old. The longest campaign I ever ran went for about 10 years. I've had quite a few go for 5 or 6.
RPGPundit
Well it is funny
A good amount of people have old settings
But old continuous campaigns is a different kettle of fish
But....often, old settings help make detailed, thus sometimes more compelling campaigns.
We find that campaigns only REALLY start to profoundly take on a life of their own, with deep immersion and very real characters and NPCs after at least a year or two of regular play.
My IRC StarCluster campaign just finished its tenth year. Heavily social, slow growth, but not gritty. I run it for six months over the winter and spring, once a week. It alternates with a Napoleonic Naval game over the summer and autumn which has been running for 7 years.
My face to face group does a lot of playtesting, so I can't run long term games with them, though occasionally we have a campaign we go back to for a short arc, sometimes repeatedly.
-clash
Quote from: RPGPundit;673164We find that campaigns only REALLY start to profoundly take on a life of their own, with deep immersion and very real characters and NPCs after at least a year or two of regular play.
Star that. People actually often ask me why I continue on the way I do. You get to these points where the thing really has weight and heft and the PCs think in setting terms as much as you do. Mine remind me of stuff in my setting.
Last Igbar session, the group was in their rooms in the Dockside of Igbar (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955502/Dockside%20area%20of%20Igbar), at the Sweet Retreat. I mentioned that the smell of eggs and poor quality Kafee wafted from the kitchen, and the group was all, "We don't eat breakfast here, we can get good Kafee at the Grounds of Dismissal! That's where we normally get breakfast."
That's when you have to look at keeping it and deepening it, when there is a collective
player idea and feel of your setting or campaign.
Quote from: RPGPundit;673164We find that campaigns only REALLY start to profoundly take on a life of their own, with deep immersion and very real characters and NPCs after at least a year or two of regular play.
Oh yes.
I really wonder why I run convention one-shots at all. Even the best one-shot sessions pale in comparison to a ho-hum campaign session.
(And this is what I don't get about story games. Some of those games create their setting, the characters, the adventure situation, and resolve it - all in one session.)
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;673360Oh yes.
I really wonder why I run convention one-shots at all. Even the best one-shot sessions pale in comparison to a ho-hum campaign session.
(And this is what I don't get about story games. Some of those games create their setting, the characters, the adventure situation, and resolve it - all in one session.)
I did a story game once. It was fun while it lasted, but afterwards I felt kinda empty. :idunno: I think they have an attraction the way 'empty calorie' junk food does, and I can see how that can create a craving for more. Long-term campaigns are more like meat & potatoes, often stodgy but more satisfying.
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;673360Oh yes.
I really wonder why I run convention one-shots at all. Even the best one-shot sessions pale in comparison to a ho-hum campaign session.
Probably from a lack of opportunity to get the longer-term stable group, I would think...
Quote from: D-503;671863Hey all,
So, who's running or playing in an extended campaign (no, I'm not going to define what I mean by that)? How's it going? Does your group generally do extended stuff? Any thoughts on what makes them work (or not) and helps keep them fresh?
All my campaigns are extended, meaning they last for a year or longer. I agree with people here, the depth of inmersion and the quality of roleplaying start to really "get there" when you have been playing for a year or so.
I am running Horror at the Orient Express, which is a part of my global Call of Cthulhu campaign, which has been running since 2009. We have played Masks, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and Orient Express, and a Delta Green campaign and they all are intertwined via PCs and other things. So I have a persistent Cthulhu world in which every Mythos game I play becomes part of the canon of that world. Overall, the campaign has had more than 25 players.
I keep them fresh because I attack the same world from several angles and mixing players from one sub-campaign to the other. There are lots of references, inside jokes, recurring NPCs and places...
I have just started (we have played 4 sessions this far) a Star Wars campaign that looks that is going to last for a loooooong time.
Quote from: RPGPundit;673541Probably from a lack of opportunity to get the longer-term stable group, I would think...
It's more lack of a regular game day. Today I am responsible for organising convention presences and I work at weekends, making scheduling for a regular, ongoing campaign very difficult.
For campaigns to reach that state of "flow" a regular meeting (at least every other week (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=670583#post670583)) is preferable, or even necessary.
Quote from: RPGPundit;673164We find that campaigns only REALLY start to profoundly take on a life of their own, with deep immersion and very real characters and NPCs after at least a year or two of regular play.
Interesting point, and I admit the GPC is bearing that out so far.
I wonder if this is why some in the indie crowd don't get immersion? Indie gaming/storygaming is strongly focused on the one-shot or miniseries approach to gaming (six sessions say). There are exceptions aimed at campaign play, but they don't seem to get played as much.
If depth emerges from extended play, which sounds credible to me, and all you play is short stuff you literally wouldn't see that depth emerging in your play.
That said, I'm reluctant to speak of others' experiences since I'm not qualified to. Still, it's an interesting point.
