
What came first, the group of roleplayers, or the campaign premise?
The answer varies for each campaign—at least it has in my 15 years’ experience as a game master.
I think there are benefits to deciding up front whether you want to plan your next campaign around the players you expect to have at your table (especially if you have an established group or limited pool of players), or if you want to prioritize your current interests with regards to system, setting, and story premise. Each comes with its own risks and rewards, and it’s up to you what challenges you want to sign up for.
I’ve been sitting at that crossroads for a few weeks now, deciding whether I want to run a campaign that’s more suited to my existing player group’s tastes and interests, or if instead I want to focus on choosing the campaign that I would be most excited to run, knowing there’s a good chance it isn’t what most of the players in my current gaming network would typically want to play.
Enter my conundrum. Should I disregard my players’ interests entirely, it’s likely that I’ll need to recruit new players, or else prepare for an uninvested group of players even if my current group reluctantly agrees to go along with whatever I’ve got planned. I was lucky that with my last campaign, my interests lay in trying out the different D&D 5e published modules (albeit heavily remixed and remastered), so finding interested players proved relatively easy. But what happens when the GM wants to run something a little less standard, such as Dark Sun or Vaesen or Legend of the Five Rings?
Starting with a Group of Players
When you live in a smaller town with a limited number of folks interested in playing tabletop RPGs, you typically need to start with the player group by default, or else you’ll need to cultivate new roleplaying gamers (always a possibility, if you’re patient and willing to teach). Speaking from experience, if you mention that you’re an experienced game master looking to start a new game, you’ll inevitably get lots of “oh, I’ve always wanted to try D&D” from friends, family, and coworkers, as well as their friends, family, coworkers, etc. (The key here usually being that they’re curious about D&D specifically, not RPGs more broadly.)
When starting with the group, the group decides collectively what they want their next campaign premise to be, or at the very least, the GM takes the players’ interests into heavy consideration. But if the GM lets the players’ interest override their own, that can be a recipe for boredom and burnout. I’ve had this happen to me with more than one campaign, where the group of players asked me to run a specific kind of game, which I was willing to try, but ultimately found it difficult or unsatisfying to run.
Should a GM start with the group but have their heart set on a specific campaign premise, it’s a little bit of a gamble. In an ideal world, the GM runs a fun enough game to capture the players’ interest, potentially exposing the group to a new favorite system or setting. However, it’s possible that some players will agree to play in a campaign that isn’t their cup of tea, and then get frustrated when the game doesn’t morph into the thing they actually wanted. This can manifest as a player not buying or reading a copy of the core rulebook, and sometimes extends to that player expecting everything to be explained to them during play, without investment on their part. Alternatively, this can manifest as a player requesting that different supplements be incorporated into the game that substantially alter the basic premise, such as introducing gunpowder weapons or steampunk technology into a fantasy game.
In the worst-case scenario, the campaign inevitably fizzles out as player commitment to the game schedule drops off, as it seems to be easier to say you’ve gotten busy than to admit you’re not enjoying the game. (This is another case where communication goes a long way, but many folks—especially in the Midwest—are adverse to potential conflict or offering strong opinions.)
So when starting with a group of players, keep the following advantages and disadvantages in mind:
Pros
- You don’t have to go out and find new players (and vet them)
- You know what your players’ quirks and idiosyncrasies are, as well as the dynamics between players
- You know what kinds of encounters & sessions your group enjoys, and what they don’t
- You might introduce your players to a new favorite system or setting
Cons
- You might not be able to get the level of buy-in you’re looking for because of lack of interest
- Your players might be limited in terms of the settings or systems your group likes, or are willing to learn or invest in
- Sticking within a group’s comfort zone/interests might not neatly overlap with yours, increasing burnout/boredom potential
- You’re potentially missing out on the chance to meet new gamer friends
Starting with a Premise
If you have the luxury of living in a gaming hot spot, as I do, then you are more likely to be able to scout out a group of players to play in a specific style of campaign. That being said, when you start looking outside the D&D-osphere, or god forbid your tastes run to more esoteric and indie systems, then even living in a major metro area isn’t going to guarantee you’ll find enough players. Even if you do find others who want to play the same kind of campaign you want to run, that isn’t a guarantee that your roleplaying styles will be a good fit, or that they’ll be a good fit with each other.
In my experience, I’ve often overestimated how many existing players are fans of a given system. As an interesting exercise, look up the average number of backers for a given TTRPG crowdfunding campaign. For example, Vaesen had 3,944 supporters back their initial campaign, and Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition had just 2,210 backers. Even if you figure their player base is larger than that, when those players are spread out across the entire world, how easy is it going to be to find 4 or 5 of them in your city with similar availability? Hence the difficulty in starting with a campaign premise.
Of course, if you’re willing to run your game online, you’re practically guaranteed to be able to pull a group together given enough time looking, but for me, online play just isn’t as satisfying.
Starting with the campaign premise can become extra challenging when the associated setting is dense and veers away from the modern era or your standard Western medieval fantasy, both of which players typically have a broad sense of already. In these cases, patience is warranted to help introduce the players to the world and its lore slowly, and it may take several sessions before the players really start to grok the setting. A campaign can really sing once players get invested in the setting and want to lean into its tropes and mores (or, if they’re even deeper in it, subverting norms and genre conventions), if you’re willing to wait.
So when starting with a specific premise, keep the following benefits and drawbacks in mind:
Pros
- You get to choose the setting & system you’re most interested in GMing, reducing burnout/boredom potential
- You could potentially expose players to new systems & settings they’ll enjoy
- You could potentially make new gamer friends while recruiting group members
- Once the group invests in the system & setting, the campaign can become extremely rewarding
Cons
- You might need to recruit and vet new players to fill out your table
- You might not be able to find enough locals interested to run an in-person game
- You’ll need to figure out your new players’ quirks and idiosyncrasies, as well as the dynamics between players
- You don’t know what kinds of encounters & sessions your group enjoys, and what they don’t
- Your usual group might feel put out that you’re not running something for them
Conclusion
Even after writing all this out, I’m still not entirely sure what route I’m going to take for my next campaign. What approach did you take for your last campaign? How did it turn out?
Featured Image Credit: Balint Miko on Unsplash