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View Full Version : GMs, how do you keep going on long term campaigns?



valadil
2010-09-17, 01:02 PM
Hey, Playground. I usually run shorter games. Like 8 sessions or so to complete the story. I keep reading about games that go on for years and I'd like to try something like that. I always say this campaign will be the long term one, but it never works out that way.

My game just finished its 14th session. I've got more material and shouldn't have trouble hitting 20 (which will be a new record for me). What's helped is that I didn't have a predefined story or villain. Just a bunch of ideas that I threw at the players and I followed up on the ones they liked.

Anyway, I'm nearing the end of my first arc and even though I have more ideas I'm concerned that once they handle this arc I'll be done. I have a habit of obsessing over one or two events or developments, and once they've taken place my interest wanes.

I also like watching PCs figure out how to work with each other as a group. By the time they're paragon they'll have figured this out. Do I really have to watch them act cohesively for the next 20 levels? Maybe I should try harder to kill someone just to get a new face in there.

I've also thought of putting the game on hiatus once this arc completes. I don't really like that idea though because I think a longer break would kill off my motivation entirely. And of all the games I've seen go on break only one has ever resumed. I'd rather just kill it and tell the players its dead than leave them wondering.

Also, I realize that I may have given off the impression that I'm bored of the game I'm doing now. That may be, but I'm not really interested in discussing if I should continue running it or not. I really want to hear how longer games work, because what I'm doing now doesn't seem to work long term. If I can apply those ideas to this game, I'll try that. If not maybe it's time for a new campaign.

Fouredged Sword
2010-09-17, 01:08 PM
Try to find something new to chalenge them with. DnD makes this hard as it tends to be a fighting game, but make social chalenges, or make them choose between hard choices.

My best bet is to let the players have a good shot at changeing the worlk and letting thier choices build on one another. The game begins to be less and less about fighting and more and more about changeing the world. A level one character is thinking can I fight that ogre. A level 20 can afford to be not so worried about can, but rather why and how he should fight the ogre.

valadil
2010-09-17, 01:14 PM
Try to find something new to chalenge them with. DnD makes this hard as it tends to be a fighting game, but make social chalenges, or make them choose between hard choices.


I think the difficulty for me is that I haven't played that sort of game. Whenever I've been in a game that lasts long it's been of the epic save the world type. We've already decided to save the world and there's usually just one way to do it. The game ends up being plot exposition followed by oversized epic fights. Maybe my distaste for longer games is because that's where I expect them to end up?

Skorj
2010-09-17, 01:17 PM
I've run one, and played in several, multi-year campaigns. A good multi-year campaign is a collection of shorter adventures held together by a coherent framework and setting. Don't try to make all the adventures fit one plotline - that gets awkward and obvious quickly. Instead, think of it in terms of a meta-adventure.

Give your players a lot of choice (at least past the first adventure) as to how they want to proceed. They will find their own motivation to interact with your world, and you should be looking for that and catering to it. For example, if your players like playing Good characters, and making the world a better place, make sure your world has "structural evil" that won't be resolved by any one adventure: the institution of slavery, or a corrupt government, or something. If your players enjoy in-character details, create a fundamental mystery to your world that your players discover clues about as the game progresses, and that loosely ties the campaign together, or just a long term problem with the world, like the Snarl in OOTS, that the players have to be wary of but isn't directly a BBEG or something. Whatever you use, base it on what the players seem drawn to.

Also, quirky short adventures are good too. Not everything should be tied to the central narrative. An occasional buried treasure, dragon to slay, or whatnot, as a 2-3 night adventure is a great way to vary the pace, especially if the humor level of those diversions is different from the normal campaign (dark if it's usually comedy, satire if it's usually dark).

Nero24200
2010-09-17, 01:22 PM
I've only really played one campaign that spanned over a year. The reason why it lasted that long was because I didn't write out the entire campaign before hand - It was more like the kind of filler episodes you see in some shows, with events popping up and ending that were not related to each other.

I'm not personally a big fan of filler, but in the context of this campaign that's all there was, there wasn't really an overall plot.

