Transcript
Speaker: with the coachman D20 Radio. at Your game is rolled.
Speaker: How will We Roll Gaming is dedicated to spreading enjoyment of great role-playing games. We hope to bring you insights into games you may not have played, tips to be a better game master and player, and share us stories of momentous events at our tables.
Speaker: Every game is a new story to tell. I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And here's Robert. And this is How We Roll.
Speaker: Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast. All of our amazing listeners and YouTube viewers. Welcome, Robert. Glad to be here as always, Daryl. Glad to be here with you tonight.
Speaker: Yes, this time Nick is gone because Nick's computer hates him. Yes, the savage tech spirits that inhabit his home has decided, no, you will not be a part of this episode tonight.
Speaker: I mean, it it's kind of weird that the the technology gremlins are hitting both of our podcasts.
Speaker: Because Nick and I had to pivot last minute for the last casual nerdity because Lauren's computer went kaput. Well, you know, when something's going good, they just got to try and tear you down. Yep.
Speaker: But it's also kind of appropriate, given our topic tonight, that we have someone sitting out a recording. That we have Nick sitting out the recording.
Speaker: Silver linings. Yes. no Before we dive in, though, let's let's take care of the business that we need to take care of. So if you enjoy talking about video games almost as much as you enjoy playing them, you should check out We Fix Games from the D20 Radio Network. Laura and Jerrica take a game, talk about what works, what doesn't, and then, well, you they fix it. It's right there in the name.
Speaker: Although their definition of fix could get a little creative. Yes, and they have some rules, and those rules can get weird, but that's half the fun of it. If you like video games, game design, and a couple of people asking, okay, but what if we did it this way?
Speaker: Give We Fix Games a listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Yep. And now, on to our subject matter. Sometimes a campaign just kind of needs a break.
Speaker: Maybe schedules get complicated, Maybe real life gets in the way. Maybe the group needs to step back for a while. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the story's over.
Speaker: So what's the difference between putting a campaign on hold, taking a hiatus, and actually ending it? And how do you make sure we'll come back to this doesn't quietly become, well, I guess that's over.
Speaker: And that's what we're talking about this time. Yes, because that is definitely... A general problem when it comes to the TTRPG circle as a whole.
Speaker: Because what do we call the the worst enemy of TTRPGs? Scheduling. Scheduling. Scheduling is the real big bad. Yes.
Speaker: So we can actually start there. Maybe someone's schedules changes to a point where they can meet routinely as they did before. And there might be an NSGM sometimes...
Speaker: We don't like to go ahead without somebody, especially if we feel that they become an integral part of the campaign story. Right. Right. Sometimes, too, there's there's burnout.
Speaker: Oh, yes. um But before we even talk about the burnout, and let me tell you, i have penciled in for next year ah whole episode on GM burnout.
Speaker: It's a real thing, and I will gladly be a part of that episode, Daryl. Gladly. But scheduling, you sometimes schedules just are what they are, especially if it's a work schedule.
Speaker: Or like one of my co-workers literally Monday just had a new baby. Yes, life changes can also do change everything. And we have our own ah player who does have, what, three kids?
Speaker: Yes. And so we won't say anything, but he's told you get one game. Yeah, you get one game a month, one game a month. And so while he is in two or three different campaigns, as we schedule those as the GMs, we have to keep that in mind and say, OK, this month, this campaign that he is part of will run.
Speaker: Yes. so And then the next month it's like, okay, that one can't run. This one we will run so that we can accommodate his schedule. Yes. And that's, that's definitely being attentive to our players and grace me. We haven't run into this yet, but there's never been a scheduling to where it's like, there's no real way we can continue this at moment because maybe the GM or like, three out of how many players are like, I can't make this anymore because work is this or life is that, or even I'm moving and I'm going to be busy with that for months. Who knows? yeah
Speaker: And so scheduling, it that's almost a gimme, especially if everyone is still interested in the campaign. Yes. And that's when you have to sit down, talk to your people and be like, okay, how do we want to do this? Do we want to take a hiatus?
Speaker: Are we putting it on hold until life balance out in the future? Or have we reached a point in the story to where we can either end it here or maybe play one last hurrah session to end it out?
Speaker: Right. And I've run into a little bit of all of that at at one point or another. um In fact, the the game that I put on hold...
Speaker: the mos i well The most makes it sound like it happened frequently. But the one that was impacted the most is scheduling started to become a domino problem for different players.
Speaker: Yes, definitely. The first one that had a scheduling issue just said, hey, you know what? my My schedule just does not allow for me to continue playing the game.
Speaker: I love playing the game, but it doesn't allow me to continue. And it's not fair for me to have everybody else hold up based on me. So I'm going to drop out. And we worked together to write her out.
Speaker: Yes. And And that's a good way to handle it to where it doesn't, won't say kill, but pause the campaign forever. i mean, even right now, one of our players who's very smart is doing a graduate course in college. Yeah. so yeah, he's very unavailable right now at yeah at certain dates.
