What is a "campaign"?

[Doctor Zen]

In most fantasy games in my experience a campaign usually for the characters last for several real years of playing time. In the few Champions games I have have the pleasure of playing in, there is always a "Campaign City" but no long plot thread to send the players on.

 

Does the superhero genre not lend itself to this kind of playing style due to the source material, of have I just missed out? Has anyone ever put their players through a long, drawn-out story line that could encompass a hero going from just starting out to being one of the premiere heroes in the country?

 

The only "campaigns" I can think of in comics were for solo characters. I do not count "Watchmen" as a campaign as it had a single story to tell. The examples I see are:

 

Cerebus: 300 issues telling the life story of one obnoxious aardvark. (Fun at first, but eventually lost in the bitterness of the writer)

Starman: James Robinson's examination of the life of Jack Knight.

Miracleman: While the story lost me at some point when I could no longer identify with the character, I think that Moore had a beginning-middle-end idea for this character.

 

Now, I am not including Japanese comics which probably have a large number of these types of books (Lone Wolf and Cub, for example) because I have not read a lot of those. And probably the British and European comics have examples, but I have been  exposed to only a few of these books.

 

Can teams of supers go through a campaign?

 

[Tjack]

X-Men's Whedon run. Three arcs in one campaign set in a multi GM universe.

[assault]

I haven't played one either, but there is no reason why it can't be done.

 

The classic comics form of an ongoing, never ending except for cancellation form doesn't support it at first glance, but there are plenty of examples of long ongoing stories within this framework.

 

Thanos and associated characters were in one such run back in the 70s, for example.

 

The early New Gods stories would have been another if they had been allowed to continue.

 

There are a bunch of long X-Men storyline - the early "new" X-Men stories up to the end of the Phoenix saga could be considered another.

 

Zero to Superhero is less of a thing, mainly because origins tend to be the first thing that happens. On the other hand, stories about inexperienced heroes learning how to deal with their powers and their consequences are all over the place - early Spider-Man, early X-Men, Firestorm, some Teen Titans stories, etc.

 

You could easily tap into this stuff for a game.

[Doctor Zen]

Long story lines in comics, such as the first Dark Phoenix saga and the original Captain Marvel/Thanos story seem more like arcs in a campaign, but not a campaign itself.

 

I guess what I am really looking for is if any GM has gathered his players together and said that the main story of the game would be the heroes need to take down the forces of DEMON (or some other organization) or, maybe, there is a mysterious figure behind several things that are happening in the world and you are gong to stop it. Not every story would need to be connected to that but there would be a definite stopping point and the game would end.

 

In fantasy, the quest is an obvious campaign trope, find the ring/sword/human avatar that will stop the Dark Lord from ruling the fair lands of Smiling Face peoples.

 

This query came up from something I saw in the Golden Age Champions thread when someone mentioned that there were no campaigns presented in the released product. It got me to wondering if anyone actually used a campaign theme or if they followed the usual comic book style of combating menaces no one else can defeat and then stopping the next menace when it rears its costumed head.

[Cantriped]

Sure you can have a superheroic campaign (in the sense that a "campaign" is simply a string of related "scenarios"), although they do tend to be less common in cinema and literature as a rule. I feel like true "campaigns" are actually becoming less common for other genre's too. Nobody seems to be running all that many traditional, epic, "slay the dark lord" style campaigns in Fantasy genres either. Most adventuring 'campaigns' I see these days don't really qualify, but I've played a lot of Dungeons & Murderhobos.

[mrinku]

I don't really see too much difference between a "long story arc" in a superhero comic and a "campaign quest" in Fantasy, but yeah, the superhero genre is basically built around monthly stories that typically resolve within the issue. 

 

Long arc stories and epic campaigns are a relative latecomer. The "Galactus Trilogy" was considered astoundingly long for its three issue run in 1966, but certainly by the Bronze Age there were a lot of background plots whose conclusion the writers worked towards. You could consider The Phoenix Saga or The Judas Contract as discrete novels with episodic chapters. The effect is much like a TV season leading up to a season finale climax.

 

Proper objective driven campaigns probably only started with the company crossover events. Much as they annoyed me as a comic collector, they do make for decent models for RPGs. Secret Wars, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Fall of the Mutants, Darkest Night, Civil War and House of M all make for good campaigns.

 

One big difference between the style of fantasy you're referring to and Superhero fiction is that superheroes start out far more powerful than almost everyone else, by definition. There is no "hero's journey" or Level One to Level Twenty progression, or if there is it happens in their Origin and takes one issue at most, often only a few pages. Sure, there's more powerful Big Bads, but the fantasy equivalent is much more along the lines of Beowulf, The Labours of Hercules or The Quest for the Holy Grail, where the protagonists are already the mightiest in the land. How much character progression do you see with the non-Hobbit members of the Fellowship of the Ring? Not much. Those guys are a better model for Superheroes than Frodo, Pippin, Shea Ohmsford or Garion.

