Have you participated in rotating GMs?

[Quertus]

the problem with one-shot/short campaigns is that you can't build the same kind of emotional involvement with your character and the campaign world.

You can share both the world and the PCs between all the GMs and thus still get attached. That is actually how it is done most often.

So… there are many possible answers here.

Yes, “continuity of cast and setting” is one possible answer (and feels very germane to this thread).

But one-shots also provide the freedom to *not* have that level of investment. It’s a great opportunity to find out whether you can play a character who is constantly cracking jokes, or (like Deadpool) constantly breaking the 4th wall, or a different gender, or just “not your normal class / build / role”. Or to learn firsthand why everyone hates Kender.

It’s also an opportunity to try new systems. Most groups aren’t clever and creative enough to make running the same PCs in D&D, WoD, CoC, Rifts, and Fate a thing, so getting caught up on one often excludes the other.

But, even if that long-term commitment is the ultimate goal? Why, just giving people the opportunity to run (and play in) these one-shots may build up the appropriate skills and hungers in people to make that happen.