Speaker: And the i ran a cybru him cyberpunk campaign last week to where he wasn't able to attend. And maybe around like three hours, I was like, you know, I don't i don't think it's right to continue now while he's missing. Because one, if you guys get in combat, you've kind of lost one of your heavy combat people. And two, right doesn't feel right advancing the story without him at this stage. Yeah, we we reached a point that anything past this point that happens really needs to have the full party.
Speaker: Yes. and And that's not to say every session will have that, but there, or if you're definitely having a season, a season or a campaign finale, you want everybody to be there.
Speaker: you don't want to be like, oh yeah, the cardboard cutout was over here, just in the back, in the victory picture at the end. Yeah. And that same campaign that I wrote that one person out, After that, more people started having conflicts to the point that two-thirds of the party was having to drop out. The remaining third of the party still wanted to play.
Speaker: So as I was trying to think and regroup, yeah know we kind of paused for a little bit, and I put out ah around that time people that I knew from other campaigns run by other people were like, hey, we heard you talking about this campaign of yours. Does it have openings?
Speaker: say Yes. Yes, it does. And that is one way to keep a campaign alive, especially when it comes to scheduling. if you can get the word out or people are interested enough, you can do a little shifting, supplementing to where you still got the old guard, but then you got the new ones coming in and campaign keeps going.
Speaker: I took that as an opportunity to kind of not really shift the entire premise of the campaign, but shift some of the structure that was no longer working.
Speaker: Because ah the way I had built the campaign, there there were parts of it that just didn't quite work as well as I had hoped. And so I took that opportunity to kind of shift it. You know how like sometimes a TV show is doing too well for them to cancel?
Speaker: Yes, I call it, at least my version is, the the criminal mind's curse. that it's doing It's doing too well to cancel, but they they shift the premise of the show a bit.
Speaker: They shift the focus. It's the same show. Usually mostly the same characters, but the focus is different. It's actually two guys, a girl in a pizza place becoming two guys and a girl.
Speaker: Pizza place gone. Pizza place gone. Maybe we get a cafe instead. Who knows? ah Or they kind of did this near the end of the run of Castle.
Speaker: Because, spoiler alert, Nathan Fillion and Stana Caddick did not get along. yeah And the show was built around their two characters' relationship.
Speaker: It's kind of hard to have if the actors don't really care for each other. So in in the final season, she got promoted from detective to captain and all sorts of espionage stuff started happening that forced them to be apart. And in the meanwhile meantime, Nathan Fillion's writer...
Speaker: Rick Castle had decided that he liked solving mysteries. So he got his PI's license. And so he was working cases that happened to coincide with what the police were doing. And he was calling in, you know help from the other detectives on the show.
Speaker: And it's not hidden information that, if the show had been renewed after that final season, her character was going to either be killed or put into witness protection, taken off of the show, and was going to focus on Castle as a PI.
Speaker: Yes, in the and that's a good way to keep something alive. What I've been watching kenner lately, kind of showing how they pivot over time, it's definitely the Law & Order series, because not only are you advancing seasons...
Speaker: You're advancing years because it's like there were some of them on like 27 seasons now and they pivoted it to where real life has happened. They start here and the technology grows. yeahp People grow. Crimes evolve.
Speaker: Courts evolve. Laws change. All that stuff. SVU is going into season 28. Yes. yes the only reason that the Mothership is not on a higher number is the Mothership series was canceled and brought it back about four years ago.
Speaker: Yes, ah they they did their own. Well, we're going to put this on hold, or maybe, well, I guess that's over. But then they're like, no, let's bring it back. Yeah. And you could do the same kind of thing with your campaign. So... But first, you have to kind of decide, is this going to be a hiatus, or have we reached the end? You kind of touched on that ah a little bit ago.
Speaker: Yeah, because I'll admit, I've talked about it before. When I started out as a GM, my first campaign idea was Ashes of an Empire from Star Wars.
Speaker: My idea, but yeah I put it in the... The Legends era, Warlord era with Zing, Fury Out of Authority, kind of basically what happened after Palpatine's death at Endor.
Speaker: And in the beginning, it went well, at least for the first quote-unquote season, because I was just focusing on one planet, and then I broke out into the wider galaxy.
Speaker: And that's when I fell into my own little pit trap of, I wanted this to be a sandbox, but I was not at the level of a GM where I could do a sandbox right.
Speaker: it but You could do a planet-sized sandbox, but not a galaxy-sized sandbox. I can't. I bit off way more than I could chew, and it started another way, is I lost momentum.
Speaker: And finally, I told my players, you know what? I bit off more than I can chew. know we're having fun, but I'm losing direction on this. And then I started with, I'm going to put this on hold.
Speaker: like, not hiatus, hold, i'm and I'll decide if we come back to it. And it's been think almost a year and a half since I've done anything with it, to where it's it's done that translation to not we'll come back to it, as we're probably not coming back.