 

Which isn't to say that rookie heroes don't exist. The New Mutants were a team of them, and their book was often about them growing up and becoming more competent. But they're not the norm.

 

In relation to the Golden Age, there's one massive campaign that's built into it by definition. It's called World War Two. Everything else has to be smaller story arcs by definition.

[Tjack]

The "Hero's Journey" Mrinku mentions is done in most comics several years after the character debut in real time. These are generally referred to as "year one" series.

[Nothere]

It's a matter of the source material. Fantasy campains are based off lord of the rings or beowolf . Comic campaigns are based off comics. One has the heroes travel through many lands, and confront many foes most of whom work for the dark lord/ evil empire. The other has the hero fight a different colorfully garbed villain every month. A comic campaign would be just like you suggest. Viper has taken a strangle hold on the city. The heroes start out dealing with Viper minions. Foil a few resource gathering plots, Viper gets annoyed and sends elite agents and targeting the heroes. A few random villians crop up. The heroes shut down a few auxilliary bases, and finally face the head of Viper in his main base. IT's certainly doable to have a fantasy style quest. There are however a few problems. Espically if the heroes aren't globtrotters. It's one thing to know the villain is in the Dark Tower of Argorath in the Kingdom of Galain and you can fight him.  But first you have to travel across five lands fight the armies of the five warlords, and stop by the caverns of Karos to get the jewel of Sharti . It's quite another to wonder why none of the ten thousand Viper agents you've captured don't know the main base is at the Greenway building on 5th street Buses stop by their hourly if you don't want to take a cab.

[Nothere]

Oh and to your other question. No I've never exactly run a quest campaign. The closest I did was one where the crook who ran the city died, and various contenders were vieing for the throne. The heroes were trying to prevent a new united underworld.

[Lucius]

Can teams of supers go through a campaign?

Judging by the evidence I see in the "Quote of the Week from my Gaming Group" thread, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

But can a palindromedary go through a needle's eye?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I see a campaign as a lot more loose a definition than you're using: not a single story arc but rather a long-term continual game with the same characters and setting in sequence.  Like the Byrne/Claremont X-Men run.

[mrinku]

Oh, yeah. In comic terms, the campaign ends when the key creator moves to another project and they're replaced by some hack.

 

I'd also point out that there is almost NO fantasy literature that pre-dates D&D (and not much that post-dates it) that really supports the basic D&D setup of a group of novice adventurers that grow together. It's pretty much an RPG convenience.

 

Lord of the Rings has a group, but it's an elite bodyguard to deliver the non-combatant ringbearer to Mount Doom, plus comic relief. Frodo doesn't even really grow during the journey - if anything he gets weaker and more and more under the influence of the Ring. Conan is pretty much always the same kick-arse bully (and a solo act). You can shuffle his tales and read them in any order. Likewise for Fafhrd and Mouser, or Elric. Conan and the Twain are also episodic, not a campaign. Even when Conan becomes King of Aquilonia, it happens more or less by accident. There wasn't any manifest destiny or great Dark Lord he fought.

 

Sword of Shannara (1977) and the Belgariad (1983) have genuine hero's journey stories, but even there you have experienced companions guarding the Special Kid.

 

It's common to find the hero's journey in fairy tales, in older science fiction and in respectable literature, but it's not really a thing in older Heroic Fantasy stories.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Conan and Fafhrd/Gray Mouser definitely grow and change in their stories, but its not a steady process.  Its more "younger then older" one, novice then expert.

[mrinku]

Well, "Ill Met in Lankhmar" is their origin and meeting (1970) and there's their final (rather awkward) "what happened in the end" one ("Rime Isle", 1977). Both are very much latter-day tales.

 

But I'll not dispute the influence they had on D&D itself. They are the epitome of hard bitten, low fantasy heroes.

[Jagged]

Can teams of supers go through a campaign?

Most definitely. All the games I have run I have considered have a "campaign". Which I consider the background theme/plot thread that ties everything together. Usually hidden from the players at the start. But that's just my preferred play style.

[Cantriped]

I think many of us also fall into the trap of misusing the term 'campaign'. For example, when somebody casually says they are running a "Pathfinder Campaign"... they probably aren't running an actual campaign. The scenarios all too rarely have anything to do with one another. In that context they most meant that they are GM for a Table* running Pathfinder (which doesn't sound nearly as cool).

 

* "Table" is the term I was taught for a group of tabletop gamers, like a Murder of Crows, or a Pride of Lions.

[Christopher R Taylor]

See that's where I vary, I think the opposite; that campaign doesn't have to mean a single tight story arc or related adventures.  That's fun but its not needed for a campaign.  I use campaign for an ongoing regular game as opposed to one-shots or games in which characters change a lot and the setting alters.  This week we're playing call of Cthulhu!  I'll run it again next week, but it will be Gaslight, new characters.  Then we'll play Western Hero.  That's not a campaign, its just a gaming group regularly meeting to play various games.  

 

But if you play, say, Danger, International with a group of international mercenaries who solve crimes (ala A-Team) with the same basic group of characters every week, its a campaign.

[Cantriped]

But if you play, say, Danger, International with a group of international mercenaries who solve crimes (ala A-Team) with the same basic group of characters every week, its a campaign.

I wouldn't necessarily call that a campaign (although it could be organized as one). Such scenarios are essentially unrelated adventures which happen to have a shared cast. In order to qualify as a Campaign per the actual definition of the term, the characters must "work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one". A qualifying goal might be to 'wipe out a (particular) crime syndicate', or even 'end world hunger'. In order to qualify as a campaign per common gaming parlance, said goal must require a minimum of two or more related scenarios to accomplish.

Sharing a cast is ​​not​ one of the qualities a campaign must possess; because characters sometimes die or retire and are replaced during a campaign. Otherwise the moment a player dropped out or a character died; the campaign would, by definition, be over. This is obviously not the case as military campaigns are not typically disrupted by singular casualties.

[death tribble]

We campaigned Champions. The premise was simple. The creation and running of the group in modern day London and the rest of the country surviving whatever was thrown at us and what was in the headlines.

[Cantriped]

I would not consider "surviving whatever was thrown at us" to be equivalent to "work(ing) in an organized and active way toward a particular goal". Quite the opposite, I consider that to be working in a disorganized and passive way towards no particular goal whatsoever. That is like the Champions equivalent of playing Murderhobos in D&D. Entertaining certainly, but does not a campaign make.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sure, you have a specific definition of a campaign, one i'd call a 'story arc'.  

[Jagged]

I was just looking at my much loved Edition 3 Champions book and it has a whole "Campaign" section

 

It doesn't really define what a campaign is but says "Adventures in Champions can be played on an individual basis, or may be linked together to form a campaign game. In a campaign the history and background for one adventure can be used as the basis for other adventures."

 

Draw from that what you will

[death tribble]

I would not consider "surviving whatever was thrown at us" to be equivalent to "work(ing) in an organized and active way toward a particular goal". Quite the opposite, I consider that to be working in a disorganized and passive way towards no particular goal whatsoever. That is like the Champions equivalent of playing Murderhobos in D&D. Entertaining certainly, but does not a campaign make.

You say potato, I say potato

[Cantriped]

You say potato, I say potato

I disagree. As described, your so-called 'campaign' didn't have a "particular goal" nor were the characters working "in an organized and active way" towards said undefined goal. Perhaps your description was incomplete?

 

I was just looking at my much loved Edition 3 Champions book and it has a whole "Campaign" section

 

It doesn't really define what a campaign is but says "Adventures in Champions can be played on an individual basis, or may be linked together to form a campaign game. In a campaign the history and background for one adventure can be used as the basis for other adventures."

 

Draw from that what you will

They didn't have to define it explicitly, because we already have a actual real-world definitions of the term to draw from, ones that aren't merely my personal opinions*:

"Campaign"

1  |  "

a series of military operations intended to achieve a particular objective, confined to a particular area, or involving a specified type of fighting."

 

​2  | 

"work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one."

 

* However, as I mentioned above (Post #5), in common gaming parlance, the term "campaign" simply refers to a chain of two or more (usually consecutive) "scenarios" with common or related goals. Scenarios are also referred to as "Adventures", especially for the purposes of awarding Experience.

 

By the way, the iconic Gygaxian D&D game qualifies as a campaign according to the second definition. Despite the lack of a cohesive narrative spurring their actions, or a shared cast (as in Gygaxian model characters frequently die and are replaced by their players), the party is acting as an organized force which performs militant operations to acquire personal wealth and power. Which explains why most such campaigns end when the characters have amassed enough wealth and power to retire (they've achieved their particular campaign's goal).

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sure but neither of those definitions are game-specific, and I've never actually heard or seen a game campaign be one that requires a single story arc or theme to qualify.  I see that more of a subset of campaign, something a campaign can consist of but need not be exclusively.