What is a "campaign"?

[Tech]

Story arc was brought up so I'm commenting on that. The longest story arc I had lasted for over two real years and well over 100 episodes in those two years. Alot of experience was gotten and one character ended up with a girlfriend. Campaign-wise, at least three supergroups have become well-known and respected.

[Cantriped]

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.

Barring a system-specific definition (such as how the game defines what terms like "Blast" and "Normal Damage" are), is it not reasonable to use the general, real-world definition?

Further, A story arc isn't required to qualify as a campaign under any definition I accept (including its usage in common gaming parlance). Not every scenario has a cohesive narrative (or story arc), therefore nor does every campaign. One could participate in a tabletop Campaign that had no roleplaying or narrative storytelling elements at all. Such a game would essentially just be a series of abstract tactical simulations, but so long as each scenario worked towards a particular goal, it qualifies as a campaign. The goal can be vague. But without one, it simply isn't, by definition, a campaign regardless of how many scenarios make it up. Conversely an adventure does not have to have a goal, and almost all scenarios and campaigns also qualify as adventures. Given that an adventure is simply "an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity".

[Christopher R Taylor]

The last game I ran was your definition of campaign: one single story unfolding over time with the same group and system.  Usually its just whatever I come up with as a GM for that week: sometimes its a story arc, sometimes its something new.

 

 

Barring a system-specific definition (such as how the game defines what terms like "Blast" and "Normal Damage" are), is it not reasonable to use the general, real-world definition?

 

 

I wouldn't use the same definition for virtual in a computer/internet context as I would for a philosophical one.  Context matters.  Words are defined by their use in context, not by absolute rules.

 

What I'm curious about is what on earth you define a non-campaign as.  What do you call a game where the same group with the same characters sit down and play the same game, with different and often unrelated adventures, lacking a story arc. What is the term for that?

[death tribble]

As far as we were concerned it was a campaign. It stated with the formation of the team over a number of scenarios and built from there. It was set in a specific place and followed how the team operated. This meant getting set up, getting police powers, getting new recruits etc. There were long story arcs such as the Destroyer arc. But it built progressively. It was more open ended than say Cthulhu which has very specific arcs. But it was still a campaign because things carried over. Much the same as say The X-Files. 

[bluesguy]

A while back I bought a product called Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management which describes the process of managing a campaign.  The material is genre and system neutral, which makes it very useful.

 

The definition they provide for a campaign is "A campaign is a series of gaming sessions focused on a group of characters which maintains a sense of continuity."  The book points out that there are four basic elements to a campaign:

• Characters : A group of characters who do things together.  Some will be at the beginning and last throughout the entire campaign and others will not.
• Game Sessions/Adventures : Stories/events/ actions that take place with the characters.  Change happens through the adventure - both to the characters and to their environment.
• Series of adventures : Characters are involved in multiple adventures and typically the adventures are linear.
• Continuity : Events that occur in one session can impact the next session or a later session.

My Champions campaigns are extremely episodic and tend to revolve around action (the fight).  Some event brings the superheroes together to battle the bad guys of the week.  This approach matches a great deal of the source material available to many players.  Superhero TV shows (live action and cartoons) have tended to be very episodic (Wonder Woman, Incredible Hulk, Bionic man/woman, campy Batman TV show).  A much more recent development in Superhero TV shows is the long running story arc - usually a whole season revolving around a single menace.  Both approaches meet the above four criteria:  characters got together, they have an adventure, the main characters keep showing up and past episodes impact how the character will act.

 

I have been running a Champions campaign for about 5 or 6 years now.  It all started because I wanted to do something with my teenagers and wife on Sunday afternoons.  Their three characters formed the basis of a team.  There have been a rotating cast of other PCs as people joined/left the group.  I think we had two or three adventure arcs that lasted longer than 2 sessions.  Most were one or two sessions.  Episodic.  Sometimes a past bad guy would reappear.  All of the characters have changed - not just because of XP (often in spite of XP).

