On Campaign Structure

On the structure of campaigns

Recently I have been experimenting a lot with the structure of stories and campaigns.

I have a number of competing needs in terms of structure when I play a solo game:

- I like to create a meaningful story with narrative beats.

- I like flexibility so that a story can take any shape it needs to

- I like epic (and so long) campaigns

- I need stories to be short enough that I can get a sense of completion before I get bored and wander onto something else.

- many RPGs assume you will play in "sessions" however these are difficult to define in solo games that tend to be played in a more as hoc fashion.

There are plenty of story structures out there, and I will hopefully cover some of them in their own posts.

Many narrative structures provided by early pioneers in the hobby, such as 9 questions and 5 room dungeons provided great narrative beats and short stories but I found the structures a little too predictable in some respects.

Many GM emulators (such as mythic and PUM) later developed their own story structures with narrative beats that were less predictable but also considerably longer.

After a lot of experimentation I have settled on creating campaigns using a layered structure with elements from each layer combining to make the next in a similar fashion to a Fate fractal.

Let's start with the smallest building block of a campaign:

Scenes

It is possible to play a freeform game using a GME without breaking it into scenes, however they are a foundational narrative building block for a reason - they work.

I tend to have a scene comprise a single main challenge or activity, and potentially a couple of extra complications.

Sessions

Outgunned breaks stories down into "one shots" (or just "shots"), which are complete stories beginning with a hook and ending with a climax and resolution, that are short enough to play in a single session.

The idea is that every session should provide a satisfying story with a conclusion.

I love this idea, and have adopted it whole heartedly. It both provides me with short but satisfying gaming goals, while at the same time gives me a mechanic for tracking a "session" for games that need it.

On average I play around 9 scenes per "session" with a loose minimum of 5 and maximum of around 12.

Story Arc

Sessions are grouped into story arcs consisting of between 5 and 12 sessions (again, with an average of around 9).

Much like a session, a story arc will have an introduction and a climax of some sort.

If I have a group of characters, I will often play through separate introductory sessions for each before bringing them together in the first story arc.

Often each story arc will culminate in facing a mini boss or completing a larger goal.

This layer provides a slightly longer term goal and gives structure to a campaign.

For a more complicated campaign, there is nothing to stop story arcs from overlapping or interweaving with each other.

Campaign

Story arcs are grouped into a campaign, with the first story arc introducing the campaign and the final one providing the conclusion and resolution.

Again, a campaign should generally consist of between 5 and 12 story arcs with an average of around 9.

This layer gives me the epic campaigns I am looking for.

Game structures

The nice thing about treating a campaign as a fractal is that the same (or similar) structures can work at any layer of the fractal.

Story structures providing around 5 to 12 scenes can be used to structure a session, but with a little tweaking they can structure a story arc or even a whole campaign.

You can play around with different structures at different layers to give the campaign a unique feel.

A 5 room dungeon for example could provide a small dungeon fit for a sessions exploration, an in depth exploration covering a story arc, or even the focus of an entire campaign.