Long time campaign ennui

[Kaare Berg]

This is a tricky and ungrateful one, and I have no idea where to post it (games & campaigns, the chatterer or here) so feel free to move it.

For those of you have failed to notice my previously blatant plants and discrete hints for accolade I've been running a BW campaign since November 2003. Miranna.

We play rarely due to real life pressure. But in the ten - fifteen sessions we've had so far my players have loved it.
We've had it all, great drama, love and triumph and bitter, bitter defeat.
And it is far from over.

But I am bored with it.

Its a dammed chore to plan a fizzle, not to mention a bang.

but if I drop it they will never ever forgive me.

Have any of you ever been there?

How did you get your juices back?

K

[Thor]

oh man! Everybody gets burned out at some point or another. A few solutions:

1. Just take a break. Do other stuff and don't think about it for a while.

2. Play something else. Card games, board games, another RPG you've been dying to try, etc.

3. Get someone else to run something for a change. You'll get a new perspective as a player.

4. Pick another part of the world that has been rumored, mentioned or passed over previously. Make up some brand spanking new characters and find out what it's all about.

[luke]

Hi Kaare,

I've been running a campaign since 94. I totally know what you mean.

The first trick to keeping it going is to make sure that the plot arcs are interesting to YOU, the GM. I know this sounds retarded, but make sure you put fun stuff for yourself in there, even if it drives the players a little crazy.

When I started reading military history stuff, suddenly there were huge wars! When I was reading Black Elk Speaks, suddenly there was a culture of spirit-talking shamans! When I was into Lovecraft, there was a Temple ot the Old Gods. It sounds wierd and random, but I was careful to build them all into the game so that they felt right. And doing this kept me interested (even if it made Pete groan sometimes).

The other trick, as Thor mentioned, is to explore your game world through different perspecitves. This, by far, has been the most successful technique for keeping our game alive.

Basically, at a certain point, the characters became powerful enough to have followers. And they became too busy to be unable to do everything they wanted to do. So they started to assign their followers and underlings missions. We didn't know what to do with that at first, but then it dawned on us, "Let's play those arcs out!"

The first one we did, the players took on the roles of a cadre of martial arts students -- followers of one of the main characters. One of the martial arts temples artifacts had been lost in one of our previous adventures. I handed out pre-gens for that one. Each player took on the role of a hot-blooded teenage martial artist. It was a brutal campaign. Lasted about 10 sessions and changed the face of our campaign world!

Then we returned to our main game. After a while, we had some casual players interested in getting in to our weekly session. So we picked up another game where the first side venture left off. A few of the survivors where charged (by Pete's main character) with a mission to foment a revolt in these important provinces. The other 4 players made up characters for this particular campaign. This one turned into a bloody epic. 60 sessions or something. Over a year of play!

That one nearly broke us, so we determined to make the side ventures smaller and shorter. At this point, we've done more of these "asides" than we have big campaign stuff in the last few years. Each time, we pick up a thread left by one of the characters from the previous one, and see where it leads us. And we almost always try to go to a place in the world that the players haven't really explored.

We've run grifts and scams, overthrown a government or two, hunted wizards, lead the masses to safety and overthrown a goblin kingdom. And these are all asides from the main campaign!

hope that inspires,
-Luke

[Kaare Berg]

Thanks for the feedback, both of you.

I've already planned to "restart" with new characters (20 years later and on the edge of war). But this is four or five sessions away. An coincidentally it will happen with the revised edition.

My ennui stems from the fact that they have such high expectations when they come to the table and I am tired of always trying to up the last session.

Hell, I want to work on my Burning Suns conversion or my BW: Rouge Trader idea.

Not to mention heretic ideas about playing other games, like DitV, PTA, Sorcerer or even a WOD game with forgite mindset.

The act that they by now nearly expect me to post our latest game also wears me down.

But I'll take some of your ideas and bring them in.

I might try troupe style play again.

Oh and I'll stop whining.

[luke]

Wait a minute. You're saying that you finally have an eager group of players? And now that you do, you're not interested in playing any more? That's sick. Sick, Kaare.

Anyway, how often do you play? Why not play the Miranna campaign once or twice a month and play something else on the off times?

-L[/url]

[Kaare Berg]

Told you this was a selfish whiny post.

Real life keeps me from actually playing more than once a month, making the Miranna campaign the only viable option. Anything else would be suicidal.

Ideally I'd play once a week, failing that I try for every other week. But a pregnant girlfriens, a side job at a local nightclub once a month and social obligations with my non-gaming friends and my mutant family tree makes once a month more realisticly.

And BW is perfect for my fantasy gaming needs. Who knows it might meet my sci-fi needs in time. Until then, I'll complain about the greatest luxury of them all, an enthusiastic and eager group of players.

I know I'm hopeless.

[Thor]

My ennui stems from the fact that they have such high expectations when they come to the table and I am tired of always trying to up the last session.

As a fellow Forgie, tell me this wouldn't set off danger signals if you saw that someone else had posted it. How much are the other players contributing to the stuff that's going on in the sessions? You're not trying to shoulder the entire burden of making it a kick-ass session, are you? If so, it's no wonder you're getting burned out!

Or, another possibility: maybe the sheer "epic-ness" of your campaign is the problem? Is this why you feel every session has to be bigger and badder than the last?

I'll refine my suggestions. Either:

A. Take a break and recuperate.

B. Get someone else to run games for a while.

C. Take a break from Miranna and run a grim and dirty gutter game in which there is nothing "epic" at stake; it's just a question of whether you can claw your way over the bastard on top of you to get what you want.

[Kaare Berg]

Who would have thought it, from out of nowhere my SO listens to me talk about roleplaying, without rolling her eyes every two seconds, and then comes with just the one piece of advice that refueled my fire.

I'm stunned. I'm psyched and I wish that I could tell you what I'll do, but that my take some of the joy from my potentially lurking friends here.

Needless to say there will be a new spark.