 

 

I have also run a pure sandbox Fantasy Campaign.  Basically created a place and populated it with people, monsters, rumors, stories, etc. and then turned the players loose to do what they wanted.  There were some themes - trying to find  a son who had been kidnapped by one of the player's brothers, finding out who killed another character's wife, etc.  Those themes took years to play out.  But mostly it was wandering around and discovering things.  Many times the players would guess about something in the game (outside of what I was thinking) and I would find ways to include that into the campaign.  I have also run many big Epic Fantasy Campaign.

 

It is important to know what your players want vs. trying to fit things into a narrow definition of what you think is best as a GM.  I made that mistake with a Sci Fi campaign which imploded after three episodes (after I spent about 8 months setting everything up).

[death tribble]

And according to the definitions that Bluesguy quotes, what I participated in was a campaign.

Feel free to disagree but told try to tell me otherwise.

[bluesguy]

And according to the definitions that Bluesguy quotes, what I participated in was a campaign.

Feel free to disagree but told try to tell me otherwise.

And more importantly - did you have fun?  Did the people played in the group have fun?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I have no dog in this hunt, people can define their games however they want I've just never run into this definition before and I'm trying to understand it and know how prevalent it is.  If I'm using the word in  manner that others are unfamiliar with, it might lead to confusion in my products.

[death tribble]

And more importantly - did you have fun?  Did the people played in the group have fun?

It ran from the mid 80s when we started playing into the 90s. So pretty much yeah, we all had fun.

[Cantriped]

I wouldn't use the same definition for virtual in a computer/internet context as I would for a philosophical one.  Context matters.  Words are defined by their use in context, not by absolute rules.

Context does matter. Every field of study (including game systems) have their own unique subsets of the language. But unless the field redefines a term, it is fair to assume the standard definition is in use. In that regard there are indeed absolute rules (to the degree that any human construct can be called absolute) for the defining and use of words.

 

Also note that I said pretty early on (post #16) that the term is fairly commonly misused. So much so it could be argued its definition has shifted (much like "literally" now officially means "figuratively" in some contexts, absolutely stupid as that is).

 

What I'm curious about is what on earth you define a non-campaign as.  What do you call a game where the same group with the same characters sit down and play the same game, with different and often unrelated adventures, lacking a story arc. What is the term for that?

Most commonly? If it is a Tabletop RPG we misuse the term and call it a Campaign. It isn't like were talking about a binary concept, we don't really need an antonym for campaign in this context, you simply need to refer to it by whichever broader terms it still qualifies for and which describe the concept sufficiently for your players to understand what it is (what it isn't is irrelevant). But if you want to define it accurately, you could call it any number of things: "a series of adventures/scenarios" or "a [system Name] game" (I.E. "a Fantasy Hero Game", a "Pathfinder Game"). You can also insert qualitative terms, such as "Weekly" if it is a game that happens regularly every week (I.E. "a weekly Champions game").

 

For example... I am playing in a weekly Rollmaster game right now. I don't call it a campaign because thus far we are simply playing through a single adventure (a module to be specific), and after it is finished we will be rotating GMs and I'll be running a Street-Level Champions game. My game probably won't be a campaign by my definition either

 

A while back I bought a product called Odyssey: The Complete Game Master's Guide to Campaign Management which describes the process of managing a campaign.  The material is genre and system neutral, which makes it very useful.

 

The definition they provide for a campaign is "A campaign is a series of gaming sessions focused on a group of characters which maintains a sense of continuity."  The book points out that there are four basic elements to a campaign:

• Characters : A group of characters who do things together.  Some will be at the beginning and last throughout the entire campaign and others will not.
• Game Sessions/Adventures : Stories/events/ actions that take place with the characters.  Change happens through the adventure - both to the characters and to their environment.
• Series of adventures : Characters are involved in multiple adventures and typically the adventures are linear.
• Continuity : Events that occur in one session can impact the next session or a later session.

