Thread 96317011

soo what can we do to fix this problem in long games?

>>96317011 (OP)
you make the beginning boring.

>>96317011 (OP)
Don't start with the intention to make it a long campaign. Focus on coming up with a strong concept for the campaign and executing it well, and see how long things stay fresh and fun like that. If it feels like you're running out of steam, start to think about how to wrap things up. If the GM keeps having ideas and players keep being interested and engaged for a long time, that's great, but it's better to have a short campaign that ends on a strong note than to stubbornly try to keep one that's outstayed its welcome. So basically just don't make campaign length a goal, just keep it running as long as it's fun and figure out a satisfying way to end it when you start to run out of inspiration.

>>96317031
but then people will leave my game in 3 sessions...

>>96317056
Exactly, problem solved.

>>96317011 (OP)
Complacency is the problem, for both GMs and players.
I've been in a lot of Session 1s that were fucking awesome, because we're all alert, present, the GM thought the scenario out very well, the players are all looking to express themselves to the best of their ability, etc.
20 sessions later?
>Uh, sorry guys, I didn't prepare a map. Anyway, what do you do?
>What do we do with what?
>You were trying to find a killer.
>Oh, yeah. Well, we failed out investigation check, so you told us we couldn't find any leads, so... I guess we just wander around and interrogate people randomly until someone knows something?
>Uh... Okay. Didn't expect that. Let me get some stuff ready...
>*Starts typing for 15 minutes*
Yeah, no shit it fucking sucks, dude. GM stops trying, players stop trying. Nobody cares what's happening anymore.

>>96317011 (OP)
>eye catching
>best music
By not reposting /v/ memes.

>>96317011 (OP)
don't make 'campaigns' longer then 4 sessions, simple. Follow the 1d4 session rule/test. After 4 session finish an "arc" and make a small break until you make some cool stuff again.

When in doubt, have a man burst through the nearest door with a loaded gun.

>>96317011 (OP)
I don't find that's true at all. I find I work in spurts of inspiration. It'll be like a really great session, then a pretty good session following the great one, then a "whatever they've got some loot so they'll fuck around in town now" session. Then a "I dunno here's some encounters or a shitty dungeon" session until I get inspired and back to a really great session. But the uninspired shitty sessions always happen because I get tired. I work a job. Sometimes planning out something awesome is too much work on a weekly basis.

>>96317011 (OP)
Game and narrative design isn't hard, retard
Have them fall into a lake of forgetting so they go back to level 1

>>96317011 (OP)
I don't have this problem since my campaigns aren't video games and the first 2 hours of it aren't designed to make retards spend money on the rest of the slop hidden underneath

>>96317011 (OP)
that's just you, whack nigga

>>96317011 (OP)
the latter is better for ttrpgs, because they are fundamentally not a visual medium and sitting through 30 minutes of landscape description will extinguish any interest in actually interacting with the world

>>96317011 (OP)
My problem hasn't been lack of stuff going on in long running games. Rather it's that the stakes get so out of control that I start losing engagement. The GM inevitably gets stuck in a mindset of escalation, everything has to be bigger and badder than the last thing. Meanwhile the players get increasingly obsessed with accumulating wealth and power. I always feel like I'm Diogenes, content with my barrel, while everyone else is entering the housing market looking for affordable starter castles.

>>96317011 (OP)
Wrong board.

>>96318312
Then why don't you stop running games where accumulating wealth and power is something the rules enable?

>>96318515
>Then why don't you stop running games
But I did.

>>96318521
Not what I said.

>>96318312
>The GM inevitably gets stuck in a mindset of escalation, everything has to be bigger and badder than the last thing
This is a genuine problem in lots of games. As a forever-GM, it's what usually makes me want to start a new campaign. It's not fun once the players can beat anything reasonable and I have to come up with a ton of convoluted bullshit. This is one of my favorite things about more RP-driven games like VtM or Star Trek Adventures. Alternatively, I like the Without Number games because lethality remains pretty high even at higher levels, so stories don't have to get completely outa control. Sure: their battleship can now blow up a small moon or whatever. But a cantina full of dudes with guns can still fuck 'em with a few lucky rolls so they gotta take it seriously.

