What’s the longest-running campaign/gaming group you’ve been in?

See, this is where my wordiness pays off (from the perspective of having 28 entries completed by the end of today, specifically)! This is how I teach classes too; come the end of the class I wave my hands and explain “We already covered this! And this! We’re burning shit up!” (I say shit a lot because it makes my adult students feel less awkward if they get to talk like, you know, adults.)

So I’ve discussed this. Blordik was my longest-running character in my longest-running campaign as a player, and I honestly think that his lifespan at least equals anything we did back in high school. In my head I’ve got campaigns I’ve never actually run but have been working on for longer; ones I’ve started a few times or in new ways, even adventures; even a few adventures that serve as preambles to campaigns that I’ve run, essentially identically, for multiple groups. Most of that stuff, though, has petered out largely due to being online. Online, especially via message board, is hard on the whole concept of gaming. Now that we have incredible tools like Myth-Weavers and Roll20, and folks have easy and reliable access to Skype and a mic in most cases, gaming online is basically just…gaming…except that no one needs to drive a car or wear pants. All-in-all I think that’s pretty great!

Still, even the rl games I’ve playedi n the last years have not tended to last super long; a few months is generally the average. As an adult there’s a lot of wear and demands on the time of everyone involved; less time for the DM (usually me!) to put stuff together; less time for other people to do prep, assuming you can even convince them that they ought to. Plus I’m old now, and I don’t really have eight-hour marathon sessions (which back in the day I wouldn’t have even considered a marathon) in the hopper. My wife and I both work in environments that often expose us to…consequential human actions is probably the best way to put it. This comes into play, too, because it means I have very little tolerance for drama in-or-out of game, because I’ve often just come from a conversation with a student who can’t complete his homework because he goes to work twenty minutes after class and works til about six hours before the next class starts.

Springtime is always promising, so I’m guessing I’ll get back into gaming in a way that doesn’t conflict with my Warhammery. I could say “I might get sick of Warhammer” but frankly the fiscal investment makes that extremely unlikely. But I think that the new nature of things is much more of short, compressed adventure experiences, rather than a huge sweeping campaign that goes wherever. I look at what David and his most special of ladies have accomplished in a solo campaign of marital bliss and could see something along those lines stretching out for myself and the lady what runs this roost, but that’s a ways away at best. Stacey still doesn’t like a lot of roleplay-related pressure or system knowledge expectation; she’s great in the game but definitely more comfortable when she has people to bounce off, so putting her in a solo situation is stressful. I have tried enticing her into running a solo game for me, using the DnD Next playtest stuff, but that’s mostly because I want to play but don’t really want the social obligations that come with playing.

So odds are, Blordik the Dragonslayer will remain my longest-running character, Sandster my longest-running DM, and Red Hand of Doom my longest-running campaign for some time to come!