Long Games are Built Different

2025-12-23

What can go wrong when games are long

TTRPG adventures can be loosely grouped into two types: “one-shots,” short adventures meant to take 1-4 sessions to resolve, and “campaigns,” longer adventures that could take several months to a year to play through. I prefer, especially in this context to refer to them as short and long form adventures. The terminology matter here, because I’ll be discussing how pressure builds up over time that harms long adventures that are often overlooked.

Not all adventures and experiences can fit into a short form adventure, and not all experiences would be tolerable or even make sense as a long form adventure. You can't fit a deep, emergent narrative that explores characters and their growth into 4 hours, and you can't play a year of high lethality narrative first horror adventures, because there won’t be any narrative continuation. In short form games, consequences are disposable. In long games, consequences accumulate both in and out of game. Systems can function for multiple kinds of adventures, but they apply pressure towards certain experiences over time. Treating them the same causes burnout, abandonment, and broken tables. None of this advice is an absolute, but broad generalization and solutions for you to evaluate how to apply it.

Recognizing what kind of game you intend to play is critical for choosing a system. We have some games specifically designed for one-shots, some designed for short adventures, and others designed for long adventures. I think that is great. When we pretend that all systems are perfectly adapted to any length and work equally well anywhere is where we get in trouble. When playing different systems, try to take a closer look at the rules, and see whether they facilitate short adventures, or long, or mixed. If you and your group have a preference, lean towards rules that fit your needs. This reduces the friction between the rules, your players, and yourself.

Some short games are about dying, fast, or taking great risks. These games often allow near instant character replacement, minimal backstory, and often a healthy dose of dark humor. Preservation of PC life, abilities, autonomy, etc. are usually non-existent. They can also be about horror, dread, or just bad decisions. Of course they can also be heroic, but the strength of short games is experimenting and not getting stuck with consequences long term. They are great for letting players cut loose and giving the DM time for planning a longer campaign.

Long campaigns tend to be exactly about being stuck with the consequences. It can be about how characters change over time and how the world changes because of the actions of the players. The Game Master and the players can explore how the PCs change and how they interact with the world change as they gain power and influence. Rules tend to be more forgiving, with healing of long-term effects like damage, curses, lost limbs, stat changes, and even death, and often increasing protection from change as the length of the adventure increases, usually with level. Often the rules lean unstably on save or die effects, with almost any effect less total party death being fixable. Groups wanting higher stakes often need to homebrew rules to reduce access to these abilities.

Short form adventures only need to hold themselves together until they barrel into their conclusions with maximum energy; tragic failure or triumphant success. But a long form campaign must withstand forces both within and outside of the game itself, and many players and game masters are familiar with games and groups that just fizzle out. This can't be entirely prevented, but there are many things we as a community have incorporated that add strain to our long adventures. Some of these can be avoided to maximize the chances of having another session.

These issues can happen to new and experienced game masters. Experienced DMs can give advice that works very well for them, but does not apply on a broader scale. Despite this, these ideas spread widely and become standard for the community. I’m actively working on follow up posts discussing how to handle the increased burden of character narrative without removing the challenge, and more direct tips to keep campaigns alive despite challenges of planning and burnout.