Balain
2010-09-17, 01:22 PM
For a long term campaign you should have some goal in mind. They party doesn't have to always be working towards it but you should have a set goal. At least that's what I do. They do adventures here and there and little hints get dropped here and there till they are high enough level to at least be noticed by the big bad guy and a little more involved in stopping his plans until it's finally time to storm the fortress of the bad guy.

A long big campaign I ran started with them as level 5 and meeting back at an inn. They had split for some reason and agreed to meet in a month. I then gave a list to each character stuff they found out. Some were connected to each other some were not. They decide what they were going to pursue. Some lead to 2,3,or 4 night adventures then went back to some other plot hook that lead to 3 or 4 more plot hooks some connected some not, etc, making a big tree so to speak of plot hooks, eventually leading to one final goal

Oracle_Hunter
2010-09-17, 01:26 PM
If you haven't pre-plotted a 1-30 Game, the easiest way to keep a campaign running is to figure out what the Players are interested in doing and running with it.

You can do this with OOC surveys (e.g. "list 5 things you like to happen to your character"), peppering the game with plot hooks (to see what they bite), or pure intuition.

If your concern is personal boredom (the "I like watching my players squirm" comment) then add more scenes that provoke interesting responses. Give them a long-term NPC to interact with (e.g. Protect the Traveling Princess), or provoke intra-party strife via story elements. If you're bored with the game, you're not going to want to run it; the trick is to balance what you want out of a game with what your players want.

Drakevarg
2010-09-17, 01:27 PM
I've personally never had much luck with long-term campaigns, mostly due to the lack of steady supply of willing players. (Though I think my current batch will be a different story.) But plotting long-term campaigns? Easy.

I've never planned out a short campaign. They are exclusively in the realm of several-year-long epics. How do I do it? Simple. Don't have a concrete plan. Just keep sending them to various plot points along the line, most of them at least tangently related to the main plot, but some that aren't. Each step brings them closer to their goal, but that goal is so far away they can't realistically imagine themselves accomplishing it.

And when they finally trudge all the way up Plot Mountain and strike down the villain? Find a bigger one and send 'em after that. Game ends when the DM can't think of bigger villains or TPK happens.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-17, 01:33 PM
I think the difficulty for me is that I haven't played that sort of game. Whenever I've been in a game that lasts long it's been of the epic save the world type. We've already decided to save the world and there's usually just one way to do it. The game ends up being plot exposition followed by oversized epic fights. Maybe my distaste for longer games is because that's where I expect them to end up?

Most likely. I plan things out much more, and the campaign much less. For instance, there frequently isn't merely one thing threatening the world. There are many. Those high level NPCs are busy doing something, for good or ill.

Now, for every major world-threatening issue, there's dozens of lower level tie ins to that. Things that would reasonably come up, and as NPCs are people...they have desires of their own, and this leads to further sub-plots.

The PCs dont follow every thread, but no matter where they go, they can end up discovering a major thread that becomes a storyline. Plot exposition is unnecessary. Show, don't tell. Don't worry overly much about tying everything together. Too much of that, and it feels faked, and anyhow, players will happily tie things together, even when doing so is entirely wrong. It's surprisingly little work to make what eventually comes off as a convincing story arc.

Zaydos
2010-09-17, 01:33 PM
Personally my only success with a long term campaign was when the players finally decided that they wanted a cohesive story instead of someone else starting a world for 3 sessions every 8 or 9 sessions. Although it was also supposed to be round robin DMing with me DMing from 3/4 to 7/8 of the time.

I had a DMPC who was really just another party member (not a mentor figure; I was uncertain in my ability to balance 3 person encounters at the time and later they wouldn't let me take him out), and had a cohesive story that got the PCs into it for a change (they were fighting illithids) which he was used to help establish (they didn't give me any backstories). I had let them choose the level and over all goal from a list of around 8 options for that world. They also enjoyed the high level, but I think it was in large part luck.

Endarire
2010-09-17, 01:36 PM
I was head DM for a 3.5 game that lasted levels 1 to 21 over about 18 months. Other players eventually DMed short sections when we felt inclined. This meant characters leveled fairly quickly, but after level 5, I awarded levels at story-appropriate places instead of by kill, which led to smarter play all around.