This set of definitions largely meshes with what I understand to be the most common usage of the term in a gaming context; and it is published in a literary work on the subject I am willing to accept as a credible source for the definition of the term "campaign" (in lieu of the actual real-world definitions). This definition also happens to share the lynch-pin prerequisite and supports many (but not all) of my arguments above. Which is to say in order to qualify as a Campaign, it must be composed of a series of adventures/scenarios with continuity. A single adventure does not a campaign make (regardless of how many sessions are required to resolve the adventure).

 

Note: Stubborn though I am ​I try very hard to be the kind of person who can engage in true dialectic arguments. I am not trying to back peddle, I am trying to allow myself to be persuaded by the superior logic being presented.

 

And according to the definitions that Bluesguy quotes, what I participated in was a campaign.

Feel free to disagree but told try to tell me otherwise.

According to that definition (which I accepted the validity of above), yes you did. My disagreement hinged upon using the real-world definition of the term.

 

So pretty much yeah, we all had fun.

That matters way, way more than whether or not it was 'actually a campaign'.

 

Actually, at the end, that is really all that matters. What we call it is irrelevant as long as we can agree on terms amongst our own tables.

 

Yeah I have no dog in this hunt, people can define their games however they want I've just never run into this definition before and I'm trying to understand it and know how prevalent it is.  If I'm using the word in  manner that others are unfamiliar with, it might lead to confusion in my products.

Based on the fact that there is apparently a book (and most likely many books) on the subject using that definition: probably fairly prevalent. My 20ish years of studying game design aside... I am a person obsessed with technicalities and minutia, and prone to strongly held and unpopular opinions.

[mrinku]

Language changes and adapts, especially in the context of jargon, and I think it's fair to say that while the common usage of "campaign" in an RPG context to refer to "a continuing narrative" or "stories told in a common setting" is incorrect by the general dictionary definition, it's what we use. I've rarely if ever played with a final objective in mind for a whole group setting, but the earliest RPGs borrowed the term from the wargames they descended from and it's always been the term used.

[assault]

The discussion has moved on, but..

 

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.

 

If the campaign starts at the beginning of the story line/arc, and ends at the end, the two are synonymous.

 

There's a beginning, a middle and an end. The exact starting point doesn't matter so much, nor does what happens afterwards.

[megaplayboy]

Generally, I've run campaigns that mix episodic adventures(one-offs) with continuing story arcs(which may have 3 or more "chapters").  There may be a unifying character origin(they're super-clones, they're all mutants, they're all superpowered people of color, everybody got their powers from a shard of a giant crystal of power, etc.), a unifying villainous organization, mega or master villain(alien invaders, viper, etc.), and/or a unifying goal(rebuild a city, explore the universe, etc.).  

Most comics nowadays do what I'd call the "TPB story arc"(Trade Paperback) which consists of a six-issue story.  That would probably be akin to a mini-campaign.  A story arc that takes a dozen or more sessions to resolve, or lasts longer than a year, would certainly qualify as a campaign imo.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I took Aaron Allston's advice: mix up your games.  After a long series, do a couple short ones.  If you have been doing tragic or deep stories, do a couple silly ones.  Keep things changing with some variety.

[Greywind]

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

 

 

Working together in a group to take the world's trash out and make it a better place.

[Spence]

Encounter/One Shot = A simple adventure that is concluded in one or two sessions.  Stands alone.

 

Story Arc = A series of adventures that follow a plot line from a beginning to an ending.

 

Campaign = An overall concept with a defining mission comprised on multiple Story Arcs and multiple One Shots run in a semi continuous fashion over and extended period of time.

 

Best Superhero Campaign I ever got to play in.

 

Defenders of New York (we played in the early 90's).  The team was charged with protecting New York City from extraordinary threats and as well as working closely with the Police and local law agencies to fight crime. We  seldom left the City and its surrounding area.  Cooperated with the FBI and the world sense was law enforcement was good and when some were crooked it was the individual bad apples, not law enforcement in general.

