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hotel_papa
2010-08-12, 11:04 AM
I recently saw a post on WotC's D&D Facebook page, some gentleman saying he just completed a 30-year-long (real time) D&D campaign, spanning several editions.

The longest game I ever ran was about 18 months, and went to about level 18. It was an Eberron Worm That Walks campaign, built off of story seeds from Elder Evils and Exemplars of Evil. It grew into two separate parties, on different days of the week, who were working together, all around Eberron's globe. Probably 12 characters in all, plus a few people who didn't stick around.

My question is, what is the longest running campaign you've been in, and especially, what is the longest one you've run personally? If it is a particularly long one, how did you keep a cohesive story going that long?

For my benefit, assume a weekly game. If yours was monthly, divide by four, etc.

valadil
2010-08-12, 11:13 AM
Longest I played in started in 2000 and ended a couple years ago. It started out weekly then dwindled to annually. By the end I was level 24 and the only original character. And I still had my familiar and riding dog that I bought at level 1.

Longest I heard of was a boss of mine back in college. He was in his mid thirties at the time and was still in a game that had started in high school. At that point they'd been reduced to playing annually, but had played thrice a week when it began. His character was around level 75 last I heard.

The longest game I ever ran was about 20 sessions. I don't do big plots. Once my arc is done, I'm out. Current game is approaching session 12 though and still going strong. We'll see how long it lasts.

Snake-Aes
2010-08-12, 11:16 AM
Longest one so far lasted 30 months (weekly, sometimes twice per week), and the characters were the same through all of it, save the 3.5->pf conversion. For the first few months, the plot was centered on the one character that had a patron, and all characters had a few reasons to do so. There weren't many "escapades" that lasted more than one adventure because of that. As the game progressed, we were constantly oneupped by influential people and found ourselves wanted on many nations. When things finally calmed down, each player had its own plot to follow, and there was a mix of personal advancements and a bond of friendship to follow each other.

Ultimately, the characters never achieved things too grandiose. The chick seeded a new faith in a then-vanishing goddess, and the warrior restored his master's family line into the honored nobility. Other than that, it was all about personal achievements, situations that they got themselves into without fully thinking things through until it was too late and the bond that formed from that.

the humanity
2010-08-12, 11:21 AM
took 7 years. it was one of my earliest campaigns.

all rogue (which is really fun, rogues play well together)

except me (first a rogue/fighter/assassin, then a beguiler) and the rogue/ranger.

still going, but wont be half as much play, the leader of our guild is going to college out of state.

Scarey Nerd
2010-08-12, 11:26 AM
We've mixed DMs a lot, leading to me being DM now. This campaign is very much sand-box, so I can see it going on for about 3-4 years, ending around level 30-ish.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-12, 11:41 AM
There was a three year long Vampire the Masquerade Campaign that I joined at uni. Unfortunately I was only there for a year and quarter odd. Used to play regular sessions, 1-2 a week, normally for 6 hours minimum, and often all night. We were all doing arts degrees see.

Emmerask
2010-08-12, 11:44 AM
We are currently in the fifth year of a campaign and I suspect it will take another 5 to complete (d&d modified to fit dark eye currently in the middle of borbarads rise to power)

AtlanteanTroll
2010-08-12, 11:49 AM
12 months was the longest. Too many people were playig though, so advancement was skewed. And not evryone came for every game. It was an odd expirience. The DM was pretty much the only constant. Sometimes there were 13 players, sometimes there were 4.

Shortest, 3 days.

potatocubed
2010-08-12, 11:55 AM
One year - a 7th Sea game, based on the Freiburg boxed set then going off somewhere else.

My 4e game lasted almost a year, but it had long breaks.

These days I run shorter games because my attention span is terrible.

Britter
2010-08-12, 01:51 PM
Ran a Shadowrun game for some friends that ran for about 6 years, real time. Close to an ingame decade, I believe. That was a lot of fun.

By the end the players were only doing very dangerous high end runs and devoted most of their time and effort to running several business ventures of varying legality. They had defeated several threats to the world, lined their pockets with a LOT of nuyen, and were amongst the very best of runners, with only maybe 4 or 5 operatives out there that could be considered on par with them.

I never had as much fun with a game as I did with that one.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-12, 01:55 PM
Coupla years, 7th Sea.

I've done some long running D&D campaigns too, but I don't think any quite hit the two year mark.

Now, 30 years, thats impressive. I gotta wonder what level they were...

