Comments on: Hitting the Goldilocks Spot: Campaign and Story Arc Length http://www.treasuretables.org/2006/07/hitting-the-goldilocks-spot Game mastering advice, ideas & resources • Dedicated to helping GMs Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:04:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Martin http://www.treasuretables.org/2006/07/hitting-the-goldilocks-spot/comment-page-1#comment-2700 Martin Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:57:51 +0000 http://www.treasuretables.org/?p=393#comment-2700 You're both much better at planning this stuff than I am! And much better at delivering on your plans, it sounds like. I often find game-length plans hard to stick to, for one reason or another. You’re both much better at planning this stuff than I am! And much better at delivering on your plans, it sounds like. I often find game-length plans hard to stick to, for one reason or another.

]]> By: John Arcadian http://www.treasuretables.org/2006/07/hitting-the-goldilocks-spot/comment-page-1#comment-2690 John Arcadian Wed, 05 Jul 2006 18:01:44 +0000 http://www.treasuretables.org/?p=393#comment-2690 In general when I GM I'm telling a story. That story has a definate end and I try to get to that end before the interest wanes in the game. This lets my group get through a lot of systems (WOD, DND, SVG, BESM) and I try to do one shots in between of other systems to keep things fresh and check out stuff. In general we do about one campaign a season in something and switch games. This is about 4 big games a year, but we meet every week if we can. So at 3 to 4 months it's about 13 to 16 sessions per campaign and a I give out a lot of experience since it's so short. I just went down to origins and something that I'm highly thinking of doing with the one shots is drawing up characters myself and gearing them to archetypes, that way the characters fill niches since we aren't playing a long time and the players don't have to try to learn every single bit of character creation for something they may not like. If we like it and continue on then we change characters or carry them on with modifications per player. Once or twice we've run a year long or so campaign, or series of campaigns. More often than not people tend to feel it drags on and want something new or a different core plot. We're also the people who dislike inuyasha and dbz because they drag on forever on doing simple things. In general when I GM I’m telling a story. That story has a definate end and I try to get to that end before the interest wanes in the game. This lets my group get through a lot of systems (WOD, DND, SVG, BESM) and I try to do one shots in between of other systems to keep things fresh and check out stuff.

In general we do about one campaign a season in something and switch games. This is about 4 big games a year, but we meet every week if we can. So at 3 to 4 months it’s about 13 to 16 sessions per campaign and a I give out a lot of experience since it’s so short.

I just went down to origins and something that I’m highly thinking of doing with the one shots is drawing up characters myself and gearing them to archetypes, that way the characters fill niches since we aren’t playing a long time and the players don’t have to try to learn every single bit of character creation for something they may not like. If we like it and continue on then we change characters or carry them on with modifications per player.

Once or twice we’ve run a year long or so campaign, or series of campaigns. More often than not people tend to feel it drags on and want something new or a different core plot. We’re also the people who dislike inuyasha and dbz because they drag on forever on doing simple things.

]]> By: ScottM http://www.treasuretables.org/2006/07/hitting-the-goldilocks-spot/comment-page-1#comment-2682 ScottM Wed, 05 Jul 2006 15:57:39 +0000 http://www.treasuretables.org/?p=393#comment-2682 We discussed game length explicitly when choosing our current off game. Despite a personal desire to try out short form games, the majority of the group was interested in something longer, with more extensive character development time. The natural length of "long" campaigns in our group are 36-50 sessions (usually two a month)-- if we go longer, no one will mind, but interest wanes and many systems break after a while. We discussed game length explicitly when choosing our current off game. Despite a personal desire to try out short form games, the majority of the group was interested in something longer, with more extensive character development time.

The natural length of “long” campaigns in our group are 36-50 sessions (usually two a month)– if we go longer, no one will mind, but interest wanes and many systems break after a while.

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