The Campaign Season: Length of Intended Play Affecting Desig

[ADGBoss]

Hello everyone, back again after being away from the Forge and design for a few months. Re to the old timers and hello to everyone new.

As usual (for good or ill you be the judge) I have been considering design in how it relates to my own games, my own play, and design + play in general.  One topic that I have considered for some time is that of campaign length, but mostly with regard to PLAY and not DESIGN.

Now growing up I perceived that the longer a campaign ran, the more popular it was and the better it tended to be.  The short campaigns seemed to lack a certain... development that only a longer game could offer.  This was all according to my own experience, which while deep in that I played in a large number of campaigns of all lengths, was not broad in that my play groups had similar ideas & beliefs to my own.

Obviously with the maturity of the Internet and my own exposure to the culture at large, my experience began to widen.  At first it seemed that most people's experiences and preferences seemed to mirror my own but then I came to RPG.net and The Forge and as has happened many times in the last two years, I found that not everyone felt the same way. Indeed it appears, on the surface, that many people now prefer short & sweet campaigns or even (feeling of dread) One Shots.

There is always a culture shock involved in these realizations and I have had more then my fair share here at The Forge, but it has taken me a while to really overcome an old habit that could be a hindrance to good game design, at least in the newer models of RPGs. RPGs have changed significantly in the last fifteen years, more so in the last six to seven I think, and as we know a re-thinking of RPG design is well underway in many corners of the industry.  [Especially here.]

My experience with newer and younger gamers has been extensive of late, though with almost exclusively D20 & RPGA/Non-RPGA sanctioned Persistent or "Living" Campaigns.  Curiously though the data is contradictory. They tend to get bored with any campaign that goes longer then three gaming sessions.  The reason for this I believe is a lack of understanding with regard to occasionally giving up the spot light and allowing someone else to be the protagonist.  On the other hand they will come to every Living Session they can and to Conventions and do IC role-playing online for the Living Game as well as IC behind the scenes playing.  Even to the detriment of a local game.  

I think the reason for this is that there is an allure to being in a mega-game that crosses state (and even national) lines in which your character's actions can have a big effect.  This does not really happen in a local game and I think this is why Living Games have some allure.

Well not every system is appropriate for Living / Persistent play and even those that are still retain their allure for the more personal local game.
So the issue still exists as to what is an optimum range of sessions or length of campaign for a given game.  Some games are run best as One-Shots or no more then three sessions, often played very close together, to complete the story quickly.  Why is that?  Is a short Campaign Season becoming the norm and how much does it affect game design? Is it a primary design goal or is it a by-product of other factors? Does it even matter?

First I want to define what I mean by Campaign Season.  Simply, the length of time, in game sessions, that a given Social Contract holds out.  I think that is rather broad but whether people know it or not, there is usually a Social Contract that is in place and the campaign lasts only as long as the Social Contract is in play.  I may be on shaky ground here but I hope not.  I do not think you can define a campaign by who is playing (players), who is being played (characters), setting or even system. I have seen all of those variables change and the basic campaign continue on.  The same ground rules were still in place even after myriad changes to other factors.

Now for some Questions:

Can you get the same:
   -Character Development
   -Sense of Satisfaction through Growth
   -Sense of Difference Making (in reference to the setting)
   -Sense of Completion

in a One Shot or short (2 to 4) session Campaign as you can in a longer campaign?

Regardless of the answer, is it even still viable, advisable to develop a system that promotes long term play, given the attention span of new and old gamers today.

My Own Thoughts.

As much as I hate to admit it I have to let yet another strongly held belief go by the wayside.  I just do not think there is any evidence to suggest that a Short Term or Long Term campaign is any less or more satisfying then the other.  With a STCS (Short Term Campaign Season) the game is hitting climax almost immediately very much like a Short Story or Novella.  Obviously the slowly building long campaign (LTCS) offers more of the feel of the novel.  Those are simplistic analogies but I think they get the point across.

From a design standpoint though, I think there are three roads one can take with regard to how a system/game unfolds for those experiencing it.