>>96317011 (OP)
literally steal ideas from other settings, I stole year 2 of Strixhaven for my shadowdark campaign and it's going well.

>>96317011 (OP)
nothing. it works as intended. I put all my effort into catching player attention for the first session then I just do whatever for the rest until they start to get bored then I’ll throw in an explosion or “epic” fight. I frontload all my good ideas just in case the campaign or playgroup falls through, which it does often in my case.

WotC did a study back in 2018 that showed that most campaigns don't make it past session 6.

My OSR campaign is currently on session 44, and my players are hyped every week for the next session.

Play OSR instead. It's a tried and true game with 40+ years of material to steal and build off of. It's easier to learn, it's harder to master, and it's more fun.

>>96319226
>make more characters
You mean more walking statblocks
>engage with threats
High level OSR is rocket tag

>>96319258
If this is what you think OSR games are like, then you've only played in shitty games.

>>96317077
This always starts with playoids phoning it in first btw
The moment a GM has to remind them every 20 minutes what’s going on is when they check out

>>96319226
Games falling apart within 6 sessions isn't a system problem. It's a scheduling problem.

>>96319226
Problem with OSR is all of this is loaded onto the GM who tends to have a total mental breakdown

>>96319327
That's probably true. I think it's a combination of scheduling and lack of genuine interest. Many people like the idea of playing D&D, but after they sit down at the table and play a couple sessions it occurs to them that they could be at home watching netflix or playing fortnite. Many of those people acquired their vision of what D&D would be in the 5e era of Critical Role or the modern era of Youtube streamers, where the games are essentially theater kid bullshit and "Mother-May-I".
Another issue is that modern games are essentially played out in just a couple of sessions. You have to waste time with a "Session 0" to get everyone to make their characters. During that step newbies get bored and more established players come up with some gimmick or "Build". By session 3 you see how that gimmick or build is doing mechanically, and then the game is essentially over for many people.
But these are just common issues for people playing those games. An experienced group or DM can help guide his players around this sort of stuff and see them through to a successful campaign of 5e, I'm sure.

OSR does not have these problems though.

>>96319344
OSR has a difficulty curve based on actual player skill and knowledge. This is also true for the DM. Your first campaign is going to be very different than your seventh. Luckily there's a wide breadth of materials to pull from and advice for beginning DMs.

I'd also mentioned that the best place to start is the Keep on the Borderlands module, and also having a transparent ongoing dialogue with your players regarding rules, content, and play. So far, in my 25+ years of experience as a Game Master, I've never really seen an issue that referencing the book and talking to my players hasn't fixed.

The rest comes with experience.

>>96317011 (OP)
OP is once again a no games faggot.
This is a problem which only applies to video games because devs are taught to design the first level last, since early game content is the most likely to be experienced by the largest number of players.
TTRPG campaigns aren't video games. GMs don't design every detail of the entire campaign before it even begins. At best, they will have an outline. More often, early game content in a campaign is the shittiest because the GM is still trying to get a feel for his players so he can plan the next part of the adventure. A good GM can develop the campaign as it goes along, so the game should only get better as it progresses.
All you have to do to fix this problem is play actual fucking games.

>>96319226
I have not encountered a single OSR game that didn't maintain some amount of the fiddly sacred cow rules for characters that I have utter disdain for and it immediately turns me off of a given system.

>>96318536
Anon, your reading comprehension...

>>96319525
>fiddly sacred cow rules for characters
I can't think of any fiddly rules for characters... Could you give an example?

>>96319539
Like seemingly arbitrary gear restrictions based on class. That's a big one I see come up a lot and immediately turns me off of a game because it destroys the illusion of being a real person in a game world rather than a collective of stats and hard-coded capabilities.

>>96319583
osr is basically a cargo cult around random mechanics some guys who wanted to scale down their wargames made up

>>96317011 (OP)
This is a vidya problem.

