10 by 10 room

I think I definitely prefer to play RPGs of a fixed, short term length – like 3-5 sessions. But this is pretty different from most gamers’ experiences. Why do I seem to like it this way?

(And a disclaimer: this is just my own history and reasons for wanting shorter games. I think most people will have different ones, and I’d be curious to hear what those are like.)

Firstly, some background on me. I’m 23, have only been out of college for a year and a half now. I did RPGs a bit in high-school, and picked them up again near the end of college. In truth, there are plenty of games that have been running longer than I’ve ever even been in the hobby. I’m young, both in age and experience.

An interesting fact: I’ve never played a “long-term” game that has lasted more than a year. This includes relatively traditional games such as D&D and World of Darkness. Some of these games have attempted to be long-term affairs, but most, in my experience, have been pitched as fixed-length arcs.

Cultural Preferences

In each phase of my life so far, there has been some great source of inherent social limitations. In high school, simply the lack of full autonomy and social maturity was a problem. In college, a culture of general business and overcommitment. In post-college, a sense of general instability, since I can’t tell you for sure which of my friends will still be here in six months (or, indeed, if I’ll still be in Boston). That’s life: there are always complications, and I didn’t let these get in the way of my friendships or my hobby.

So in my experience, I’ve found that most games have been pitched as fixed, 4-6 sessions arcs, occasionally ranging up to 10 sessions and a rare attempt at a year-long endeavor. However, the effects of social entropy have worked against these. Chris Chinn had said: “Traditional rpgs built on long term campaigns are high commitment and very fragile social structures.” I think this is true in a very limited sense of “fragile”. If any single member of a long-term campaign has a shift in situation or priorities, they will have to reschedule the game or possibly leave it, necessarily changing the dynamics. Certainly, the unexpected loss of a key protagonist is a stumbling block to the extended play of others.

In this climate, I find that more people are willing to make room for the weekly commitment and dedication to a game if there’s cap to the time limit. Making room on every Monday for three months seems about right; making that kind of space indefinitely can scare someone off, especially if they don’t want to risk “spoiling” things for their friends.

A shorter-arc game can also be an easier sell in terms of payoff. If you declare your game to run for about four sessions, you’re are inherently promising that the play will “pay off” at the end of those four sessions. This is a lot more appealing than the worry that a group might dissolve just as the game was getting good.

So, to sum up: I see shorter-length games as a reaction, in a culture such as this, to make sure that a player gets enough satisfaction from what gaming time they have, especially if their time is relatively unstable. Different communities have reacted differently, but my friends seem to be working in this direction.

Personal Preferences

Beyond this, I have my own reasons that I’d prefer shorter-form games. For one thing, I (like most gamers) have more games on my shelf than I have time to play (and this doesn’t even count the various ideas I have written down). A preference for shorter arcs is a reaction to this: I can attempt several more of these games, while always leaving the option for returning to a quality game later.

I also like the idea of an RPG culture that is centered around shorter games. When games have more frequent stop and starts – every few months, for example – that means more opportunities for new people to jump in, and more opportunities to mix up your group of players. (Over the past year, I had a steady group that ran 4 or 5 games over the last year. After our last game we all went on hiatus, letting me game with some different friends of mine.)

And Those Wacky Designers

I see several reasons that many designers (esp. on the Forge) have tended towards short-form games, for other reasons entrirely: