Strangely, I seem to be contrary to the trend on this Treasure Tables post, where the favorite campaigns are the eldest. I suspect that’s because many of them had obvious flaws… like the high school “split but we’ll ignore it and play together” group.
1. Mage: The Ascension (GM, mid/late 20s) To Sway the Stones
2. Mage: The Ascension [player, mid 20s]. Chris’s Beyond the Portal
> D&D3.5: The current Dragon’s Talons game [player, early 30s]
3. AD&D [player, mid/late 20s] Skellwoods Campaign
4. AD&D [player, college] World-spanning, w/ Sython
5. Mage 1st [GM, college]: Ender Peskins and friends
6. D&D 3.0 [player, late 20s]. Strife and Pride.
7. Vampire 2nd [player, mid 20s]. Will’s Fresno Chronicles
8. Shadowrun [player, 30]: Graal
9. AD&D [GM, High School]: My first long, successful game
10. Battletech (player, High School). “Kizmaz” and the Ogre
What does the list mean?
Well, I really like the scale and scope of Mage, from both sides of the screen. For all the faults and hairline “which side” cases, it’s the best I found for the gaming I wanted.
Despite thinking of myself as a GM, my list is heavy on me as a player. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m more critical of myself as a GM. I really enjoy games where I’m trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole– in both Chris’s Beyond the Portal and Alanora’s Skellwoods game, I had PCs who longed for something that they couldn’t achieve. In Beyond the Portal, I loved Jeremiah’s struggle to establish charity as a concept– it was brutally hard and fraught with danger, but really made the struggle have meaning. Alanora, on the other hand, longed for a crowd– she was weak in our circumstances but willing to pull an oar. Sython was also a little out of his league… he was several levels down at the start [can’t arbitrarily jump people, you know], but quickly became significant, quickly moved from mascot to dependable (and necessary) friend. I learned a lot playing this wildly different style.
Of the top five, only 1&3 shared players. The rankings shift quite a bit. I know that my college games are nostalgia, as much as anything– there’s a lot of time and place in them. Of course, there are other college games (Amber) that would make the low points list… but even that has softened a bit with time.
Ironically, I’d been thinking of the player blowup of my last campaign as somewhat unique… but it’s pretty common in my history. The high school AS&D game died similarly– the PCs finally reached a level where they could make war on each other, reflecting the real-life player group split. I killed it (quickly and with confidence) soon thereafter. If only I’d retained that wisdom for my most recent debacle…