What gives me real pleasure is when players remember stuff I don't. In one adventure the PCs were trying to persuade a ghost knight that honour and loyalty had real value and that his ancient grievances while valid were not the whole truth. One player told a tale of an elderly knight who in a previous adventure had accompanied them for a while having lived an undistinguished life, and who had died while with them but had died feeling that he had at last even if only once lived as a knight should.
It was powerful partly because I'd forgotten that previous adventure. The player hadn't though. The old knight's death became part of the campaign, not just an incident in a one-shot.
Quote from: Imperator;673549All my campaigns are extended, meaning they last for a year or longer. I agree with people here, the depth of inmersion and the quality of roleplaying start to really "get there" when you have been playing for a year or so.
I am running Horror at the Orient Express, which is a part of my global Call of Cthulhu campaign, which has been running since 2009. We have played Masks, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and Orient Express, and a Delta Green campaign and they all are intertwined via PCs and other things. So I have a persistent Cthulhu world in which every Mythos game I play becomes part of the canon of that world. Overall, the campaign has had more than 25 players.
I keep them fresh because I attack the same world from several angles and mixing players from one sub-campaign to the other. There are lots of references, inside jokes, recurring NPCs and places...
I have just started (we have played 4 sessions this far) a Star Wars campaign that looks that is going to last for a loooooong time.
Which Star Wars ruleset? I've been thinking of running a short d6 adventure as a break when we end the conquest phase of the GPC (we usually take a short break between periods so I can recharge my Pendragon juice a little).
Quote from: D-503;671863So, who's running or playing in an extended campaign (no, I'm not going to define what I mean by that)? How's it going? Does your group generally do extended stuff? Any thoughts on what makes them work (or not) and helps keep them fresh?
Our RQ Pavis campaign started in 2005 and is still going strong. We play every Monday for 3 hours or so, barring illness and holidays.
People keep turning up and playing, but I am not sure why.
I tend to have plotlines that take years to mature, stories that engage with the PCs and their goals, scenarios that engage with plotlines and with PC goals and also scenarios that have nothing to do with the bigger picture. One thing I have found useful is to have little storylines that play out over the course of 5 or 6 sessions, to keep people interested and stop them from getting bored.
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;673555It's more lack of a regular game day.
I have that same challenge as well.
I started DMing an original homemade D&D 3rd edition campaign back in 2006, it's still going strong. I bet we've sat down around forty times.
Quote from: D-503;671863Hey all,
So, who's running or playing in an extended campaign (no, I'm not going to define what I mean by that)? How's it going? Does your group generally do extended stuff? Any thoughts on what makes them work (or not) and helps keep them fresh?
I do understand the "extended campaign" as a long running series of adventures spanning over years and/or decades of actual play. Yes, I run several extended 'campaigns' in today's parlance, and they are actually all linked, since it's all in fact the same campaign (as in, the same multiverse campaign milieu). (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=26999)
I do not understand what "extended stuff" means in this context, however. I can't answer the question.
Quote from: D-503;674508Which Star Wars ruleset? I've been thinking of running a short d6 adventure as a break when we end the conquest phase of the GPC (we usually take a short break between periods so I can recharge my Pendragon juice a little).
Our very own Jeff here sent me (as a present for Monica) an Star Wars Introductory Boxed Set and a Second Edition (Revised and Expanded) core book, so we're using that. It is a very nice update to the 1st edition, even if it's a bit more crunchy rules-wise. We're really enjoying it a lot.
Quote from: Imperator;675082Our very own Jeff here sent me (as a present for Monica) an Star Wars Introductory Boxed Set and a Second Edition (Revised and Expanded) core book, so we're using that. It is a very nice update to the 1st edition, even if it's a bit more crunchy rules-wise. We're really enjoying it a lot.
By the way, that is awesome. The fact it came from Jeff, I mean, and the fact you are enjoying it.
Quote from: LordVreeg;675145By the way, that is awesome. The fact it came from Jeff, I mean, and the fact you are enjoying it.
A gentleman and a scholar, he is.
Quote from: D-503;674505Interesting point, and I admit the GPC is bearing that out so far.
I wonder if this is why some in the indie crowd don't get immersion? Indie gaming/storygaming is strongly focused on the one-shot or miniseries approach to gaming (six sessions say). There are exceptions aimed at campaign play, but they don't seem to get played as much.
If depth emerges from extended play, which sounds credible to me, and all you play is short stuff you literally wouldn't see that depth emerging in your play.
I would guess that at least in the case of the major proponents of that movement, its the other way around: the fact that they reject Immersion means that they end up producing games that are mostly unplayable as long-term deep-immersion campaigns.
RPGPundit
I would also hazard that people get stuck telling the same "story" after a while, so changing up the group is necessary to keep it fresh.
It's like the guy who plays the same character, no matter what game you're playing (often using the same picture, even).
Quote from: Novastar;675593I would also hazard that people get stuck telling the same "story" after a while, so changing up the group is necessary to keep it fresh.
Campaigns that have emulative depth to them can go on for a very long time without treading over old ground.
RPGPundit