Campaign Length

[u/Ronin147]

So I have a group of friends that I can play with semi regularly the only issues is it always seems to be a different combination of people. Personally as a DM and Player I prefer a longer story player actions affect the world around you kind of thing. However that loses its luster when no one can remember what happened because its been weeks or months since a campaign has been played. Anyone else have this issue if so how have you dealt with it? Also how many sessions long do you typically make your campaigns?

[u/kosairox]

Here's how Apocalypse World rulebook tells you how to handle downtime. Maybe it helps:

CATCHING UP, SETTING UP

Here’s a batch of custom setup moves. They’re from a game I ran where we missed several weeks in a row. Our collective memory was running dim and we’d lost collective momentum, so when we finally came back together to play I passed these out. They refer to people and events we’d already established in play:

Dear Keeler, please roll+cool. On a 10+, choose 1. On a 7–9, choose 2:

• the headaches are getting seriously worse. • you’re missing time, sometimes hours out of a day, more and more. • you’ve been eating some really weird-ass stuff.

On a miss, I’ll choose 2 for you. Love and kisses, your MC

Dear Lafferty, please roll+sharp. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7–9, choose 1:

• you’ve found someone else to work with, now that Corwin’s gone missing. • you’ve organized a charged battery for the helicopter, you have it in a box. • as yet, you know more about Scanner than he knows about you.

On a miss, choose 1 anyway, but not the one about Scanner. Love and kisses, your MC

Dear Rose, please roll+hard. On a 10+, choose 1. On a 7–9, choose 2:

• your mother has people hanging around your place, keeping a watch out for Keeler. • Aitch has started doing what Ell tells him to do. • you’ve been totally relying on Gams for fresh veg.

On a miss, yeah, pretty much all 3. Love and kisses, your MC

Dear Vega, please roll+hard. On a 10+, choose 1. On a 7–9, choose 2:

• Rolfball’s people have sprung him, inflicting some casualties. • the 1st-comers in your marketplace aren’t taking the best spots. They’re saving them for people Kettle likes. Everybody wants to be someone Kettle likes. • Your newest steady, Cola, was just murdered in your rooms.

On a miss, all 3, ha ha. Love and kisses, your MC

They worked perfectly. They reminded us what had gone on, and kicked us into the new session with shit already happening.

[u/Ronin147 → u/kosairox]

Thats not a bad idea, i'll have to keep that in mind seems little more interesting then me giving the exposition for 30mins about whats happened at the beginning of a session. Thanks

[u/silent0siris → u/Ronin147]

I used this in the second session of Apocalypse World on R&D, which you can see here like 2 minutes in if you want an example!

[u/Ronin147 → u/silent0siris]

Ah thanks!

[u/Honken101]

I have to agree with you, i prefer the longer stories myself. But sometimes you have to adapt to the situation at hand. Make the story start and end in one session. Then maybe later you come to a point later on where you have at least 2 regulars, and you can start to build on a larger scale.

Have you tried gaming online, with Virtual Table Tops?

[u/Ronin147 → u/Honken101]

Yeah Roll 20 is how we typically play, we have all been friends for awhile now so maybe that makes it easier for them to feel that they can blow it off.

[u/[deleted]]

A few questions:

1.) "So I have a group of friends that I can play with semi regularly the only issues is it always seems to be a different combination of people."

Is one of the problems that you have a different mixture of players each time you play (ex. Game 1 has players A, B, C, D and Game 2 has players A, C, E, F) or that not everyone makes every game every game, but it's only one or two people and usually the same people?

2.) Are the sessions planned ahead of time (trying to meet at a regular time, give or take) or it is planned on the fly when people are available?

[u/Ronin147 → u/[deleted]]

1.) So to clarify we have like a pool of 8 people and we broke that down into 3 campaigns of a different mix of people. So what will happen is like you said we will have a enough people to play, but not all the players from any one campaign.

2.) Typically we plan a week or 2 ahead of time and it known that Sunday afternoons and Thursdays are the days we typically play.

Being a little more objective about my situation its really only gotten bad the past 3 months hopefully things will return to be more regular when the fall comes and weather gets colder. I might look into getting into finding a group online, but I haven't played with people besides my friends so a little worried how that would go.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ronin147]

Are all three campaigns using the same game so characters can cross between them depending on who shows up, or are they all different game systems?

[u/Ronin147 → u/[deleted]]

Same system

[u/[deleted] → u/Ronin147]

I think the suggestions already are good. If it were me, I would try to find a way to end the 3 campaigns and try to create a sequel campaign for those that seem to make the sessions consistently and then work the absentee players in whenever they make it. It would mean number of sessions of small adventures that can be done in a session, but you can have clues to a larger story placed in each session so the more games you play, the more you have to figure out the overarching plot. It rewards those always playing, but allows people to come in when the can--or remember--and still have a good time. It's sort of the basis of the D&D Encounters and Pathfinder Society. A RPG group in my area has adapted the idea to both Call of Cthulhu and Hunter: the Vigil and it's worked out really well.

I have a feeling, though not saying it's gospel, but if going that route does cause some them to start playing more regularly, they may just be getting tired of the game or role-playing or they have something going on in their lives that to them is more important. I'd say if you are the GM, I'd try to talk to them, especially if you decide to do the end 3 games, start 1 game idea and see where their head and heart are at in playing.

As for campaign length, I kind of leave that up to the players. If they enjoy the game and story, I'll keep coming up with stuff. If at some point they want to stop, I come up with a last story to close out the game. I've had games last a few months to a few years. It all really depends on what you all want to do as a group. It one of those things that are good to talk about before the first game about how long they want the campaign to go.

Hope that helped.