It was my first big campaign, and the second I DMed. My first was incohesive because it started as a training session not meant to extend into campaign land.

Variety kept things interesting for the party and me. I made minigames, including a Diablo-style game for an Evocation exam. I knew the campaign world from the start (Xeen from the Might and Magic IV and V PC games), and built around that. Players loved the variety, including surprises such as laser guns and gundams in the last area, and a final battle with Death in a perpetual time stop during an alien invasion.

Dare to stretch the rules and make builds in ways the game doesn't anticipate. If you play 4E this is harder since the game is mostly about minis fighting in 2D space.

Have definite goals. Give the players hooks and let them determine how to accomplish those goals. Also, see My Advice for Newbie DMs and GMs (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168484).

valadil
2010-09-17, 01:42 PM
For example, if your players like playing Good characters, and making the world a better place, make sure your world has "structural evil" that won't be resolved by any one adventure

Their collective alignment is Boondock Saints. They kill and torture whomever they think is evil. I made this easy at first because it was the only way to unite them. It stayed easy because the threat of Netheril has a lot of evil for them to kill. But I need to figure out a bigger way to challenge their methods. So far all I've done is reflect their behavior by showing them how normal adventurers act.


I'm not personally a big fan of filler, but in the context of this campaign that's all there was, there wasn't really an overall plot.

I know what you mean. I've recently come to the conclusion that GMs include dungeons and travel time because it is filler. I can write a dungeon in an afternoon and it'll occupy the players for 4-6 sessions. I think this kind of serial dungeon play is where a lot of long term games end up.

The problem is that I don't like filler. I'd rather write dialog for 10 hours than dungeons for 1. I especially don't like running filler. My lack of enthusiasm shows and the dungeons end up sucking. If the players know I'm bored, they won't show interest either. Recently I quite literally wrote myself into a hole by having a McGuffin get carried off into the Underdark. I couldn't just fast forward through it so we've spent 3 sessions down there and it's been IMO the worst part of the game. (Any boredom or frustration you may have noticed in my first post was caused by those sessions underground).

So yes, I agree that filler is a good way to make games longer. I'm just not sure I can do it without losing interest.


For a long term campaign you should have some goal in mind. They party doesn't have to always be working towards it but you should have a set goal. At least that's what I do. They do adventures here and there and little hints get dropped here and there till they are high enough level to at least be noticed by the big bad guy and a little more involved in stopping his plans until it's finally time to storm the fortress of the bad guy.

I usually do. The general formula for my games is that someone is doing something naughty to gain power. The first thing I do is figure out what they're up to. The second is figure out how they'll be defeated. Then it's up to the players to get from point A to point B. (Oh and for what it's worth I don't always figure out that ending first. I've lately started the games and then though about where they go. I also don't set endings in stone, I just try and predict where the game will go. So far my predictions have been right.)

I think my early games were too limited in scope. They lasted 8 sessions because that was the distance between A and B. I have an epic ending for this game involving combat in an Escher painting (with a working model for the minis), visitors from past games, time traveling, the slaying of gods, and all the PCs ascending into appropriate gods. Since session 3 the players could have told you who one of the gods would be if they knew diecide was where the game was going.

Maybe I aimed too high because I'm struggling with getting them there. That ending is so far off that it doesn't really help me figure out what to do in the short term.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-17, 01:52 PM
I know what you mean. I've recently come to the conclusion that GMs include dungeons and travel time because it is filler. I can write a dungeon in an afternoon and it'll occupy the players for 4-6 sessions. I think this kind of serial dungeon play is where a lot of long term games end up.

Dungeons can be awesome...but you really need to delve into the history of the dungeon to make something great. It should have a creator, a purpose, etc. Too many dungeons just don't make any logical sense.

And yeah, travel adventures can easily suck. I never pad. I never design for a specific length of time, either. Some things can either be handled in one session, or become an entire campaign. For instance, I recently had a session in which the PCs discovered one end of a gate. They went through, and found a hall of gates to different locales. They killed the guards, stole everything in sight, then ran like mad back home, discovering only that one connected setting was Eberron. Had they chosen a less violent route, they might have discovered that the hub was a spelljammer setting, and that gates were used on commercial trading ships as a safety escape route(based on ring gates, somewhat limited. Not really practical as trade routes in themselves). Had they taken that path, the entire course of the campaign would be altered.

