Long campaigns

Hi!

After browsing this forum and the PDF it seems that the duration of a campaign is rather limited. With this I mean there is going to be generally one attempt to take over the world and that’s the campaign. Okay, it could take a while to run it but still, what then? The story is told and chacters fade away with it?

Now, those of you who have really played BE have you tried to use some or all of the surviving characters from the previous campaign in the next one? I mean if the planet was saved and an invasion of a new planet seems likely maybe some of the heroes will be sent to the new hotspot?

I haven’t gotten a chance to play yet, but I don’t see why you couldn’t have another go on the same planet or the same characters or both.

There would be some tweaking to do in terms of time lapse for the world. What happens in the mean time? This would be like a downtime for the world. It may stay in the final configuration post invasion, but attitudes are likely to change a little bit, natural resources might be used up, etc.

Likewise, you’d need to work out how to compensate the GM’s figures of note for the in game advancement of the characters. Both sides should be allowed equal access to the between campaign downtime for practice and instruction.

Assuming you through all three phases, that’s about 18 sessions. Ergo, I guess it depends on your definition of “long.” For an indie RPG, that’s pretty long. Copared to a typical D&D campaign, not so much. Personally, I reallly like the idea of an endgame.

Anyway, I don’t really see any impediment to using the same PCs on a different planet, i.e., going through multiple sets of phases. If you look at the comics, it’s shown that both Faith and Sheva have had pretty extensive careers. Sheva, in paricular, obviously had experience fighting Vaylen before, both on Taramai and elsewhere.

36 sessions if you use the extended maneuvers.

Yes, thanks!

If you play bi-weekly like my groups do, that’s what, more than a year of sessions? Not too shabby.

I dont get why most roleplayers want their games to go on forever…

In my old 2nd D&D games and mechwarrior games, the best fun was when we finished some grand task that was better then those game which fizzled out.

This connects to why do some gamers care about every moment in the game, I had an old mechwarrior group that tracked the mercenary group’s total net worth.

I like how both BW and BE have an end in sight, both with character beliefs and with BE’s metagoal of defending the world.

It’s interesting that I’ve seen a similar reaction to BE in a couple of different venues. You explain Infection and people react with, “What? The campiagn doesn’t just go on forever? This sounds like a real-time strategy game or something.”

FYI, that last sentence is almost verbatim the reaction from a guy in my group.

If you burn the appropriate characters, there’s no reason they can’t make the HEx jump to another world and save/destroy that one, too.

Maybe we suck, but most of our games last just under a year. I have had a few go past that. I think A year is a good length, and 36 will last a year with holidays, sick days etc! more if your biweekly.

36 sessions? Heck, with our schedule it will take 3 years to finish one campaign :shock:

Okay, no need to tell multiple stories with same characters then. Anyway, good points about telling just one story and then end the campaign than to let it die a slow death. On the other hand I don’t see why there could not be multiple stories with the same characters (something similar to Eisenhorn trilogy).

I am a firm believer that playing an RPG is telling a story, and all stories have to end.

That is what they made sequels for :twisted:

Well, I come mainly from simulationist camp, myself :twisted: but I like to broaden my gaming experience and try to drive some of my games towards telling a story. But yes, I was after sequels, you hit the spot with that one :slight_smile: