When an RPG Campaign Doesn’t Work – Grim Ending of My Call of Cthulhu 1900

If I only had read the Angry GM’s Dream Game Dilemma advice when I started running Call of Cthulhu set in the Tsar-occupied Warsaw of year 1900, things would’ve gone different. I’d probably haven’t started the campaign at all. But here I am, finally letting my nostalgia for this wonderful idea go. So, if you haven’t clicked the link above yet, read at least the line below – read and take it seriously. And if you’re curious how I’ve ended up admitting that my RPG campaign doesn’t work, keep on reading.

The campaign you will run is the campaign you are able to run, not the one you want to run.

The Angry GM, How to Start Starting a Campaign: Preplanning the Premise / Don’t Tell Me About Your Story

My Amazing Campaign That Didn’t Work

As you’ve probably figured out by now, it’s quite emotional thing for me. So allow me to do my creation justice and describe it a bit. The year was 1900, Poland wasn’t on any map for over a century. Most of its area was occupied by the Russian Empire, ruled rigorously by Tsars. Poles and other ethnicities living in my country were subject to oppressive apparatus of invigilation, punishment and resettlement.

Dawn of the 20th century was seeing Europe’s and former Poland’s politics boiling with new movements and the inventions of electricity, telephone and steam engines changing lives of whole societies. Numerous organisations and associations were starting for different purposes, and the new discoveries in science and geography were breaking almost daily. Couldn’t it be a better time for a story about secret, politically-oriented, blasphemous cults and exploring-the-unknown investigations, right? And an RPG campaign including all of these and more – as well as one that doesn’t finally work – to my dismay.

How I planned it? Besides poorly, of course.

I was going to run adventures I knew already from an actual-play podcast that I follow. Mr. Corbitt as an introduction, followed by a little home-brew, Paper Chase, Edge of Darkness or Haunting and then Plantation. For a grand finale, I envisioned a Polish fan-written scenario You Must Feed the Flames. All of those were braided carefully and brilliantly in my fin de siècle overhaul. Many mentioned above political, social and scientific events were included to reflect the atmosphere of the era.

The Investigators were to catch a trail of a secret cult of Ithaqua, in which rivallying sub-factions splintered. But their actions weren’t to go by unnoticed by the tsar’s secret police of Okhrana, as well as influential mining, railway and exploration companies with some impoverished nobility on the top of it. I have to admit that just preparing the timeline was an immense fun on its own. But in my creative RPG excitement I hadn’t factored in one thing: this kind of campaign requires a lot of commitment and organization or it won’t work at all.

Ignore these things and your campaign doesn’t work, too.

So what’s exactly the lesson I’ve learned on that case?

Real life issues

First of all, the outline of the campaign I stated above is a massive one. Sticking to the guidelines in the scenarios themselves, it’d take about 15 sessions minimum to play through. With our biweekly session schedule, that means over half a year if no sessions get cancelled. And to follow such a complex plot, the players would need to attend games regularly or they’d get lost among the large number of characters and organisations.

It turned out hard to make in reality. Even with our quite elastic work schedule (most of that group works with me at the university), even choosing a single day of the week was a big challenge. Kids, holidays and sickness – for all these reasons we’ve had more sessions cancelled than actually played. Not to mention COVID, which effectively froze our campaign for two consecutive winters.

Your, GM’s, capacity

From the campaign’s short description you’ve may also got that I was super-excited to prep all the materials. And, in fact, it was pure awesomeness for me. I feel like I’ve learned more about my country’s history in a few months prepping an RPG campaign than during all the schoolyears. At the same time, though, it consumed a lot of my free time and energy. And I wanted my campaign to be perfect.

Sometimes the notion and impulse to run what seems to be a wonderful game may cloud your vision. I, for one, was too much attached to the idea and hence I didn’t see when my campaign stopped working. Determination to go through with your plans is good but you’ve got to check if the plan is still worth the struggle.

It’s HARD to let it go.

That may be the toughest part. I finally noticed that the campaign doesn’t work the way I wanted – we hadn’t had an RPG session in almost a year then and our third or fourth attempt was cancelled again. Still, my players and I wanted to wrap the story somehow, with just one final session. But it wasn’t happening for too long. I mulled over the thought for a long time, but had to make that call. We weren’t going to return to the our homecity’s alternative, grim history.

There are places in our city we know better from the game than from the real life. The characters have organically grown with a fabric of tight relationships between them. Mysteries and suspicions kept calling to be investigated. I, the GM, had so many ideas about further developing the story, taking wonderful opportunities that were arising with every session. And it was truly heartbreaking to put an end to all of it. But I finally made it and told my players about it. If you feel you may use some more advice on the similar issue, head over to the Gnome Stew’s How to End a Campaign series.

What to do then?

So, when you run a game or prepare to start one, take into account what are you and your players capable of. Try to double- or triple-check with everyone if the schedule you’re proposing is realistic. How likely it is that someone will have to skip a session or cancel it last-minute? How it will affect the game? Is the campaign a chain of tightly connected episodes or is every session a more stand-alone story? Is the overarching plot clear or one that requires a lot of attention? Also, do you have a reliably available place in which you play or is it dependent on one person’s and their family disposition?

Think about possible solutions. Can you adjust the story to go on smoothly without one character or another once every couple of sessions? Because while connecting the player character story to the main plot is generally a good thing, it may also lead to stopping the game if the said character has to miss a session. So try to come up with a sort of excuse for every player character to withdraw from the story now and then. Also, remember about the logistics – putting the game night in your calendar and give everyone an invite with built-in reminders may be a good idea, as well as discussing where will you play besides your main place. Finally, decide, at least for yourself, when would you consider stopping the game? How much cancelled sessions or changes to the original idea are you going to get along with? It’ll make things easier later.

An end is also a new beginning.

The 1900 Cthulhu campaign is over, we won’t play it again. But I still have the notes and I think I’ll share them through Miskatonic Repository for anyone interested. After all, it’ll be a shame if such a fun and inspiring project would go to the thrash bin. But there’s even more great news – and that’s my final advice here. After my message about ending the Warsaw campaign, we’ve had what could be called a session zero. Or rather a “-1 session.” Do what we did each time you start a new game:

We talked about what are our realistic options time- and energy-wise. We’ve agreed upon having a 2-3 hours long session every two weeks, so everyone can still do their mom/dad duties and get up to work the next day. We’ve also decided to try a sandbox approach that requires a regular attendance but allows for having even a short session without the need for extensive recaps each time. Only then we considered what game exactly would we like to play, what themes will satisfy each of us. Finally, we’ve chosen the setting: another (quasi-)historical one, this time Sub-Roman Brittain of early 5th century. So look out for a new series on the blog! 🙂