My longest lasting campaign went for 12 years. Currently running another that nears it's 6th year. From my experience, dedicated players are not just the ones to show up on time, but are the ones to show up after long breaks. In both of my campaigns we couldn't afford to run a session every other week for reasons of work, military service and a hundred other reasons. At times we didn't play for several months, and in my older campaign we even had a 1 year break, twice. Aside from that, you can tell your players' been at it for a while when their intonation, posture and body language change whenever they get in character - This usually happens after 1 year of play.
I've run a few campaigns that went 5-6 years where we played every saturday night for 5-7 hours and several that went 2-3 years. I've found that a committed group is essential to making a campaigns last. With that said there has to be a reason for those people to show up every week. I endorse making them struggle for everything. It's okay for the characters to successful but don't give it away and don't over reward. Overcoming obstacles and challenges at the gaming table gives people true joy when they've earned it. Just like in real life you don't know when you've got it good unless you've struggled and failed. Another big one is finding people that are willing to work together. I've played with some amazing RPers that I had to let go from the groups I've run because they were so self centered they didn't want to share the limelight. Constantly going against the will of the group is a great way to ruin a game for everyone else. Once you weed those out and get a group that works well together and play like a team it works.Old friends still talk about my longest running campaign from years ago. We played almost 6 years and the culmination was "Hey we think its about time we go after that dragon that lives up in the mountains." An Ancient Huge Red that had been in this corner of the world for generations. I ran him as a magic using, shape-changing Ancient Red that had a legendary treasure hoard the likes Smaug. They contracted with hirelings, mules and mule handlers. Sourced all the gear and supplies for a small army to make their way up into the mountains and haul all the loot back. The characters and their henchmen all died in a massive Battle. TPK and everyone loved it! It was an epic ending to memorable campaign and we still have an inside joke to this day about slaying dragons.
My AD&D campaign ran from 1986 to 2001. It was a high-level group that ran from 9th to 17th level along with a lower level group (same players) that worked up from 0 to 12th level.
Just as the computer game enthusiasts pushed the computer companies for more graphics, more speed, more memory so as to play bigger computer games, it is my hope the tabletop role-players push for more life-extension (antigeria). That way we could get into some 50-year, 75-year, 100-year RPG campaigns, for that really DEEP plot-development!
I have allowed my players to go where ever they want. Using what I had based my last campaign on. But set 500 years later. There was a nice lot of background and known locations. So its been very sandbox. Only been running it for 4 months. every Sunday. The events they have set in motion are sparking more and more games.
Nothing like the 80's when me and a few friends piled up in a friends room early Friday night, put on the Dio or Maiden or Styx or Crue LP, roll up a quick character if needed and a few other things that need rolling, ice down the cokes, and didn't come out till mid Sunday. Any three day weekend or the first week after school was out or Christmas holiday was booked baby. Break the game up with a few relaxing sessions of Sea Battle on Intelivision or a walk around the block to clear the mind and refocus. And people think watching a video of others acting out a game is real D&D.... Yeah,,, **sip** right.....
Some really good advice here. Thanks! (And I completely agree, nothing can compensate for the ‘in-game’ mythology that grows up over the course of a long campaign. It’s organically real in a way that makes it truly magical.)
I’m playing in a three year long campaign right now. We are about to hit the third act opener of Slumbering Tsar, where the temple comes back into the characters world...
I'm in the midst of DMing a campaign (D&D 5e) that started late 2016. It's been largely a pick up and join in toward a core group like your DCC. I'm now getting selective about careful additions. I think you're right about expectations being king, I'm still trying to work out optimals toward that with minor tinkering. 5-8 regulars without deviation.
I recently started (had two sessions so far) my first Internet / virtual TTRPG campaign. I've been a GM since the 90s and all my experience is with people at a real table with real pencils and paper (no electronics at all allowed). Now, I'm trying this radical shift in style using Discord etc. I hope it goes well. I took two weeks to interview, vet, and carefully select players who could promise to commit to a long-term regular schedule. I don't have high hopes. Even with the careful selection process and the session zero promises and discussion of expectations, I know how flaky and inconsiderate / irresponsible most people are. Worst-case scenario, I guess, is if a player drops out (or needs to be kicked out) there are plenty of people around the world I can find via /LFG forums or whatever to fill that virtual seat.
