When you’re actively running a campaign, are you:
And whatever your answer might be, how has that approach worked out for you?
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somewhere between a and b. many of my past campaigns rose from the aftermath of the previous one, so its difficult to begin planning the next campaign until the party’s finished demolishing the current one. =) more recently, i’ve had breaks between campaigns, allowing me to plan my next campaign while playing in someone else’s. the campaign i’m running right now was one of three options given to the players, so the other two will be available again on the next go-around.
I would say that I do a, b, c, and d in combination. It is a matter of when more than how.
a) While I am actually GMing the game I don’t think about the next campaign at all.
b) While we break for dinner during a session I’m taking a tally of what the players are interested in for inspiration for the next campaign.
c) During prep for the next session of the current campaign I always spend a little time designing the next campaign as well.
d)Eventualy those little notes and details pile up and turn into detailed plans.
If I had an ‘e’ it would be that sometimes I see that a campaign isn’t going to be as much fun as I suspected, so I find a way to end it with a bang prematurely. Then for the next session, since I have acquired no notes with wich to develop a new campaign I improv the entire thing and see if a seed develops from which a new campaign will grow.
I inevitably have at least half-a-dozen ideas for new campaigns in various b-c-d stages running on the back burner at any given time. Which one actually gets brought out and filled in when the time arrives tends be dependent on which one ends up exciting the players more.
I’m always looking for inspiration, mainly from the fiction I read. The stuff I think has possibilities, I jot down in a notebook.
This gives me a hodgepodge of stuff, but enough to start sketching the framework for the next campaign arc.
But I never start the heavy lifting on campaign prep until we near a resolution on the current campaign.
Like most GMing questions…”it depends.” There’s no one answer that covers every situation, just like there’s no one best practice that suits everyone’s needs.
If I had to be shoved into a category — this hobby loves to catorgize things, doesn’t it? — I’d say “A.” By-and-large I try to focus on the game at hand, not distract myself with the new, shiny object in the corner.
However, as a game comes near a close then the answer changes, too.
As I said, “it depends.” 🙂
Right now I’m squarely in “d”, but that’s only because I got my old group to agree to let me DM. To be honest, I’m in a bit of a panic — I have tons of notes, but I’ve already started to think of holes I’ll need to fill before the first session a week from now.
What was that post you made a short while ago, Martin? “Relax and have fun”? 😉
D+
I have really bad GMADD. I get pumped at the start of a campaign and then by the 3rd or 4th game, I have ideas for a half dozen awesome new campaigns!
Lately, I’ve been sticking to the main campaign, but I work on these other campaigns as a release for all of the creative energy I find building up in me when I run a game (and between games).
GMADD, I will defeat you! 😉
Mostly I only start planning the next campaign after the first one dies. Sometimes, when it’s been clear a campaign will be dying soon, I start some work on the next campaign, but often that just hastens death of the previous campaign. Very rarely now (less rare in the past), I would have secondary campaigns start up while still running a prior campaign. Sometimes then the first campaign dies and the new one takes off (which happened in the most recent instance, where a Saturday Cold Iron Tekumel campaign survived about 1 or 2 sessions after starting a weekday Arcana Evolved campaign).
Frank
I keep a running list of ideas for campaigns, adventures, etc. When it comes time for the next campaign, I’ll throw a few “elevator pitches” out for the group.
Or at least that’s the plan… still running in year 3 of the current campaign.
I generally do B, and occasionally do C. I don’t like to be distracted from the game I’m running, and if I am distracted it usually means I shouldn’t be running it. 😉