Speaker: I still like the era, I may reinvent it to something else, but that Ashes of an Empire, it's done. i haven't officially said it to those players, but It's done. We don't even see two of those players anymore because one is with life. He wants to be with his kids before they kind of evolve in their teen years and want nothing to do with him as teenagers are often to do and the other And the other one who we nicknamed chronically late just kind of disappeared.
Speaker: yeah We have no idea where he is. yep He popped up and posted on Discord a few months ago. and yeah He disappear pops up, disappears.
Speaker: This is the same person who we've talked about where he bought a Gamer Nation com ti Con ticket and he never came. But one thing, too, is like that campaign that I was talking about.
Speaker: I still kind of like the premise and Stephanie still likes her character and Xander probably still likes his character.
Speaker: And I still kind of want to, want I want to play in that, in that toy box some more. Well, we're still here. That's what I've said. you know, that,
Speaker: None of the rest of you really, except, well, two of the players from Far Orbit. were among the second wave of of players.
Speaker: So they may or may not return for it. But yeah, i I'm just looking for an opening. We have so many irons in the fire right now that ah I'm just waiting for a good time to re-relaunch it. And my question for myself is...
Speaker: when I re-relaunch it, do I treat it as just an extended hiatus or is this not a reboot, but a relaunch of the series? That is good question.
Speaker: Is it effectively a new campaign in the same setting? with Is it a spinoff campaign? Pretty much. if we're If we're using TV parlance, is it a spinoff campaign?
Speaker: Yes, and there's also an inverse in this, is where you can like something, you put on hold, you want to start it again. Or in a second one in my case, with a second Star Wars campaign, ironically, have a bad treer track record with Star Wars campaigns, is that I did one, centered on Corelli, and be like, okay, I'm going to put DC in Star Wars.
Speaker: Let's do Star Wars Batman. And we basically did on Corellia because Corellia is basically Star Wars Gotham. And it went fun for a while. But two things rolled up is one, i like DC, but I'm not a fan that dives into the comics, into the lore, into all that as heavy.
Speaker: so I kind of realized I kind of got a bad thing of where I can't really go further in this as far as I'm sure everyone would like. But then the second thing is, Sometimes you just want to stop a campaign because you want to play something else or run something else. yeah And for me, that was, I got into Legend of the Five Rings. I got almost all their books that I can. I want that Scorpion book. and You're welcome. Thank you, Daryl. You're basically the fixer of our group. You know information. like I can hook you up.
Speaker: Well, and I say you're welcome because I'm the one who, as I recall, I'm the one who said, oh yeah, this game I have all these books and I've never played it, but I want to. And and you're like, oh, what's it about?
Speaker: Oh, oh. And it was one of those. And it was one of those settings and campaigns where you want to play it. But, you know, no one's really going to make it unless you do it yourself.
Speaker: So I was like, OK, I'll create a campaign in Legend the Five Rings. I'm going to run it. I'm as a GM, I'm still only confident about running two different campaigns at one time.
Speaker: So not on hold. I'm just, I straight up said, we're not doing the Star Wars campaign anymore. That's gone. and I'm going to replace it with Legend of the Five Rings. Yeah, i I can totally respect that Knowing,
Speaker: what your bandwidth is, I can totally respect because every so often I sit here and you're like, let's see games that I run to podcasts and the games that I play in plus work plus.
Speaker: Yes, I'll be perfectly honest. i don't know how you and I don't know how it's kind of different. I can see how he's able to balance all those different campaigns with his with how he does it handles everything in life. Yes. But it was just like with work where I am in confidence as a GM, I don't see myself doing more than two right now. There may become a time where I'm comfortable with three, but then that also introduces, well, that means since we do it on the last, since I do it on the last Saturday of every month, that basically means each campaign only gets three to four sessions a year.
Speaker: So yeah, I I'm the same way since you I've got the last Sunday and I I basically you. Since I was adding Star Trek in there, i was like, yeah, we're not going three months in between sessions of each campaign. So Nick, I'm taking it a day mid month to.
Speaker: Yes. And they're making a time when we need to do that or maybe as GM should sit down and say, We finally have to admit it. We may have too many campaigns and we need to downsize.
Speaker: What? Well, and some of it, too, is that, and then we'll get back to the to the topic itself, is what actually, you know, what we what might be good, and this kind of goes along with the topic,
Speaker: if if we would do it is we should probably maybe consider like we're doing with some of the campaigns, looking at it, structuring how we run them like TV seasons.
Speaker: Yeah. And like, I I'm doing that with walking dead and with star Trek because the walking dead RPG is based on the TV series, not the comic.
Speaker: And Star Trek is famously a TV series, even though there are movies. Yes, I A series of TV series. Yes, I need to kind of get in that habit because, well, one, but Legend of the Five Rings, Cyberpunk, other than the Edgerunners online, where I could plan it out like that, but that means you all die at the end. But... Well, here's here's where here's where I'm going with this, though.
Speaker: um so Just in terms of planning, structure them as ah streaming series. So each season season is 10 episodes or sessions.