Book-marked for watching later, I think the longest campaign I've ran (certainly for D&D) has been a year or two so looking forward to hearing what you have to say on the matter.
Longest weekly campaign I did was nine months, in Cyberpunk 2020. I created a future rendition of my home city, set some adventures, the players suggested things which caused interesting new outgrowths, like developing the floor-plan of a really cool base or "lair" from their profits, then forming alliances with the assorted street-gangs I peppered all over the city, each with their particular "uniform" and quirks, to mold them into a coordinated fighting-force against the Corps. The campaign reached a satisfying thematic conclusion in the first major upset of the Corps (they can't control the people! The stocks tank!) so people were ready to do something else. After the mid-90s, computer games got better and better, more of a strong distraction to players and GMs, and the pace of new releases in tabletop RPGs also "distracts" people and creates discontent and a player who wants to present something new, so there's maybe a natural limit to the length of a campaign these days. Do we really need long campaigns? Do we necessarily need to aspire to a huge episode-count like some show like Doctor Who with episodes stretching back (with interruptions) to 1963? It might block us from trying new things.
@@Dracopol : Personally I think my own issue as a GM is that--after a certain point--I run out of ideas, or rather I get excited by something new and that lures me away from whatever I have been playing.
@@RedDiceDiaries Yes, like I said, there is a natural limit to the length of a campaign. A behemoth game like D&D 5th ed. would LIKE it if it were the only game in town, but there are many others, many new interesting releases, and people buy those big slabs of RPG core rulebooks and it feels "wasted" if they don't try them. That, to me, is the main factor I've experienced that changed the campaign. Running out of ideas, not so much, because that can be remedied. There are some books devoted solely to being idea-generators for campaigns. The company DWD Studios makes a few RPGs but always includes random campaign and random villain generation tables. An early stand-alone product was the Adventure Idea Factory (for SF games, where they felt there was a gap to fill). dwdstudios.com/node/357
The problem in running a long campaign is that players online are a continuous revolving door of now I’m here now I’m gone ghosts. Half the players you get online have personalities which make them very difficult to play with. it’s very frustrating for a DM that puts detail and thought and depth into his game.
@@RPGPundit Just received Lion and Dragon and Cults of Chaos in the mail. I love them both, especially Cults of Chaos. The book is successful in making the bad guys as evil and as vile as possible. Fantastic.
@@pappabear4977 thanks so much! If you bought them online it would be great if you wrote a tiny review saying just that, at the site you bought them from!
Well, World of the Last sun is a compilation of several issues of RPGPundit Presents: Middle northern wilderlands, arkhome 1 & 2, Azure order, Goldhalcon, miscellaneous wonders, the zombie empire, highbay, highbay's pharmacopeia, floating islands, sky-ships happen, the city of Lol, F*ck Station Aleph So any other issues which aren't those would be good for you to get.
@@RPGPundit cannot afford all of them. How about the top 5 you would suggest as being the best ones for World of the Last Sun. Better yet, put together a package of the best ones on DTRPG.😁
It would depend a lot on what you wanted. If you were looking for additional generators: Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun, Frantabulous Robot Generator, Intelligent Animals, and Weird Gonzo Race Generator. If you were looking for more location stuff: Hipster Elves, Ancient Complexes of the Ancients, Weird Gonzo Fantasy Features, Alternate Material Planes. Adventures? My favorite is probably "At the Darkness". But the trilogy series of "Saga of the Green & Blue Mutant Chiefs"/"The Great Tree Druid"/"Against the Woodland Creatures" is basically covering a whole mini-setting area near the Azure Tower; and "Bungalow of the Beach Giant Chiefs" is a great adventure (as are Thralls of the Jade Queen, and the Half-Sunken Temple of Nudist Mutant Island).
How many sessions are you in? I measure campaigns in terms of sessions, not years. I register what happened in each session so it's easy to track... The point is, if I run a campaign for 6 years playing once or twice a month, that's something between 72 and 144 sessions (average 108). Ok, great! But I got 60 sessions in three months with a group that managed to play almost everyday. I admit that's NOT normal by any means, but the idea stands.