A)   Sprinter.  It comes out of the Gate fast, runs its 200 meters, and is done.  
B)   Relay. A game that can handle both short and long games, so it handles well Episodic play and campaigns made up of short sections.
C)   Marathon. A system designed to encourage long-term play.

Ideally A & B would be the best two designs for the current market.  It would be dangerous to design a game that is explicitly for long term play and does not deal well with shorter games.  The attention span of Players today is too short to rely on, from a commercial success view.  A system / game designed to be long term which did not have to rely on commercial yardsticks to be called successful, could be a critical success.

What I am looking for is a few examples of A, B, and C. If you have or are designing a game or games, did you take into account campaign length?  If so how big a role did it play in your design process?

Other opinions on the subject?  Does "Campaign Season" make any real difference, considering people will do with a game whatever they want?


Thanks as always

Sean

[Valamir]

An excellent thread idea.

My own experience has largely mirrored yours.  I played the same D&D1e character for years until long after the character's initial background motivations became irrelevant (in fact he had to walk away from having successfullyachieved those motivations in order for me to continue playing, and that was seen as perfectly obvious and normal).

The idea of game sessions as a measure has a certain neat and easily understood appeal, but I think it misses the important issue.  Or rather its just a symptom of the real underlying issue.

That issue is content and content density.  

I think there is a certain level of content density (in a fairly narrow range) in traditional D&D model play.  By that I mean there is a limited number of high impact situations* (puzzles, traps, combats, etc) that players will actually care about, that can fit in a single session; and there is a general rule that several (often many several) of these situations must be gone through before a climactic goal is reached.  Its a pretty standard sort of pacing that often involves the GM intentionally not giving out too much too fast.

On the other hand, in a game like Sorcerer, or Hero Wars, or My Life with Master, or Riddle of Steel you have a much much higher content density.  By this I mean there's alot more bang for your buck...more high impact situations per unit of time.

Its not hard at all to envision accomplishing the same degree of "stuff" in 3-7 sessions of these games as you might cover in 20-30+ sessions of a D&D paced campaign.


The reason I think both of us associated short campaigns with failed campaigns historically is that for a given content density of old skool play you couldn't get the same amount of: character development, satisfaction, growth, difference making, or completion in just 3-7 sessions.

But ramp up the content density...and yes, I think you absolutely can.


* by "high impact situations" I mean anything in the game that is going to grab and hold the player's attention (i.e. pull them away from leafing idly through the latest Dragon issue so to speak), focus them on the events of the game, and be something memorable that they'll be thinking fondly about for years to come.

In previous incarnations of my gaming career my friends and I would refer to this as "juice", as in excited about a session that had alot of juice, or bummed that for the third session in a row the juice was lacking.  I'm pretty certain that that ephemeral thing that we could only instinctively label "juice" was precisely what I'm calling "content density" here.

[ADGBoss]

Ralph

Content Density is an excellent way to quantify it I belive. Its a term I was looking for and you found it.  Knowing the Density preferences of your players could I think help immensely with session and campaign design.

From the system / game design stand point however, is Content Density a planned thing or is it just a by product of current design philosophies?

If Content Density is planned, then how can we manipulate that as Designers?


Thanks

Sean

[Valamir]

From a traditional standpoint, I'd say its a pretty self reinforcing circle.  The earliest games had, in part from their wargame heritage, and in part by shear coincidence, a given content density.  Games built to largely mimic that play experience then started with and reinforced those same assumptions, which led to the same content density.

For someone looking to intentional achieve a higher or lower content density I think you're looking at a number of things.

1) System search and handling time:  The longer it takes to resolve a high impact situation the fewer of them you can have per unit of time.  I don't believe that this is quite as simple as rules lite vs rules heavy although there will be some correlation.

2) IIEE issues:  The longer it takes to come to a consensus in the shared imaginary space about who is doing what and when and resolving related timing questions for a given high impact situation, the fewer of them you can have per unit of time.  I think this is mostly an issue of vision and clarity and not necessarily directly correlated to specific mechanics.  In other words having a very specific arrangement of who says what and when can work quite quickly or take a long time to determine.  Having a fairly open free & clear style of determination can work quite quickly or take a long time.

