Running Meaningful Campaigns

 I fully realize that this can be a subjective topic. What one person sees as meaningful can be entirely meaningless to the next person. But I do believe there are objective facts about what is meaningful in a TTRPG campaign. An underlying question that if answered truthfully will let you know how meaningful your campaign is (or was) is simply: "Is it memorable?"

What is Meaningful?

Do you as a GM or player reminisce about your campaign months, years, maybe even decades later? And I'm not talking about anything that happened outside of the campaign world, but things that the PCs experienced that are vividly retold as lived and "real" memories.

To give an example, I will move away from TTRPGs for a moment and venture into board games. Unless something truly memorable happens "off the board" (like an epic meltdown by an immature player), nobody remembers a game of Monopoly, 7 Wonders, or Ticket to Ride. Sure they're fun games, but once you're done with the game you don't think about it anymore. Compare that with running a board game such as Machiavelli (an amazing version of Diplomacy) and players will speak about it for years (in our case it's been 20 years). The game loop in the latter is entirely different from the game loop in the former. Yes it also has rules and a defined way of "winning", but the way to win the game is entirely open-ended and down to how the players interact and with- and off of one another. 

Miniature wargames can give another great example. Playing a one-off battle is a ton of fun. But once it's over you move on. String battles together in a campaign where both what happens in the battle and things that happen outside of the battle (e.g., reinforcement and supply movements, diplomacy, etc.) have an impact, players will remember these campaigns far longer than they would any single battle played out in one evening at the table.

So now we move these examples to TTRPGs and there is a similar thread. Games (and campaigns) that are open, where the "story" emerges from the player actions detached from any pre-determined loop, narrative arc, and/or prescribed play-method are the ones that live in our memories. These are the meaningful campaigns.

Meaningful Campaigns

Now having established what constitutes meaningfulness, we need to understand how one can (or can't) run a meaningful campaign. It must be as open-world and sandboxy (to get technical) as possible. Only through full player decision autonomy can moments emerge at the table that are meaningful to the players, both good and bad. Success and failure must emerge from their decisions, the resulting dice rolls, and the GM acting as the impartial arbiter of the rules. In my estimation, based on decades of experience, it is nearly impossible to have a meaningful campaign when running a predetermined storyline. This fact is why published adventure paths (e.g., as those from Wizards of the Coast and Paizo) or plotted out GM stories can never deliver the same meaningful experience as an open-world, sandbox, emergent campaign can. 

The timescale of a campaign also matters, both in the game world and the actual real world. A meaningful campaign cannot emerge in just 6-10 sessions. It must breathe over many months (ideally years) of real-life gameplay. Within the game world the timespan should eclipse years and cover decades (maybe even centuries?). Generations (literally) of PCs must venture forth into the setting.

To answer doubters who say that can't make that sort of a time commitment, I believe that's nonsense...if you want to participate in a meaningful campaign. Don't plan on running an epic campaign, it will naturally materialize. If you're serious about your gaming and it's not just an excuse to hang out with friends (like you would for a poker night or to watch a football game), then you (GM and players) will make the commitment to the campaign as you would to going to the gym. It's either important to everyone or it won't work.

Meaningful Systems

In order to run a meaningful campaign as defined above, you need to be playing a TTRPG system that can facilitate this experience. If we detach ourselves from D&D for a moment and scan the endless horizon of other games (Shock! Horror!), we can quickly see what systems facilitate the playing of meaningful games better than others. Most BRP-based/inspired games (e.g., RuneQuest, Mythras, Jackals, Pendragon, Dragonbane, etc.) and many Free League games (mainly Symbaroum, The One Ring, and Forbidden Lands) are perfect matches for running meaningful campaigns. There are many other great TTRPGs out there that can do the same (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Rolemaster, Traveller, etc.), but I can't list them all. The main aspects to consider is that they allow for a slower pace of character power progression over the long-term and that they have mechanics which progress the game world clock in significant intervals (e.g., downtime and travel). They also need to allow the player to have nearly unlimited choices in what their character can do. Finally, they need to allow for failure...especially catastrophic failure (PC death or forced retirement). For without the chance of catastrophic failure there are no meaningful choices to be made.

Systems that do not work well for a meaningful campaign is anything PbtA or adjacent, as the player choices are far too limited and prescribed. "Rules light" games are also a bad fit, as they simply can't hold up over the long-term. You will end up having to fill in too many blanks that it becomes tedious and robs you of time and the GM of energy (insert GM burnout warning).

Naturally, we need to examine the suitability of D&D for running a meaningful campaign. As written (and based on experience running it for years), the current edition of D&D as published by WotC is ill-suited for running meaningful campaigns. It is far more geared towards adventure path gaming with fast PC power growth over a very short period of time. The current edition of D&D also mitigates catastrophic failure too much, so that players often feel like they can overcome anything they face at any time. A red flag to note and see if a system is suitable or not is how devoted they are to "balance" in all aspects, especially challenges to PCs (I'm especially looking at you Pathfinder 2e).

Can you run a meaningful campaign with D&D 5e, Pathfinder, Tales of the Valiant, etc.? Sure (I did)...but...you need to tinker with the system quite a bit and get rid of many of the pre-conceived assumptions about the game (encounter balance, likelihood of death, speed of level progression to just name a few). There are better D&D systems available that actually facilitate the running of a meaningful campaign. First there are all of the pre-WotC editions of D&D. Whether it's OD&D, Basic D&D (B/X or BECMI), or AD&D (1e and 2e), they were designed for precisely this type of campaign play. If you do not want to go with one of the classic editions, then look at Castles & Crusades as the best modern d20 version of D&D. You can (and should) also consider one of the "modern classics" in the D&D genre that either clone a classic edition or build upon it. My favorites here for running meaningful campaigns would be Hyperborea, ACKS II, Old-School Essentials, Swords & Wizardry, Wight-Box, and Basic Fantasy.

Meaningful Characters

We've got the campaign and the system covered. Now I feel like we need to define what a meaningful PC looks like in such a campaign. A few weeks ago I was in a TTRPG Facebook group and the discussion revolved around the "zero-to-hero" PC progression arc. It was stated that this is an "uninteresting" trope and that it doesn't fit with the classic literature characters that are Conan, Elric, Fafhrd, Beowulf, and more. That's true in the sense that you do not start out at their power level. For that I suggest other games, like 13th Age, where PCs start out as powerful heroes already. I do not believe that starting at the heroic tier (or nearer to it) makes for the ingredients of a meaningful campaign or character. It can, but is a bit less satisfying for my tastes. Having your PC grow from the lowest start to eventually becoming a hero of legend and/or ruler of a fiefdom is far more satisfying. I also put forward that their failures (and possibly unheroic deaths) add to the meaningfulness of the campaign and the memorable stories we will remember. For once again, if a PC begins the campaign already as superhero (or nearly one) and failure is mitigated, you have a boring and meaningless campaign.

I hope you found this article useful in your quest to run a meaningful campaign that you and your friends will never forget. I'm sure there are many who will disagree with my finer points, but everyone should agree that there is nothing more satisfying in TTRPG gaming than running and playing in a truly meaningful campaign.