@@RPGPundit Fair point. I liked the video btw. Here in Japan people tend to defer to the GM too much and let themselves be taken for a ride but I really start to think otherwise after watching your videos and trying to bring changes to my group to not just do what you think GM wants you to do.
The problem is with the unpredictability of using the d20 to determine outcomes. It doesn't do a very good job of modeling real world conflict resolution. It's not quite unintuitive, but it's not straightforward. The best defense against the unpredictability of the d20 is not smart play but high AC and HP. Older editions had an arms race of AC and HP that made challenging a group quite the exercise of needle threading. Paizo did a good job of balancing encounters mechanically (at the expense of verisimilitude). 5e tried to reel that arms race in with the concept of bounded accuracy, and in so doing had to inject some on the fly healing to keep the game moving along. Unfortunately, this backfired. I think all this easy healing signaled modern players to eschew the idea of resource management and just blow through all their class abilities and hit points in the very first encounter. Then just take a nap and repeat. The mechanics support it.
My longest lasting campaign went for 12 years. Currently running another that nears it's 6th year.
From my experience, dedicated players are not just the ones to show up on time, but are the ones to show up after long breaks.
In both of my campaigns we couldn't afford to run a session every other week for reasons of work, military service and a hundred other reasons. At times we didn't play for several months, and in my older campaign we even had a 1 year break, twice.
Aside from that, you can tell your players' been at it for a while when their intonation, posture and body language change whenever they get in character - This usually happens after 1 year of play.
"Don't make a story with your world. Make a history."
I've run a few campaigns that went 5-6 years where we played every saturday night for 5-7 hours and several that went 2-3 years. I've found that a committed group is essential to making a campaigns last. With that said there has to be a reason for those people to show up every week. I endorse making them struggle for everything. It's okay for the characters to successful but don't give it away and don't over reward. Overcoming obstacles and challenges at the gaming table gives people true joy when they've earned it. Just like in real life you don't know when you've got it good unless you've struggled and failed.
Another big one is finding people that are willing to work together. I've played with some amazing RPers that I had to let go from the groups I've run because they were so self centered they didn't want to share the limelight. Constantly going against the will of the group is a great way to ruin a game for everyone else. Once you weed those out and get a group that works well together and play like a team it works.Old friends still talk about my longest running campaign from years ago.
We played almost 6 years and the culmination was "Hey we think its about time we go after that dragon that lives up in the mountains." An Ancient Huge Red that had been in this corner of the world for generations. I ran him as a magic using, shape-changing Ancient Red that had a legendary treasure hoard the likes Smaug. They contracted with hirelings, mules and mule handlers. Sourced all the gear and supplies for a small army to make their way up into the mountains and haul all the loot back. The characters and their henchmen all died in a massive Battle. TPK and everyone loved it! It was an epic ending to memorable campaign and we still have an inside joke to this day about slaying dragons.
My AD&D campaign ran from 1986 to 2001. It was a high-level group that ran from 9th to 17th level along with a lower level group (same players) that worked up from 0 to 12th level.
Just as the computer game enthusiasts pushed the computer companies for more graphics, more speed, more memory so as to play bigger computer games, it is my hope the tabletop role-players push for more life-extension (antigeria). That way we could get into some 50-year, 75-year, 100-year RPG campaigns, for that really DEEP plot-development!
imagine starting a case of brandy with the idea of drinking it in 20 years with the core group. and having goals.
I have allowed my players to go where ever they want. Using what I had based my last campaign on. But set 500 years later. There was a nice lot of background and known locations. So its been very sandbox. Only been running it for 4 months. every Sunday. The events they have set in motion are sparking more and more games.
Nothing like the 80's when me and a few friends piled up in a friends room early Friday night, put on the Dio or Maiden or Styx or Crue LP, roll up a quick character if needed and a few other things that need rolling, ice down the cokes, and didn't come out till mid Sunday. Any three day weekend or the first week after school was out or Christmas holiday was booked baby. Break the game up with a few relaxing sessions of Sea Battle on Intelivision or a walk around the block to clear the mind and refocus.
And people think watching a video of others acting out a game is real D&D.... Yeah,,, **sip** right.....
Some really good advice here. Thanks! (And I completely agree, nothing can compensate for the ‘in-game’ mythology that grows up over the course of a long campaign. It’s organically real in a way that makes it truly magical.)
I’m playing in a three year long campaign right now. We are about to hit the third act opener of Slumbering Tsar, where the temple comes back into the characters world...
I'm in the midst of DMing a campaign (D&D 5e) that started late 2016. It's been largely a pick up and join in toward a core group like your DCC. I'm now getting selective about careful additions. I think you're right about expectations being king, I'm still trying to work out optimals toward that with minor tinkering. 5-8 regulars without deviation.
I recently started (had two sessions so far) my first Internet / virtual TTRPG campaign. I've been a GM since the 90s and all my experience is with people at a real table with real pencils and paper (no electronics at all allowed).
Now, I'm trying this radical shift in style using Discord etc. I hope it goes well.
I took two weeks to interview, vet, and carefully select players who could promise to commit to a long-term regular schedule. I don't have high hopes. Even with the careful selection process and the session zero promises and discussion of expectations, I know how flaky and inconsiderate / irresponsible most people are.
Worst-case scenario, I guess, is if a player drops out (or needs to be kicked out) there are plenty of people around the world I can find via /LFG forums or whatever to fill that virtual seat.
My longest campaign has been eight years. Sadly, most of my games only last a year, or so.
Book-marked for watching later, I think the longest campaign I've ran (certainly for D&D) has been a year or two so looking forward to hearing what you have to say on the matter.
Longest weekly campaign I did was nine months, in Cyberpunk 2020. I created a future rendition of my home city, set some adventures, the players suggested things which caused interesting new outgrowths, like developing the floor-plan of a really cool base or "lair" from their profits, then forming alliances with the assorted street-gangs I peppered all over the city, each with their particular "uniform" and quirks, to mold them into a coordinated fighting-force against the Corps. The campaign reached a satisfying thematic conclusion in the first major upset of the Corps (they can't control the people! The stocks tank!) so people were ready to do something else.
After the mid-90s, computer games got better and better, more of a strong distraction to players and GMs, and the pace of new releases in tabletop RPGs also "distracts" people and creates discontent and a player who wants to present something new, so there's maybe a natural limit to the length of a campaign these days.
Do we really need long campaigns? Do we necessarily need to aspire to a huge episode-count like some show like Doctor Who with episodes stretching back (with interruptions) to 1963? It might block us from trying new things.
@@Dracopol : Personally I think my own issue as a GM is that--after a certain point--I run out of ideas, or rather I get excited by something new and that lures me away from whatever I have been playing.
@@RedDiceDiaries Yes, like I said, there is a natural limit to the length of a campaign. A behemoth game like D&D 5th ed. would LIKE it if it were the only game in town, but there are many others, many new interesting releases, and people buy those big slabs of RPG core rulebooks and it feels "wasted" if they don't try them.
That, to me, is the main factor I've experienced that changed the campaign. Running out of ideas, not so much, because that can be remedied. There are some books devoted solely to being idea-generators for campaigns. The company DWD Studios makes a few RPGs but always includes random campaign and random villain generation tables. An early stand-alone product was the Adventure Idea Factory (for SF games, where they felt there was a gap to fill).
dwdstudios.com/node/357
I love reaching epic levels.
That is where the real fun usually begins :D:D:D
Tons of ppl hate them. I agree with you. If.you make it.more roleplaying and non hack and slash its fantastic
Our group rarely goes past lvl 8.
The problem in running a long campaign is that players online are a continuous revolving door of now I’m here now I’m gone ghosts. Half the players you get online have personalities which make them very difficult to play with. it’s very frustrating for a DM that puts detail and thought and depth into his game.
Well, that's why I said you need to be very selective about your players
@@RPGPundit Just received Lion and Dragon and Cults of Chaos in the mail. I love them both, especially Cults of Chaos. The book is successful in making the bad guys as evil and as vile as possible. Fantastic.
