Skarpskytten
10-26-2011, 05:44 PM
I just finished the Pendragon Great Campaign. All the years, 485-565. It took me 93 gaming session. I wrote a 432 page long campaign manuscript. The whole thing lasted for two years and ten months (in real life, not fantasy time). Ten players participated at one point or another.
I write this not (only) to brag, but also because I think that many game masters find it very hard to get through the whole Pendragon Great Campaign. Many campaigns seems to be in the 480s and 490s. When I was cleaning up the paperwork for this campaign, I also started leafing through my papers from campaigns of yesterday. While not all of them had the object of reaching the Battle of Camlann, some of them did. But I never managed to pull it off. Read here this sorry tale, which starts in the dark year of 1990:
Attempt One (1st): 492-496. We just discovered the game, and abandoned this campaign to run the 3rd ed instead.
Attempt Two (3rd): 531-561. After 31 sessions, we were all exhausted and bored (I'll get back to why further down). It ended with a whimper.
Attempt Three (3rd): 506-517. I don't even remember this one. Looking at my players, I probably just got bored of them. (I lost my star player from Attempt Two to military service).
Attempt Four (3rd): 509-522. This campaign was plagued by a very difficult player. The rest of us lost heart, to some extent, though I don't know exactly why we didn't get any further.
Attempt Five (4th): 519-541. This was a beer-and-pretzel-campaign with novice role players. No idea what happened to end it.
Attempt Six (5th): 531-557. I though we would make it. But in the end, our commitment wasn't just enough. I grew bored, then my best player went out to sea ... and my players lost their old characters in the Grail Quest - and lost heart a bit. It was abandoned in mutual consent.
Attempt Seven (5th/5.1st): 485-565. I finally made it!
In this last attempt I did things a lot different from the others. This is also the reason that I think that I finally reached the goal line.
Pacing and variation
In my older campaigns I tried to fit everything into a gaming session: feasts, court sessions, hunts, adventure, tourneys. This meant that the pace had to be high, and role playing suffered. Furthermore the sessions became predictable: Pentecost Tourney, Feats, Adventure, repeated session after session after session. All this led to boredom, less commitment - and failed campaigns.
Before attempt seven, I decided that each session would be focused. One (or possibly two) well fleshed out events, but no more. Thus we could dig into all the details, spend a lot of time role playings - and the players did never know what to expect before a gaming session. This required some ruthless railroading from my part. Sometimes I did in media res beginnings - "You are at a place called Terrabil and see a rebel army before you"; wham! Battle!
A positive effect of this was that the players had to prioritize - their characters couldn't do everything they wanted; which is fine, I think, since knights have many obligations and little "free time". Thus they had do decide what was really important to them, hence: better role playing.
Okay, I didn't quite make the one gaming session per year: but 81 years in 93 sessions is pretty close. And this led to another GOOD THING: with the passing of time, things change, which keeps players interested. As the saga unfolded, my players appreciated the passing of time more and more. Keeping a good pace is very important I think, if you want to finish the PGC (and haven't all the time in the world).
Drama - not Groucho Marx
A read T H White when I started running Pendragon. This had, I think, a very adverse effect on my way of running the game. Because, as White realized, the whole genre of Arthuriana is ridiculous. A bunch of knights running around, rescuing maiden, fighting for trifles, talking in a high-flown way. If you ad a bit of anachronism and Monty Python to the mix, it becomes hilarious.
And we had a lot of fun playing like that. But this kind of role playing becomes rather boring after a while. It leads to over acting. It leads to players and game master competing in saying and doing the most inane things. And somewhere along the road, the dark, grand drama of the Arthurians saga becomes lost.
Furthermore, from a role playing perspective, this style of gaming under utilizes was best with Pendragon as a game: the personality system and a setting full of passion, large than life emotions, and drama. We were never using the system to tell stories about the PK knight - just to try to laugh as much as possible.
So before attempt seven, I decided to run a straight faced campaign. Laughing and making jokes would be ok, of course, but in a small amount at appropriate times. Instead we would play knights torn apart by conflicting passions, divided loyalties and crushed between incompatible demands. We would use the system to tell dramatic stories about larger than life characters, forging their destinies for good or bad.
It worked wonderful. I have never experienced so good role playing, so much heartfelt drama, so many heroic and tragic character fates in 30 years of role playing.
* * *
From this two points of view, I reinvented this game for myself. For the first time I realized how grand it can be. And I stuck to it for almost three years and I finally got to run the Battle of Camlann.
* * *
Okay, a bit pretentious, perhaps. But if it has given some inspiration or food for thought, I am happy.
