Campaign versus One-Offs

[kafka47]

I find myself preparing for a campaign in a city that prefers one-offs. Does anyone find that it is more difficult to get a campaign going? What secrets can one offer for basically a fluid situation where there is only a core group 3 players and 6 floaters? Should one abandon the idea of running a campaign?

 

[rancke]

I find myself preparing for a campaign in a city that prefers one-offs. Does anyone find that it is more difficult to get a campaign going? What secrets can one offer for basically a fluid situation where there is only a core group 3 players and 6 floaters? Should one abandon the idea of running a campaign?

Run two groups side by side. Every other session is with the core players doing a regular campaign. Every other session is a one-off with some of the floaters. The one-offs take place in the same subsector as the regular campaign, allowing you to recycle material. Ring the changes whenever the plot lends itself to it, i.e. invite a floater to play a character he's played in a one-off in a session of the regular campaign.

Wacky idea: Let one of the characters in the core group suffer from multiple personality disorder and have whichever floater shows up play him.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

I've been pondering an idea for a game setup for a while that may work for you. In a face-to-face setting as you describe it might be sort of stealth campaign. That is, for the core players (let's call them Regulars) it is and will play as a campaign all the time, but anytime you have floaters (let's call them Extras) in the mix they play one-off characters for that session in a short adventure (a side adventure to the Regulars).

For Example:

The Regulars are typical Merchant Owner/Operators and the campaign is a standard trade one. The Regulars are the full time crew who rely on working-passages or other temporary hires to fill out the crew requirements when not working themselves to death by doing double duty. On Regular nights your campaign proceeds normally.

On Extras nights the occasional players are the filler crew and/or passengers/patrons and a one-off adventure is played out.

Maybe pirates attack or the ship is hijacked, and the Extras help the Regulars fight off the attack and defend the ship.

Maybe the extras are a group of adventurers seeking The Miller Phoenix and they charter the Regulars' ship for the hunt.

Maybe the Regulars find themselves in a bind, their ship laid-up for unexpected repairs and in need of quick cash, so they hire themselves out to the Extras for a short job.

In any case the Regulars have an edge in surviving (so the campaign isn't derailed by a one-off) while the Extras may die with no damage done to the campaign but if they live the player may even be interested in playing them again as a recurring "Extra" which could even lead to the player becoming a Regular in the campaign. Bonus

The one-off nights can even serve as segues between campaign elements for the Regulars without the Extras ever being aware of it and the bigger picture and wheels withing wheels.

Similar to Hans' idea above I guess

 

[kafka47]

Might work...have to convince the Regulars or Core to put up with the newbies as contractors.

 

[Supplement Four]

I've run campaigns that became one-offs, and I've run one-offs that became campaigns.

90% of the time, though, I'll set up a campaign, even if its a mini-campaign with a definite, pre-planned ending.

I like stories, and I find a more interesting story is told with campaigns rather than one-offs.

 

[aramis]

I've run campaigns that became one-offs, and I've run one-offs that became campaigns.

90% of the time, though, I'll set up a campaign, even if its a mini-campaign with a definite, pre-planned ending.

I like stories, and I find a more interesting story is told with campaigns rather than one-offs.

Agreed. Much the same as me. (My problem, however, is getting them to accept a shorter ending.)

 

[the angle]

One-offs only for years, because we tend to jump around between game systems: CT for a few months, then D&D, then Met:Alpha, then TFT, then back to CT, etc. So I suppose you could call them short-term campaigns, not just one-off adventures. It's easier to gen new characters and new situations each time around, although there's no restriction against keeping the same character if people want. But there's no particular time (or even setting) continuity from one mini-campaign to the next.

Steve

 

[Gaming Glen]

You could string one-offs together, the tie-in is a very large naval vessel that has multiple mission profiles. The ship has large contingent of troops and vehicles for planetary incursions, a couple squadrons of fighters, and generally doesn't stray too far from support so crews can be rotated or refreshed fairly often. Gee, I think the Azhanti High Lightning fits that description.

One week, if people feel like being soldiers, send in the marines. Next week they play fighter pilots. For the core players they could play officers "off-camera" while playing a throw-away character with the others (one could be the Flight officer, or CAG, another could be the Major in charge of the marines). These players could help you in managing the complexities of ship operations if they feel so inclined; and may give them ideas to run a one-off adventure themselves.

I had thought about doing this while watching Battlestar Galactica, but with a different mission profile (still looking for or trying to reach Earth, but for different reasons.. and they accumulate a ragtag fleet along the way ). I planned on using the Aurora class ship from TNE, which was modular so I put in a science module for some civilian scientists to bother the bridge crew (like some Star Trek episodes ) and a cargo module so a business (read: trade) staff was along to buy and sell things along the way for both easing the cost of operations and sometimes goods can buy things that money or guns can't get.

