The past several weeks has been a real humdinger that reminded me again and again of human frailty. It left me with this notion: Now that I and my family, friends, and gaming buddies are aging how many more campaigns do we have in us? Family and work can prove to make gaming tricky for the mature gamer but health and mortality oh they are much more decisive factors.
GM's are famous for working on the next great campaign while running one or two other campaigns but do we ever plan on one being our last great campaign? We only have so many years left where our eyes, ears, hands, and even our minds will support our playing RPGs. Should we plan each campaign as if it is our last? How should The Last Great Campaign be structured? Should the Last Great Campaign be structured to end in a bang or should it be set up to to last until the bitter end?
My best campaigns have run from 4 to 8 years in length. They did so by adapting to my gadfly choices and the slowly revolving group of players. While I never really planned for any of those campaigns to run for so long they just did. Now as I age and some of my friends and fellow players have died or been limited by illness so much they can't play I have to wonder is there ever going to be another long campaign and is there going to be more than one?
Is it my duty to prepare for the Last Great Campaign? Should it be structured as a place to walk off into the twilight from, to swim in seas of nostalgia, or maybe just maybe it could be a shinning example to pass on to a future generation?
Heavy stuff. Lot's of questions and no answers just yet.
That is EXACTLY what I am working on. Our group is currently in a long-running 5e game, then another player wants to run a Gamma World campaign, and after that my goal is to run my "Last Great Campaign". We're all getting on, and I have health issues, so I've been focussing single-mindedly on creating my "dream campaign" which I believe will be the last thing I run.
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