Hey friends! I’m here with few more PbtA questions related to an upcoming +1 Forward episode.
What’s the longest PbtA campaign you’ve run or played in? What did you learn about long-term PbtA play that you wish you knew before that campaign?
I think the longest games I’ve played in have been all Apocalypse World campaigns and each were about a dozen sessions or so. The biggest lesson I learned is “Create a second character to play” is an amazing advance. I tend to play characters who can be a bit self-destructive, so having a second PC is a refreshing release valve.
So far, the longest campaign I’ve had is a 20-session Monster of the Week campaign.
And it went quite well, though I wish I had pushed them to use Luck more often.
thrythlind.blogspot.jp – M-Com – Monster of the Week Campaign
So far, the longest campaign I’ve had is a 20-session Monster of the Week campaign.
And it went quite well, though I wish I had pushed them to use Luck more often.
thrythlind.blogspot.jp – M-Com – Monster of the Week Campaign
The longest PBTA campaigns I’ve run have been Masks, Tremulus and Dungeon World. They’ve all gone for just under or over ten sessions and Masks was rejuvenated by a repiloting. I learnt to do more with love letters and cover a lot of the downtime with them, as it chewed into the main plot time. I also learnt to try not to end sessions on cliffhangers and have plans which can survive a missing player. Masks suffered a two-parter where everyone was trapped in limbo at the end of one session, then four weeks where different players couldn’t make it, then part two after all that.
The longest PBTA campaigns I’ve run have been Masks, Tremulus and Dungeon World. They’ve all gone for just under or over ten sessions and Masks was rejuvenated by a repiloting. I learnt to do more with love letters and cover a lot of the downtime with them, as it chewed into the main plot time. I also learnt to try not to end sessions on cliffhangers and have plans which can survive a missing player. Masks suffered a two-parter where everyone was trapped in limbo at the end of one session, then four weeks where different players couldn’t make it, then part two after all that.
Dungeon World through the Anglekite setting book. I think it was something like 14 sessions
Dungeon World through the Anglekite setting book. I think it was something like 14 sessions
Running a Masks game that I planned for 6 sessions and is still going strong at 30. Had I known this I probably would have looked into ways to slow down progression.
Running a Masks game that I planned for 6 sessions and is still going strong at 30. Had I known this I probably would have looked into ways to slow down progression.
My MotW game had two players and we just tended to skip when someone was gone.
I considered love letters but never implemented them.
My MotW game had two players and we just tended to skip when someone was gone.
I considered love letters but never implemented them.
Chris Czerniak friend of mine asked Michael Sands about that for MotW and his suggestion was to make XP requirement for leveling higher.
I also like the idea of putting a second character as an improvement option back in. My players each had two characters by the end, though one waited until the last six or so sessions.
At times they would leave one character out of the scene for a session and focus on character 2 instead.
Chris Czerniak friend of mine asked Michael Sands about that for MotW and his suggestion was to make XP requirement for leveling higher.
I also like the idea of putting a second character as an improvement option back in. My players each had two characters by the end, though one waited until the last six or so sessions.
At times they would leave one character out of the scene for a session and focus on character 2 instead.
I ran a 25 session dungeon world campaign with a rotating cast of ten! It was my first AW system game and I’d do some things differently now but I learned the joys of serialized 1 session 1 story gameplay! It’s the only kind of campaign I run, now.
I ran a 25 session dungeon world campaign with a rotating cast of ten! It was my first AW system game and I’d do some things differently now but I learned the joys of serialized 1 session 1 story gameplay! It’s the only kind of campaign I run, now.
DW 15-20 sessions; would have to review my calendar. Learned: check with the table before killing a character. One player wanted his character to go out in a blaze of glory – fine. But the other player, she was more tentative; and she got caught in the literal explosion and her character died. I should have checked in with her on that. She didn’t come back to the game. So that’s one thing I learned.