Let's compare the prep time of session 1 vs session 20
>Session 1 has weeks, if not months of prep put into it
>It's an entirely new concept, the DM is the most engaged with his own concept and the players are engaged with their new characters
Then session 20
>Players inevitably get lazy, start phoning it in
>No interesting player action means the DM slowly loses interest in prep, starts just going with the flow
>Leads to an endless feedback loop that kills games

It's always, 100% of the time the players fault by the way. A GM will put hours of work into something, they obviously care about it. But 50% of playoids are in the low tiers of pic related, 45% are in the mid tiers. Finding a high tier player is tough, finding more than one is statistically improbable and should be lauded. Mid tier playoids subsist on the GM's energy and add none of their own, low tiers actively drain it.

A new game is an awesome experience. A weekly session feels like coming up with ideas for an increasingly bored, low IQ audience that just claps whenever they get rewards or you mention their backstory.

>>96320822
I’m personally capped at normoid. I don’t really know how to interact with the game world meaningfully to the DM, and I write my characters as “side characters” I suppose, nothing really fantastical about them I just write a little life story for each of them. Reading the pic is making me think I avoided trying too hard too much and I wasn’t actually trying enough and I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.

How am I supposed to be approaching tabletop? How am I supposed to view the game itself?

>>96318312
That's a consequence of having a level system, and another reason I'm fond of telling people that they get the game the system's designed for.
If you have a linear upward progression in power, you're going to have a linear upward progression in the game. You'll want to play something other than D&D and you'll instantly notice the difference. Play something without linear levels, like RuneQuest or something.

>>96321166
>If you have a linear upward progression in power, you're going to have a linear upward progression in the game.
Or lower the power cap, that's also an option.

>>96321174
Look, I'm going to argue with you because I don't care about OSR, but from my point of view you just think the OSR nostalgia goggles have some kind of magic power to brainwash people into playing better even though the actual mechanics aren't impressive.
I'm not an OSR guy so I'm not wowed by AD&D-lite gimmicks. Flattening the amount of power creep per level will ease the issue, but not solve it.

>>96317031
good post

>>96321192
>I don't care about OSR, but from my point of view you just think the OSR nostalgia goggles have some kind of magic power to brainwash people into playing better even though the actual mechanics aren't impressive.
I've got no nostalgia goggles for OSR, I'm just about old enough to have played 3.5 in my youth.
Coming into OSR without any bias for or against it, I can say with confidence that it does make a difference.
Mechanics shape gameplay, once all is said and done.

>>96321218
>Mechanics shape gameplay, once all is said and done.
Ultimately I agree with you, I've just always had the mentality that holding onto the past isn't a good thing. It's like how some people think America is going to shit, so just pretending like it's an imaginary version of the 1950s is going to be a fix. I just don't see that kind of thing as a legitimate fix. I'd rather move sideways and try something different, or move forward and try something new. Moving backwards and trying something old is the opposite of getting anywhere.
Again, though; I'm not into OSR. I'm neutral to slightly negative about it. In this conversation in particular I just don't think a D&D problem is solved with a D&D-but-older solution. I'd rather just tell people they should try something else entirely.

>>96321314
>I'd rather just tell people they should try something else entirely.
I can respect that, even if I disagree.
>Bringing up politics
I can't respect that though. Come on man.

>>96321337
If you consider that to be politics, then you're really, really sensitive. I get I mentioned America and 1950s nostalgia, but that's a pretty neutral example to mention. I could have just as easily mentioned how some Estonians have nostalgia for Communism, it would have made roughly the same point but I doubt you would have complained.

>>96321166
Linear progression DOES feel good. I'm just not fond of the highest tiers where everything is an apocalyptic threat and the players have so many options/raw power that the GM has contrive increasingly retarded encounters to maintain tension. And I'm not too fond of the lowest tiers either, where your options are so limited and weak that either you're getting dragged through the mud to accomplish mundane goals or the GM has to break out the kid gloves. There's a sweet spot in the middle that's ideal and produces the best adventures.