My epic campaign manuscript is - alas - written in Swedish. But if anyone want to take a look at it, just lemme know.
I write this not (only) to brag, but also because I think that many game masters find it very hard to get through the whole Pendragon Great Campaign. Many campaigns seems to be in the 480s and 490s. When I was cleaning up the paperwork for this campaign, I also started leafing through my papers from campaigns of yesterday. While not all of them had the object of reaching the Battle of Camlann, some of them did. But I never managed to pull it off. Read here this sorry tale, which starts in the dark year of 1990:
Attempt One (1st): 492-496. We just discovered the game, and abandoned this campaign to run the 3rd ed instead.
Attempt Two (3rd): 531-561. After 31 sessions, we were all exhausted and bored (I'll get back to why further down). It ended with a whimper.
Attempt Three (3rd): 506-517. I don't even remember this one. Looking at my players, I probably just got bored of them. (I lost my star player from Attempt Two to military service).
Attempt Four (3rd): 509-522. This campaign was plagued by a very difficult player. The rest of us lost heart, to some extent, though I don't know exactly why we didn't get any further.
Attempt Five (4th): 519-541. This was a beer-and-pretzel-campaign with novice role players. No idea what happened to end it.
Attempt Six (5th): 531-557. I though we would make it. But in the end, our commitment wasn't just enough. I grew bored, then my best player went out to sea ... and my players lost their old characters in the Grail Quest - and lost heart a bit. It was abandoned in mutual consent.
Attempt Seven (5th/5.1st): 485-565. I finally made it!
In this last attempt I did things a lot different from the others. This is also the reason that I think that I finally reached the goal line.
Pacing and variation
In my older campaigns I tried to fit everything into a gaming session: feasts, court sessions, hunts, adventure, tourneys. This meant that the pace had to be high, and role playing suffered. Furthermore the sessions became predictable: Pentecost Tourney, Feats, Adventure, repeated session after session after session. All this led to boredom, less commitment - and failed campaigns.
Before attempt seven, I decided that each session would be focused. One (or possibly two) well fleshed out events, but no more. Thus we could dig into all the details, spend a lot of time role playings - and the players did never know what to expect before a gaming session. This required some ruthless railroading from my part. Sometimes I did in media res beginnings - "You are at a place called Terrabil and see a rebel army before you"; wham! Battle!
A positive effect of this was that the players had to prioritize - their characters couldn't do everything they wanted; which is fine, I think, since knights have many obligations and little "free time". Thus they had do decide what was really important to them, hence: better role playing.
Okay, I didn't quite make the one gaming session per year: but 81 years in 93 sessions is pretty close. And this led to another GOOD THING: with the passing of time, things change, which keeps players interested. As the saga unfolded, my players appreciated the passing of time more and more. Keeping a good pace is very important I think, if you want to finish the PGC (and haven't all the time in the world).
Drama - not Groucho Marx
A read T H White when I started running Pendragon. This had, I think, a very adverse effect on my way of running the game. Because, as White realized, the whole genre of Arthuriana is ridiculous. A bunch of knights running around, rescuing maiden, fighting for trifles, talking in a high-flown way. If you ad a bit of anachronism and Monty Python to the mix, it becomes hilarious.
And we had a lot of fun playing like that. But this kind of role playing becomes rather boring after a while. It leads to over acting. It leads to players and game master competing in saying and doing the most inane things. And somewhere along the road, the dark, grand drama of the Arthurians saga becomes lost.
Furthermore, from a role playing perspective, this style of gaming under utilizes was best with Pendragon as a game: the personality system and a setting full of passion, large than life emotions, and drama. We were never using the system to tell stories about the PK knight - just to try to laugh as much as possible.
So before attempt seven, I decided to run a straight faced campaign. Laughing and making jokes would be ok, of course, but in a small amount at appropriate times. Instead we would play knights torn apart by conflicting passions, divided loyalties and crushed between incompatible demands. We would use the system to tell dramatic stories about larger than life characters, forging their destinies for good or bad.
It worked wonderful. I have never experienced so good role playing, so much heartfelt drama, so many heroic and tragic character fates in 30 years of role playing.
* * *
From this two points of view, I reinvented this game for myself. For the first time I realized how grand it can be. And I stuck to it for almost three years and I finally got to run the Battle of Camlann.
* * *
Okay, a bit pretentious, perhaps. But if it has given some inspiration or food for thought, I am happy.
My epic campaign manuscript is - alas - written in Swedish. But if anyone want to take a look at it, just lemme know.