Speaker: And stagger them such a if that... That makes you know two campaigns. That gets us... you If we do every other month, that's five...
Speaker: sessions a year, give or take, because allowing for holidays and other holidays and something, ten of five, maybe one gets six, depending on how we feel. Yeah.
Speaker: But if you stagger when they start, like say, say start one campaign, around session five of the other one so that when that campaign that's further along hits the end of its season, then it goes on hiatus and you do like...
Speaker: Even though i I have claimed another day, let's take a look at my Walking Dead, Rebel Yell, and Star Trek campaigns just so that i can we can do an illustration. Yes, and you've actually got a good example because we just finished our Walking Dead season.
Speaker: Yeah, so let's say Walking Dead hits the end of season one. Rebel Yell is halfway through season one. Then instead of going directly into Walking Dead season two, you do Star Trek season one.
Speaker: And then when Rebel Yell season one ends, you do Walking Dead season two and stagger them that way. That that might be something for us to look at. that That may be a good idea because then that can also keep still in our players' minds because there have times where we're like, where were we again? What were we doing? Yeah.
Speaker: hey But doing that too, if I hadn't even thought of this when we started coming up with this topic. If you build a hiatus in there, like yeah TV series do, whether it's a traditional broadcast season that has anywhere from 13 to 22 episodes, or it's streaming that has 10. And in streaming, you go, in a lot of cases, two or more years in between seasons.
Speaker: Yes, yes you do. ah said the dragon i mean, granted, there's a lot of grumbling about that among the audience. Most definitely, but they also understand, least in that case, you know, production, hiring, getting venues, it's kind of expected.
Speaker: But you can build that hiatus into the campaign in your session zero. Yes, which we could to touch on next next time. And for those that are hearing and listening for this episode.
Speaker: If you do do multiple campaigns like we do, sometimes a hiatus, like we said, can be a functional part of it because then you can be like, okay, we're doing this one endpoint, doing this one endpoint, and that one.
Speaker: So sometimes hiatus can be built in. So if you're focusing on a single campaign, like we've, I'm sure we've been assuming like maybe there's only one campaign going on. Most groups have a campaign going.
Speaker: Unlike us, we are little crazy in that regard. Yeah, we we insert the how I met your mother intervention gif here. but Yes.
Speaker: So that can, help hope to answer our question, that can be a whole thing if we'll come back to it. But then there are also times where we meet a point where we're like, we're probably not coming back. Basically, those see those TV shows that just fell off.
Speaker: And they were picked back up. It's like the co Clone Wars campaign that Nick was running. It just kind of... Oh, I thought you guys ended that. It just stopped? No.
Speaker: No. Yeah, it just stopped. Fair. Fair. Clone Wars is pretty big now. There's a lot to do. And speaking of Nick, who's not here, and Star Wars campaigns...
Speaker: Nick tried multiple times to launch one particular campaign concept, his his uprising campaign. Yes.
Speaker: And the first two attempt the first attempt lasted like two sessions. The second attempt lasted, i think, session zero. I wasn't in that one campaign, so I wouldn't know. well It might have lasted second. I remember there was one attempt at launching Uprising that I couldn't be at session zero, but I was texting Stephanie, who was at session zero. And then finally he launched it.
Speaker: It lasted for a little bit, but players just kept dropping. Yes. And ultimately it was down to three of us as players,
Speaker: Oddly enough, around then is where we found a vibe that was actually working. Because what what actually worked is all of a sudden, just by happenstance in one session, we were acting like the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Speaker: Yes, you've mentioned this and you're like, are we just, you know? Are we just the Guardians? Yeah, yeah, we are the Guardians. And that's when it worked.
Speaker: So, yeah. um But yeah, the building a hiatus in might be a good idea because building that, even if it's short, let's say you're a group that's running just a single campaign. Yeah, maybe you take a month or something.
Speaker: Yeah, you take a month. you You've got a weekly game. You take a month so that as the GM, you can regroup. as you you can take into account everything that's happened, and the players can provide feedback on what's worked for them and where they want to go. Especially that.
Speaker: and that And since we've been talking about it over and over again, we've mostly touched on it, but when you're going on hiatus or hold, you do have you have to communicate that with your group.
Speaker: yeah they can't They can't arrive one day for a session and you're just like, oh oh yeah, we're ah we're not doing that right now. I'm putting it on hold. Because then they're just like, okay, you're just blindsiding us.
Speaker: Because while we as the GM may feel either a burnout or a need to regroup, some players may be fully in the thing. They're engaged, they're focused, they want to keep going.
Speaker: They can be blindsided when a GM's like, you know, I'm not feeling this or I need to regroup. So guys, I think I want to pause it right here or put it on hold until I've reformatted what I want, where I want this to go.
Speaker: And know, like you said, you, you don't want, and you want to be sure that you're communicating to that. It is a hiatus or if you're ending the campaign, that you're ending it.