Ozymandias9
2010-08-12, 01:55 PM
Though we generally take breaks for other settings every couple months, I have a table that's been running alternating between a Dragonlance setting and a home-brew setting for going on 13 and 12 years respectively. The home-brew setting is about 250 years removed from our original characters at this point.

Balain
2010-08-12, 01:57 PM
Longest I played was a Vampire one. Actual play was almost 2 years. 2 or 3 times a month. The game time was long. Started in middle ages just before the formation of the Camirila or what ever it was called and lasted to modern days.

Longest I have run is currently D&D 4E. We started when it came so 2008 I think and still going. We play various times, could be 2 or 3 times a month then we don't play for 3 or 4 months and then we play 4 times a month. Try to play once a month though just depends when real life intrudes on game time

Hzurr
2010-08-12, 01:58 PM
We started a 4E game right after it was released that has been going on since (so about 2 years now, meeting weekly) with breaks for summer. We're currently debating about whether or not to continue the game in the fall, or if we want to start something new or go to Dark Sun. We've gone all the way from 1-15 so far, going through heavily modified versions of the H1-H3 series; as well as some from the Madness trilogy, and are currently in P2. It's been fun, frustrating, and interesting.

NowhereMan583
2010-08-12, 02:00 PM
I ran a campaign weekly for about a year and a half. It was very sandbox-y, because originally it had been intended as a one-shot adventure. The players didn't get to the end of the plot the first time around, so we decided to wrap it up the next session, and in the next session, they spawned a few more potential plot threads that they wanted to wrap up... etc., etc.

Most of my campaigns are weekly, and only last a few months. All my gaming is on a college campus, so the default campaign length is "one semester."

El Dorado
2010-08-12, 03:42 PM
Our group had a campaign that lasted a little over two years. We were playing at least once a week, occasionally twice. My fighter/mage started at 3rd level and eventually hit 22nd (homebrew/1e/2E rules). The DM tied it into another campaign he ran for a different group of players (not sure how long that game ran but those characters were high 30s, low 40s). Our group's actions were beginning to affect events created by the higher level group.

Furnok
2010-08-12, 03:56 PM
The longest campaign that I know of is my DM has been playing in a family group for about 20+ years, I jumped in for a couple sessions. It is Greyhawk and they only play during family holidays and on a rare weekend.

The longest that I started playing form the beginning is when 3rd edition first came out we started a 1st level group in Faerun I played a barbarian / fighter. Our original DM died on spinal cancer 2 years after starting and then someone else picked it up after him. The biggest the group got was 8 and currently it’s down to 3 people and a lot of NPC’s. My character is 21st level king of a small country and the DM’s original character is the local 23rd level wizard.

Traveler
2010-08-12, 04:14 PM
The group I play with officially hit it's 30th year mark for the campaign a month or two ago.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-12, 04:15 PM
The group I play with officially hit it's 30th year mark for the campaign a month or two ago.

This requires elaboration...setting/systems it's gone through, what level it's gotten to...player turnover. Inquiring minds must know.

Traveler
2010-08-12, 04:30 PM
I don't know enough of the history to give details.

The site has a history, as best as they recorded it by (greyhawk) game years. Upon creating the website, sessions have been recorded to a much more detailed degree.

http://ttowndungeonsdragons.com/index.html

The editions we use are 1st, AD&D, and bits of 2nd that are DM approved.

Hope it helps with questions.

hotel_papa
2010-08-12, 06:30 PM
For those interested, I sent the person in question a message on Facebook asking about it.

Me, to him.

I know this is random, but you mentioned a 3 decade campaign on your post to WotC's page, and I was just wondering how. I've run a few games that have gone for a year and a half or so, and I'm just wondering what sort of game can go on for that long? How did you keep the game interesting, how did you handle edition changes, and so on... Respond if you have the time and inclination, but I've never heard of a game that long and I'd love to be able to have that kind of staying power in my storylines.

His reply

Wow. Where do I start?
We started our game in Aug of 79, using the horribly unwieldy first ed. The characters soon grew into a dynasty, With the players switching from them to their children. I've kept the game fresh by making it a character-based story, allowing them to work towards the goal of the game at their own pace. When 2nd ed came out I used the From The Ashes supplement to gradually reintroduce Iuz as a villain. The last game, GREY COMPANY: ENDGAME ended with the group actually destroying Iuz as well as other threats to the safety of the world. I guess I was blessed with great players who could see past edition changes and mere numbers on a page. I hope I have helped clear this up! Thanks for being interested!