Therefore, nope...don't really plan out a specific length of time. We play until we get tired of playing a game, or people have to stop playing for RL reasons. Whenever I get interesting ideas for campaigns, I just add them to the world. They may come up, they may not.

valadil
2010-09-17, 02:04 PM
If you haven't pre-plotted a 1-30 Game, the easiest way to keep a campaign running is to figure out what the Players are interested in doing and running with it.


Nope, I never pre-plot. I think part of the problem is that I've overwhelmed the players with plot. They've taken over and shown initiative some of the time, but also know that I've written enough that if they sit back the plot will come to them. I'm trying to lean back on the plot throttle a little because of this, but I can't abruptly stop either.



You can do this with OOC surveys (e.g. "list 5 things you like to happen to your character"), peppering the game with plot hooks (to see what they bite), or pure intuition.


Now there's an idea. I've actually been doing something similar. I took one of those 100 things you character should know lists and ask the players one question from it each session. I figured they'd balk if I told them to fill out the questions at game start, so this lets them do the questions one at a time as they learn their characters. No reason I can't use player expectation questions as well.


I've never planned out a short campaign. They are exclusively in the realm of several-year-long epics. How do I do it? Simple. Don't have a concrete plan. Just keep sending them to various plot points along the line, most of them at least tangently related to the main plot, but some that aren't. Each step brings them closer to their goal, but that goal is so far away they can't realistically imagine themselves accomplishing it.

So far so good.


And when they finally trudge all the way up Plot Mountain and strike down the villain? Find a bigger one and send 'em after that. Game ends when the DM can't think of bigger villains or TPK happens.

This is where I have problems though. I fall in love with my villains. They become my character for the game. When the villain goes, my interest goes with it.

On the other hand I can't keep villains escaping indefinitely. The current one is a social villain who started out as the party leader (he was supposed to look like a DMPC to piss off the players). He screwed over the PCs and they turned on him. He's been eluding them ever since. But there are only so many ways he can do this. He's already had a secret twin and a doppelganger (at the same time) just to keep things confused. I feel like one more soap opera twist and the players won't care about catching him. They'll just assume there's always another twist in the way.



The PCs dont follow every thread, but no matter where they go, they can end up discovering a major thread that becomes a storyline. Plot exposition is unnecessary. Show, don't tell. Don't worry overly much about tying everything together.

But tying unrelated plots together is my favorite part of GMing! Especially if they're player created plots. I agree that they sometimes look contrived, but it won't necessarily look that way to the players. From the GM's birdseye view you can see how many plots are artificially woven together. But the players encounter them one at a time and will probably miss half of them.



Dare to stretch the rules and make builds in ways the game doesn't anticipate. If you play 4E this is harder since the game is mostly about minis fighting in 2D space.


I do use 4E and I'm very happy with it. I can half ass an encounter and it's still interesting. In 3.5 I could never get away with the amount of laziness I do in 4E.

valadil
2010-09-17, 02:07 PM
Dungeons can be awesome...but you really need to delve into the history of the dungeon to make something great. It should have a creator, a purpose, etc. Too many dungeons just don't make any logical sense.

You mean "a wizard did it" isn't valid justification for a dungeon anymore?

Tyndmyr
2010-09-17, 02:08 PM
This is where I have problems though. I fall in love with my villains. They become my character for the game. When the villain goes, my interest goes with it.

On the other hand I can't keep villains escaping indefinitely. The current one is a social villain who started out as the party leader (he was supposed to look like a DMPC to piss off the players). He screwed over the PCs and they turned on him. He's been eluding them ever since. But there are only so many ways he can do this. He's already had a secret twin and a doppelganger (at the same time) just to keep things confused. I feel like one more soap opera twist and the players won't care about catching him. They'll just assume there's always another twist in the way.

Yeah. Let him die. A secret twin AND a doppleganger is already pushing credibility. Don't focus on one villian. Make MANY characters that are equally detailed and interesting.