Speaker: but Yes. Especially if you're ending it, you don't want a player to show up at your door, ah you know, a couple of weeks later for what they believe is the next session. And you're like, oh no, that's over. And they're like, it's over, but we were on a break.
Speaker: Yes. That's definitely where you need to clear what's happening with the campaign, which back my example, I sat you guys down and said, okay, for, The Dark Knights Arise campaign, the Star Wars Corellia Batman thing.
Speaker: I'm transit. I am diverting my attention to le legend of the five rings, and I only feel confident doing two campaigns at a time. So I'm nixing this campaign. It's over.
Speaker: Yep. And just make that communication clear. But how do you pause a campaign? Well, obviously communicating with the group.
Speaker: And definitely tell them, make sure they know it's not what they're doing. Because some players maybe self-conscious feel like, oh, I threw their entire campaign off track.
Speaker: That's why they're pausing. Make that clear of like, no, it's not what you did. It's internal, or I feel I'm hitting a snag myself, or i or even better. I like the story so much. I like where this is going.
Speaker: But I want to make sure i'm taking careful time and consideration to make sure this matches what we expect the story to be in the future. To where you can say, yeah where do you see this story going?
Speaker: And I want you to have the best time possible, not just me. Exactly. Because this is a communal story. i may be guiding, but I'm not driving.
Speaker: We're all navigating here. But here's here's where my big weak spot, as both a player and GM comes in, when you're putting something on hiatus like this, when you're putting it on hold, I suck at taking notes.
Speaker: But you want to make sure that you have good notes about where every story beat and character is at as you're going on hold.
Speaker: because you don't want to come back from that hiatus and, you know, um we we love using our media. we You don't want to come back from hiatus having just seen you a Borgified Picard on screen declaring that he is Locutus of Borg and Riker orders everybody orders the enter Enterprise to fire.
Speaker: And you come back and Picard's there on the bridge. and Now, you can do that successfully, but that has to be part of the story. You need to go back and somehow cover what happened there. How did we get back to our status quo after where we left off?
Speaker: Exactly. you don't want to As an audience, you wouldn't want to come back and be like, oh, what happened to X character? Oh, yeah, she got cancer and died off screen. Poochie returned to his home planet and was never seen again. oh Poochie returned to his home, or no, the the line is Poochie died on the way back to his home planet. Yes, this can be like a example that you've said many times to her. And that one player you just mentioned said, because life, I don't think I can do this anymore. Write me out.
Speaker: You wrote her out in a way to where if she ever did come back, You could bring her back like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the implication was that she was killed, but there was nobody.
Speaker: yeah I don't, I didn't see nobody. There was nobody. It's entirely possible that she got out of being swarmed by Star Wars zombies. Yeah. It's, it's the Star Wars and walking dead things. Like I didn't see nobody.
Speaker: So they're alive somehow. Yep. I mean, that's that's how it is in comics. In comics, unless you see a body, they're not dead. And if you see a body, they can still come back.
Speaker: Exactly. Or the famous Star Wars, they fell off a cliff. That does nothing. Maul was cut in half and came back.
Speaker: Yes. Because he was too angry to die. Yes. And Ventress fell down a temple. Revis has fallen down plenty of things. Darth Vader's been buried under wreckage.
Speaker: I don't know how many times. And he just goes, i'm alive. But you do kind of want to give the players also some kind of expectation.
Speaker: Exactly. About the return. And if you don't know how long it's going to take, be upfront about that. And periodically check in with them for their input. Like, hey, I'm still trying to figure things out. Are you still interested?
Speaker: Exactly. Because everyone knows as time passes, interest wanes. Especially even even dead set interest can wane over time because it's like, okay, I know you said we're coming back, but are we coming back at this point?
Speaker: It's been who knows how long. Yeah. I mean, it's it's been probably four to five years since the last session in that campaign that I'm thinking of bringing back.
Speaker: And I had the next session planned out. I had the the storyline for it. It was a spotlight on one player in wave two of...
Speaker: the players who joined played about half a dozen sessions with one character and decided, you know what? I'm not wild about this character. i want to write him out and I want to bring in a new character.
Speaker: So we brought in the new character. This would have been the first, well, technically the second, but the first full session with this character.
Speaker: And it was going to be a spotlight on his background. They were going to go back to his home world. And i knew i knew what the threat was going to be. I knew what the crisis was going to be.
Speaker: And the odds of him rejoining the campaign when I relaunch it are pretty slim. Because while he still plays TTRPGs, he has not been back to our group. He's he's still in communication with me periodically.
Speaker: But... He's not been back to our group and he has primarily jumped over to GM yeah games. So the odds of him coming and me having any use for this, I mean, I might be able to retool that adventure, but it will not be the first event, the first session back because it doesn't fit with, well, I mean, obviously none of you newly coming into the campaign have created characters, but, So it's entirely possible he that one of you might by chance make a character that I could then slot in there.
Speaker: But this also kind of goes into our next point of discussion here of what happens when you come back.
