The Living Campaign: A Guide For Creating & Maintaining Tabletop RPG Campaigns

This book is absolutely excellent advice for new and experienced Game Masters alike. One of the major problems contributing to campaigns having short lives is over preparation on the part of GMs. This book explains in extremely clear language that GM preparation is largely misdirected to fruitless tasks that will lead to burnout and a shorter campaign. McGowan offers a great alternative to the conventional approach to game mastering that takes considerably less energy, is more fun, and will lead to more opportunities for players to have a *real* effect on the game world.One of the more interesting sections of the book is related to time management in the campaign (meaning the passage of time and the calendar, not clocking in for work). He offers a unique approach to handling "down time" between game sessions that ties the in game calendar to the real world calendar (a practice drawn from war games and early D&D campaigns in the 1970's). This time management factor ends up producing a very different type of campaign than what most gamers will be used to, and makes this play style sound extremely attractive. Have you ever wanted to play a rotating cast of characters? Play the villain or PCs on opposite sides of a war? Do you want a campaign that responds realistically to the passage of time and prevents the absurd "we spent four days of in game time, and my character went from level 1 to level 7" rocket ship to godhood? If so, you need a set of rules for time management that supports this. McGowan provides a *dead* simple means for doing so and explains in great detail the advantages of this approach.The best thing about this book is that the author is not claiming that his solutions and advice are magic bullets to take your game to new heights. Everything that John McGowan talks about in this book is looked at from a cost/benefit analysis, and all of his advice is presented as a series of trade offs. He is not selling you a dream, he is outlining exactly how and why the ideas here are a stronger alternative to how you've been playing these games for decades while acknowledging that this different approach comes with some potential edge cases.My evaluation of the advice presented is that the benefits far outweigh the costs, and make for a better game. You trade a few (avoidable) edge cases associated with this different approach for solving a massive number of *very* real problems with conventional gaming wisdom. This is a book that deserves your attention, and I look forward to anything written by John in the future.The only drawback to this book is that it is written in two parts that cover the same ideas in varying detail. Part one is the advice itself and how to implement it. If you want to just get the goods and implement it at your table, you only need to read part one. Part two is a more in depth explanation of *why* the advice works and what the ideas are behind them. I would have preferred a more cohesive approach where the advice and the reasoning were integrated, but I understand the choice (another cost benefit analysis by Mr. McGowan) as the *most important thing* from the author's perspective is to *get the game to the table.* If this structure helps more people to start playing a living campaign, then it will have been the correct choice.tl;dr This should be required reading for anyone who wants to run fantasy adventures. It was written by someone who was very good at the "grand story telling" conventional approach to gaming who has found more fun, better stories, and long term success by integrating some lost wisdom of previous generations with his own insights and experience of actually running successful campaigns for 20 years.Buy this book.

As someone who burned out on more contemporary fantasy TTRPG campaigns, John N. McGowin's THE LIVING CAMPAIGN is a fantastic guide to making better, longer lasting, and easier to manage game sessions. The best thing I can say about it is that it consolidates a great deal wisdom from online discussion and historical sources in one volume that game masters and players can easily digest and share. Codifying these discussions lowers the barrier to entry for anyone who wants to run a game in the more "old school" style. Recommend to anyone dissatisfied with the current state of campaign advice and wants to try a new (and superior!) style.

An excellent read. This book is step-by-step guide to get a campaign STARTED and KEEP IT GOING. John concretely spells out the mindset traps most people overlook and provides explicit, clear examples of how to conquer common problems. All this in a concise, modest word count that is easy to follow and remember.

Although the BrOSR is pumping the reviews of this book, a book that details how to run a Long Term Roleplaying Campaign does detail a decent enough way to GM games. It's certainly not the only or perhaps even the best way to game master. However, the lack of detail for science fiction games like Traveller, let alone running a Time Travel Campaign, would work, but only if you change how the universe works for a 1:1 time scale. Unfortunately, a 1:1 time scale only works in earth-like worlds. If Campaign time passes at a rate beyond or below the standard 1:1 ratio, then you are sadly screwed. Though I have these gripes, I want to try the 1:1 time scale out. We shall see if I can do that with my groups.

I'm not new to living campaigns and I didn't get anything new out of this. I can see this book being useful to someone who has never been part of a living campaign before, so if that applies to you, I highly recommend this book to you! But if you have some experience like me, I didn't gain anything new.I'll pass the book on to a new GM friend of mine so they get something useful.

The Living Campaign is perfect for anyone wanting to set up their world to be a reactive living thing. Helps to work with the mechanics of your rpg system to make a game system that players enjoy to be in and gamemasters enjoy to make.The writing is done well with clever prose at times but also straightforward to the point instruction. You can feel the authors passion for the role of Game Master, as well as the encouragement he wants to bring to others.

John has collected his thoughts on creating an RPG Campaign, based on his research into what came before. Armed with the knowledge and experience imparted by Tony Bath, Don Featherstone, Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and others, John describes some of the ways that appropriate Campaign Prep can advance the practice of low amounts of Session Prep. On top of this, there is brilliant advice for map-making, massed combat, and building strongholds.I heartily endorse this tome!

Conventional play has discarded rigorous timekeeping, random tables, encumbrance and other rules under the false assumption that these rules are obsolete. In reality these rules are not only good, but also are essential for any long term campaign. If you desire the antidote to GM burnout, know that it can be found within these pages.