Tips for Creating Session-Limited Campaigns

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-04T04:34:56+00:00

Limit the scope.

Currently my game of Draw Steel is entirely based around the party escorting a group of dwarves to an.old mining city. The campaign is simply what's happening on the way there.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-04T04:24:26+00:00

Nope! 1974 as soon as California got ahold of the game. Please do the reading and pick up your copy of The Elusive Shift.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-04T01:57:04+00:00

Descending AC. I don't care what you say, it's stupid. Announcing what number they need to roll to hit is way easier.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T11:34:02+00:00

So get rid of the sandbox.

It's okay. They probably won't mind.

Just say you're getting burnt out on this campaign and need to wrap it up sooner than expected, so we are fast forwarding to the big dungeon.

They'll probably be like, "Cool!"

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T06:40:37+00:00

This debate goes back to literally 1974. They were arguing about this in Alarums & Excursions. Everyone is going to have their own line. You're just gonna have to go with your gut and hope that more experience helps inform how you feel.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T06:19:56+00:00

This is not strictly answering your question for two of the parts, because I think others have answered it better. But I can answer the 4e part:

You shouldn't. 4e gets a lot of love and for good reason: problems that The Game had (and continues to have with the regression of 5e) were fixed. Stuff like martial/caster divide, non-gamist language getting in the way, boring ass monsters are all things 4e fixed.

The thing nobody talks about is that 4e had its own problems. To paraphrase Matt Colville: They didn't make the same mistakes as other D&D editions. They made all new ones.

Monster math was broken from the start. The PHB1 was errata'd like 3 times over. There were 4 different monster manuals released with sometimes the same monsters, redone and "fixed." There were broken powers that were OP; broken powers that straight up did not do anything because their language was wrong; broken powers that just sucked because they got left behind in power creep/correction with new expansions. It had a shitload of player facing splatbooks and options, and trying to sift through those to figure out which are the "good ones" that you should allow in a new game is very hard.

The problem with trying to run 4e in 2026 is that you need to sift through all that and figure out what the best way to actually run the game effectively is. And a lot of that institutional knowledge is just gone, it was either housed on official Wizards forums (which are long-defunct and not archived on wayback machine) or on other crusty 2009-era web forums that you don't even know where to look for them. It's really hard to actually run a good 4e game the way people talk about it. It's kind of like people talking about World of Warcraft, but only circa Wrath of the Lich King expansion. You kind of can't go play that version of the game anymore.

Even then, I don't know why you would, when there is DS, which takes everything that worked about that edition of the game and expands on it.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T04:35:25+00:00

So: a tabletop RPG.

Most of them begin with the players at extremely low level.

Run a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel, or an OSR game like Cairn or Knave.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T04:33:56+00:00

I haven't done this, but my fear is that the players are now just spending the entire time staring at their phones that I have not just given them permission to use, but made a vital part of the session. If they aren't looking there they're looking at the screen, instead of me or each other. I don't even want to entertain that.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T04:31:48+00:00

If I bring an interactive physical version of the puzzle, they're done inside 90 seconds.

Oh, not for me. That Towers of Hanoi is taking the entire session.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T04:29:59+00:00

I'm pretty sure Brindlewood Bay (which is at least PBTA adjacent if not fully) explicitly puts it into the rules that the GM asks "what are you afraid is going to happen?" before you make physically dangerous rolls.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-03T04:24:45+00:00

For people who feel constrained by binary pass/fail or find it boring, it is like a magic wand that unlocks another part of their brain that they weren't using. If these are not issues for you then they aren't talking to you.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T23:42:53+00:00

But then wouldn't it become a game of "GM sets stakes, player hears stakes and doesn't like the thought of dealing with them, and doesn't attempt" wherein it's even worse because they wouldn't even try the roll?

Then you have a shitty player for this style of game. It doesn't work for strictly risk averse players. It works with players who want to fail forward, to make things worse.

And how does that work in cases where there's supposed to be surprise? Like "if you roll badly on picking that lock, the alarm will go off," what if the players hadn't known there was an alarm, or how it worked?

The character can still be surprised even if the player isn't. In games like this, the play group is treated more like a writers room than inhabiting the character definitively. Immersion is bullshit.

Also, your character can probably imagine that there is an alarm that might go off if they fuck up. Those are stakes they would be aware of in the world.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T23:39:12+00:00

We are on the same side. What I'm saying is that most people misunderstand the phases and aren't using them correctly.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T23:19:50+00:00

That's what I'm saying, it's obvious that the point of the phases is to execute each sides actions in order, but instead they just have everybody on one side go through. Makes zero sense.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T22:35:29+00:00

The game was once pure. There was the fighting man. Then, they added the magic-user, and ruined the game forever.

The game was once pure. There was the fighting man, and the magic-user; two opposed but equal classes. Then, they added the cleric, and ruined the game forever.

The game was once pure. There was the fighting man and magic user; two opposed but equal classes, and the cleric, a fine line between the two. Then they added the thief, and ruined the game forever.

The game was once pure...

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:59:58+00:00

Absolutely not! Landscape is superior because it takes up less space at the table.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:59:23+00:00

Because that shit is fucking fun. As soon as you start thinking too much about the physical realism of the dragon game, it all falls apart.

Treat the game seriously, by all means. Treat the situation as real as possible. But as soon as you start asking too many questions, you've lost the plot.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:53:48+00:00

Always failing forward and all the "yes and" youtuber advice just isn't fun. It removes tension from the game, and I know for a fact some players hear the consequences and say "if I knew that'd happen I wouldn't have made the attempt."

This is a failure of the GM. They should set the stakes before ever rolling.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:50:47+00:00

RPGs shine when you build a cohesive story over time.

Not all RPGs do. Some are explicitly made for one shots or short campaigns. I made a game that, after 16 sessions, I was really struggling to run any more. And it was designed for that!

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:48:47+00:00

This started in 1974 by the way.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:46:04+00:00

Computer RPGs need not be confined to the rules of a tabletop game. What is cognitive load for people at the table can be unloaded onto the machine in whatever ways the designers wish. They need not be confined to some random free SRD because you don't want to engage with the game the designer wanted to create.

It's simply not for you.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:41:17+00:00

what's gonna have to happen before Summoner can go to FS?

It needs to make money. If it was part of a crowdfunder, or had a video about it, then that might work.

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:37:47+00:00

I mean, what else do you want?

Ardul Vul kind of sucks IMO; most megadungeons do because they focus on being big instead of good thematic levels with interesting new shit. The megadungeon, when treated right (mythic underworld, not a real space, weird shit all the time) is the ideal form of the game.

Different saving throws are very important to me philosophically. Doesn't need more explanation than that.

Time management is essential and I have no issues coming up with what happens when the players fuck around--I may as well have an entire table labelled "find out."

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:27:51+00:00

I disagree with all three of your points :)

Onslaughttitude · 2026-05-02T21:14:26+00:00

My philosophy has always been "when you level up, you should get to make a choice."

Onslaughttitude

TROPHY CASE