 

The one major arc that ran throughout the had Dr Destroyer plotting to take over the city.  We actually didn't discover that Dr D was involved until over 6 months into the campaign.  We knew there was a crime syndicate in play, but not who ran it.

 

There were multiple side arcs that would start up and run simultaneously with the main plot, and many times we would confuse and mix up clues and events.    The most memorable side arcs: The Yakuza/Triad War (turf war for control of drugs, prostitution and gambling), The Great Heist (super-powered thieves stealing jewelry and artifacts, first time I encountered Cheshire Cat) , and Things That Go Bump in the Night (Vampires moving into the city). 

 

And many many many One Shots.

 

It was great because we never know where the session fit into things until we investigated. 

 

After that experience a simple one line story arc no matter how many sessions will never be a Campaign.

 

And last but not least.  The players had SuperHEROES.  No vigilantes, no super-powered thugs, etc. 

 

[TheQuestionMan]

Swap the GM's seat with one of your Player's.

 

Recharges your batteries and makes the appreciate your GMing more.

[Cantriped]

Swap the GM's seat with one of your Player's.

 

Recharges your batteries and makes the appreciate your GMing more.

This is what we're doing right now in my group. Once the current adventure is resolved (the GM is running a heavily modified version of Rollmaster using an old D&D module he's converted), I'll be taking over as GM for a little while, and running a street-level Champions game using CC.

[Spence]

Swap the GM's seat with one of your Player's.

 

Recharges your batteries and makes the appreciate your GMing more.

Much truth and much sadness in that

[phydaux]

In order to have a super heroic campaign the characters must have a reason to hang out together out of costume.  That's why Teen Super Academy is such a popular campaign setting, while Home Town Heroes never really works out..

[akrippler]

MY friends and I are currently going through this now. Feels like Supers games are always "Heres a problem, resolve it with fighting" 

 

Our current game has taken on a very heavy x-men feel hoping to stray away from a episodic "flavor-of-the-week" feeling game. 

Like Phydaux said, the top priority is giving characters a reason to be around each other outside of costume.  What we did was just eliminate the costumes.  

We've escaped our containment facility, and are currently traveling cross country trying to come up with a plan to settle down and help others like us. 

[Sidume]

It depends on what the GM and the players are trying to do and how close you want to stick to the source material  of the genre.

 

Fantasy novels like LotR or GoT have a main plot and a large story.  The "campaign" ends when the story is finished, keeping in mind that the story might be bigger than a character, a party, a generation, or a kingdom.  That material tends to be more "campaign" oriented, and the characters fit together thematically.  But superheroes came about as serial adventures set in a (semi-) realistic world.  The serial was the key point and kept us buying comics month after month, or watching tv, listening to radio adventures, etc.  And a supers team tends to have a variety of backgrounds of the characters mishmashed together that might blur the campaign atmosphere.  I could see Frodo be accompanied by an Amazon warrior, but I when you throw in an energy charged guy from a dead planet, a science based speedster, a galactic cop with a ring of wishes, etc., you lose the "campaign" feeling.

 

You can find some supers comics that have "campaigns," but they tend to be separated from the standard genre, like Strikeforce Moritori.  It can be done, but if you want a "campaign" flavor, you should have an endgame in mind, and the GM needs to have a lot of control over the characters origins to make sure it fits in your "campaign" universe.  Many players find that kind of control stifles their creativity (or their munchkinism, depending on your players).

[Christopher R Taylor]

If you have only "what bad guy do we beat up this time" adventures then yeah, its going to get boring.  The GM has to mix in character stories, interaction with NPCs, stuff that doesn't involve the costumes, silly things that happen in between the serious stories, and so on.  Some of my most successful adventures have had no fighting at all.  A hero talking a suicide off a ledge.  A hero talking to a baseball player that secretly has superpowers about how he's hurting the game.  Helping someone change a tire on the side of the road.  Fighting a fire.  Stuff like that will feel heroic and meaningful without needing punching and blasting.

