Have you ever had a PnP campaign run just right?

[Kaftan Barlast]

Me and some other people here at Uni whove played a lot of PnP were talking about the campaigns weve played during the year and in the past and it struck me that I have never ever managed to GM a campaign without a single mishap.

 

 

The last debacle found itself permanently put on ice because I made the common mistake of getting so heavily into the backstory and NPC's, that the players themselves were nothing but redundant supporting casts. We did play but the players actually never got to experience the REAL story that was going on in my head.

 

 

 

- Have you ever had a campaign running perfectly smooth?

 

- What mishaps have you had? What mistakes have you made?

 

- Whats the worst campaign youve ever played in?

[Cantousent]

I've run a lot of campaigns, but the worst thing I've ever had happen was to step down for a bit to let one of the players run a module. He wanted to run the module but no-one wanted to give up our characters. I said that it would find to have the player run the a few sessions, but that he should probably make sure to ease the players into the new setting and try not to do anything dramatic in terms of their abilities.

 

Unfortunately, he gave two of the characters extra levels the first day, he handed out several truly over-powered magical items, he took them completely away from the campaign location, and finally, he just sucks at DMing. You know, he can't banter with the players, can't come up with dialogue off the top of his head, hadn't read the module he was using thoroughly. Ugh, it was a 2nd edition modules that he was running in a 3rd edition campaign. Hell, the level scheme, the AC, feats, skills, special abilities, etc. It was a mess.

 

Anyhow, I wasn going to live with the consequences, but the other players had a complete revolt and so my campaign died. Some of them wanted me to say it was all a bad nightmare so we could continue where we stopped while I was running the show. Friends are more important than campaigns, however, so I just shrugged. The group then fell into back biting and no longer exists, although I have two different groups with players from both sides of the conflict. It's not like either group can play more than once a month anyhow, so what can you do?

 

The moral? Don't take a successful campaign and let someone else "guest DM."

[ramza]

Well, I have tried playing p&p quite a few times, but we never managed to finish our sessions:

 

- the first time, my mom cleaned my room and it seems that she threw away all my notes on our gaming session (I was the DM and kept everything: character sheets, maps, story, etc). I never managed to find my notes again.

 

-the second time, while we were playing, one of my friends discovered that I had FF advent children on my pc and proposed to watch it instead of playing (while we already had spent 3 hours on the game)

 

-the third time, my friends spent something like 4 hours creating thei characters. It was then too late to begin our sessions.

 

-the forth time, one of my friends wanted to play an uber cool character (he wanted to dual weild a keen longsword of fire +2, and a keen longsword of ice +2 at level 10... is it even possible for a weapon to have so many features?). There were some other things too and it ended in an argument...

 

-the fifth time, well... after disagreeing, as usual, about the rules we should use, when my friend's character died, he started another argument (I may had overdone it though, he was a level 3 drow rogue facing a level 8 warrior... my friend was assisted by four level 6 fighter NPCs, and another level 4 NPC controlled by me... while his opponent was assisted by 5 level 4 fighters)

 

That's all I can remember, but everytime, it was a debacle...

[Blank]

The moral?  Don't take a successful campaign and let someone else "guest DM."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Which is precisely what you did with the campaign here! YOU DISHONOUR US (note the british spelling!)

[Atreides]

Well, I have tried playing p&p quite a few times, but we never managed to finish our sessions:

 

- the first time, my mom cleaned my room and it seems that she threw away all my notes on our gaming session (I was the DM and kept everything: character sheets, maps, story, etc). I never managed to find my notes again.

 

-the second time, while we were playing, one of my friends discovered that I had FF advent children on my pc and proposed to watch it instead of playing (while we already had spent 3 hours on the game)

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHHAAHHAHHA

 

[Sammael]

I am currently preparing for 134th session of my Rebirth Forgotten Realms campaign. There have been a few bumps on the road, but, overall, it's been a pleasant ride. If everything goes as planned, the campaign should be over in another 40 sessions or so.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Other failed campaigns this year hat werent GM'd by me:

 

 

 

1. "Runing out of gas"

 

The adventure starts out fine but then we find that we have to leave the city and travel across the desert to some abandoned military base. Then nothing happens.. we play another session nothing again... the second session has a random encounter.. the third session flies by with a yawn.. and then we go home for christmas and thats the end of it.

 

Note: If you cant improvise, plan ahead. If you havent got anything planned, dont play.

 

 

2. "A buildup into nothing"

 

A new game, different GM, custom setting. Not only do we not have a clue what the setting is about or what the adventure is going to be like but we're also forced to do a "Fable" and play two pre-sessions as children in which nothing actually happens. The third time we get to play "15 years later" as adults but we just go around at random doing nothing. In the middle of the second session in which nothing has happened yet, I say "**** it" and goes home to watch Tv instead. We never play aother session of that game or the campaign again.

 

Note: An intro is a short thing in which the players get a notion of whats to come. Its not something that should take 4 sessions and still leave the players clueless.

[Volourn]

"Have you ever had a campaign running perfectly smooth?"

 

Yes. Multiple ones - both DMed by me, and by others.

 

 

"- What mishaps have you had? What mistakes have you made?"

 

I've made my share of mistakes DMing though, I definitely make sure not to make them twice. Two examples below:

 

1. When I first started playing, my first DMing gig, I followed the books exactly, and had rats and other obvious non loot dropping creatures drop loot. 'Tis shameful.

 

2. I gave my players TOO much freedom to choose. Menaing, they basically waited around UNTIL I *made* soemthing happened. They never voluntarily interacted with any npc unless I forced it right in their face. This led to a minor revolt will I was replaced as DM temporarily because there wasn't 'any role-playing'... and, the new DM proceeded with a combat heavy (yet fun in it sown way) campaign.

 

 

"- Whats the worst campaign youve ever played in?"

 

In highschool, I had the fun of befirending a new student who wans't exactly Mr. popularity (I wasn't Mr. Popular; but I wasn't actively disliked either lol), because I'm such a nice guy (haha!)... He invited me over for a weekend, and we played some Darksun... let's just say his drug addled (he's the only person whoe ver dared to offer me drugs even after I said no the first time... he didn't appreciate my reaction) made the campaign 'interetsing' as well as a complete disaster.