3) Conflict vs Task Resolution.  Resolving entire conflicts with a single or related series of rolls vs. resolving a conflict step by step / swing by swing will impact how many conflicts you can have per given unit of time.  Fortune in the middle can plays a part here to the extent it lets you progress through the resolution sequence and then back into an appropriate resolution vs a fortune at the end system where you need to be much more fastidious of being sure everything gets taken into account in accordance with the appropriate rules.  

4) Failure as a spring board to future conflict and confrontation.   This is closely related to the whiff factor.  Nothing slows the pace of a game session than having to try 18 different things because the first 17 resulted in whiffs.  This is largely a matter of play style, but it comes into game design by building the directions for this right into the rules and examples.  Failure that results in nothing happening (i.e. "you failed, now what") will tend towards lower content density.  Failure that results in something happening that turns the screws tighter and puts the pressure on will tend towards higher content density.

5) Aggressive scene frameing that doesn't allow the action to dawdle in the doldrums but forces play from high impact situation to high impact situation.  Another play technique that can be built into the game's design if looking to promote high content density play.


6) Group character creation.  I think this is a critical one.  If the groups characters are all created with input and buy-in from everybody then you get 2 effects.  1) generally an initial situation that is going somewhere based on where the interelated character conflicts points, and 2) players who are interested in content directed at the other player's characters as well as their own, upping the perceived content density dramatically.  Devices like Kickers or SAs are mechanical reinforcers to this phenomenon.

7) Permitting Author or Director stance.  Not a requirement, but allowing players to frame their own conflicts may result in a higher content density vs players waiting for the GM to feed them a hook they're interested in.

8) A mechanically enforced end game.  Whether a very loose end game like the resolution of a Sorcerer Kicker, or a very tight end game like My Life with Master, building an end game into the game is a way of signaling "ok, if you've reached this point, your story is pretty close to being over".  How long that takes to achieve and what has to be done to get there will determine alot of the content density of the game.

9) The presence of and speed of character advancement.  The existance of mechanical character advancement implies a game meant to be played over multiple sessions.  The game provides a built in assumption on how many sessions by the speed at which such advancement occurs.  Extremely quick, glacially slow, or non existant advancement is useful for high content density games because at the one extreme you can get maximum "leveling up" in minimal time.  Or on the other extreme the lack of an advancement system (or one so slow it might as well be lacking) indicates that the game is not about advancement and so allows the focus to be on other things.  A modest but steady and reliable advancement system encourages a lower content density play style that doles out advancement on a predicatable basis and gives players enough time to experience their character at its new level of effectiveness before advancing again.


Throughout this "Tends" should not be construed as "causes" or "guarentees".

[ADGBoss]

All of that seems pretty solid and makes a great deal of sense.  If anyone else has anything to add that pretty complete list, feel free.

One last thing I wanted to ponder and this is more about present and future trends, not just in the Indie games but RPGS in general. Are Long Term campaigns and the systems that support them dead? Is the High Content Density system / campaign the wave of the future so to speak or is it just a case of the expansion of possibilities.


Sean

[M. J. Young]

Part of the original question was to identify games that were designed with a particular campaign length in mind.

Multiverser was. It was our specific intention to create a game that would provide interesting play for the same players and the same characters in perpetuity. Once you start, you don't ever have to stop.

Part of how that works seems to be a certain incorporation of Sean's "relay" idea. Because the characters do not have to interact with each other, you can lose players without disrupting the game. Because the worlds are discrete and characters move from one to another, some things are always new while other things are carried further. We've had games in which the referee has left, and another player has taken over the responsibilities; this works, because without much trouble the referee can leave behind anything created by his predecessor and have a clean slate, while the continuity of the game is maintained (as it always is in Multiverser) by the continuing adventures of the player characters.

