My Life As A Gamer: The Pundit Talks The Long Campaign

The Pundit's Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign just hit its sixth anniversary. That's huge these days. Of course he cut a video.

I've also enjoyed running years-long campaigns before. My last World of Darkness campaign, a Mage game, went three years. My Exalted campaign went for three years. A lot of what the Pundit talks about here I can vouch for being effective in making a tabletop campaign effective entertainment. The most important point? It's not about the PCs! The world exists independent of the PCs; they are just people in a living world, regardless of their power or influence, and they are no less disposable, expendable, or fungible than everyone else.

The other dealbreaker point is this: you're there to play the fucking game. Not to hang out. Not to bullshit. You're there to get shit done. If you watch competitive raiders in World of Warcraft, or the folks who compete in the Mythic Dungeon Invitational, they have this attitude; they've logged in to kill bosses and get loot first and foremost. If this means not playing with your pals, so be it; your satisfaction will be superior when everyone's focused on playing the fucking game. It also cuts down on stupid drama; your man dying just means playing another man, not detonating a friendship or worse.

The result is that your setting acquires a history without ever being a fucking a story. This is how you run a tabletop game properly. Folks come and go, but history marches on.