Many types of campaigns seem to appeal to us. But if we think more carefully, we may find certain types of campaigns appeal to us more than others!
We’ve been talking about how to choose the right campaign, and even RPG, for us. It’s really easy to become enamored with countless options. I do this. I want to run basically every 5E adventure, as well as a campaign or two for practically every RPG I’ve purchased in the last five to ten years. And then we have all the optional rules systems and sourcebooks? It feels endless and choosing what to run can initially feel overwhelming.
I’ve found that a key for me is to better identify who I am as a DM. A big help is my end of campaign checklist. It tells me what is currently exciting me. Campaigns will be more fun and last longer when we have the energy from that excitement.
But I take that a step further by thinking through the types of campaigns and adventures I enjoy running. Not everything that sounds cool is a fit.
When you pick up an adventure for an RPG to run, do you plan on running it exactly as written, or would you prefer to use it as the inspiration with which to create your own?
There are many options in between those extremes. You might make minor changes to smooth an adventure’s rough spots or fit your style better. You might like to add and subtract large portions. You might pick just a few parts to keep, or the outline of the idea, and improvise or create the rest.
When picking a campaign, consider whether the adventures or RPG itself provide something that fits your style. If you want to run a Spelljammer campaign, but none of the adventures you have fit your needs, this may not work for a DM who runs adventures as-is. If the 5E Dragonlance setting material you own feels too thin, then it may not work for you if you prefer homebrewing. The same is true for any RPG. A game like Blade Runner, where the adventure presents tough choices deeply tied to the setting, can be hard to homebrew, so it lends itself best to someone who either can navigate that or who is happy with the published adventures.
D&D 5E famously split play into three types of experiences: combat, roleplaying, and exploration. As GMs, we may prefer particular pillars. An adventure or RPG that is heavily focused on roleplay, such as the Blade Runner RPG or a game like Fiasco, may not be for us. Other RPGs are more flexible, allowing us to pick how much time we spend in different pillars of play. When looking at several similar RPGs, such as Blade Runner, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, and other similar games, we can find differences in the types of experiences the RPG aims to provide.
Similarly, some RPGs are very flexible when it comes to the sub-genre. Within a sci-fi game, Alien has a more specific type of story and genre for its horror-survival campaigns. A game like Fate is incredibly flexible, allowing us to vary the type of world (but may provide less support for a specific genre). Fate and Savage Worlds are flexible enough to support time travel, but we may find Timewatch to offer that greater support that will provide a longer-running and more successful campaign.
Back to pillars for a second. The type of each pillar you favor is worth thinking through. You may love combat, when it is highly tactical. You may like roleplay when it is personal, with big emotional swings. You may like exploration when mysteries and discoveries abound and interactions grant big payoffs. Or you may feel the opposite, and that’s worth knowing.
Some RPGs allow the players and their characters to interact with the campaign in special ways. The Song of Ice and Fire RPG may enable characters to decide the fate of noble families and nations. D&D has downtime, franchise (business/organization), and patron rules that can allow you to mimic running or being part of an organization. 13th Age has the Icon system that can replicate factions.
These types of interactions can be fantastic aspects of play. Do you want characters to build a starship and maintain it as they travel the stars? Engage in intrigue and diplomacy with different factions in the style of Game of Thrones? Build a castle and defend it from attack? Run a merchant organization?
Different RPGs will provide those capabilities, making such a campaign far easier to support.
At a simpler level, we may want a campaign where the players get to impact the setting. Their characters can make big choices with big repercussions. Doing so is far easier when the RPG or adventure supports that to begin with. Will they save the world by following a predetermined route of locations and events, or will they make big choices where each step dynamically impacts the future? It’s one thing to offer a sandbox offering a choice of hexes to explore, but another to have that choice be meaningful, allowing the players to drive the story itself.
A campaign where character choices have big impacts isn’t for everyone and can be far more work for the GM. There is no right answer here except the one that feels right for us.
Some DMs like to sit back and watch what players do to their world. Other DMs like to orchestrate campaigns, driving the action as much (if not more) than their players. Both approaches can be fun, but will be facilitated more or less by the specific RPG and adventure.
If you love worldbuilding, crafting responses to what characters did last session, and surprising players, you may prefer to have control. If you like improvising, watching characters, and running from a loose outline, you may prefer to have players be in control.
How you view story can also be worth considering. Is there a larger story that you are running, and the players and their characters are making choices within that? Or, is the story you crafted of little importance and the true story remaining to be found by the PCs? Put another way, do you generally aim as GM to blow player minds, or to have yours blown by them? When we are surprising players, we are generally in control, orchestrating developments. When we place more control on the player side, we are often catering to their desires and letting them drive developments.
We can even take a look at the encounter level. Do you prefer an encounter that is just a few lines, with some keywords in bold so you can improvise each time? Or do you want a well-crafted encounter where the work has been done to create a great experience? Both can be equally awesome, but will likely appeal to you differently. The former is more like being provided ingredients for a meal you cook, the latter is more like a finished meal you help players enjoy.
When we choose a campaign to run, we may generally look at it as honing our existing skills. Or, we may view it as an opportunity to try out entirely new skills. The latter lends itself well to trying very different types of campaigns, RPGs, and subsystems. We’ve never run a faction-driven campaign, and that sounds terrifying and we would have more fun with factions playing a smaller role… or perhaps it sounds awesome and we can’t wait to learn from our first time by diving into the deep end.
We can pick our campaigns so that we are learning at the right rate, with the right level of familiarity and support for our individual preference.
I have found it really helpful to think through the kind of DM I am. Over time I revisit this mentally, as my styles and preferences shift. But this is half the equation. Next time, let’s look at a new campaign by considering our players.
You’re definitely crafting a framework reminiscent of the MBTI and Jungian Typology with your Distillations & Dichotomies. In response to question on the Lorecast about convention game prep, Shawn’s 5 minute interview question of “tell me about your character” to gauge Player Type provoked a comment in chat “too bad there isn’t an MBTI for players.” I suspect your next column will provide the poles by which to indicate such orientations.
Thanks, Michael! I actually didn’t consider this as a MBTI type of polar analysis. It wasn’t until folks on our Patreon discord were saying this that I realized that was possible. It is a neat idea. My intention was really more for us to have an internal conversation with ourselves, such that we can become aware of the tendencies we have, and less to have labels or frames. I’ll think on this, however! I do find player types are useful, but less for labeling a player and more for awareness of different interests and to watch actively for those types of interests at our table. More on that to come!
MBTI Types aren’t labels! (Sorry, that’s the first bullet point in my first 15 minutes under the topic of “Frequently Misunderstood Ideas about the MBTI.” Sometimes lecturing about Psychological Types is more about unlearning than teaching, depending on how much previous exposure people have had.) Didn’t know the Discord Crew was talking about it, too. Say hi!