The worst part about trying to market a campaign style game is demos. I remember Dave Nalle commenting some years back that there were some games that did not do well in demos because to truly shine they had to be presented as campaigns, and demos were by definition one-shots. It has taken years and a lot of advice to develop a workable convention demo strategy for Multiverser--a four-hour game slot with four to six players doesn't give much time to show off the ways in which many of the core mechanics support play. We've had to work at this to get something that reaches the players, to find a way to pack a lot of game experience into that context. Frankly, a lot of the strengths of the game were lost in early convention play, and only now have we figured out how to do this effectively.

So if you're thinking in terms of a campaign-style game, you have to ask yourself at some point how you're going to demo it. You have to find a way to make gamers enjoy the game and see it as offering something they can't get from other games they already have, or they won't buy it. The one-shots and short play games have a lot of advantages here, because they can be showed favorably in these contexts without a lot of re-thinking. That means that promotion of such a game takes less work overall, and has a better chance of success. I have to teach people how to do effective Multiverser demos, because just running a game at a convention usually doesn't do it. You've got to prep the game in such a way that it's going to give the feeling of what's possible if you want to grab the interest of the players. Some games just need someone to run them, and the players catch on quickly.

I'll note that with Burning Wheel, Luke does demos that seem very like tutorials (I attended part of one, having been committed to an overlappingevent elsewhere). He sells a lot of games, but I'm not sure how much of what he does is really running a game at a convention. It's much more about showing people what the game does and how it does it. It's very convincing--we bought it.

--M. J. Young

[neelk]

All of that seems pretty solid and makes a great deal of sense.  If anyone else has anything to add that pretty complete list, feel free.

One last thing I wanted to ponder and this is more about present and future trends, not just in the Indie games but RPGS in general. Are Long Term campaigns and the systems that support them dead? Is the High Content Density system / campaign the wave of the future so to speak or is it just a case of the expansion of possibilities.

I think the idea of "density" is a misnomer. All satisfying games need to have a high level of density to feel good. However, the shorter the campaign, the more planned, direct action the players have to take in order to create satisfying stories.

The basic reason I see for this is that stories resolve through reincorporation: a story feels like it's over when the conflict is resolved using mechanisms that were already latent in the situation. If a conflict is resolved using a new resource that hasn't been seen before, then that feels like a plot twist rather than an ending. IOW, the beginning and the end of a story need to be integrally connected in some way for the shape to satisfy the audience. In a long-running campaign, lots and lots of elements get introduced into the game, which the players can use as a kind of "library" -- when a particular conflict becomes central to the characters, the players have a large stock of existing elements that they can draw on to render the resolution of the conflict, and since these elements are known quantities the resolution feels like an ending. This is what I think people mean when they say that long-running games have more "depth" -- since the stock of elements latent in any situation is quite large, the players have considerable freedom to render resolutions in a satisfying way.

If you want to run a satisfying, short game, then the players need to very explicitly focus on creating stuff that can be used in the endgame. Otherwise things will sometimes feel forced or shallow because there wasn't yet enough space or room in the game to let the players do what they needed to.

[Ben Morgan]

Regarding the use of the word 'density':

Perhaps 'compression' would be a more apt term? Think of it like a sine wave. The high-drama points need the low-drama points in order to exist.

In a functional campaign, the low-drama points are not just dead zones, they're opportunities to relax, and take a look at a side of the characters and the story that the high-tension moments don't afford you. They allow you to enjoy the view.

For a long campaign, the high and low points are spread out. For shorter campaigns, they're closer together.

-- Ben

[ADGBoss]

neelk-

I think the idea of "density" is a misnomer. All satisfying games need to have a high level of density to feel good..

Although I have no argument with anything else you mentioned I am not sure I 100% agree with this part here.  Sure, the better games have a great many things going on at any given time.  I would say however, that a system and campaign focusing on longer term ideas / goals will have fewer relevant things happening per session then in a shorter game.