First tip to interesting character creation: Almost everyone has secrets.

valadil
2010-09-17, 02:17 PM
Yeah. Let him die. A secret twin AND a doppleganger is already pushing credibility. Don't focus on one villian. Make MANY characters that are equally detailed and interesting.


Oh yeah, he's ready to go. I'm not entirely sure the PCs will kill him yet, but he's not getting any more swerves.

(Spoiled for tangential babbling. My PCs should still stay out, but I doubt they're reading this.)

Normally I wouldn't do something as weird as the doppelganger twin combination, but it was part of the premise. I'm more willing to bend things in the setup.

The character was a noble. His twinliness was kept secret, effectively letting him be in two places at once during times of intrigue. It's a little cartoony, but I think this is plausible.

Because of this he was successful in politics. So a dop tried to replace him. It didn't know about his secret (and I think this is the most implausible part, the dop should have been able to discover this). It killed one of the twins. The PCs met the other.

Any more conveniences would be too much. But I think this amount of swerviness is still reasonable.

Also, the players haven't figured it out yet but once they see which one, the dop or the twin, has been receiving their sendings, this plot is over.

Oh and I have additional justification for using dops. One of the PCs is a doppelganger who is being hunted down by his family. It would be irresponsible of me not to include doppelgangers in my other plots.

Zaydos
2010-09-17, 02:22 PM
You mean "a wizard did it" isn't valid justification for a dungeon anymore?

My longest running campaign started with a dungeon crawl where they went into a cave where an illithid had set up base. Attacking a dragon led army camp. Another one which had been the site of the illithid beachhead in an interdimensional invasion. A walk through some elf woods. Being attacked by cthulloid horrors in an elven house. Going to another prime and saving a bunch of lizardmen from a tyrant (he had a small fortress; a different person DM'd this adventure). Getting off that prime which involved being besieged by beholder-kin in a reptilian elf city and then invading a beholder led hobgoblin village. Investigating an attempted murder in a distant kingdom turned duchy (homeland of a PC who was the rightful prince); which led to a session long attempt to get into a wizard's house by threatening his apprentice and going into an illithid infested mine riding an awakened triceratops (this was a bad idea; they were carrying lights... and they got pelted with Energy Balls). Teleporting to Acheron to get away from illithids shooting energy balls at them. Joining/trying to sneak into a mercenary camp on Acheron. Returning to the illithid beachhead. Attacking a beholder hive. A random magical dungeon explained with a Wizard Did It (once more another person's adventure). Teaming up with the big bad guy to go into the cavern-fort of a deviant illithid cult dedicated to the destruction of all reality. Defending a cave from the Big Bad Evil Guy in their final battle with him. Giving the PCs a chance to play something different for a few sessions with a series of 4 adventures each with only one of the normal PCs and 3 one-shot characters (one came back as a cohort) which included: Going into a dragon's cave and killing it (most of the battles on the way to the cave), going into Baator to retrieve a magical cup for a demi-god (the cup wasn't actually very magical), a walk through some haunted woods that became an escort mission, stopping a gate to hell from opening by retrieving a desecrated dragon's bones from the lord of a neighboring kingdom (he was secretly a Baatezu), and then back to the regularly scheduled programming. A trip to a magical dungeon on the moon (a wizard did it). A battle against the forces of a dragon who was building armies (actually referenced in the 2nd adventure of the campaign where the boss was his grand-nephew and working for him), to get the stuff to go to a fortress on the 2nd moon. A fortress on the 2nd moon. A trip to a magic filled canyon where the PCs fought a thunder god in their attempts to find out where the thing they needed to get to the 3rd moon was. Then college killed the campaign. I ran one last adventure over OpenRPG with 1 of the players where they went to an incarnum world and it just wasn't the same.

Edit: My big bad evil guy had a tendency of teleporting away before they could finish him off. They only fought him three times and he died the third, but they saw him one other time (he was already leaving because incompetent allies of his had gotten impatient and summoned the eldritch horror without him and now he couldn't controll it), met him in a magical inn once (he actually talked to them at that point), and allied with him in an enemy mine situation.

DanReiv
2010-09-17, 02:35 PM
We had this habit for years, starting a lots of thing, but rarely going deep into a game.

The campaign I'm running right now definitly beat all the others in term of lenght, and we'll probably (like 99%) going to see its end.

