Running a long campaign: Part 1 - Motivation

While we are closing in on the end of our Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign I feel like I can start writing about it in general without running the risk of revealing anything new to my players.

I'd like to talk a little bit about one thing that I've always struggled with while running longer games, which is motivation as a GM. It is vital to keep motivated to be able to keep the game running to its conclusion. I can't tell you how many times I've started a longer campaign just to have it fizzle out due to lack of inspiration and just general boredom.

I will use our Masks campaign as an example, so here's a brief overview of it...
- Our first session was played on the 10th of January 2017.
- Our latest session was played on October 30th of 2018, and we still have at least a couple more to go.
- To date, we have played 55 sessions, each one between 2.5 and 3 hours long.
- We are spread out between Spain, Sweden and the UK so we use Roll20 and Discord as our tools for communication. I may write more about those tools in later posts.

A few tips for keeping motivation up

1. Consistency
This is probably the most important tip of all. Just keep playing consistently at a pace that suits your group. At the start we played every two-three weeks because of scheduling conflicts. For us, this wasn't enough. Our sessions were quite short and we ended up spending a lot of time getting back in the game and remembering what happened last time.

Since then we have change things and we are now playing almost (there's still life going on, right?) every week and this really helps everyone, including me, remember what happened last time and feel like the story is moving forward without having to rush anything.

Related to this is also having a clear player limit. Always expecting a full group will make it hard to keep the game pace up so I allow one player to be absent and still play. On rare occasions we play with 2 out of 4 players, but in general that means a lot of recapping the next session after that, so not a good idea.

2. Player Feedback
Ask for your players to give you feedback as often as you can. At least between chapters or after sessions that you feel may not have run so well. Are they enjoying it? Do they want more action? Less action? Do they want to be guided more through the game or do they prefer a more sandbox style gameplay? I normally allow my players to explore the world very freely which can be both great and extremely frustrating for players.

Even if they just say that everything is great, that will give you a boost to your motivation and make you prepare that little extra for the next session.

3. Don't let bad sessions bum you out
During a 50+ session campaign there are bound to be some sessions that are better and some sessions that are worse. Some days you have bad days and some days your players have their heads elsewhere because of things that have happened outside of the game.

Let the good ones carry you through, but the bad ones shouldn't stop you from playing. You can also just talk to the players about it if you feel like something didn't really work out the way it should have.

4. Prepare actively
At least this happens to me when running a longer published campaign. You read the book once to get an overview, but the details won't be fixed in your head. Then you start reading it again while making notes so you can remember more of it this time around. Half-way through you are bored, lose attention and either put the book down or finish it without paying attention.

These are a couple of tips I can give you after preparing for Masks of Nyarlathotep

1. Read the book and identify the key pieces of information that you are need to give the players to proceed through the game at each point (particularly between chapters). If one of those are missing it can be hard to patch it in later. I didn't do this very well at the start so I have need to make some clues available to players at a later date. This may not be bad since the amount of information at the start can be overwhelming, but definitely better if it's planned for.
2. Prepare each chapter actively. Draw maps, write down NPC motivations, think about possible ways that your players will solve each situation, think about the things that make sense and the things that don't? If you are like me, just reading the book again won't really help. I still can't remember what it says unless I prep for the important encounters and create my own overview of the chapters in my head.
3. You will need to improvise A LOT. No amount of preparation will ready you for what the players get up to, especially in a long campaign. One paragraph in the book could expand into several hours of gameplay, and you need to be ready for it.

5. Be a fan of the player characters
Reading this phrase in Kult: Divinity Lost and later Apocalypse World was a real eye-opener for me. That's what it's all about! The player characters and their actions driving the story forward, not your prepared narrative shoehorning them into a predetermined plot.

Of course, with a long published adventure, some work has to be done to keep them on track, but this is how you present the information to the players become very important (see my previous post).

To me as GM it's a real danger to try to force the player characters into a narrative that I have imagined in my head. It's inevitable to consider the most likely course of action and play it back like a film in your head, but don't get attached to that specific sequence of events. Your players don't have all the information like you do and what information they have they probably view in a completely different manner than you do as well. So they will act in a manner that may seem counter intuitive to you. This is good! Roll with it. These surprises make you stay on your toes and makes the game less predictable and more fun. I guarantee it.


You may not agree with me on this. I'd love to hear your views, so please comment!





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