Lets take two movie examples that come to mind:

Two Days in the Valley vs The Godfather

Saving PRivate Ryan vs The Longest Day

The emotional climaxes are built more quickly in the former two then in the latter two, thus I would say (not being an expert here) that the former two have a higher Content Density, not necassarily MORE content.  Just more content per scene / session.

Ben-

Compression might be a more apt term, and it is certainly worth thinking about.

Thank You both


Sean

[neelk]

neelk-

I think the idea of "density" is a misnomer. All satisfying games need to have a high level of density to feel good..

Although I have no argument with anything else you mentioned I am not sure I 100% agree with this part here.  Sure, the better games have a great many things going on at any given time.  I would say however, that a system and campaign focusing on longer term ideas / goals will have fewer relevant things happening per session then in a shorter game.

If you said "more stuff relevant to the resolution of the immediate conflict", then I wouldn't disagree with you at all. I think of the difference between a well-run long game and a well-run short game as the difference between a flashlight and a laser pointer: they both put out light, but the flashlight casts a beam with a wide angle and the laser pointer puts a dot on one precise spot.

But everything that happens in a long game should be strongly relevant and satisfying for the players! IMO, it's a very seductive mental trap to think that a long game will have less relevant stuff happen in it. This is because one of the most common gaming errors I have made (as player and GM) is to try and put off the resolution to a conflict, to let things "build up". This is a correlation-causation error: when a conflict is resolved doesn't actually determine whether it is satisfying or not -- it's how it was resolved, and whether it involved a lot of the elements in play, that determine that. So we need to start actually doing fun, engaging stuff right away, to stock the game with cool stuff for the players to use -- delaying cool stuff means all we're doing is delaying the day when the game hits any given level of richness.

[Valamir]

But everything that happens in a long game should be strongly relevant and satisfying for the players! IMO, it's a very seductive mental trap to think that a long game will have less relevant stuff happen in it. This is because one of the most common gaming errors I have made (as player and GM) is to try and put off the resolution to a conflict, to let things "build up". This is a correlation-causation error: when a conflict is resolved doesn't actually determine whether it is satisfying or not -- it's how it was resolved, and whether it involved a lot of the elements in play, that determine that. So we need to start actually doing fun, engaging stuff right away, to stock the game with cool stuff for the players to use -- delaying cool stuff means all we're doing is delaying the day when the game hits any given level of richness.

Absolutely.  You could have a long campaign with a high content density.  I think it would get quite difficult after awhile to sustain the same level of density with the same characters.  Eventually you run out of interesting relevant situations for those particular characters...which is the plight of most of the novel series that expand from trilogies into decologies.  

The old school style I was specifically referring to above, is very much a lower density style because it very much builds in the assumption that you have to delay the cool stuff.  I would agree fully (now) that that is a less than ideal way to structure any sort of play, long or short.

[ADGBoss]

But everything that happens in a long game should be strongly relevant and satisfying for the players!

Yes absolutely.  I mean thats true of a campaign of any length.  I think the idea that I am trying to get at is simply one of sustaining momentum through parcing out the high and lows (Ben Morgan's Compressions / Sine Wave), the amount of things going on (Content Density), and the relationship growth of between characters.

If you wanted to explore someone's sexual kinks, and you were meeting with him or her in four hour sessions, once per every other week, you would have really 2 choices.

1) Explore 2 to 3 Kinks per night

or

2) Limit yourself to 1 Kink per night.  In option 1, you will much more quickly come to the end of the Kinks and your approach to "play" (ie more viagra) will differ then if you are exploring option 2.

(Sorry for the crwed and lewd example if you are offended.)

In the same vein, a Kink Vendor might create 1 piece of equipment for those who are doing multiple things in their 4 hour sessions and a different piece to those who take the longer view.

k back to gaming...

I think MJ's comments about Multiverser are pretty relevant here.  The paradign / social contract just goes on and on and on and thats how the game is designed.  Sorcerer on the other hand, whether by Ron'c choice or simply my observations of it, really plays out best over 2 to 4 sessions and comes to a very satisfying conclusion.  My own EODL is moving slightly in the direction of this idea but where Seraphim: Candlebright is definitely designed for longer term campaigns.