I guess it's all the game being fun, original and entertaining. Also I'm lucky since I'm running an old, converted, 3-part campaign for ad&d that was published like 15 years ago in a french rpg magazine.

I've always wanted to do it, the creators really want further than the traditional modules imho. In fact, as a DM, I look forward to play the remaining and awesauce parts left. That's my personnal motivation for converting/running it aside from the obvious fun every game should be.


Since no players missed a session yet, I guess they enjoy it too, and it's heavy oldschool railroad for the main plot.

To get you the idea here are a few summaries of what my players did and will do in the nearby future, spoilered since I know some lurks around :smallamused:

-Retrieved the mcguffin (evil layzer axe) in a remote nothern icy mountain who turned out to be a gigantic, crashed, spacecraft.
-While traveling back to the human Empire in a Kwalisphere (half-boat, half hot-air balloon vehicule, and yes Kwalish, high mage of the court, is their mentor/sponsor/boss, also, Odin's avatar (world based on northern pantheon)), lost it in an aerial fight with BBEG1 and crashed in the green ocean, a jungle so dense you can actually float on it, more or less like a real sea.
-Recovered by a elf's cousin race that venture this place and went to Ebony Port, the main city of this territory, build on an gigantic and elderly tree.
-Tried to travel back on Peak's runner who got trashed by a mechanical snake, went in the depth, explore and trash a gigantic "sunken" city and find portal to the Empire there.
-Recovered by pixies, learned they went missing for month and that the Empire has fallen to the hordes and heterogeneous armies lead by BBEG1, now wielding teh mcguffin.
-Breaked the siege and entered the Dawn Citadel, the last remaining place in the hand of the Empire.
-Sent in ArchaOs, a necropolis hidden in the abyss to free the Emperor, sent there by BBEG1. Delivered while feeing half the town and its shadow dragon's master.

And that's a very short summaries of chapter 1.

Old labyrinth used for mages trials ? check.
City (there's a dwarf MAFIA), sewers, swamp, desert, sea, moutain adventures ? check.
Epic large battles ? check.
Kill BBEG1 from the inside a la Fantastic Voyage's sauce? check.
Sent to the moon ? check.
Fight and incidently free BBEG2 from its prison there ? check.
Time travels ? check.
Fight Vecna in the ancient world ? check.
Ragnarok ? check.

Heck, that's half of the stuff of this campaign. SO that's my opinion, find some awesomesauce both you and the players enjoy (and I'm more speaking about modules/scenario/campaign than game/settings here) and it's actually quite easy.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-17, 02:36 PM
You mean "a wizard did it" isn't valid justification for a dungeon anymore?

Eh, it works the first time or two you use it, I guess, but I want to at least explain why the wizard did it. Im as fond of wizards insane with power as much as the next guy, but variety is awesome.

Did one dungeon recently that was natural. And inhabited by giant ants. Another one was a sunken city(actually, I think I drew that up in module form. I need to upload that) deep beneath the ground(it was discoverable by means of the first one).

Another of my "dungeon crawls" is a flying castle. It involves some more entertaining things for the higher level party. Antimagic fields around the entire lot, with a few spires sticking out, containing construct operated cannons. Result, an antimagic shell that you don't want to spend too long figuring out how to get through. Inside, you have fun things like golems that aren't there to kill you. They're there to, if all else fails, hit the buttons linked to the immovable rods holding the place up(and other fun self-destruct things). If they let that happen, then they get to escape by traversing a falling, collapsing castle with an antimagic shell outside it. Built by a gnomish artificer, so makes heavy use of constructs and such in preference to magic, and contains everything an artificer could want.

A dungeon that doesn't fit the typical dungeon model of actually being dug in the ground is good. Interplanar options are fun. I might set one on a giant blimp at some point. A spelljamming ship would be a great locale for one. Flooded or underwater dungeons can be interesting.

akma
2010-09-17, 03:11 PM
I planned to do a long campaign that each adventure had NOTHING to do with the last one. Instead, each one was supposed to explain something that would make the last one clearer, and make the players be anti those who will turn out to be not as evil as they thought (twists!). Also, there would be connections between them (for exemple, the players will get contacted by a trading company that would later get the players to get a ring that a villain will wear). If I would have tried to just run the last adventure, I would have to explain a lot of things, and I had a feeling that if I`ll start an adventure by 30 minutes speech the players would like it less then if they knew everything that they were supposed to know at the start.



