Grand Epic Campaigns
One thing that's interested me over the years is how we have this sort of ideal game group, the group that meets at the same place at the same time every week with the same GM of the same campaign and the same players with the same characters in the Grand Epic Campaign for years and years on end.

Now, what I've seen is that though that's the ideal, few gamers ever achieve it. What they actually achieve is a number of short 6-15 session campaigns with groups of changing membership.*


Game circles and short closed-ended campaigns
So what I figured was, rather than aiming at that ideal, let's look at the reality and make the most of it. Let's aim for closed-ended campaigns of 10 or so sessions - if it's going to end after that long anyway, may as well plan for it to end, give it that nice sense of completion, rather than fizzling out with regrets.

As for the changing membership, well that's what GameCircle and the Geektogethers are about. A lot of this comes out of Bill Stoddard's idea of a "game circle" - basically just his circle of friends that he organises into different game groups, like an old-style Miss Manners organising dinner parties of people she thought would have interesting conversations with each-other.


Cliques and insular game groups
Bill noted that in his game circle that left to themselves, the players would form steady groups - "cliques", as he called them. He had to actively work to stop that. That suggests that in voluntary social activities, forming small groups with a steady membership is human nature. This turns out to be true of workplaces, large sports teams, extended families, and in every other situation in human life. People form little groups of 3-6 members, with varying degrees of exclusiveness.


D&D started it
I think also it may be... I guess we can't call it "cultural", but "subcultural". The rpg hobby has got a history, and the granddaddy of 'em all is D&D. I have beside me now, rescued from my mother's place as she was doing a cleanout, a copy of AD&D 1e, bought in 1984 but published in 1979. I think it's fair to say not only that D&D was there from the beginning, or as the spark that lit the fire, but also that its ideas about "what is roleplaying" are very much a part of our subcultural heritage.

From my AD&D1e books a couple of things leap out at me. The first is that the Preface of the DMG tells us that players should never look into the DMG, and if they do, they ought to be penalised in some way, losing magical items, etc. So the idea is obviously that in any game group, one person should be the GM for their entire gaming career. It's simply not considered what should happen if a GM from another group comes to be a player in yours. The implication is that you'll have pretty static membership. The second thing is that they give rules for when a character reaches a certain level, they choose a spot, build a stronghold, clear the surrounding area of monsters and become ruling nobles. Reaching the required level, building the stronghold and the ensuing politics are going to take quite a lot of game sessions, I think. And so we have here the Endless Epic Campaign, with the same GM and the same players for many years.

It's all there, in black and white, back there at the start of our hobby. Just as ideas of character class and level, the attributes/skills split, hit points, what is roleplaying and what are adventures, rolling dice to resolve actions, the "party" and so on and so forth - all these ideas about what roleplaying games are about, they came from D&D - so, too, I think came from there ideas about this game group with a fairly static membership, and one person always GMing, the Endless Epic Campaign.

When we combine the subcultural heritage of the Endless Epic Campaign with the natural human tendency to form 3-6 person groups, each reinforces the other, I think.


What the people need is a leader
After the last Geektogether in December, lots of people emailed to say how great it was, and they'd like to do it again. A few expressed a wish to have some one-off games together. I said "go ahead, organise it!" Nothing happened. Then in casual conversation with one of the December attendees, he said to me, "Kyle, when are we having another one?" It's strange, because it's nothing official - I just pick a date, email or phone people and invite them to come along. We don't have membership cards, or have to book a space. We don't need to apply to the city council for a permit. So why couldn't they organise one themselves? But just as in a game group, they expect one person to always be the GM, so too with GameCircle.org, they expect one person to always organise the Geektogethers. They're accustomed to see a certain person in that organising role.

So I really do think that it's natural for people to form little groups, and have someone lead them - and that it's relatively rare for people to actively seek to keep people circulating through.

Again, I come back to Bill's dinner party analogy, which is very apt. I remember that one of the duties of the host is to keep everyone talking. If you see a couple of people standing around near each-other but not talking, you should approach them, and try to spark a conversation, perhaps help them find something in common. Knowing that Russ is from NZ, I can say, "ah, Chris here is, too, and recently travelled there, on his way to Croatia." That helps them break the ice.

One thing I noticed at both Geektogethers, and at some other parties, is that people of 30 and over are a bit more likely to circulate around the party and talk to many people, and to try this sort of "bringing together" role, trying to engage multiple people in a group conversation. Those of under 30 tend to be a bit more reserved, talking just to those they already know. It's not a rule or anything, just a tendency, and not a really strong one. I think perhaps the difference is the people's experience of old-style dinner parties, where as Bill said, you'd invite people who didn't necessarily know each-other, but who you thought would get along well enough and have some interest in one another.

That role of bringing people together to have fun is one I enjoy a lot, whether as Geektogether host - even in the public place, I am really the "host" - or as GM, or in my day job as chef. But in the end, most people like to form those small groups and stick to them, so it takes some effort to keep them moving about.

What do you guys reckon? How does this all match your experiences, or not?

___
* I did a survey once at rpg.net asking people how long their average campaign was. The average was 10-15, as far as I remember. I specifically said they should include the one- or two-session fizzles that went nowhere, but most people said they excluded those, so that brings the average down.

Damn man, I didn't know I'd gotten lucky. My group is on session 58 of this ongoing GURPS:TRAVELLER campaign and we even took a 4 to 5 month break to do a BANESTORM mini-campaign.

 Its been 4 to 5 players every game session, with a core 4 people that always tries to make it to to the games.

