My playgroup is cursed!


Advice


Here's the thing, I've played for years with my close group of friends, but we suffer from one major curse, we haven't finished a single campaign! Sooner or later the curse strikes! For some reason or another we stop playing the campaign!

Is my play group the only one that suffers from this or do your groups also happen to have the same curse?!

If you have broken the curse, please do tell me how to break it!


Welcome to being, like, 98% of play groups. The first decade or so I've played, every group died before level 10, much less before finishing a full campaign.

I broke the curse by playing a one on one campaign straight through to the end.


I've seen the end of an AP twice. Every other game ends somewhere around lvl 8 and the ones that got completed me and one other player were there from day one.

I guess the only way to break the curse is to want to be there and ave a GM that can be there. Joining an established group is a plus because starting one is a pain in the butt. you cannot rely one random people. Just play and keep going so long as you have at least two players and pick up reliable people along the way and drop the flakes. (90% will flake consistently eventually)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I reached an ending to Shackled City. It wasn't the complete ending, but we did manage to reach a conclusion. That was about the only time we did.

Silver Crusade

I've finished precisely one campaign. Outside that the only time I've been in a group that finished anything were PFS scenarios.


My group is pretty dang persistent and stubborn. I think we have Not completed 1 AP we started.(shackled city) If you have regular players, consider shorter campaign arcs. Run the module chains instead of full AP's perhaps?


Let's see...

- Rise of the Runelords ended in Book 1 because the GM got tired of running the game.
- Carrion Crown ended in the middle of Book 2 due to a near TPK. It was later picked up and then ended at the end of Book 3 because I felt there was a natural ending there and The rest of the books has such a poor connection to the main story that I stopped it.
- Jade Regent ended near the end of Book 1 due to a TPK.
- Wrath of the Righteous ended at the beginning of Book 2 because the GM didn't like the campaign anymore.
- Iron Gods ended at the end of Book 2 because of problems with the gaming group (group fell apart due to non-gaming reasons).

I'm now in Book 1 of Skulls & Shackles and I'm really hoping it lasts. I don't have high hopes. With Pathfinder, I've played two homebrew games; the first one ended when the GM accepted a new job and moved a few hundred miles away. The second one ended because of personal reasons between one of the players and the GM (that player and his friend gave every excuse n the book to not show up for game during that game, so we ended it, changed GM's, and suddenly they could make it again).

Before Pathfinder, I've never played a published module/campaign. All homebrew. I have only seen one reach the end, and then my relationship with that group came to an end.


We completed one homebrew campaign that lasted from level 3 to level 18. The problem was that it was a campaign based around hunting undead and since it lasted so long, the whole group was bored to tears by the end of it.

The only suggestions I have for the problem is to take frequent breaks to play other stuff and to generally avoid long running tightly focused campaigns.


I have a group of people that I have assembled over the course of YEARS. I added people when necessary and dropped the flakes by making the rules of the group very clear and beneficial for all involved.

Rules:
1. Everyone takes a turn storytelling.
2. When the GM needs a break the next person steps in.
3. The person storytelling picks any game they want to use. (I do ask that we not jump to games no one has heard of, so we don't have to learn everything from scratch but it is just a suggestion.)
4. If you cannot attend regularly then you will need to find another group.
5. No non-players at the game, they are just a distraction and as gamers we don't need any help getting distracted.

These rules and aiming for mature players has led to a great experience for everyone the majority of the time. I hope it helps.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I've been roleplaying for over 20 years and my friends and I have similarly never finished a full campaign story arc, only stand alone modules.

We're 1/3 of the way though Skull and Shackles #5 though, so we're all extremely hopeful that this will be the one!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I had forgotten Dragon's Demand. We actually managed to get through the entire module and reach the ending. We might go back and continue with those characters some day, but it's looking like their story is done.


it happens a lot maybe , my luck has fared better then most I guess. I made it through 4 whole 2nd edition games when I was a player and with my family 5th one died out as my uncle who house we played at got to busy with other social activities.

In high school ran a 2nd edition game for my friends made they made from level 1 to about level 16 they had about 8 more levels to gain before the end of the game, my uncle wrote this super high powered adventure i used for the last part of the camp. There where 14 players and they just start to fight to much with each other, over girls and other stupid personal crap in game.

The group shrunk and another guy decided to run a Mech Warrior game. we finished that. then everyone graduated and went off to college and what not. Only two of those guys stuck around. We found some 4 new players re-ran my high-school game and actual finished it. then we moved on too Vampire Masqueraded finished a campaign I GMed and like 3 others camps with another gm.

stopped playing for a year or so 3rd edition game out a new friend from college was playing it via wizard version of organize play. he gm ed a few adventures, I did a few, another guy did a star-wars adventures but no serious campaign. the started group changed slightly by adding more players one or two got to busy and stopped playing

So I started one, I ran that for over 7 years all player became epic level 24 was the average level. They where about half way through when I need a break must have been level 16 or 17 at the time. most of the original guys that finished that redo of my high school game dropped out. At this point, I think only 3 remained out of that group of 6. but 4 of the college friend where still going strong. One guys ran a d20 modern game we finished that, Then I did a DBZ game we finished. Went back to my campaign. They got to about level 24 when few of the players start to squabble with each other and everyone job scheduled had changed so it made it hard to play, so I decided to take a break.

Join another group that my uncle was playing with and got thru 3 campaigns was working on a 4th, around Campaign 2 with this other group by this time I was ready to convert over to 3.5, the college friend groups work scheduled seem to align again we started a new game. 5 month into the game Hurricane Katrina hit and scatters us every where.

a year later I end up back home and started new game, 2 guys from high school came back to play, 2 of the guys from college and another one would just pop his head in and play when he could, and one of my family members and a brother in law. We finished that game end level 18 3.5 game.

I was burned out on dming again, need to start teaching someone else how to do it. I got one of the other college guys to dm a short adventure so he could experiencing dming. I was getting sick of 3.5 at this point and we tried playing 4th and could not stand it. Also found VTT at this point, So ran a 2nd edition game with them they got to about level 5. I need a break then we did a new vampire game, finished that, another guy wanted to do one of those we did that one finished that, went back to 2nd edition to finished the game. went back to vampire with the crap hit the fan, group broke up, only like 3 people where still around 1 guy from college, brother in law and family member. we played board games and stuff for about 6 months when I found out about pathfinder, one my uncles moved back in town and picked up a friend from work to start playing and found another friend that wanted to play.

I ran 2nd darkness that I converted over to pathfinder rule set, put it in my VTT completed it, then someone else ran a game, we finished it. One of those guys drop out due to work. Then so my other uncle came to play with us.

I converted that old 2nd edition adventure my uncle wrote into a pathfinder game and putt and ran that until they got 3/4 through it and it turned it to TPK, using the 2nd darkness characters they had.

I was running Way of the Wicked finished book 2, Group changed a little bit here two, my two uncles stopped playing. I got behind on putting it into a VTT do to some personal stuff. Another guy decided to dm a game he had completed and was not running his game via VTT. so that where we are now, and I am getting back to putting Way of the wicked in to my VTT in the mean time. we should finish it and this game also.

So I am surprised I actual made it through so many full campaigns

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / My playgroup is cursed! All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Advice