Choosing a new campaign

[Umbran]

I'm always in that position. I've 2-5 I'm prepping for at any given point.

To keep burnout at bay when I am running a campaign I am always working on a second and sometimes third campaign.

My campaigns usually run 2+ years. If I always had something in prepping stages, I'd end up with a long series of prepped games I never used. I'd rather spend my free time doing other stuff, and wait to prep when I know I'm going to need something.

Which means I collect a stack of ideas, none of which are prepped, and I have to choose which one my players want now.

 

[Umbran]

Go in with your eyes open and ready to deploy your GM skills to tune things and it’s a completely runnable campaign. It was probably 100 hours of table-time for our group.

That's useful! Thanks!

 

[Umbran]

Reminds me a bit of X-Crawl.

I think X-Crawl tends to be played for laughs. This is tonally much closer to Squid Game.

Not having seen Squid Game, I liken it to The Hunger Games.

 

[Umbran]

This is the only 5e product that I bought because it impressed me so much, and I'd really love a review of how it played.

I am not a practiced review-writer, unfortunately, so I'm not sure where I'd begin.

 

[MGibster]

My campaigns usually run 2+ years. If I always had something in prepping stages, I'd end up with a long series of prepped games I never used. I'd rather spend my free time doing other stuff, and wait to prep when I know I'm going to need something.

I think a really long campaign for my group would be anything from 6-9 months. We do play pretty much each and every week though. We started our Greyhawk campaign in January and I expect it to last until mid to late summer. Like you, I typically don't do a lot of prepping for campaigns until I'm actually ready to run them. I have a handful of campaigns I've done some prepping on simply because they've been running around in my head so long.

God's Teeth for Delta Green. I've made a few props for the first adventure including putting together photos of important NPCs. I may resort to kidnapping people and keeping them in my storm shelter until we finish a campaign.

The Two Headed Serpent for Pulp Cthulhu. The only prep I've done with this is read the campaign. Twice.

Untitled for Cyberpunk 2020. I've had a campaign idea kicking around in my head for more than three years now. The PCs are involved in a heist to rob the Crystal Palace orbiting casino. They'll be successful, but realize it was an elaborate ruse by their partners to unshackle an AI and hilarity ensues. I've actually written the first scenario but every year it seems less likely we'll play.

 

[sevenbastard]

My campaigns usually run 2+ years. If I always had something in prepping stages, I'd end up with a long series of prepped games I never used. I'd rather spend my free time doing other stuff, and wait to prep when I know I'm going to need something.

My last campaign ran for 130 sessions and all homebrew adventures in a sandbox. I keep the prep for the second campaign going to avoid writers block. With the added benefit that I have a new sandbox ready when the old one ends.

But also world building and prepping is something I really enjoy doing. When I am at the gym or on a run I'm mentally prepping to pass the time.Boring meeting doodling a map.

That said I do have more prepped than I can use and some of it will go to waste unless I win the lottery and can game full time.

 

[aramis erak]

My sunday group is getting restless and we're about to hit session 16 (over a 20 week span), and this is a rather long playing campaign... I figure the current plot will take another 3-4 sessions. So I'm on cruise for running Fallout starting late april/early may.
for the sheets, I've got most of char gen, but not the expansion talents, done. The basic weapons list, but not the mods. Some of the non-combat mechanics. I've focussed upon the mod rules this week to get a it into my head how they work.

My campaigns usually run 2+ years. If I always had something in prepping stages, I'd end up with a long series of prepped games I never used. I'd rather spend my free time doing other stuff, and wait to prep when I know I'm going to need something.

Most of my prep for a campaign is involved with learning rules and setting, which for me rises to a separate hobby from running it. I have to rewrite them to commit them to memory, so I start cheat sheets as soon as I decide it is time to go from skim to actual comprehension.

I've half-done stuff from literally a decade ago and more... because I realized on the deep read there was an issue I didn't want to deal with in the setting or mechanics. many games hit that point in the skim.

 

[Umbran]

So, with some more survey results in from my players, my ideas of the leaders has changed somewhat.

Spirit of the Century - will mean I need to do more prep, but I expect my players would love the genre and high-action.
Deadlands: The Lost Colony - also stays on the list.
Shadowrun Anarchy - The genre here would be another favorite. But, I dunno if I can recommend the main rules line of any edition. These more narrative rules might open up the genre. I am trying them out separately next month anyway, so this is now on the list.
Spelljammer - Only half the group is particularly excited to do D&D twice in a row, but Spelljammer was everyone's top, "If we play D&D..." answer.

Deathmatch Island fell off the list because the group wants somewhat higher fantasy/science than that game offers, and they are all more interested in longer campaigns than it would offer.

Scum and Villainy came off because a couple of the players are disinterested in some of its "new school" design elements.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Spelljammer - Only half the group is particularly excited to do D&D twice in a row, but Spelljammer was everyone's top, "If we play D&D..." answer.

I’d put that in your back pocket and work on it gradually. Unleash it when you AND your players are ready to play more D&D.

 

[dbm]

Spirit of the Century - will mean I need to do more prep, but I expect my players would love the genre and high-action.

Have you run SotC previously? 10 aspects seems to be generally considered too many and most of the subsequent Fate systems have cut that number back. I haven’t run SotC but I have run contemporary Fate systems with the same number and it was very tricky to keep a track of them all.