Speaker: If I revive that campaign or relaunch it or spin it off, however you want to look at it, It's been long enough that time is going to have passed. Oh, yes. A significant amount of time is going to have passed.
Speaker: Yeah, there's got to there are certain, depends on how long you've waited, is where you have to think sit down and think, it's plausible that there's been a time skip. like we therere It just doesn't make sense that there wouldn't be a time skip.
Speaker: Yeah, now, like, I've mentioned my Star Trek campaign, and I'm already going into it. I didn't really think of structuring Walking Dead as TV seasons until a couple of sessions in.
Speaker: Yes, so I remember that. But Star Trek, from the beginning, I have seen it as seasons of a quote-unquote series.
Speaker: Yes, and I think... Even in the fantasy the go the e Fantasy Flights, Star Wars, Clone Wars, supplemental books, in the back, they even say, play your sessions out like episodes.
Speaker: I don't remember if it's that one or the Rebels one, but it's one of them. i've I remember seeing it in the Clone. I think it's in both, actually, Clone and Rebel book. I just remember seeing it in on the Clone Wars book because it's like, you know, are the Clone Wars dead it?
Speaker: does it they set it up there's the intro there's the event there's what happens in the event and then a closing building up to possibly a next episode and kind of set it out like that and my the the way i'm seeing the star trek campaign is even if i do have a long break in between the seasons not It's going to be just like the Star Trek TV shows in that the length of time that has passed for the characters is nebulous.
Speaker: Yeah, you're in space. so yes Well, it's a for the most part, the Star Trek series are episodic. Yes.
Speaker: And part of that is when Next Generation was aired... It was in first run syndication, so they were releasing new episodes weekly, but the assumption was that once they went into second run syndication, they wanted channels that purchased the show to be able to run them in whatever order.
Speaker: And with a few exceptions, starting with season three, they went into a pattern that they followed for the rest of the series of season finale cliffhanger,
Speaker: picked up in part two in the next season premiere. Yes. And that's a good structure, especially for a TV show. But I think one of the most important things you need to do, especially if new players are coming in after the hiatus is either redo or refresh everyone on a session zero.
Speaker: Yeah. Especially if you have new players, I would even recommend doing a complete redo of your session zero. Yeah. You have have a session zero refresher. You could even, you know, it doesn't need to necessarily be a full session zero, but lead off your quote unquote season premiere we' severe with like a mini session zero.
Speaker: Yeah, especially if like, are there any addendums or things we need to add on now, especially with new players, especially the whole what don't you want to see? What are you OK with seeing, but you don't want it to go X amount this far? Stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah. Now, one thing that I might do, i and I keep going back to Star Trek and as an example, because I almost have hiatuses and season breaks built in from from the jump, is that in between unless something dramatic happens during the season,
Speaker: that break in between the seasons, that hiatus might be where characters are promoted or receive new postings on the ship or what have you.
Speaker: The break in between seasons on Walking Dead, there's definitely going to be some kind of time jump. Yes. and you've And we've even discussed how kind of as those hiatuses, we can even do like small one-shots and Exploring the backstory of our characters, starting with Dante's now dead first character.
Speaker: Yeah. and And that all came because of us spitballing crazy ideas here on the podcast and mentioning cyberpunk in cyberpunk. And then you're like, wait, what if we just do that in Walking Dead 2? What if I do the pit in Walking Dead? And it's like, I think you found out.
Speaker: good one shot. Yeah. And it help it'll help keep interest of all of you in the campaign because it's still focusing on your character one or more of the characters that you're familiar with and kind of showing how they got to where they were. Yeah, it can be the whole, you see them in the past, camera pans out, now it shows they're older.
Speaker: more rugged face in however long the time jump's been, even if or if there's never been a time jump. Ooh. I now know how that one shot is ending since since Dante's character is dead.
Speaker: Is it a certain character going over him with an axe? Yes. Yes. It's basically, you know, the whole framing device you find out at the end has been his character thinking back on...
Speaker: the beginnings of... oh And there's got to be at least one moment in the past where a colleague or a doctor or higher-up says, you know, one day your savior complex is going to get you killed and make things a lot worse.
Speaker: Well, I mean, since you're going to be one of the other PCs in this, you need to remember that. ah I will. Because what I'm probably going to... we'll get back to the topic. What I'm probably going to do for those one shots in the characters' backgrounds is give all of the rest of you, other than the character or characters that are being spotlighted, who are some of the main characters, give you pre-gens.
Speaker: Like since, since that's going to be Dante's character doing his internship at the pit at the beginning of the outbreak,
Speaker: The timeline has it that that would be early in, you know, Robbie's career at the pit. So one of you is going to be Dr. Robbie, you know, that kind of thing. So, um yeah, that that i've I've been thinking about it. Yes. And that also brings up another question is if when you revive a campaign, can you do it?
Speaker: with leaving some things still gone, like you don't revive everything. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like um I'll use the Star Wars that I'm looking at reviving as an example.
Speaker: When the campaign originally started, they had one ship and obviously one set of characters. That ship went away with the original set of characters and they got a hold of a new ship.