My next question is that I see a lot of long running games that either go epic, or start over with the next generations of characters. Does anyone have any other alternatives?

Yahzi
2010-08-12, 06:41 PM
The site has a history, as best as they recorded it by (greyhawk) game years.
Man, that makes me want to run a sandbox game.

One thing about that campaign. Even from the beginning back in 2002 people are teleporting and wishing around. I'm not sure how the game hasn't been broken yet - maybe its because it's not 3E?

Also, the Deck of Many Things makes way too many appearences. I have never, ever had a campaign survive even one encounter with a Deck.

LOL - most of those characters have more deaths than they do levels.

Traveler
2010-08-12, 06:59 PM
One thing about that campaign. Even from the beginning back in 2002 people are teleporting and wishing around. I'm not sure how the game hasn't been broken yet - maybe its because it's not 3E?


It isn't broken for us. We only have a handful of characters that have that kind of spell power, and they tend to be doing other things most of the time.
As for diffuculty, the DM dosn't run out of evil tricks or enemies. Anything we can do, he is sure to match.

For the deck, it's like a drug. We sometimes get yearly do-overs and if we don't use them, out comes the deck. But it is gone now.

Yahzi
2010-08-12, 07:09 PM
It isn't broken for us. We only have a handful of characters that have that kind of spell power.
Obviously a huge part of that is the DM's ability. But I also think it's the absence of later editions. In 3E, magic item creation was formalized; also, IIRC, XP advancement changed radically. Like in 2E it's 256K per level (after 9th), and you get +2 hps; whereas in 3E you get something at every level and its a total of 2mill to hit 20.

Jarawara
2010-08-13, 12:42 AM
There might also be a bit of confusion over the term "campaign".

Back in the old days, people usually referred to their gameworld as their campaign. Meaning, all their storylines, all their gaming groups, everything that ever happens in the world is all part of their D&D campaign.

But the more correct description would be their 'gameworld', whereas a 'campaign' is simply one storyline within the gameworld. That's how the term is used now, but us old-timers might still be using it to describe their entire world.

(If you don't get what I mean, consider the fact that the world of GreyHawk used to be called the 'GreyHawk Campaign', so that anyone who ever played in it over as many years as it ran, anyone who ever bought it and ran it in their own homes with their own plotlines and houserules, were all considered part of the same campaign. It probably is still running even today, even though Gygax has passed on. But is it the same 'campaign' with the same plot and the same BBEG? Of course not.)

*~*

So, my longest running campaign (storyarc)? That would be my current one, started in November of 2001, just had the grand finale a few months ago, still working on the epilog right now. We play once a week, though we occasionally miss a session now and then.

And from there, we'll start up the next campaign but we will be using some of the same characters, and I'll on occasion be tracking the developments with the other PC's. I consider that a different campaign, but as it's still following the life-stories of the same PC's, maybe that should be considered the same 'campaign'? I dunno.

My longest running campaign world? Well, I've only ever had one world, but I kinda have had two restarts to it. First started in 1980, I ran it for only about a year, then broke up with those players and found a new group. I scrapped everything I had, started a whole new area, but then decided that I liked my original work and re-inserted it back into my current world. So it was a restart, but it's all the same world

I trailed off with those players in the mid-90's, then started with my new game in 2001. One of my old players, hearing the stories of the new game and the description of the world said "So, you've scrapped the old world and started anew?" Nope - it's the same world but from a different perspective. I literally got to show him how the enemy he used to face is the same enemy my new game faces, just that they know the enemy by a new name. I thought that was really cool, to show the same world but from a different cultural perspective, making it look like a whole new world.

So it's a new 'restart', but the same PC's who rummaged around in my gameworld in the 80's are still alive and kicking, and can show up as NPC's. Huzzah for 30 years of history! :smallcool:

Zaydos
2010-08-13, 01:14 AM
My longest running campaign lasted about 2 years, actually a little more, at 2 sessions a week with a break from late November to January for holiday season (parents enforced this). It took them from Lv 12 to 20 and was going to go epic. It was originally supposed to end when they reached 18 and beat the BBEG but the PCs wanted to continue. So I had a 2 year time skip, with an adventure for each PC where the other players played 1 time NPCs just to mix things up for a bit, and then started again with the emergence of a new BBEG. Ended because of college. I had the next two big dungeons, and the mini-adventures required to reach them, mapped out. I had a vague plan for the final battle against the new BBEG, and even a plan for what happened afterward. Because it ended I wrote up an epilogue told as a little story about the death and funeral of the DMPC (it was originally supposed to be a round-robin game, in all the others DM'd 2 seasons) which told my plan for the rest of the campaign and gave the PCs glimpses of their kids and their effects on the world.