>>96321741
It's like how you're explaining that you like to eat cake, but you want to eat cake that helps you lose weight. Having cake, eating it too.
Ultimately, you're just going to have to pick your priorities.

>>96319419
Apart from scheduling, which that anon correctly pointed out, the other big campaign killer is a lack of progress. DMs too often set out an ambitious vision, do too little prep, and when the session starts they have to figure things out then and there. If the DM isn't flexible enough, they end up stonewalling the players and the campaign dies because the players can't do anything.

I've had this problem in OSR games as well as 5e. When players don't feel like they're getting somewhere productive and are instead just grinding quests like it's an MMO, they will tap out because the commitment stops feeling justified.

>>96317808
What if it's in a medieval setting that doesn't have guns?

>>96321741
Funny enough, I feel the exact opposite. Low and high tiers are the fun ones, while mid tier is pretty boring.
At low tiers, you feel like normal people and have to get creative to succeed. Smart tactics and social interactions matter even for winning encounters. Here, though, you're better off playing something more gritty/lethal like OSR, WHFRP, or GURPS than 5e D&D.
At high tiers, you matter. You're a power player and you can swing your dick around if you want. The big issue is that the players have to be proactive and actually go out to do things, and the DM has to be willing to work with players rather than write a novel. But if you do that, you should feel like movers and shakers with significant agency.

At mid tiers, it's just kind of mediocre. You don't have the narrative agency of a high-tier character, but you don't have the stakes of a low-tier character either. At this point, progression feels like you're just filling out a build so you can get to the fun, high-tier gameplay.

>>96321922
Well clearly that just raises more questions, like 'What did we do to piss off the gnomish alchemists?'

>>96317077
>be DM
>give players some cool stuff
>players appreciate it and even fight over who gets it
>important story moment comes up
>who has [Item]
>nobody remembers having [Item] or what [Item] even was
At that point the campaign turns into a creative writing story for me to do whatever the fuck I want, I basically just make a story as an excuse to roleplay cool NPCs I think are fun and experiment with shit.
If as a player you can't remember basic plot points without being reminded or can't be creative during downtime then congratulations: you're now an NPC in a campaign filled with DMPCs for my own amusement.

>>96318558
I feel the same about DnDlikes versus Storytellerlikes. I'll chip in an additional advantage. You aren't hard trapped in someone else's idea of an archetype. Leveling systems always force you to bend over backwards outside of the small set of default things you should be doing, according to the designer. While some very simple concepts are actually IMPOSSIBLE to do without handwaving. In a system like Storyteller, anything you buy in to also has more general applications. You're not spending resources to do this one weirdly specific thing once a day. With the option to buy specializations in to the one weird thing still. This leads to less regret about builds because, no matter what, you can still do SOMETHING with your skills. Weak players/builds aren't totally hosed. There's usually something you can do in a situation. Nothing is truly invincible just from having more XP.

>>96319327
No so sure, man.

Games that are fun tend to have people show up. Games that are dragging have people find reasons to not show up. Suddenly everyone's life is caving in during that specific campaign and not the other ones.

>>96321174
Some additional notes about power scaling a setting.

Once you've moved past the point of
> I am particularly great at parkour and can scale up the side of a building in seconds
> I can jump building to building
> I can rip a door out of it's frame if it's not reinforced
or similar levels of power, your ability to write encounters is going to nosedive. When the normal level of power is leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and putting 30 foot wide holes through buildings, you've lost the vast majority of things you can even do to make fights interesting. Which also makes the vast majority of abilities or power sets USELESS. What is cleverly using cover to someone who can snipe you through 5 skyscrapers? What is strategy to someone who can rip a bank vault right out of the bank with their mind? Even gearing and consumables get kind of jacked up. If an object doesn't scale to the guy who is using a steel beams as throwing weapons, it's useless. I will encourage that kind of thinking in people's stories and games since every person not being a self contained cosmos of their own abilities by sheer obligation is SIMPLY BETTER. More stuff to throw around at random and think through isn't bad. Since you don't always have them either, using them to cheese a bad situation feels great. The decision to burn the resource you can't [long rest] back has real weight. No need to bend the world over backwards to match the fact it exists either.

