Hi folks! Finally, a I found something worthwhile to talk about, so the newcomer does not have to stumble into any old thread and shout "I disagree", which always struck me as a particularly poor way of introduction.

I just read the new article on Gnome Stew, "No More Average Campaigns" and it got me thinking. Now, the article isn't the greatest, but I started to wonder, what exactly makes a campaign great? What can be done to engage players at the table and between sessions?

I had some average or even below average campaigns myself of last and while fun can certainly be had, I wonder, what can be done to really kick of an awesome campaign.

What are your thoughts on this? What makes a great campaign and what have your done or do you plan to do to ensure, the campaign is as awesome as can be?

Get players on the same page, either by finding the right players or cultivating new ones into an excited and engaged mode. That's been the biggest one for me. Wrong energy with recalcitrant people and not much of anything is gonna work.

Part of the problem is often I or others want to play something else and so the table is out of synch. So have the table talk and get people informed about what's the game about and whether they'd care. Enthusiasm is infectious, as is boredom. Don't wanna be there, or wanna play something else instead, don't play at that table. No one likes someone pissing on their cereal.

Getting feedback from some people is a pain in the ass and sometimes you'll just have to read them. And others won't have the guts to express what they want, that they really don't want to play that way, or whatever, but they feel obliged to be part of the group. To which they then bring on the apathetic and the suck. Sadly I wish gamers were a more sociably expressive lot, but learning how to be direct and then read the winds becomes very important.

I have found that three things are key:

A) a lot of sympatico among the players and the GM. All the players grok what the campaign is "about" and work toward it rather than fight against it. You're working in a genre everyone understands and likes, and all the players are invested in their characters.

B) Characters have clear goals that overlap with and involve each other, and some conflict between characters is present, although it doesn't have to be so much that they can only be resolved with open hostility.

C) a great ending. A campaign that winds up with a great ending will be remembered far longer than one that is interupted or just peters out. A great ending depends heavily on player character goals and resolving their issues. I don't care too much for saving the world scenarios unless it almost becomes a sideline to the player character goals.

first, grats on a good first post!

my campaigns never had an ending--adventures do, and "story arcs" do, but the campaign is a continuing world, IME.  it really wouldn't end until a TPK comes about. . . and even then, the new PCs can pick up where the deceased left off.

besides what others have said, there needs to be a sense of continuity.  what PCs have done (or failed to do) in the past affects the future.  recurring NPCs and groups are helpful, too.

Quote from: butscharoni;524822Finally, a I found something worthwhile to talk about, so the newcomer does not have to stumble into any old thread and shout "I disagree", which always struck me as a particularly poor way of introduction.

I disagree!

Quote from: butscharoni;524822I just read the new article on Gnome Stew, "No More Average Campaigns" and it got me thinking. Now, the article isn't the greatest . . .

. . . making it par for the course at Gnome Stew, but I digress . . .

Quote from: butscharoni;524822. . . but I started to wonder, what exactly makes a campaign great?

Hell if I know.

I just do what I do, and the players keep coming back. That's really all the thought I give it.

The problem with these type of question is that it is similar to asking what is a great novel, or what is a great movie? How you build a great sports team? And just as hard to answer.


Doesn't mean discussion is useless for this type of topic. There are lot of ways one can make a campaign fail and so they should be avoided. And discussion of specific techniques is always useful provided that not only the technique is discussed but also why it was used in the first place.

A great campaign is a matter of luck largely depending on the personalities of the players and skills of the referee. You need solid techniques to have the possibility of a great campaign. A good grasp of various genres helps as a wellspring for ideas. As well as the referee honing his interpersonal skills to recognize which techniques work for this specific group of players.

Nah, great campaigns are all alike; every crappy campaign is crappy in its own way.

The Players and the GM make the campaign great. Or they break it. Surprisingly, there are very few mediocre campaigns. They are usually either very good or very bad. The bad ones, and the mediocre ones drive away gamers, especially the newer players.

