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I was wondering... How long are the seasons in your games? I run 12-eps long seasons for Star Trek, but with much more character-driven eps coming in our Buffy game, I am thinking of increasing the season length to 15 or 20.
So I thought I'd do a little poll: how long are your seasons? :)
The 3 season Trek series I ran a while back with a co-GM had 15 episodes per season. We'd split the season between us.
15 was a good number...not too hard to achieve and a good sense of completion at the end. And binders full of notes. :)
My new co-GM and I are noodling on a new series, and we haven't settled on a number of episodes yet, mostly because we won't be able to run the series weekly or even bi-weekly.
I use 12 episode seasons in Trek. I'll probably use less if I ever get around to running Buffy.
About 15. Originally I did them in 22 eps chunks, like the show, but that's a TON of work. Occasionally, it's a few more or less, depending on whim.
10 epsiodes long. It keeps me from deviating from my original plot (Sometimes my ad-lib's can get out of hand).
Plus, they coincide with a university term here - several of my players are still at uni...
later days!
Mark
About 3 months. Ba-dump-bump! :D
In setting up Season 1 of my Starfleet Campaign, I decided that if it was good enough for Paramount then it was good enough for me. As a result I ran a Season of 26 episodes in total, either adaptions of existing scenarios from TrekRPG.net, old FASA adventures or ones I wrote myself (some of which I took ideas from the 'Adventure Seeds' Thread on this site).
It was bloody hard work getting everything set up and ready, but resulted in a great 3 month-long campaign that my players all seemed to enjoy immensely :D . Thankfully, nearly all the group are/were Star Trek fans as well as gamers, so this helped.
As lon as I'm interested.:D
I make a batch of about 12-15 episodes and then add in fillers in between the main story arc. As soon as I run out of ideas or get bored, I introduce the grand finale and begin on the next series idea.
Works best for me.
I usually do ten episodes. That gives room for any additional episode which one of my players may come up with or to put in some extra episode based on what the characters did in a previous one.
I have a season run half the school year, running every other week.
Major campaigns: 22 to 26 episodes per season.
Mini-campaigns: 11 to 13 episodes per season, no more then 2 seasons.
Regards,
CKV.
We just completed our first season... I have a meta plot planned out for about four seasons.
This first season was 20 episodes.. I expect other seasons will be 15 to 20 episodes.
Charles
My two seasons have turned out with 9 and 8 episodes respectivly. Seems we're able to wrap up in that amount of time.
Thanks guys - it seems there a lot of different formats out there. I think I'll keep my 12-eps format for Trek since it appears we are able to wrap the metaplot in this time, but I will probably increase my Buffy seasons to 15 or 20 eps as there is a lot more social roleplaying involved. :)
Cool input ;)
I'm very disappointed my dear KW
You know how vile I am, and if I understand well we have only 12 episods in a season because we don't have "social roleplaying involved"
but you had never told us that you found our social behaviour so limited
I'm sorry to learn that but in order to defend me and my crew I'll respond we 're not here to be social we're here to save the galaxy :D :D :D
Duh. Do not act offensed, my dear Cardassian. ;)
I will answer that ST and BtVS are too very different approaches of storytelling, and hence, roleplaying.
IMO, in BtVS the tension mainly comes from social interactions. In ST it mainly comes from the phenomena or conspirations encountered, and the way players react to it (which do not exclude social roleplaying, on the contrary - need I remember you the whole Chloe Ellington episode...? which, IMO, is one of the best plot threads yet to be resolved that we have).
In ST, things move along faster, that's all, because lots of people are encountered; the crew is developed, but the goal is roughly the same; the plots very often come from outside the ship. So seasons are shorter. BtVS happens in a city, with many different interests; it focuses on the inside of the city, so time has to be taken to build it and give it verisimilitude.
This is not a judgment of quality, my friend. These are two different approaches, and hopefully I will learn from each, thus getting a better GM for both games... ;)
:D
I was sure you'll say something like that
I think it's important in that thread to explain how each GM has chosen his/her seasons length.
all depends on the rythm he wants his story grows.
that's right that ST and BTVS have 2 different rythms
and if I made the precedent post it's because I think each group with it internal inertia has in the same way different rythm.
and you could think our rythm was inappropriate to develop social intrigues...:o
Not really - we also had our share of that. It's just that in BtVS, social roleplaying often takes 40 to 50% of game time. In ST, things don't work that way...Quote:
you could think our rythm was inappropriate to develop social intrigues...
Social interactions also help to ground the characters, and from characters, motivations, many interesting plots come (something I learned from BtVS). As long as all things remain logical and have a REASON to be. (No sense throwing baddies at you if you have done nothing to annoy them, for instance...)
Would the Ascendant's observer, James McBlish, be as interesting if he wasn't Tim Paige (our flight ops officer) Academy rival?
Would Adm. Ogby be as interesting if the first officer of his flagship wasn't the daughter of your nemesis, adm. McMillian?
Would you have hated Coralia Deventris, one of s3 and 4's arch-enemies, if she hadn't teased you so much and stolen valuable data right under your noses?
and so on...
(Precisions intended for non-players of the game of course ;) )
Hmm, conflict, conflict, is there a real evil and where is it?
I'm thinking of entering the Evil GM Support Group :p
We went wayyy off topic, I propose we get back on track :)
agreed ;)