If you look at many shonen, you'll find the same issue. Ideas themselves do not necessarily scale, and your world slowly becomes smaller and more mundane despite being so vast and magnificent. What are daily concerns to galaxy size robots that use other galaxies as shuriken? And daily concerns ARE the interesting stuff.

>>96321789
I've had a campaign that went from level 3 to level 12 and it was overall much more pleasant than the full 1-20 campaigns I've been in.

>>96319527
No, yours.

>>96320822
Why do you keep reposting this image? It doesn't contain anything that's interesting, notable, useful, or well written.

>>96321174
Why do you think games have to have progression?

>>96321218
it's just too bad OSR games don't have any good, interesting, or novel mechanics, then.

>>96321337
You disagree that people should try to solve problems? Why?

>>96322035
>important story moment
lmao YIKES

>>96322361
What are you talking about? The capabilities you described are the bare minimum. How are you having difficulties with this?

>>96321961
>At low tiers, you feel like normal people and have to get creative to succeed. Smart tactics and social interactions matter even for winning encounters. Here, though, you're better off playing something more gritty/lethal like OSR, WHFRP, or GURPS than 5e D&D.
The big issue here is encounter design. The only GM I ever had who made low level stuff interesting was a god of encounter design. Without such sophisticated encounters, it very often becomes a slog of fumbling around and making swingy dice rolls.
>At high tiers, you matter. You're a power player and you can swing your dick around if you want. The big issue is that the players have to be proactive and actually go out to do things, and the DM has to be willing to work with players rather than write a novel. But if you do that, you should feel like movers and shakers with significant agency.
Well that's what I'm talking about. You need reliable players and a very flexible DM to keep up with it all. My observation has been that both sides tend to lose touch. The players go mad with power but lack coherent vision and thus the DM either makes the authority figures incredulously powerful in order to corral the players or they start slamming down apocalyptic threats to keep the players focused.
Midrange has neither of these problems. The players are still reasonably grounded, but they're at a point in progression where their characters feel more solid, defined, and capable. You're having adventures, rather than playing Counter Strike against goblins or fighting demon gods. Not to say you can't make such things enjoyable, I've had fun in such games, but it's not my general preference.

>>96322890
Explain your objection better.

>>96323003
Answer my question.

>>96319419
yes and no. OSR does not have these problems because the majority of those worst players are congregated at the newest, basest game. A good DM can communicate well with others, and curate a table of good players. By that merit, he can make a campaign last

>>96323013
Your question makes no sense. Explain what you want to know better.

>>96319419
>5E
Have you tried playing actual D&D?

>>96322927
>The big issue here is encounter design
I think it's less encounter design and more environment design (depending on how you define things). My favorite encounters were at low levels when we had seemingly-impossible encounters but with interesting environments.
Defending a wall we hastily assembled against 20 kobolds or killing a ghoul pack by laying a spike trap were my most memorable combat encounters, because our decisions and planning had a major, tangible impact on the fight beyond mere stat adjustments.

>>96317011 (OP)
add in your fetishes

>>96323086
I suppose I was using "encounter design" rather broadly to describe the whole of the encounter, from enemies to environment to context. And I would include non-combat encounters too.

>>96322927
The probably with higher levels is that apocalyptic threats are often the only thing that can even keep a high level party in check in D&D.

Like you look at CR 11+ statblocks, and it's all things like Archmages, Dragons, Devils, Demons, and other things that are from other planes or are regional powers in their own right.
Just by following the guidelines on expected XP and CR from the book, any given high-level adventure typically involves threats that collectively could take down an army or a small city. Because that level 11+ party isn't just fighting one demon, but also all of that demon's underlings to fill out the other half-dozen encounters in a dungeon.
And if the player's goals are something overly basic like 'get rich', then they don't really end up with much reason to decide to wage a war against hell unless you bring hell to their doorstep to threaten their riches.

