Have you played/GMed in one?

I find the idea fascinating. Some have compared it to an MMORPG before MMORPGs existed.

It is frustrating hearing about a "lost" rule that you've been using and talking about for decades.

One thing I think they are getting wrong is the insistence that there is no story. Even Dave Arneson, back in the early days, used a system of event cards to create story elements. You would draw one of these cards at regular intervals to drive plot points. IMO this is crucial to making the world feel alive. For example, you might write a script of multiple cards adding one new card to the event deck every time another is drawn. These new cards will describe what happens if the previous card's situation is not acted upon. So, if there is a vampire plot, the first card might be rumors of missing villagers, the second card will be an entire village disappearing, and the third card will be an invading vampire army. As long as the players don't follow up on the leads, the situation will get worse and worse. And because these cards are drawn randomly from a deck of cards, the timeframe is unpredictable.

No, I have never player or GM'ed one. Even though I did start back in the 70's, we never had more than a dozen active players in the area at the same time. The most I ever had at the table was 12 and it was much more common to have half that number. Large groups (6-10) are manageable in OD&D so it never occurred to me to run separate groups.

Honestly, the Gygaxian campaign holds no appeal to me. The charm of D&D is having a group of friends sharing an adventure together. The "west marches" style of beginning and ending every session at the home-base is equally unappealing. These days a gaming session is only three hours long. As a player, I don't want to waste much of that time trudging back and forth to an adventure site that we will visit over the course of several sessions. As a DM, I don't want to adjudicate what will happen at an adventure site during each of the week-long periods between sessions.

I did make one attempt to join such a campaign on Roll20 last year. But the process involved too much mechanical meta-gaming on Discord to make things happen, and I realized that it would potentially involve different players and even different DM's each session. It seemed like an old-school version of Adventure League. I dropped before my first session. The good news is that if you like that sort of gaming, you can find it online. And it's always good to see people exploring new ways to play, even if (especially if) they are actually not new at all.

Quote from: Vidgrip on April 21, 2022, 10:19:35 AM
No, I have never player or GM'ed one. Even though I did start back in the 70's, we never had more than a dozen active players in the area at the same time. The most I ever had at the table was 12 and it was much more common to have half that number. Large groups (6-10) are manageable in OD&D so it never occurred to me to run separate groups.

Hm, I didn't get out of any of this that a "Gygaxian Campaign" necessitates either very large groups, nor multiple groups. It accommodates them, yes, but it's not essential to running this type of game as I understand it.

To the OP: yep, this is how we played in the 70's and 80's in our group(s), and is the only sort of game I've ever DM'd, save one. As the video notes, groups in this sort of game tend to grow over time (whereas the opposite is more likely to happen in what he calls "episodic" games, in my experience).

I've dabbled in the Gygaxian campaign, or maybe "edged" into it is a better expression.  However, for various non-gaming reasons, I've never really had the option to run a game on the same night every week, let alone multiple nights.  For longer, less frequent sessions, I've found other styles to work better.  This is me making the most of what is possible rather than my first choice on how to do it.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 21, 2022, 09:20:20 AM
It is frustrating hearing about a "lost" rule that you've been using and talking about for decades.

One thing I think they are getting wrong is the insistence that there is no story. Even Dave Arneson, back in the early days, used a system of event cards to create story elements. You would draw one of these cards at regular intervals to drive plot points. IMO this is crucial to making the world feel alive. For example, you might write a script of multiple cards adding one new card to the event deck every time another is drawn. These new cards will describe what happens if the previous card's situation is not acted upon. So, if there is a vampire plot, the first card might be rumors of missing villagers, the second card will be an entire village disappearing, and the third card will be an invading vampire army. As long as the players don't follow up on the leads, the situation will get worse and worse. And because these cards are drawn randomly from a deck of cards, the timeframe is unpredictable.

That sounds like an amazing mechanic. Doesn't Masterbook do something like that? Honestly, "story" is overrated. Improv theatre (which is basically what RPGs are most analogous to) is going to produce very different results from a single person writing a script. Most adventures are very linear for cost reasons (writing it as a CYOA would result in exponentially ballooning page count) and this ignores the strength of RPG stories to be devised on the fly by the GM. Event cards sound like a decent compromise between linear adventures and GMs making things up on the fly. You could devise potentially infinite subplots into sellable card packs and then mix-and-match them to produce unpredictable stories.

We have rediscovered this long forgotten rule to D&D gaming, rolling dice!  Edit: After 6th/7th edition goes full story telling with no dice.

My early campaigns were a lot like this, but I've been lazy the last decade or more and I end up running things from a module and the entire style and philosophy has changed. I miss the older days but have a really hard time selling it to modern day players.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 21, 2022, 09:20:20 AM
It is frustrating hearing about a "lost" rule that you've been using and talking about for decades.

I understand.
From the other side, I had never heard of such a thing until it was "rediscovered".