A dungeon that doesn't fit the typical dungeon model of actually being dug in the ground is good. Interplanar options are fun. I might set one on a giant blimp at some point. A spelljamming ship would be a great locale for one. Flooded or underwater dungeons can be interesting.

I thought of making a dungeon that is basically a forest guarded by violent druids, and trying to walk off a certain road is nearly impossible becuse of the thick arrangement of the plants, so there would be fake walls.

Dirty n Evil
2010-09-17, 03:33 PM
For me personally, the best advice I can have is to try and plot your games like you're Joss Whedon and your adventures are seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". What do I mean by that?

Firstly, each season of Buffy was planned as though once it was finished, the show could have theoretically finished at that point and been fine. Your campaign arcs should possess that quality, as well - it will allow your players a chance to have a set moment of accomplishment, and people feel good when they've accomplished matters. Each villain should be stronger and of a different nature than the ones before them... if you have them face off against an evil mage, then an evil cultist cleric, then another evil mage, then another evil cultist cleric, the next level doesn't hold as much appeal. Come at the characters sideways.

Secondly, filler adventures aren't all bad. Perhaps they take a small element for their main goal and it drags them off course for an adventure, but that can be good. Filler adventures allow a small bit of alternate flavor from what your characters have been facing for a while. If the big bad is a necromancer sort and your characters have been facing almost exclusively undead, throw them a side adventure that has a good mix of ogres and manticores. The side adventure works the same way a sorbet often does in large meals - it cleanses the palate to better appreciate the next dish.

Finally, (and this has been somewhat already addressed, but I'll repeat it) pay attention to what your players want. There are times when simply reacting to a threat to the lands your players are in is enough... but sometimes, they may want to improve the world overall. This changes them from the hunted to the hunter, and leads to a very different sort of campaign focus. A change in focus keeps the players alert and thinking, and in the long run they'll appreciate you and the game for it.

NeoRetribution
2010-09-19, 06:48 AM
There are two qualities that all of my long-term campaigns ( two years for each, minimum ) have possessed. The first relates to the players and personality. Based on the commentary of the first post I am leaning to say something like, "You are fishing in the wrong pond. What you want are players who like the same things you do, and not tricks to keep them interested."

The second quality is that every minor arc has somehow tied in to all of the others in such a way that the players can vividly see it.

shaddy_24
2010-09-19, 08:43 AM
I tend to run my longer games in two main stages. Stage 1 lasts the first third of the available levels (1-6 or 7 for 3.5, 1-10 for 4th), and the next stage lasts however long it takes the players to finish the game. In stage 1, I introduce things to the players. They face their early challenges and save the day, solving all the problems and killing the big bad. We can choose to end there or keep going. If they keep going, that's when I pull out all the stops. I throw something huge and rediculous at the party and the entire world, and leave it up to them to decide how they want to react. It's usually in some way connected to the problem they solved in part 1. I introduce plenty of ways the party could go to deal with this, and follow up on the ones they didn't check out. Maybe that wizard they didn't question later gets kidnapped and their opponent learns something the wizard knew that he didn't. Now the party has to find another way to learn that information and counter a big bad who knows something they don't. I don't put a specific time limit on thing, because that usually pushes the players more then they want to be pushed, but I do impose a feeling of urgency. If they just sit around, the world itself might end. They're forced into action, but by this point they're powerful and famous enough to change the world and fight this their own way.

Psyx
2010-09-19, 10:01 AM
I have to take a break every now and again. Sometimes I fancy a week off and we play cards, or a wargame or similar, and sometimes I run something else for 6 months.

As soon as I stop running games, I start getting ideas for them again, so I just jot them down and plan; saving up my new ideas for the next 'series'.

I tend to just kick ideas around in my head. The aim of my campaigns isn't ever for something specific to be achieved, but more about the journey itself. I try not to think about 'end results', because then as a GM I would loose focus on the present. Often 'side quest' scenarios have nothing to do with the main plot (assuming that there is one!). Typically, my largest campaigns never intended to have a long or specific duration: They just grew.