Middling levels are far better, since you can actually plan a reasonable endpoint for the game before the escalation becomes pointless. You can let the party retire as kings after only a single apocalyptic threat for a finale.

>>96323058
congregated in osr games, you mean.

>>96323269
your post makes no sense. what's wrong with fighting dragons and demons?

>>96317011 (OP)
Don't fall for the litterbox trap. If you want a long game to last, you need to have a plot. There needs to be a constant unifying goal. 99.99999% of players will be looking to the GM for that goal, especially if the campaign is pitched as some long-term epic adventure.

I'm in a game that's been going on for close to 3 years now. GM is a great guy, good game to be in, but because we've not had any real pressure, until the last session we've been dragging out heels and fucking around putting off moving forward, and honestly we don't really... have a big end goal. We have some vague threat ahead of us, but nothing specific.

>>96323736
My post was about how high-level D&D parties require consistent apocalyptic threats in order to have any sort of challenge.

There's nothing wrong with fighting demons and dragons inherently. But it goes back to the idea of a high level game losing direction.
Rather than a dragon being a legendary monster terrorizing the land, the party is going to be hacking their way through dozens of dragons, as if every dragon on the continent woke up at the same time like a bunch of scaly cicadas the instant the party hit level 11.
Likewise, you can't just have a few week demons. You've got to have dozens upon dozens of high-level demons, which basically means there's a full-blown demon invasion going on for it to be something the party can't just solve in 5 minutes.

This is fine if your players don't care and just want to roll dice at bigger monsters and see number go up.

>>96317011 (OP)
>durrr how do fix hurrr

>colorful
Onus is on the player for their own mental image.
>well designed
By playing a well-designed game.
>memorable
By not being a zoomer with goldfish brain.
>eye catching
Not sure how this applies. Probably up to the GM and his ability to describe things.
>best music
Depends on what you mean by "best", but you fix that by keeping the music within the guidelines of what you mean by "best".

>>96324226
Yes, the point of dnd is to kill monsters so you can get magic items so you can kill bigger monsters that drop better magic items.

>>96319274
You OSRfags sound like fuckin tankies
"The system is perfect but all the cases of it being shitty is because you weren't playing the true version with a grogtard DM like myself"
Blow it out of your ass nigger

>>96319226
u OSRfags sound like the fuckin tankies
"The system is perfect, your game just sucks cuz it isn't true OSRfaggotry"
Blow it out of your ass

>>96325379
>Yes, the point of dnd is to kill monsters so you can get magic items so you can kill bigger monsters that drop better magic items.

The issue is the distribution. If your players are going to go for a little jaunt through not!Mordor then yeah it's reasonable for the random encounters to be demons and orcs with class levels and giant spiders and crap regardless of party level but it's equally if not more reasonable for a """threat""" in the not!Shire to be an escaped pig or a local drunk hurling height-based slurs - also regardless of the party's level.

>>96329097
Except a high-level D&D party can fix those not!Shire threats with basically no effort. It doesn't mean that those problems won't exist, but it can easily end up feeling pointless if the threats the players are facing aren't something that actually challenges their characters in some way.

Which is why you need not!Mordor to have a place full of big dangerous threats. But if the players kill not!Sauron at level 15, then you've suddenly got 5 more levels to fill in with additional not!Saurons in order to actually maintain the challenge.
So the answer is that you either plan the campaign to end at the defeat of the first not!Sauron so the distribution of the world still makes sense. Or you ignore distribution and just asspull whatever for the sake of hitting level 20.

>>96330263
I've noticed most DnD DM's stop running around levels 10-15 because they're imagination-lets

>>96329054
>>96329080
lol butthurt zoomer upset that xhe can't play xis gay twink character

>>96330300
Most of them don't even get that far because the players give up 6 sessions.

>>96330532
Good job showing that you are nogames, dumbass. If you played tabletop games you would know that you always could play a gay twink character.