 Hell we even gamed the day I got hit by a car -  I didn't have a cellphone back then, no way to call a key player and tell her what happened....so we went ahead and did a few scenes with who showed up . My leg was propped up on a chair with a big icepack on it and i was on psinkillers - but I was GMing and playing the NPCs.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Kyle AaronBill noted that in his game circle that left to themselves, the players would form steady groups - "cliques", as he called them. He had to actively work to stop that. That suggests that in voluntary social activities, forming small groups with a steady membership is human nature. This turns out to be true of workplaces, large sports teams, extended families, and in every other situation in human life. People form little groups of 3-6 members, with varying degrees of exclusiveness.
(snip)
So the idea is obviously that in any game group, one person should be the GM for their entire gaming career. It's simply not considered what should happen if a GM from another group comes to be a player in yours. The implication is that you'll have pretty static membership. The second thing is that they give rules for when a character reaches a certain level, they choose a spot, build a stronghold, clear the surrounding area of monsters and become ruling nobles. Reaching the required level, building the stronghold and the ensuing politics are going to take quite a lot of game sessions, I think. And so we have here the Endless Epic Campaign, with the same GM and the same players for many years.
(snip)
When we combine the subcultural heritage of the Endless Epic Campaign with the natural human tendency to form 3-6 person groups, each reinforces the other, I think.

Interesting post. It matches pretty closely my own experience.
 
Actually, I've found that many players assume that, if they play in your A campaign, they're automatically included in any other campaign you launch. For much of them is a question of friendship, even.

I ran one of those epic campaigns - 20 years of (A)D&D. I kept trying to break it off so I could run something different, but no one wanted to play anything but that. It left me totally burned out on D&D, and badly burned out on Fantasy, and I finally killed the group. My current group is all kids except my wife. The oldest is 20.  We've been playing many different games, with shorter campaigns and different focuses. Many times we'll come back to earlier characters and start them off at a later point in time. So far it's been working very well.

-clash

My first "grand campaign" was Basic D&D. It lasted a year or so and then my brother (the GM) got board and killed us all off. I co-organized my next grand campaign (AD&D) with another GM. We spelled each other off and the campaign lasted over three years. It ended when the other GM moved away. My next grand campaign (AD&D again) lasted around two years and petered out when we decided to try our hands at Warhammer. The Warhammer campaign lasted two and a half years and fell apart when the friendships of the players fell apart. I've enjoyed several grand campaigns (The Terran Story and Realm Antique) since then, but, about five years ago the years of the grand campaigns came to a halt. Now, my regular gaming group gets together sporadically and we don't always play RPGs. Sometimes we play cards or board games. We all have different interests outside of gaming and, as old age settles in, the work involved to prepare a gaming session becomes less appealing. No one really wants to be the GM and no one really wants to invest much into their characters. The magic of gaming is almost gone. Boo hoo. Sniff. Sniff.  I guess there's always euchre and cribbage.:what:

10-15 sessions seems pretty epic to me. I mean that's-assuming each session is only 4-6 hours-that's ten to fifteen weeks of gaming, which is two to four months. That seems like a pretty significant investment to me. (Let alone if you play more than that in that time period.)

We've gone longer-our first Shadowrun campaign lasted 4 years, in which we played at a minimum of once a week for six hours, or more. Our average is 4 to 6 months of late.

Our group is also very socially connected as we've all known each other for a long time.

Quote from: JohnnyWannabeMy first "grand campaign" was Basic D&D. It lasted a year or so and then my brother (the GM) got board and killed us all off. I co-organized my next grand campaign (AD&D) with another GM. We spelled each other off and the campaign lasted over three years. It ended when the other GM moved away. My next grand campaign (AD&D again) lasted around two years and petered out when we decided to try our hands at Warhammer. The Warhammer campaign lasted two and a half years and fell apart when the friendships of the players fell apart. I've enjoyed several grand campaigns (The Terran Story and Realm Antique) since then, but, about five years ago the years of the grand campaigns came to a halt. Now, my regular gaming group gets together sporadically and we don't always play RPGs. Sometimes we play cards or board games. We all have different interests outside of gaming and, as old age settles in, the work involved to prepare a gaming session becomes less appealing. No one really wants to be the GM and no one really wants to invest much into their characters. The magic of gaming is almost gone. Boo hoo. Sniff. Sniff.  I guess there's always euchre and cribbage.:what:

Or you could move down to Boston and join my game group!

Love to have you!

-clash

Thanks for sharing. There's some similarities between your Game Circle stuff, and the kinds of groups I'm trying to set up around here, so this is good stuff to read.

What was the question again?

Quote from: flyingmiceOr you could move down to Boston and join my game group!

Love to have you!

-clash

If you can find me a spare suiite or two on the estate grounds, count me in!:D

Quote from: Serious Paul10-15 sessions seems pretty epic to me. I mean that's-assuming each session is only 4-6 hours-that's ten to fifteen weeks of gaming, which is two to four months. That seems like a pretty significant investment to me.

I agree! But many gamers don't feel that way. If you tell them, "this will be a closed-ended campaign lasting 10-16 sessions," they actually sometimes reply, "actually I'm looking for a long-term group..." Of course the group can be long-term even if the campaigns are closed-ended, but...

If you're aiming at open-ended play, then 10-16 sessions seems too short. If you're aiming at finishing things up in that time, then it's quite substantial, you can do a lot with the characters. I think it's also a matter of pacing. Short campaigns don't look so appealing if your experience is of four-session combats. I mean, some guys I know just finished a two-session combat... a total of about seven real hours to deal with twelve gargoyles. Whereas in another game, a battle to determine the fate of the entire country took half an hour. So 12 sessions for one group wouldn't have quite as much happen in them as 12 sessions in the other group.