Honestly I think we all may be on the same page here or at least in the same chapter :)

As always I appreciate the comments.


Sean

[Nicolas Crost]

Is the High Content Density system / campaign the wave of the future so to speak or is it just a case of the expansion of possibilities.

I think there will still be old school campaign play in the future, but the demand for shorter, higher density play will rise.

I have experienced this phenomenon in my own play: A couple of years ago I player in longer campaigna with sessions ranging to 10 hours and even more. Now with a job and everything I am pretty much happy to squeeze in a 4 hour session each week. And with that comes that I just dont have the time to wait for 5 hours until everyone is done shopping for stuff or something like that. My sessions now do have to have higher density to feel satisfying just because they are shorter and less often by outside constraints.

And I don´t think I am the only one with that kind of experience. More and more active roleplayers move from college to a life with probably more time take up by work. They will probably need games that promote short, high content play.

So, more power to you! We need more games that promote the point that campaigns do not have to  last for years but that 2 months might be all you need!

[Andrew Norris]

The campaign I'm involved with now (populated by mid-to-late 20's working professionals) has shifted from one six hour session every two weeks to a three-hour session every week or two. We've increased the density of play (partially by moving to Fortune-in-the-Middle in a simpler system) quite a bit, and I keep getting comments at how much more satisfied people are with this style of play.

I think the two go hand in hand -- higher density means that you can be satisfied with a shorter session, but it also means that a longer session is almost too draining to be enjoyable. That's just anecdotal information, I know, but I've found it interesting to see my group of players (who were marathon D&D session fans all the way) transition, and be extremely satisfied, with 'short-form' gaming.

[M. J. Young]

A couple of years ago I player in longer campaigna with sessions ranging to 10 hours and even more. Now with a job and everything I am pretty much happy to squeeze in a 4 hour session each week. And with that comes that I just dont have the time to wait for 5 hours until everyone is done shopping for stuff or something like that. My sessions now do have to have higher density to feel satisfying just because they are shorter and less often by outside constraints.

Since I've just made comments about a game that is specifically marked by the never-ending campaign (I fully expect my character to outlive me), I have to respond to this.

Sure, when you're young you have a lot of time to waste, and when you're pretty new to gaming you waste a lot of time in your games. Yes, all of us find that life gets complicated and we don't have so much time to play as we would like. I have my own in-house gaming group (five sons from twelve to twenty-one all living at home), and I set aside Saturdays to do no work so we could play, and my wife almost always manages to run me ragged all day Saturday and eliminate any possibility that there will be time for a game.

But the density of events in the session is a completely separate factor from the length of the session, and from the length of the campaign. I've had D&D nights and Multiverser nights where there was something happening all. the. time.

Multiverser's referee's advice in fact includes ways to focus on players who are currently doing something, and to shuffle the administrative stuff to the side. You specifically mention waiting for five hours while someone shops, and that is specifically dealt with in Multiverser. You want to shop? Here's a piece of paper.  Write down for me what you want to buy, how much you hope or expect to pay, and when you need it. While you're doing that, that's what your character is doing, and these other guys, well, they're doing something else, so they're going to play. Now, when you've finished the list, I'll take a moment to look at it, let you know the results of your shopping spree (did you get these things, did it cost this much), and get you back into the action. Later, when that other guy wants to design a new suit of armor or an addition to his house, he'll be the one pouring over a piece of paper while you're playing. You will get to play as much as you can, given that there are several people here; but we will not make people sit on their hands while you're doing something that doesn't concern them.

Stripping the dull stuff out of the game may increase density; but it's an illusion to think that it is a distinction between one-shots and campaigns. The distinction between the two is only in how long it takes to resolve all the threads that must be resolved. In a campaign, you can have more threads and say more about them, and you can have more sub-stories and sidelines if you want them.

Of course, if you waste five hours of a one shot, you just don't play. So it's less costly to waste time in a campaign. That's up to you.

--M. J. Young