Let the Cheetoist mantra resonate through the ages, for it is true.

People. Snacks. Setting. System.

(mostly people, IME)

Quote from: GameDaddy;524847The Players and the GM make the campaign great. Or they break it. Surprisingly, there are very few mediocre campaigns. They are usually either very good or very bad. The bad ones, and the mediocre ones drive away gamers, especially the newer players.

I'd disagree. I see a lot of mediocre campaigns, I've even run some. By that I mean campaigns that, despite the occasional good moment overall feel very by the numbers and rely more on the people (as in out of game socialising) and snacks to make the evening worthwhile than the game itself. And I guess there is always the hope that next session might better.

The disagreement however might come down to what we call "a campaign". My experience of campaign play, over many years a different groups, is exclusively of shorter campaign that last a few months, generally 6 -12 sessions. After that normally change GM and system and play something else
for a while. I imagine the dynamics of a group with one primary GM and campaigns that last for years is different, I've just never experienced it.

But to answer the OP, I'm not entirely sure. Different people get hooked in by different things. Great set of characters that player's are really enthusiastic about and have good chemistry between each other is probably the most important thing. The GM can provide a competent backdrop for the campaign, but it's the player characters that make it great.

A great campaign needs a GM excited by the campaign, and players excited by and engaged by the campaign.

I think mediocre campaigns are fairly common, as are mostly-good-but-flawed campaigns, and campaigns that start good but decay over time - most common IME when there is a cool intro scenario but mediocre follow-through.  I had a GM  who ran Sellswords of Punjar, a fun 4e adventure, but the campaign declined rapidly when he started on the sequel, Scions of Punjar. I ran a 3e D&D/BECMI D&D mashup campaign that worked great when I was running actual Basic adventures (Rahasia & Horror on the Hill) declined a bit when I started on converted C&C DCC adventures (Palace of Shadows, The Slithering Overlord), suffered in the intended campaign climax X5 Temple of Death, and terminated abruptly when I tried to run CM5 Where Chaos Reigns. Conversely my 4e D&D Vault of Larin Karr campaign ran well for many sessions  but eventually petered out, I had lost interest and was down to 3 players, and there was some unhelpful player dynamics - they never actually looked for the Vault.

Losing too many players can easily kill a campaign's momentum, depending on its design.  So can time breaks - but then so can DM burnout.

To crush your players, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their virtual girlfriends.

A campaign's kick off is a delicate thing, and certainly absolutely vital to have your players stick with the campaigns for at least a couple of sessions. However, what makes a campaign great has a lot more (perhaps: all) to do with what happens after the kick off, i.e. after the early sessions. To me the most important things here are:

1 - right amount of prep: neither too little (this tends to stall the flow of the game) nor too much (this tends to box in the players too much, not giving them enough freedom to interact with the campaign [world]). There's no recipe to hit that golden mean though.

2- responding to what's happening in the campaign once it's under way. Being adaptive to stuff that unfolds at the gametable, both during and inbetween sessions.

If (1) is a sort of rough framework condition for a campaign not falling apart, (2) is for me where a campaign really comes together and has me return as a player, or has players return to the campaigns I run.

All this is incredibly broad, but I strongly believe that things like theme, plot, conflict etc are entirely secondary to what makes a great campaign.

Quote from: Windjammer;525309A campaign's kick off is a delicate thing, and certainly absolutely vital to have your players stick with the campaigns for at least a couple of sessions. However, what makes a campaign great has a lot more (perhaps: all) to do with what happens after the kick off, i.e. after the early sessions.

For sure.

I've been in campaigns which got off on the wrong foot.

For example in a few sandbox campaigns, the DM said "so what do you guys want to do?" at the start of the first gaming session and the players were at a complete loss as to what to do.  The players had blank stares on their faces or had the "deer in the headlights" look.