Being a GM for short campaigns VS long campaigns (more than 6 sessions)

First of all, this is meant to create a healthy discussion about what being a GM for longer campaigns is like. I think specially new GMs might benefit a lot from knowing more about this, to avoid a lot of frustration for both the GM and the players. This is just my personal experience and if someone does not agree or has any comment about it, I am happy to learn from you all! A GM preparing for a campaign spanning longer than more or less 6 sessions has to consider the following: * Up to a certain point, you will have to create your own campaign in advance. For a longer campaign this can easily take from 3 to 8 months working on the campaign before offering the campaign to players. This will basically be time spent creating a library of encounters, quests, lore and map designs. This allows players to do their thing and you as the GM can then adapt to it easily with these months worth of prep. * You can buy a lot of material that substitutes you creating it yourself, and honestly this is almost a must for at least some elements of the game. Pre-made adventures and maps, lore and enemies, all of this might make your game less personalised but without a team of people behind you, it is necessary to limit your efforts to what you think is essential. * It takes massive amounts of work for someone one way or another, and if the GM does not take enough time to have things prepared, he will almost always fall behind schedule, and end up butchering the experience or stepping back altogther. * Starting a one off (or a small campaign with max 4 sessions) is great for a beginner GM and that is what most GMs should be doing for a long while. I believe it is what many GMs are actually looking for, even if they dont know it yet. * People see GMs with a decade worth of material online and think, "Hey that is cool, I will pull it off". And that is great, it keeps the community alive! But ignoring this background information will bite you in the butt. I really believe that most newer GMs should consider this and see one-offs or short campaigns as a path to help them hone their skills and have fun building a foundation for future games. This should help with the whole drama of "our GM disapperared/ gave up/ was horribly underprepared/ railroaded us so much I wanted to throw my PC out of the window."

The best advice that I can give: The preparation of a session takes longer than playing it . I run my session (about 3-4h) biweekly on Sundays. So one Sunday is preparation time (at least 4h), the other one is Playing. And you should at least have three sessions completely prepared before starting it - and a rough sketch for the whole campaign (the main arc - needs to have an epic finale). Many campaigns seem promising at the beginning, and then can't deliver at the end. Come up with a good plot twist. What I prepare: Based on the last session, I define three possible directions the party might continue. They might want to wander off into the mountains after hearing rumours about an ancient monastery there. Or they might wander east to the next big city. Or they decide to go south into the forest to hunt down this orc that kidnapped the local count's daughter. Then I think about at least two NPCs for each direction , and at least one of them is a villain. An evil monk and his apprentice, searching the ruins of the monastery for ancient tomes. The crime lord in the city that threatens the major. The orc and another headhunter already tracking him down, not willing to share the bounty. Each villain needs a reason for what he's doing, and that helps fleshing out his background. The monk looking for the tome a former abbot wrote about an artefact hidden in the crypt. The crime lord whose father was hung by the major 20 years ago for a theft he never commited. The orc that fell in love with the girl (and she with him!) and they run away because she got pregnant. The more believable the villains' motives, the better. Oh, and villains don't just sit there and wait for the adventurers to come. They plot, the react, they move and they change plans. For each scenario I draw at least one, often even two maps . One general/introduction map (here I throw in an encounter with a mini-villain, e.g. the monk's apprentice, or the crime lord's right hand), one for the final confrontation. And for each confrontation, I try to come up with two ways to solve it - a violent and a non-violent one. Then I fill the gaps between start and end encounter with two or three random encounters (most of the time, you can use the same random encounters for each of the three options). Again, at least one of them should be avoidable without a battle. Good time for a hero moment. Last, but not least, a cliffhanger . Something to finish the session. One of the characters could fall in battle, and before the party can do anything about it, the villain and his minions grab the body and run off. Or the evil monk dies, and the artefact he was looking for is actually the same that you need for your main quest - but the apprentice disappeared with it. And the orc? Well, you promised him and the girl that you would talk to the father, but then the other bounty hunter shoots an arrow in the orc's neck... killing him. "What do you do? To be continued in two weeks..." Of course I keep maps and the idea from the other two scenarios - there are always opportunities to throw them in at a later time, in a different location (especially, if the party wanders off in a completely different direction and you quickly need to come up with something). Don't hesitate to change things as the campaign goes on - but don't forget about the main arc.

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