While it is possible to play a single game, unrelated to any other game events past or future, it is the campaign for which these rules are designed.--E. Gary Gygax,
Forward [sic] to Volume 1 of OD&D,
1 November 1973
I thought of this quote recently as I looked back on my gaming thoughts of the last couple of months. As you probably noticed, my mind was racing around to a lot of different games, particularly those produced by Chaosium and FGU, and I was beginning to think about the possibility of putting Dwimmermount on hiatus for a while and trying something different. Most gamers are familiar with this behavior; online, it's often called "gamer attention deficit disorder" and it reflects the tendency of many gamers to flit from one game to another with reckless abandon, never staying fixed on a single one for any length of time.
This is a behavior to which I was particularly prone during the 1990s, which, not coincidentally also corresponds to the period during which I was most disenchanted with this hobby. Back then, I took an interest in a new game every couple of weeks or months. Unsurprisingly, I didn't actually play anything for very long, assuming I even got to play at all. I ran various one-shot adventures and several short-lived attempts at campaigns, but none of them ever had any staying power. Now, I wasn't unique in this sort of behavior. Indeed, back then it seemed to be the norm, at least amongst the gamers with whom I had any regular contact. And I sometimes get the sense that this behavior became widespread enough that it's now treated as the norm. That is, most gamers expect to play a different game every few months and the idea of years-long campaigns is viewed with either bafflement or derision, but perhaps I overstate the situation. That's why I thought of this quote by Gygax. If you read OD&D, it's pretty clear that there's an assumption that the game would be used primarily for campaign play rather than for one-shots or a bunch of disconnected adventures here and there. I think many of OD&D's supposed "shortcomings" make much more sense when viewed through this lens, but that's a topic for another day.
Dwimmermount began its life as an experiment, an attempt to wipe the slate clean and approach an old game with fresh eyes. Along the way I've learned a lot of things, but the one lesson that I keep coming back to is how difficult it is to properly understand, evaluate, and appreciate old school gaming outside of the context of a lengthy campaign. And by "lengthy," I don't mean 10 or 12 sessions but many, many more than that. Dwimmermount will have its 43rd session tomorrow and I still consider the campaign quite "young" and not wholly self-sustaining yet (though it's getting there). That's why I'm glad I didn't give in to the urge to interrupt my group's regular sessions with another game or games, even though the siren song of RPGs like RuneQuest or Stormbringer was strong (and still is to a certain extent). In my experience, very few campaigns survive hiatuses and, even those that do generally suffer as a result, their original momentum having been slowed or at least diverted.
None of this is to say that I plan to run Dwimmermount forever. More to the point, I am sure that, for one reason or another, the campaign will inevitably end, as most campaigns do, but I'm in no hurry to see that happen. My players and I are having too much fun and I'm learning a lot from the experience. I don't think that 5+ year-long campaigns with the same group of people were ever the norm, but they used to be something gamers talked about, if only as an ideal. The Dwimmermount campaign is better for my looking on that as an ideal, I can tell you; it's some of the best D&D I've ever played. That's why I plan not to give into gamer ADD when it rears its head again -- even if giving, say, Hawkmoon a whirl would pretty cool ...
This is a behavior to which I was particularly prone during the 1990s, which, not coincidentally also corresponds to the period during which I was most disenchanted with this hobby. Back then, I took an interest in a new game every couple of weeks or months. Unsurprisingly, I didn't actually play anything for very long, assuming I even got to play at all. I ran various one-shot adventures and several short-lived attempts at campaigns, but none of them ever had any staying power. Now, I wasn't unique in this sort of behavior. Indeed, back then it seemed to be the norm, at least amongst the gamers with whom I had any regular contact. And I sometimes get the sense that this behavior became widespread enough that it's now treated as the norm. That is, most gamers expect to play a different game every few months and the idea of years-long campaigns is viewed with either bafflement or derision, but perhaps I overstate the situation. That's why I thought of this quote by Gygax. If you read OD&D, it's pretty clear that there's an assumption that the game would be used primarily for campaign play rather than for one-shots or a bunch of disconnected adventures here and there. I think many of OD&D's supposed "shortcomings" make much more sense when viewed through this lens, but that's a topic for another day.
Dwimmermount began its life as an experiment, an attempt to wipe the slate clean and approach an old game with fresh eyes. Along the way I've learned a lot of things, but the one lesson that I keep coming back to is how difficult it is to properly understand, evaluate, and appreciate old school gaming outside of the context of a lengthy campaign. And by "lengthy," I don't mean 10 or 12 sessions but many, many more than that. Dwimmermount will have its 43rd session tomorrow and I still consider the campaign quite "young" and not wholly self-sustaining yet (though it's getting there). That's why I'm glad I didn't give in to the urge to interrupt my group's regular sessions with another game or games, even though the siren song of RPGs like RuneQuest or Stormbringer was strong (and still is to a certain extent). In my experience, very few campaigns survive hiatuses and, even those that do generally suffer as a result, their original momentum having been slowed or at least diverted.
None of this is to say that I plan to run Dwimmermount forever. More to the point, I am sure that, for one reason or another, the campaign will inevitably end, as most campaigns do, but I'm in no hurry to see that happen. My players and I are having too much fun and I'm learning a lot from the experience. I don't think that 5+ year-long campaigns with the same group of people were ever the norm, but they used to be something gamers talked about, if only as an ideal. The Dwimmermount campaign is better for my looking on that as an ideal, I can tell you; it's some of the best D&D I've ever played. That's why I plan not to give into gamer ADD when it rears its head again -- even if giving, say, Hawkmoon a whirl would pretty cool ...
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