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Tetsubo 57
2009-08-09, 02:00 AM
When you hear the word 'campaign', what comes to mind? How long do you think a 'campaign' should last? Is it based on number of levels? Number of sessions? External time limits (college semester, tour of duty, etc.,)? Story arc? Or is a 'campaign' a timeless thing, lasting as long as it lasts?

For me, it's the latter. When I hear 'campaign' I think of a gaming group that lasts as long as it lasts. The roll call of players may change over time but the character world, story lines and plots are long lasting. My longest campaigns in D&d was six years. The longest Gamma World campaign (3rd edition with HEAVY house rules) lasted 3.5 years.

What does it mean for you?

Seffbasilisk
2009-08-09, 02:03 AM
Hopefully characters from level one until epic. However, groups rarely stay together that long, games even less so. Longest game I've been in is a few months past it's third birthday.

Xenogears
2009-08-09, 02:05 AM
The latter one I suppose but hell I think I've only been in maybe one or two games that continued for more than maybe 3-4 sessions at most...

Piedmon_Sama
2009-08-09, 02:12 AM
Usually I think of an overaching story about the characters involved. Whether it's after they defeat the Biggest Badguy Ever at level 15 and there's nothing really left to do with that story, or they all naturally resolve their own storylines between levels 7-10 and there's really no reason for them to keep adventuring, or they all die horribly.

TheOOB
2009-08-09, 02:13 AM
It doesn't really matter how long the campaign is, as long as you complete the story. My group just finished a 12 session campaign that we all liked. It started a story, told the story, then ended.

Gorbash
2009-08-09, 02:23 AM
I always imagined a campaign starting at levels 1-7 and going to 20-21. Just enough time for characters to evolve from undistinguished adventurers to living legends.

I'm DMing a Savage Tide campaign that had its 30th session over a span of 16th months a few days ago and I'm playing in a Shackled City campaign which we're playing for about two years now.

Yora
2009-08-09, 04:29 AM
It depends. There are Character driven campaigns, and plot driven campaigns.

In a character driven campaign, I'd say startat first level and play for a couple of years until you all really want to play something different.
On the other hand, a plot driven campaign would be in scope more like a single novel or videogame rpg. The characters are allready somebody and there's one major thing to do. If they done it, they live happily ever after or ride into the sunset or whatever. I'd say you can make a short one in three or four sessions, but as a gm, I would plan more along ten to twelve sessions. If it's something really epic, maybe about 20.

Rhiannon87
2009-08-09, 09:07 AM
A campaign isn't over until the story is.... or until the DM and/or all players lose interest and it dies a slow painful death. But I look at it more like a videogame-- there's a story to tell, and we follow the characters through it until they've reached the end and happily retired or died horrifically. Of course, if it ends on the former note, there's always a chance they might get called out of retirement when the DM finds some awesome high-level module he wants to run. :smallbiggrin:

Saph
2009-08-09, 09:15 AM
It depends. I've had campaigns that have gone four sessions, and others that have lasted multiple years.

When I'm DMing, I usually plan for a campaign to be finished in a few months - somewhere from 8 to 16 sessions. That's a manageable length and makes it fairly likely that everyone who was there at the beginning will be there for the end.

If it's a published module, though, then the length of the campaign is decided by the length of the book in the DM's hands. :)

Cyrion
2009-08-09, 09:17 AM
When I think of campaigns I think of game worlds, and I put a lot of effort into those, so I want them to last a good long time. They'll definitely outlast the characters- I plan my worlds to be ones in which we can retire a set of characters and start a new batch with new story lines. My longest running campaign was my Renaissance Italy GURPS campaign which lasted over 10 years.

valadil
2009-08-09, 04:58 PM
A game that completes several independent story arcs in serial is a campaign. I've never run a proper campaign. Just simultaneous missions. I think a campaign should last for at least a year to reach the proper scope.

Gamerlord
2009-08-09, 05:12 PM
When I think campaign I think "the challenges a DM gives his players from lvl 1 to 20. Or lvl 1-30 in 4e"

shadow_archmagi
2009-08-09, 05:39 PM
Campaigns are (in my opinion) the largest kind of plot arc, but any given adventurer's life will contain several.

"The Campaign Against The Witch King" might be an example. Sure, it might take four years ingame and one year out of game and in the process involve searching for macguffins from the deepest mountains and hunting his eldritch horror generator which hides on an upper plane... but it's still just one part of an adventurer's life.

Berserk Monk
2009-08-09, 05:48 PM
For awhile, me and all mine friends couldn't make a campaign last more than one session.

hamlet
2009-08-10, 08:12 AM
I think the definition of "campaign" has changed over the years to accomodate different gaming paradigms.

Nowadays, it seems that when it's not constrained by an outside limiter (i.e, the length of a school semester, or who's moving where, etc.), it seems to have been defined as "the time it takes to go from level 1 to level 20" or whatever time it takes to complete the grand story that has been planned out.

This concept is completely foreign to a lot of gamers of older editions as a campaign was, as best I can tell, a high-falutin' term for "game" and it lasted as long as the group stayed together and nobody expected to be able to advance through the entire range of levels over the duration. Some campaigns lasted for years (think 5-10 years) when the group clicked and stayed together.