The only problem i had with L&D is this:
czcams.com/video/8LUJpdDWCuI/video.html
@@pappabear4977 thanks so much! If you bought them online it would be great if you wrote a tiny review saying just that, at the site you bought them from!
Kasimir Urbanski - RPGPundit Bought them on Lulu.
Thank you for the tips! Could you point us to good setting sourcebooks, along with Dark Albion? ;D
Gosh darn _Hipster Elves!_ And they are the most likely to become _Social Justice Mages!_ 😎 😎 😎
Well, them and the Boat Swine.
Regarding World of the Last Sun, I ordered a copy. Just wondering which issues of the RPGPUNDIT zine are essential to get the most out of it.
Well, World of the Last sun is a compilation of several issues of RPGPundit Presents: Middle northern wilderlands, arkhome 1 & 2, Azure order, Goldhalcon, miscellaneous wonders, the zombie empire, highbay, highbay's pharmacopeia, floating islands, sky-ships happen, the city of Lol, F*ck Station Aleph
So any other issues which aren't those would be good for you to get.
@@RPGPundit cannot afford all of them. How about the top 5 you would suggest as being the best ones for World of the Last Sun.
Better yet, put together a package of the best ones on DTRPG.😁
It would depend a lot on what you wanted. If you were looking for additional generators: Mutant Hordes of the Last Sun, Frantabulous Robot Generator, Intelligent Animals, and Weird Gonzo Race Generator.
If you were looking for more location stuff: Hipster Elves, Ancient Complexes of the Ancients, Weird Gonzo Fantasy Features, Alternate Material Planes.
Adventures? My favorite is probably "At the Darkness". But the trilogy series of "Saga of the Green & Blue Mutant Chiefs"/"The Great Tree Druid"/"Against the Woodland Creatures" is basically covering a whole mini-setting area near the Azure Tower; and "Bungalow of the Beach Giant Chiefs" is a great adventure (as are Thralls of the Jade Queen, and the Half-Sunken Temple of Nudist Mutant Island).
@@RPGPundit any chance these will be compiled into future print supplements? Insta buy!
How many sessions are you in? I measure campaigns in terms of sessions, not years. I register what happened in each session so it's easy to track... The point is, if I run a campaign for 6 years playing once or twice a month, that's something between 72 and 144 sessions (average 108). Ok, great! But I got 60 sessions in three months with a group that managed to play almost everyday. I admit that's NOT normal by any means, but the idea stands.
In my DCC campaign? About 200 sessions. about 1200 hours.
@@RPGPundit I'm 18 sessions in, going once a week with 2 times we didn't play. We are going for the long-term campaign :D
Wish I could run a DCC game for 6 years...
Why can't you?
Haven't found the right group yet! Will keep trying of course.
Does the Dark Albion book have battle maps or are the encounters just theater of the mind?
The book itself hasn't got battle maps
The adventures have dungeon maps, though. When I run my games it's always theater of the mind
I don't think GRR Martin ripped off War of the Roses as he was very upfront early on as the biggest influence on how he wanted his world to be.
Well, I don't mean he ripped it off secretly.
@@RPGPundit Fair point. I liked the video btw. Here in Japan people tend to defer to the GM too much and let themselves be taken for a ride but I really start to think otherwise after watching your videos and trying to bring changes to my group to not just do what you think GM wants you to do.
Dysentery is a bitch.
5e as a system sucks. The whole long rest and short rest thing and second wind for fighters.
The problem is with the unpredictability of using the d20 to determine outcomes. It doesn't do a very good job of modeling real world conflict resolution. It's not quite unintuitive, but it's not straightforward. The best defense against the unpredictability of the d20 is not smart play but high AC and HP.
Older editions had an arms race of AC and HP that made challenging a group quite the exercise of needle threading. Paizo did a good job of balancing encounters mechanically (at the expense of verisimilitude). 5e tried to reel that arms race in with the concept of bounded accuracy, and in so doing had to inject some on the fly healing to keep the game moving along. Unfortunately, this backfired. I think all this easy healing signaled modern players to eschew the idea of resource management and just blow through all their class abilities and hit points in the very first encounter. Then just take a nap and repeat. The mechanics support it.