Speaker: with the new set of characters, you know, like the two characters that carried over. And just because I liked that ship, I'm probably going to carry it over because the one who ostensibly, who ostensibly, theoretically owned that ship is the one that the player said, Hey,
Speaker: I'm not vibing with the character like I thought. I want to write him out and bring in a new one, but they still had the same ship. Yes. so So the quote unquote owner of the ship was already gone.
Speaker: Yes. And that can help with definitely in your case, equipment or a vehicle, but as a GM and also just talking with players, you can also decide if certain parts or people in your story have changed as well. For example, maybe,
Speaker: The antagonist you had before the thing went on hiatus. Well, there's been a time skip. Maybe either they've been a defeated by an even worse big bad.
Speaker: Maybe they've actually become more entrenched and more powerful over time or three. Maybe they just maybe they just died. Yeah, it's like, well, especially and if you can get and I could even say if you get permission from a character that may be from the player whose character may have had a very like tied in hook on that bad guy, that could be an even greater character. of It's like the person you had this vendetta or this sole focus on is dead.
Speaker: So what does your character do now that their object of focus or person of focus is gone? to To quote Inigo Montoya, I've been in the revenge business sirlo for so long, I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.
Speaker: Exactly. And that could be a character I can it sounds like. I need to find out who I am when it's over. Well, I mean, i'm if one of the players for that campaign that I'm talking about doesn't return, I'm going to be kind of disappointed because I liked the subplot that he had going on with his character.
Speaker: I can agree with that. As a GM, there have been definitely parts where like, really like what your character is doing. Please stay. Well, he he had this subplot going that his his character was a a young woman who believed to her core, but could not prove that she was the daughter of space pirate Lhasa Rain.
Speaker: Yes. And a lot of the things that she did were designed to try to get Lhasa Rain's... attention So she said, hey, mom, it's me. you i i want to you get to know you and I want to work with you and I want to be just like you. Yeah, we don't talk about Naboo.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And so I'm going to kind of miss that. So what I might do if he chooses not to rejoin reach out to him and say, hey, do you mind if I bring that character in as an NPC so that I can have closure for your character's arc?
Speaker: Because I need to have it. And here's what I would like to do. Do you approve? Yes, and that's another thing that may not be revived. It's like ah you've talked about.
Speaker: Maybe after a hiatus, a player comes and says, you know what? I don't believe I want to be my character anymore. I want to do this idea instead. And a time skip gives me the perfect opportunity to introduce them. So I want to play this guy instead.
Speaker: Yep. Well, and the player that I mentioned who I'm not expecting to come back because he's moved on to GMing ah for a couple of other groups, ah he and I had discussed...
Speaker: the The infamous campaign with the space station. We were both players in that. We liked the initial basic premise.
Speaker: And after that campaign just kind of petered out because scheduling and all of that, he and I reached out to the original GM and said,
Speaker: hey, would you mind if we picked up that concept and did a quote unquote season two with a time jump in there ah to get the concept more into the thick of things?
Speaker: He gave us the thumbs up. We started plotting out ideas for it and we were going to ah share GMing duties with one another.
Speaker: we were each going We were going to trade off story arcs. you know We would do you know three or four session story arcs run by one of us and then pass off to the other one who'd do a several session story arc and just you know keep going. because Because we both still wanted to play our characters too.
Speaker: Yes. And so we're like, this is perfect. This is the best of both worlds. We can run the campaign with a concept that we think will appeal a little better and will still let us play. And obviously that's never happened. but And I wouldn't want to do it on my own because again,
Speaker: play that character again that I've played in it. But it's it's a good, it's ah it's an idea that you can come back after that hiatus and we've already mentioned, take what was working, take what wasn't working and take where the players wanted to go and retool for your return to actually And just from your own example or what you just talked about, sometimes even the GM is going to change. Cause like you said, you, ah your idea with your, with your buddy was I GM some stuff, he GM some stuff. Cause I want to play this.
Speaker: and Sometimes that happens. It's why some of our campaigns and the future maybe have dual GMs to the point where one will play one won't instead of just to jamming at the same time. yeah Or like we've,
Speaker: Like you, Nick, and I have talked about, maybe one day we'll make that campaign where it's basically, we're all GMing, but we pick up where the last GM left off, so the other two can play, and you have no idea what's going to happen, our round-robin idea. Yes, I still want to do that, and we just have, oh, oh, oh Robert. Oh, dude that's your idea, oh.
Speaker: That's my idea, O. Since we've said that we're going to be doing some actual plays starting next year, we do that as an actual play.
Speaker: Ooh, that would be interesting. That would be fun. we need to sit down and decide what system, though. but What universe. Yeah. Well, remember that that's part of the whole thing. It can be whatever. True, true. can be whatever. you i you know Nick might start off with it in Star Wars and and pass it off to me with a cliffhanger, and I'm like, you know what? No, this is alien now. Ooh, that could work, yeah. And, yeah, I mean, we we might need to come up with some kind of conceit.