DW 15-20 sessions; would have to review my calendar. Learned: check with the table before killing a character. One player wanted his character to go out in a blaze of glory – fine. But the other player, she was more tentative; and she got caught in the literal explosion and her character died. I should have checked in with her on that. She didn’t come back to the game. So that’s one thing I learned.
It think the longest I’ve been in was maybe about 10 sessions of AW 1st ed. The mc burned out when the 4 players got up to 7 characters for them to juggle, many of which had specific plans to murder eachother (like my one of my characters think the world would be better if the pc who was the son of my other character was dead)
It think the longest I’ve been in was maybe about 10 sessions of AW 1st ed. The mc burned out when the 4 players got up to 7 characters for them to juggle, many of which had specific plans to murder eachother (like my one of my characters think the world would be better if the pc who was the son of my other character was dead)
Does Blades in the Dark count for the purposes of this question? I joined in Session 4 of what turned out to be a nearly thirty-session campaign.
Beyond that, probably a four-session Masks campaign that ended up going for six or seven sessions due to absences (I ran side stories for the players who were still present).
Does Blades in the Dark count for the purposes of this question? I joined in Session 4 of what turned out to be a nearly thirty-session campaign.
Beyond that, probably a four-session Masks campaign that ended up going for six or seven sessions due to absences (I ran side stories for the players who were still present).
An Urban Shadows campaign I ran went for about 5 sessions before everyone got too busy to continue. I learned that as the GM you need to make multi-session plans for giving the PCs cool opportunities to get scenes with each other. PC-NPC-PC triangles are nice but you need to actually turn them into opportunities!
An Urban Shadows campaign I ran went for about 5 sessions before everyone got too busy to continue. I learned that as the GM you need to make multi-session plans for giving the PCs cool opportunities to get scenes with each other. PC-NPC-PC triangles are nice but you need to actually turn them into opportunities!
DW for over a dozen sessions with some serious cast rotation (mostly 8 players, but only 2-4 on a given night). I started it very episodic, and then went into campaign mode when people started showing up regularly. I would do more player-contribution at the table around world-building next time around.
DW for over a dozen sessions with some serious cast rotation (mostly 8 players, but only 2-4 on a given night). I started it very episodic, and then went into campaign mode when people started showing up regularly. I would do more player-contribution at the table around world-building next time around.
I played a Fae in an Urban Shadows campaign for about a year. He was dressed like a wanna be hipster, took Uber everywhere, and meddled in all the other PCs personal lives. He was so much fun! I honestly think that the setting combined with 4 great players (that’s including the GM, because I’m like that) led me to some of my best RP, really helping me to develop as a player. This long game helped me start to support other players through my play, especially when I was annoying the hell out of their characters. All that evolved from the original choices made on the playbook, including the debts. The team was angsty, each with their own aims and a common goal, and it really showed me that characters can argue and fight, and the story can be awesome.
I played a Fae in an Urban Shadows campaign for about a year. He was dressed like a wanna be hipster, took Uber everywhere, and meddled in all the other PCs personal lives. He was so much fun! I honestly think that the setting combined with 4 great players (that’s including the GM, because I’m like that) led me to some of my best RP, really helping me to develop as a player. This long game helped me start to support other players through my play, especially when I was annoying the hell out of their characters. All that evolved from the original choices made on the playbook, including the debts. The team was angsty, each with their own aims and a common goal, and it really showed me that characters can argue and fight, and the story can be awesome.
I ran a Dungeon World game mostly weekly for about a year, so say about 40 sessions. I definitely learned that rate of advancement outpaces the playbook ability to make a character feel dynamic over that much time. Fortunately, I had no qualms about custom built compendium classes, and offering “quests” to players that worked somewhat between personalized fronts and custom moves.
I also found that in order to make the world consistent over that long within the flexibility of PbtA, it is vital as a DM/MC to determine some basic organizing principles (thematic and aesthetic) from those first few sessions, so you can keep them in mind moving forward. In a real way they should actually become additional Principles.
