The Long Game: Exceptions to the "Rules"

In the comments to Part I of "The Long Game" series, a reader wrote:

I’m curious to read about some of the cases where you violated your principles and how it worked out.

I thought this was an interesting premise for another post. What follows is a look at each of the maxims I presented in that series and the times I ignored them. My purpose here is twofold: first, to make it clear that even when a referee is intentional in how he structures and runs his campaign, it's probably impossible to avoid straying from his own principles from time to time; and second, to show that doing so is not the end of the world. My maxims aren’t a formula. They’re more like a recipe, something that each referee can (and should) adjust to suit his own tastes.

Play with Friends

I believe this very strongly and have said so many times over the course of this blog’s history. By and large, roleplaying games are best experienced with friends. That said, I recognize this isn't always possible.

A good example is my House of Worms campaign, which is far and away the longest and most successful campaign I’ve ever run with a stable group of players. It began in March 2015 with six people, most of whom I barely knew at the time. I was acquainted with them through the late, lamented Google Plus, but calling any of them "friends" then would have been a stretch.

Despite that, we clicked. Maybe it was dumb luck. Maybe it was a shared willingness to be respectful, imaginative, and curious. Whatever the reason, those strangers eventually became friends – and the campaign, as longtime readers know, became something of a legend. If I’d stuck rigidly to my maxim, that never would have happened. In fact, it’s just possible that the lack of pre-existing social ties helped. It gave us space to find our own dynamic within the evolving campaign, without any outside baggage. In a setting like Tékumel, that’s actually quite valuable.

I still think prior friendship helps – a lot – but it doesn’t always have to come first. Sometimes, the campaign is the crucible where friendship is forged.

Stay Consistent

A consistent schedule of play is one of the best foundations for a long-running campaign. I think the lack of it is precisely why you so rarely hear about campaigns lasting even a year, let alone five or more. I’d go so far as to say it’s the hardest maxim to follow and the one whose absence is most likely to doom a campaign. If you’re not meeting regularly, week after week, the odds are already against you. Off the top of my head, I can name at least half a dozen campaigns I started that fizzled out because either the players or I couldn’t commit to a regular schedule.

And yet: in the late ’90s, I refereed a Star Trek campaign with a wildly inconsistent schedule, thanks to the vagaries of real life. By all rights, it shouldn’t have lasted, but, instead of dying out, the long gaps between sessions gave everyone time to anticipate the next one. When we did play, people came to the table energized and full of ideas. The campaign moved slowly, but it moved nonetheless. The irregularity gave it a kind of mythic quality. Every session felt like an event. That, more than anything, kept it alive.

Momentum matters, but sometimes scarcity makes something more valuable. Irregular play won’t kill a campaign if the players are committed for other reasons.

Accept the Lulls

This is another tough one, though for different reasons. Most of us enjoy roleplaying games because they let us escape, whether from the everyday or the already-too-eventful. They offer us a chance to step into a different world full of mystery, adventure, and danger. As a result, we come to expect a certain level of excitement from our sessions. We crave it – not just the players, but the referee too.

A good example once again comes from House of Worms. Around the third year of the campaign, the characters had settled into the Tsolyáni colony of Linyaró. I had all sorts of ideas about their taking on the responsibilities of governing a colony – economic decisions, trade, managing political and religious factions – but it turned out to be far duller than I’d hoped. Sessions dragged. I could sense a kind of restlessness in the group.

So I had some demons show up and start burning the place down.

I didn’t know why they were there. I hadn’t planned it, but it didn’t matter. The players enjoyed the sudden chaos, and it kicked the campaign into motion again.

Lester Dent once advised that if you’re stuck writing a pulp story, just have some men with guns burst into the room. That’s actually not bad RPG advice either, though I wouldn’t rely on it too often.

Be Flexible

Even though I believe firmly that the referee is a player too and that his interests and enjoyment matter, I also think a good referee needs to pay attention to which way the wind is blowing. Sometimes, you’ll spend time setting up something you’re excited about, only for the players to ignore it completely. It’s frustrating. That’s why so many referees try to fight against it, nudging or steering the players back toward “the good stuff.”

I’ve certainly done that, but sometimes, it’s better to let go – or at least let it simmer in the background.

In House of Worms, I was always keen on the idea that the characters would eventually leave Tsolyánu and explore the mysterious Southern Continent. I set up at least two separate enticements for them to head south, and they ignored both. Finally, I offered them the governorship of Linyaró and they took the bait. What followed was years (both in-game and real time) of exploration and discovery among the lands and peoples of that fabled place.

Flexibility is good, but so is persistence. Sometimes, it's OK to keep a thread alive in the background until the players are ready to pull on it.

Don’t Cling

Ideas are cheap. A good referee is always coming up with them. However, some ideas get stuck in your head. You fall in love with them. You convince yourself they’re essential. I’m not proud of this, but I’ve done it. In those cases, I’ve kept throwing the same idea at the players until they finally gave in.

That’s not the same as being flexible, which is reworking an idea into a new form. I’m talking about sticking to the same idea in the same form and just pushing it harder.

This happened in my Barrett’s Raiders campaign. I really, really wanted the characters to gain possession of a tactical nuclear weapon – in this case, a medium atomic demolition munition (MADM) – and have to deal with the consequences. I kept hinting at it through rumors, intercepted radio chatter, offhand NPC comments. The players didn’t bite. So eventually, I just had them stumble across a Soviet truck with the MADM in the back during a random encounter. Suddenly, they had it and were stuck with it.

To my surprise, it worked beautifully. Possession of the nuke shaped the last weeks of their time in Poland and helped propel the campaign toward its current trajectory.

It’s good to let ideas go. Sometimes, though, it’s okay to push – so long as you’re ready for what happens when the players finally take the bait.

In the end, maxims still matter. They’re the distilled essence of long experience and, most of the time, they’re good guides. But roleplaying games thrive on messiness, contradiction, and surprise. I still follow my maxims – most of the time – but I also don't fret about the times when I decide to break them.

Sometimes, that’s where the real magic happens.