Speaker: on how we're changing systems like that. But so basically kind of a heads up to the players, especially is be like, Oh, you came expecting star Wars. We're doing alien now,
Speaker: but yeah. Oh, I like making a note. Yes. We've definitely. So as we've just talked about, you don't have to revive everything. You can change it up.
Speaker: And now going to get serious with both GMs and As a tangent, players, in this last part, putting a campaign on hiatus, holding it, or even ending it, do not view that internally as a failure.
Speaker: No, it's not a failure. we keep so We keep joking about the big bad of every RPG is scheduling, but it's true. Campaigns, sometimes campaigns, have to be ended immediately.
Speaker: for reasons other than reaching the conclusion. Yes. Like we said, lose momentum. You want to play something else. You have GM burnout, like we'll touch in a future episode.
Speaker: You have a life change that you definitely need to focus on that more than your hobby. Yeah. Yeah. There's all sorts of reasons, and it's it's not a failure.
Speaker: of you Sometimes you you just reach not really an ending point, but a stopping point. Yes. And we're not we're not telling you how how you need to feel. You can be sad something ends.
Speaker: We're saying don't internalize that as a failure on your part, nor let and make sure your players also don't think it's a failure on their part. Oh, we didn't keep the GM entertained, so he just nixed the campaign. there a few Because there's definitely a few horror stories where the GM blames the players for something ending.
Speaker: That's not what we're saying. Yeah, we're we're not saying that at all. it's a It's a fact of RPG life that I would say probably as many campaigns just end up stopping as opposed to ending. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker: There's come point where it's just, I don't see this going any further. yeah And that's okay we can that's okay. We can try something else. This is not, oh no, we've stopped, so we can never pick this up again. No. Yeah, it's like, speaking of Nick's uprising campaign, we never reached a conclusion. We reached a decent stopping point.
Speaker: And Nick said, you know what? it's It's just not working. there There's only three players. I really need more for what I have in mind ah because I had something more specific in mind than being the sandbox that we're doing. And so maybe I'll do some one shots or you know mini campaigns in the setting with these characters in the future. But and it's for now, this is over.
Speaker: Yes. Don't view it as you're abandoning or throwing it away. View it in a sense that you're basically taking that campaign, framing it, and just putting it on a wall with other campaign-like pictures and just be like, you did good, kid.
Speaker: You did good. Yep. And you it like I said, it's going to happen. Yes. It's going to happen. That's life. That's scheduling.
Speaker: That's who we are. Our interests change over time. yeah But don't ever feel like stopping means you have to quit. The first long-form campaign that I was ever in, a DC Heroes RPG campaign that started when I was in high school,
Speaker: um our entire player group all went to the same college together. So we continued it a bit into college.
Speaker: And well, college. Oh, yeah, college. We started becoming we started becoming Dumb versions of adults.
Speaker: yeah Dumb young young adults. And other things took priority. i I distinctly remember the last night that we played DC Heroes because an ice storm hit are our college town while we were at Friends Apartment playing.
Speaker: And just thing life and our potential futures and several of us getting significant others all came into play. And like i get a campaign that campaign just never resumed.
Speaker: Like GG. Yep. And I myself, my first two campaigns I ever did in Star Wars, Asher's Seven an Empire and Dark Knight Survive. Those are both gone.
Speaker: And yet i and yet we're all still having fun. I'm doing my cyberpunk, doing my legend, the five rings. When one of those hits a hiatus or even ends sometime in the future, i have other ideas.
Speaker: It's not end all be all. It just means you skipped a rocket, skip for a little bit, hit the water, just pick up another rock. Yeah. And, you yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah. Life and games will continue on. Yes. And it's an overview that it's end all be all.
Speaker: Just say, all right, going to put that down. Maybe pick it up later. Let's try something else. And what what would you say that that might entail, Robert?
Speaker: Might campaigns return? Yes, the campaign might return. And Avengers Doomsday.
Speaker: Yeah, we we're we're running out of time two to have that running gag over on Casual Nerdity. Got until December. so Yep.
Speaker: And let two Stephanie and I are going Tuesday night to see Endgame Encore. Nice, nice. so We'll say without Nick, we can't really do our bullying session, can we? Yeah. Any final thoughts that you have?
Speaker: Any more final thoughts on putting campaigns and games on hold? Well, Nick wanted us to say this part, so that might actually work, is that sometimes a campaign can end or be on hiatus because your tech just breaks and there's nothing you can do about it. Yes. And especially if you have players that are over over whatever meeting app you Zoom, Discord, Teams, whatever. It's like sometimes tech's just like, no, you're not going to play. You're going to sit down and let me run havoc on your systems.
Speaker: Yes, because you nick needs to like sacrifice some goats or something to the tech gods. It's really a place you can get a live goat.
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Speaker: I'm Daryl. I'm Robert. And this is How We Roll. This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2026, How We Roll Gaming LLC.
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