(And Long Live the Infinite Campaign)

Wanted to give some big updates on some topics I’ve covered before getting into this week’s topic:

– Gates of Krystalia: Shortly after I posted my blog on it, Rascal put up a big piece on this! Huzzah! Definitely gets more eyes on the situation and puts the information in a repository somewhere on the internet (though nothing is permanent on the internet and we are all dust in the wind etc.)

Unfortunately, the complaints and ire of the rpg community did not achieve anything from UKGE. The Instagram post is still up. The ad on their website is still up. There has been no statement of any kind from UKGE. Lame.

– Ephemeris: Omens of the Blood Comet: They made it! With an excellent end of campaign rally, they finished at $1,710 of their $1,200 goal. So glad to see this awesome project get the support it needed, and thanks to any readers who checked the crowdfund out and backed it. You’re the real heroes. And firefighters. You and firefighters. Exactly the same.

– This blog: I’m happy to say that this blog has become the most popular blog on the internet. Do I have any metrics to support that? No. I’m not entirely sure how to view them and I refuse to stare reality in the face. So we’re going to assume I’ve made a huge impact unless proven otherwise. Now onto the show.

We’ve Been Sold a Bill of Lies

This may be hard to hear, but the fantasy of RPGs is a lie. I remember dreaming of years long campaigns, telling epic stories with the same group of people week in and out. We would gather, physically or virtually, guffawing all the way to emotional satisfaction as everything stayed the same forever and the horrors of reality never invaded our fantasy world.

But that’s not how any of this works.

I attempted to run two of these mythical infinite campaigns concurrently, both of Fabula Ultima. I was really into Fabula Ultima at the time. Both collapsed, though I would say I got about a year in out of each of them. Let me tell you the tales of my failures:

• Campaign 1: Most of my players were from the US, except for one from the UK. Unbeknownst to me, one of the US players started long-distance dating the UK player. About 6 months into their relationship, the UK player flies to America to meet the US player he is dating. After ONE DAY, they break up in what seemed to be a terrible manner. The campaign died immediately.
• Campaign 2: Would you believe, two of the players were also dating? At least this wasn’t a secret relationship like the other one. But yeah, they broke up, and I lost a player. I still went on, but then I had the urge to playtest my own game, and we moved onto that. A few sessions in, one of the players switched jobs and had a very different schedule. Without enough players, the playtest ended, but had I gone on with the campaign, it would have also been doomed by this.

So what did we learn from these anecdotes?

• Don’t ever let your players date. If they come into the game already dating/in a committed relationship/married, ask them to amicably end their romance prior to session zero.
• Life happens, and the idea that everything will be static and the schedule will work indefinitely is a falsehood.
• But mostly, don’t let your players date.

Why This? Why Now?

Prior to this year, I have NEVER finished a campaign. They literally all came to a crashing halt, both as a player and a GM. Terrible.

Tonight, I am about to finish (probably) my second campaign ever. The first was a 6-session playtest campaign of my own game and the second will be Impossible Landscapes. The third will be another playtest campaign of Blightfall, in a couple of weeks.

This is the most success I have ever had in the RPG space, and it was all due to giving up on the idea of an infinite campaign. Those characters in the abandoned campaigns will never get their beautiful endings. But this year, I am rich in endings.

In my first playtest campaign, two characters shared a beautiful moment of self-reflection and mutual respect, bringing tears to a player’s eyes, before they marched into their guaranteed doom. I would never have witnessed that had I tried an infinite campaign. I think part of the reason Blightfall is what it is may have something to do with this idea. Blightfall forces an ending. Your character has a finite lifespan, you can see the end coming, so you make your big swings while you have the time. Writing this is literally the first time I’m realizing this. Weird.

Now I get to see how the story unfolds for my character in Delta Green, Frances Cole. He was a paunchy airline pilot before searching for Abigail Wright, and became a CrossFit champion in his quest to provide some sense of safety and power after witnessing insanities. How will my golden boy’s story end? I can’t wait to find out.

To experience these endings, I had to come to terms with the fact that the fantasy of infinite play doesn’t exist. I can’t predict my own future with any accuracy. Five years ago, I had no idea I would be into RPGs, let alone make my own system. I had a completely different job. I wasn’t aware of the nasty surprises that were awaiting me. So to assume that things would remain the same with multiple people? It’s not realistic.

People will move. They’ll get new jobs. They’ll have obligations more important that gaming. And that’s life. We do this for fun, but we still have to take care of the nitty gritty real world. So short campaigns are my answer.

Long Live the Infinite Campaign!

Wait, what? I just trashed the idea of the Infinite Campaign. Where is this reversal coming from?

Do you know what I’m going to do after this campaign of Delta Green finishes? We’re going on a little holiday hiatus, and then the entire group agreed that they enjoyed playing together and would want to continue playing something different. So we’ll be trying out Break!!

The group will continue playing together, because that’s what works for our schedules for now. And someday, it won’t. Life will happen, but we’ll have enough on and off-ramps for that to be okay. We’ll get to finish our stories.

Even better, it expands the amount of systems I’ll play. Remember my Fabula campaigns? That was an entire year of Fabula. I know that system so well. I don’t think I’ll play it again for a long, long while. But now I can try so many other games. All those crowdfunded games I can’t stop backing? I’ll get to try them out. They won’t just be doorstops anymore.

I must go now. I have to do clean and jerks, EMOM, to prepare to embody CrossFit King Frances.