 

[Supplement Four]

(My problem, however, is getting them to accept a shorter ending.)

That's true with me as well. The players don't know the ending, of course, until they run it. I don't like to give them out-of-game context like, "We'll be finishing up this storyline in a game session or two."

Sometimes, when the game is over, the players are shocked. Sure, they just saved the princess, defeated the rotten empire, morned their dead, and have no other objectives that haven't yet been cross off their list--but, it's still a shock when they find out the game is over.

I get accused of being a "quitter" in my group sometimes, mistakenly, because of this. It's become a bit of a joke.

"You're a quitter!"

"I am not. The story was over!"

The most famous of these types of encounters with my players happened in a D6 Star Wars campaign. We finally faced Vader--my goal all along. But, it took us so long to get there. We played the characters from the time the Death Star was destroyed, to the PCs becoming involved in the Rebellion, all the way to the PCs meeting and confronting Vader (who, basically, kicked their asses). But, still, the story came to a close. The game was over.

"You're a quitter!"

"Dude! We played the campaign for SEVEN YEARS!! We faced VADER!! The story is over now."

 

[veltyen]

I find myself preparing for a campaign in a city that prefers one-offs. Does anyone find that it is more difficult to get a campaign going? What secrets can one offer for basically a fluid situation where there is only a core group 3 players and 6 floaters? Should one abandon the idea of running a campaign?

A design that has been mentioned already I've used for this kind of situation in the past.

Borrowing from other storyline based media - A TV show could be episodic, or have a distinct overarching storyline, or it could be both.

In the situation where I used this (a semi-public gaming group, highly fluid player composition) I used a "government organisation" as the core group, with distinct episodic storylines - each concept/story was a single session and there was no need for continuing characters. The downside was the need for a method to create characters in seconds - which meant they weren't quite as fleshed out as a full campaign character, but for single session games you often only want caricatures.

I felt the need to make each episode very distinct with a tight (and therefore minimal) story arc. Any continuing characters would experience a continuance of the meta-plot, and therefore would be more campaign like.

 

[Icosahedron]

Hmm, I see your (their) problem:

...confronting Vader (who, basically, kicked their asses).

"You're a quitter!"

"Dude! We played the campaign for SEVEN YEARS!! We faced VADER!! The story is over now."

The game isn't over until they win!

 

[the angle]

Does anyone find that it is more difficult to get a campaign going?

Over the years, I've found that it's easy to get a campaign going. What's hard is keeping it going.

Steve

 

[Max]

well I prefer campaigns but over years of experience I've discovered that 2 out of every 3 campaigns I start (both as player and as GM) just don't gel - they might last for one session or several before falling apart but more fall apart than work so I don't know what use you can get from any advice I can give.

One "trick" that has been used with success in a similar situation is when running a campaign with one-offs is to have the campaign players show up earlier than the non-campaign players to deal with campaign issues which the one-off players aren't involved in.

You should also make rules for handling the character who's player is not available, especially when a one-off gaming session ends before the mission does. let the players know what those rules are and let them have some input on them, even one-off players can grow attached to their characters.

In a mixed campaign watch the balance between the one-off players and the campaign players. Traveller isn't as bad as some systems for this, but it's really annoying for a casual player to try to be useful with a utility character against specialized campaign characters.

 

[PathfinderAP]

I find myself preparing for a campaign in a city that prefers one-offs. Does anyone find that it is more difficult to get a campaign going? What secrets can one offer for basically a fluid situation where there is only a core group 3 players and 6 floaters? Should one abandon the idea of running a campaign?

I like running a string of one-offs
Both the players and I can have fullest flexibility in game that way, with only the odd recurring character, but events can lead to things happening later in other games,

Part of the fun of running this game comes from flying by the seat of your pants, (some versions of this game support this type of play well)

Some of the most tense and epic games I ever ran for Traveller were one-offs, and done by the seat of my pants, (I can jam like Louis Armstrong when comes to Traveller, you need it on the fly, I'm your guy)

But if you can get the same people around the same table week after week without RL intruding then go for it, do a campaign


(Btw, I was one of the persons to vote one-off's, who was the other?)

 

[Jame]

I generally run one-offs because I haven't got the attention for much more.

 

[Maladominus]

I greatly prefer to run campaigns. The long-term campaign is more conducive to role-playing.

But I will use thrilling excitement-filled pulp-action zero-consequences one-shot adventures in order to lure/entice new players into joining a long-term campaign. Bait and switch. Bait and switch! <evil cackle>