Change is also the key. Think of a wide range of challenges. Think of cool places to stage combats, or interesting NPCs. I tend to keep my enthusiasm by putting aside a bit of time each week (normally while going for a walk) to mull ideas over and scheme.

Feedback is cool too. If your players want to talk about the game and their characters outside of the game, it's a good sign. And that enthusiasm is good motivation in itself: It always makes me more interested in the game when my players talk about their plans and characters, and often sparks ideas.

oxybe
2010-09-19, 11:45 AM
how?

in my experience it requires a mix of a few things:

the first is some willingness to be railroaded to a certain extent on the player's sides. i've never played in a "sandbox" game that lasted more then 10 sessions before fizzling out due to the players or GM having no real goal. it's been my experience that you need to set a "goal" for the campaign with the players and work towards it.

while i'm not the one GMing it, my group is currently playing a pathfinder game on Wednesdays using the Council of Thieves (http://devilsanddilettantes.blogspot.com/) adventure path. the link goes to our GM's writeup of the sessions and session 16 should be up soon, don't read if you don't want spoilers. our last campaign with this guy went on for over 70 sessions over the span of about 2 years using the savage tide AP.

we fully understand that there is a set plot going on and this is to it's strength: while the GM alters things enough to allow our characters to do their thing and shine, we try our best not to derail the plot (though we do accidentally destroy plot points occasionally. heh. oops :smallredface:). the fact that there is a plot gives structure and cohesion to our escapades and a reason to adventure together more then "well, we're PCs... s'what we do".

now i'm not saying to put the players on the first Lightning Rail outta Sharn with no chance to get off. i'm saying give the campaign a goal and work towards it, with occasional stops for either personal PC goals or filler to give the GM time to prep material.

second is to make sure your players can commit themselves to the campaign. if the players can't commit to a steady schedule it can become increasingly difficult to run a game. in larger groups of 6-7 players, missing one or two isn't so bad but in smaller groups of 3-4, missing half to two-thirds of the group can cause problems. if this happens too often interest can wane.

don't penalize player's character for the player missing sessions. i personally keep XP the same across the board regardless of if you attended the session or not, and when i play i try to make sure to keep a share of the treasure aside for the missing players. penalizing a player for missing a few sessions, especially if they're "high value" XP/treasure sessions, can have the character fall back on levels and this can hurt in the long run.

if a player is needlessly missing sessions, confront him and ask why. if it's disinterest either try to change aspects of the game so he'll come more often or simply uninvite him. it's not fair to the rest of the party to have a 5th wheel that's unable to pull it's weight and needs constant attention. there's a reason "protect quests" in videogames aren't usually looked upon fondly.

this gets worse if there are plot aspects revolving around certain characters who aren't there to advance the plot. when the plot requires a piece of information gathered by "Shady Group A" and only one player belongs to said group/has their trust and that player misses a game... well it can cause it's own set of problems. the easiest way around this is not focus the story around the characters, but the group. this way even if you are missing a player or two, this won't affect the game too seriously.

third is to make sure the players make characters they want to play over the course of several sessions. nothing breaks a campaign's stride more IMO then a constantly changing cast of characters. we've yet to have even one character change yet.

in our savage tide game most players changed characters at least once, some due to death, others due to being near useless at times but that was over the course of 70 sessions so it's not like the cast was changing all the time.

if you do need to rotate out a character do so when appropriate for the story and make sure the replacement character has a reason to join the group more then "he's an adventurer".

before the campaign, have a pre-start session so each PC can flesh out their own reason for being part of the group, most of us (spoilered due to CoT backstory)...

most of us are either dissatisfied with the corrupt government or have been done wrong by them or their officials. we want a change so we joined up with a group of anti-establishement rebels and are currently working to try to topple the current government. the overall goals have been to gather objects, like an unused printing press to print propaganda with "official" city seals, or try to find incriminating documents to sway the public on our side.

we are currently working on our public image by trying to rid the city of some strange shadow beasts that have been lurking above and under the streets.

hope this helps!