I ran a Dungeon World game mostly weekly for about a year, so say about 40 sessions. I definitely learned that rate of advancement outpaces the playbook ability to make a character feel dynamic over that much time. Fortunately, I had no qualms about custom built compendium classes, and offering “quests” to players that worked somewhat between personalized fronts and custom moves.
I also found that in order to make the world consistent over that long within the flexibility of PbtA, it is vital as a DM/MC to determine some basic organizing principles (thematic and aesthetic) from those first few sessions, so you can keep them in mind moving forward. In a real way they should actually become additional Principles.
Mendel Schmiedekamp Would be interested in hearing those organizing principles.
Mendel Schmiedekamp Would be interested in hearing those organizing principles.
Masks and Dungeon World both suffered from drop outs and therefore I agree never end a session where you require everyone there for the next session…. Or introduce other characters or jump forward or backwards in time. Agree love letter mastery is important.
Masks and Dungeon World both suffered from drop outs and therefore I agree never end a session where you require everyone there for the next session…. Or introduce other characters or jump forward or backwards in time. Agree love letter mastery is important.
Love letters are actually an area I could really improve in
Love letters are actually an area I could really improve in
It seems like everyone here who’s into PbtA isn’t as gung ho about campaigns, so the answer is “1 session” for me.
It seems like everyone here who’s into PbtA isn’t as gung ho about campaigns, so the answer is “1 session” for me.
Chris Shorb I didn’t really write them down, but I did strongly keep them in mind to help prevent the feel of the campaign from drifting. So if were to write them:
“When in doubt, use Mad Science.” – mad science works as both a motif (with clockworks, electricity, vats of strange fluids, and bizzare created creature) and as a theme (daring to do the impossible having unexpected consequences).
“It’s always undead, faeries, or angels.” – the first session started with an undead occupied forests which became cleared and returned the fae who lived there before. The angels (not so much divine as a manifestation of the natural order), came up shortly after. I made a conscious effort to not just keep adding to that list, but to build those flavors within the rest of the campaign.
It helps to keep all the disparate events, threats, and side quests connected in a campaign, but doing so with plot gets tedious and repetitious. So I prefer to use themes and aesthetics to link otherwise disconnected events. It makes things feel consistent without being overly simplistic.
Chris Shorb I didn’t really write them down, but I did strongly keep them in mind to help prevent the feel of the campaign from drifting. So if were to write them:
“When in doubt, use Mad Science.” – mad science works as both a motif (with clockworks, electricity, vats of strange fluids, and bizzare created creature) and as a theme (daring to do the impossible having unexpected consequences).
“It’s always undead, faeries, or angels.” – the first session started with an undead occupied forests which became cleared and returned the fae who lived there before. The angels (not so much divine as a manifestation of the natural order), came up shortly after. I made a conscious effort to not just keep adding to that list, but to build those flavors within the rest of the campaign.
It helps to keep all the disparate events, threats, and side quests connected in a campaign, but doing so with plot gets tedious and repetitious. So I prefer to use themes and aesthetics to link otherwise disconnected events. It makes things feel consistent without being overly simplistic.
I actually love campaigns, but mine look more like a serialized television show or comic book than a DnD dungeon crawl.
I actually love campaigns, but mine look more like a serialized television show or comic book than a DnD dungeon crawl.
Mendel Schmiedekamp I like those two principles. Because I can tweak them for my specific situation/Game.
“When in doubt, use Wild Magic”
“When in doubt, use Junkyard Scavenging”
“It’s always dragons, aboleths, or mind-flayers.”
“It’s always Cultists, Fascists, or Anarchists”
etc etc
Mendel Schmiedekamp I like those two principles. Because I can tweak them for my specific situation/Game.
“When in doubt, use Wild Magic”
“When in doubt, use Junkyard Scavenging”
“It’s always dragons, aboleths, or mind-flayers.”
“It’s always Cultists, Fascists, or Anarchists”
etc etc