I've actually scrapped my "official history" for the world, though. It's more fun to start a new campaign in it right after the old one, although whether this will affect what was planned or not is up to the new players (I put them ~500 miles away from the first campaign).

Ozymandias9
2010-08-13, 01:15 AM
My next question is that I see a lot of long running games that either go epic, or start over with the next generations of characters. Does anyone have any other alternatives?


I've played in a couple other kinds of long games. One hinged on heavy use of Spelljammer. We went around from sphere to sphere to sphere working against the ever hegemonic encroachment of the Illithids. Because we knew that it was going to be a protracted campaign, we significantly slowed XP gain (to the point that it pretty much moved at the rate of the plot). Truespace was also helpful: because it functions with real world physics, we decided to switch systems there and adapt GURPS to a sub-campaign there. We spend the better part of a year in Truespace using GURPS before accomplishing our goal and returning to the known spheres at the same level and almost exactly the same power level.

Another involved falling through worlds while chasing a man trying to kill creation (the player who designed the first couple arcs was a big Stephen King fan at the time). With each world we found ourselves in, we were a new person: all our memories were intact, but we also had a new body and all the memories of its life. As shorthand, I'll say it's kind of like Dr. Who regenerations. Essentially, we'd end up having to re-level in each world in an attempt to stop the BBCG (Big Bad Chaotic Guy) before he reached the cornerstone of the universe.

Enguhl
2010-08-13, 01:49 AM
Let's see, my longest campaign I was DMing, it was a D&D-turned-dragonmech campaign, pretty cool but as with most of my groups campaigns just died off randomly.

Lasted 10 sessions if I recall correctly, 6 was our old record...

Altair_the_Vexed
2010-08-13, 02:09 AM
Ending a campaign?
I've never ended one since I started playing.

Story arcs have ended and changed and been dropped, and there've been world revisions due to revised taste and sensibilities and new editions, but the underlying campaign has just grown and expanded.
I'm playing in the same world I started developing when I was 18... twenty one years ago... and I have no intention of ending.

Clovis
2010-08-13, 04:35 AM
Ten years, ten levels, from 2nd ed to 3.5. Still going on... Actually, we're still in the same game world (Mystara) where we began in 1988 and some of the events happening then are still affecting our current crop of PCs.
We're meeting once or twice a month.

Cespenar
2010-08-13, 05:10 AM
2+ years, but it being in PbP form probably grants it a x10 modifier or something like that in terms of unlikeliness. :smalltongue:

Havok SCOUT
2010-08-13, 09:34 AM
With bi-monthly meetings, I'm in the middle of a 1-2 year campaign

Caliphbubba
2010-08-13, 09:40 AM
I've been playing in a dragonlance 2nd ed game for about 8 years once a month.

played in a VtM:Dark Ages game every week for 4 years or so.

I've been playing with another "campaign group" since I was 14 years old, and I'm 32 now. many different games, many different characters but essentially the same people, with the addition of one of the players daughters who was 3 when we started and started playing in the game when she was 16.

Cyrion
2010-08-13, 09:47 AM
I ran a GURPS swashbuckling campaign that lasted 10 years, stopped my by moving half way across the country. I'm using campaign in the game world sense- we had lots of story arcs that started, stopped, overlapped, got lost, etc.

I think the key to keeping something running that long is to always keep the players and characters in mind when you design your plot hooks. Find a legitimate reason for their characters to be interested in it, especially something the player came up with.

Psyx
2010-08-13, 10:33 AM
7-ish years.

We played every Monday evening for around 5 of those. In the last couple of years I've run other stuff, but we've occasionally gone back to the game, and I have at least another couple of years plot arc to run.

So I guess that's about 275 sessions. Eeek... over 50 days of solid /played!

It's a semi-historical Japanese game, based in the Sengoku period, using a homebrew rules set. The PCs are now some of the finest swordsmen in the land, but still get their backsides handed to them by Oni on a regular basis.

Peregrine
2010-08-13, 01:07 PM
I've been running a game since 2007; meeting fortnightly as a rule, with a break over Christmas and New Year's. Three of the four regular players have been in it since the beginning, with the same characters. And there's one overarching storyline, though it's only come out in fits and starts so far. I have a very definite end to this campaign in mind, and at the current rate I expect it to end next year, after a fourth "season", right about the time they're hitting 20th level.