[BoloOfEarth]

As a GM, I like the "Veronica Mars" model -- one long-term plot arc (or a series of semi-long-term plot arcs), often operating in the background, with often-unrealated or semi-related episodes throughout, and the long(ish)-term plot getting partially if not totally resolved over time.  Sometimes plot arcs can overlap (though too many can muddle the game).  For clarity sake, my definition of the campaign often includes the villains working toward a long-term goal, not just the PC heroes.  So things may happen that the players think are one-shot adventures, but are actually related to that main plot.

 

I have an example, which I'll hide under a spoiler tag since I probably go into too much detail.

In my current campaign the overarching plot needing (eventual) resolution is the "Cross-Rip."  A few months (game time) prior to campaign start, a large number of supers (both heroes and villains) and some unpowered individuals simply disappeared.  In some cases (particularly the case with villains locked up in Stronghold), those disappearances coincided with a previously unknown super or other individual appearing on the campaign world in place of the missing person.   It became readily apparent that somehow those supers from the campaign world had been shunted to another dimension, and some people from that other dimension were likewise shunted to the campaign world.

 

The PCs soon learned that the Cross-Rip was a plot by the Empress of a Billion Dimensions to remove superpowered defenders from the campaign world in preparation for an invasion.  Those supers were supposed to be shunted to random dimensions, but a resistance movement on another Earth learned of her plan and managed to tweak things so all the campaign-world supers ended up on one world (in hopes those supers could help free that world from the Empress' clutches).  The heroes have also learned that the Empress has blocked most attempts to leave that other dimension and return home.

 

A major sub-plot involved the Empress' plan to soften up Earth's remaining defenses by helping a Cthulhu mythos offshoot of DEMON to free the Old Ones from exile and return them to the campaign world.  The heroes have pretty consistently stopped all efforts in this endeavor.  This particular sub-plot has gotten a lot of face-time of late.

 

Other completely unrelated sub-plots have been the Secession Squad's attempts to disrupt the 2016 US election and otherwise tear down the US government.;  a Norse goddess trying to manipulate things to give herself more power in the "nine realms"; a few heroes trying to turn a rookie supervillain into a superhero; etc. 

 

Occasionally, an adventure is focused on the main plot (such as when the PCs discovered a way to temporarily take down the Empress' barrier between dimensions, or when one PC's brother was rescued from the other dimension).  But a lot of game time is actually devoted to elements that aren't at all related, or are only tangentially related, to the main plot arc. 

 

In terms of the "Veronica Mars" model, Season One was the heroes learning of the Empress' overall plans and what happened.  Like most first seasons, a lot of this involved the characters getting their sea-legs.  Season Two was mainly focused on the Cthulhu mythos sub-plot.  Season Three has been resolution on the mythos sub-plot and some planning on ways to resolve the main Cross-Rip plot.  Season Four may involve the final resolution of the main Cross-Rip plot, if the heroes decide to buckle down.  If not, I may ramp up the Norse Goddess supblot.  Only time will tell.

 

[Trebuchet]

Our MidGuard campaign had its 25th anniversary this past summer. Granted, only two of the original characters and three of the original players are still in it, but IMHO that's more than balanced by the fact two of our eight players are the grown sons of one of the original players. 

 

Our team started as the world's first superheroes at 250 points, and now occupies the Justice League/Avengers rung of the team ladder. There are other teams, both PC and NPC, but MidGuard is the big gun. (Every member of the team but one is now 500+ points, and mine - Sil'f, the only continuously-run character - has reached 638 points.)

 

It's been fun running characters with such long histories together, and a number of the characters have become close friends "off camera" as well as teammates. Close enough we've been able to design scenarios based on likely reactions by those friends.