QuoteOne thing I think they are getting wrong is the insistence that there is no story. Even Dave Arneson, back in the early days, used a system of event cards to create story elements. You would draw one of these cards at regular intervals to drive plot points. IMO this is crucial to making the world feel alive. For example, you might write a script of multiple cards adding one new card to the event deck every time another is drawn. These new cards will describe what happens if the previous card's situation is not acted upon. So, if there is a vampire plot, the first card might be rumors of missing villagers, the second card will be an entire village disappearing, and the third card will be an invading vampire army. As long as the players don't follow up on the leads, the situation will get worse and worse. And because these cards are drawn randomly from a deck of cards, the timeframe is unpredictable.

I agree. it's just a different way of presenting the world and it's situations to the players.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 21, 2022, 01:52:25 AM
Have you played/GMed in one?

I find the idea fascinating. Some have compared it to an MMORPG before MMORPGs existed.

No, however I am very interested. If you are interested in accounts of how those kinds of games are run you can look at this video



this thread

https://twitter.com/DanielJWrites/status/1491779291411066885

And this blog. Look for posts about Trollopolus

https://jeffro.wordpress.com/2022/04/08/what-is-the-brosr/

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 21, 2022, 09:20:20 AM
It is frustrating hearing about a "lost" rule that you've been using and talking about for decades.

One thing I think they are getting wrong is the insistence that there is no story. Even Dave Arneson, back in the early days, used a system of event cards to create story elements. You would draw one of these cards at regular intervals to drive plot points. IMO this is crucial to making the world feel alive. For example, you might write a script of multiple cards adding one new card to the event deck every time another is drawn. These new cards will describe what happens if the previous card's situation is not acted upon. So, if there is a vampire plot, the first card might be rumors of missing villagers, the second card will be an entire village disappearing, and the third card will be an invading vampire army. As long as the players don't follow up on the leads, the situation will get worse and worse. And because these cards are drawn randomly from a deck of cards, the timeframe is unpredictable.

What makes the Gygaxian 1:1 campaigns come alive is the Patron players and their schemes. Instead of the GM coming up with a grand narrative a lot of that ends up happening as a by-product of patron players manipulating players and each other. Various wars and so on. And the beauty of it is it's all dynamic. Look at the Trollopolus campaign. It actually explains exactly how to make this sort of thing interesting.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 21, 2022, 09:20:20 AM
It is frustrating hearing about a "lost" rule that you've been using and talking about for decades.

One thing I think they are getting wrong is the insistence that there is no story. Even Dave Arneson, back in the early days, used a system of event cards to create story elements. You would draw one of these cards at regular intervals to drive plot points. IMO this is crucial to making the world feel alive. For example, you might write a script of multiple cards adding one new card to the event deck every time another is drawn. These new cards will describe what happens if the previous card's situation is not acted upon. So, if there is a vampire plot, the first card might be rumors of missing villagers, the second card will be an entire village disappearing, and the third card will be an invading vampire army. As long as the players don't follow up on the leads, the situation will get worse and worse. And because these cards are drawn randomly from a deck of cards, the timeframe is unpredictable.

Despite the name, that's still not the kind of thing a lot of us mean by "story" in these debates. It's just a set of possible events that can happen, along with their consequences. That's fully compatible with a simulationist/emulationist approach, which is to present  a set of circumstances to the players and let them do what they want with it, with logical consequences for their actions.

What we mean my story is when the DM has a particular plot planned out and will guide -- whether gently or not -- the PCs toward its major plot points and conclusion.

I think a true gygaxian or west marches campaign can only happen when you've got excessive numbers of players and few DMs. Sometime in the 80s that dynamic changed and we got different groups each with a DM. That started the sort of campaigns Wizards is exploiting now, with the same group of characters adventuring together until high level of the campaign explodes.

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 24, 2022, 12:52:51 AMI think a true gygaxian or west marches campaign can only happen when you've got excessive numbers of players and few DMs.

I don't think this is really the case. Neither 1:1 time nor open table gaming require a large number of players. I've had great success with an open table game with just a normal amount of players. The only thing that really needs a large player base it is having player patrons, but this is really just a supplementary aspect of the game. Plus, having player patrons requires high level characters which requires that the game has been ongoing for a long time.

So the best bet is to just start with the players you have and see what happens. If it grows great, if not then will still be fun. And having multiple DMs will really only be a need if your campaign is massive as it is a sub-optimal choice. Better to have multiple DMs each running their own campaigns.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 24, 2022, 09:37:06 PM

Quote from: Ruprecht on April 24, 2022, 12:52:51 AMI think a true gygaxian or west marches campaign can only happen when you've got excessive numbers of players and few DMs.

I don't think this is really the case. Neither 1:1 time nor open table gaming require a large number of players. I've had great success with an open table game with just a normal amount of players. The only thing that really needs a large player base it is having player patrons, but this is really just a supplementary aspect of the game. Plus, having player patrons requires high level characters which requires that the game has been ongoing for a long time.

So the best bet is to just start with the players you have and see what happens. If it grows great, if not then will still be fun. And having multiple DMs will really only be a need if your campaign is massive as it is a sub-optimal choice. Better to have multiple DMs each running their own campaigns.

Well, you as the DM could just give a few players control of patron characters, letting them make decisions for the NPCs.