Bronze Anniversary

A constant theme of this blog since I returned to it in 2020 is the need for long campaigns. One of the reasons I've become so fixated on this particular point is my experience refereeing my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign, which celebrates its eighth anniversary today. When I posted a call for players on Google+ all those years ago, I had no idea that it would last as long as it has. Nevertheless, I did hope that it might endure, since I do not begin any campaign lightly and indeed have come to be repulsed by the idea of "one shots" and "mini campaigns."

One of the most common topics of the emails I receive from readers concerns the "secret" of the longevity of the House of Worms. I struggle with answering this question, because I'm not sure there is a secret to the campaign's success. However, if pressed, I usually point to three "ingredients" that I genuinely believe have played a big role in keeping the dice rolling each week. The first – and most important in my opinion – are the players. I have seven regular players, each of whom brings something different to our virtual table, thereby helping to make it greater than the sum of its individual parts. One player is a mapmaker extraordinaire, another a wily schemer, and yet another a bold adventurer. I could go on, but my point is quite simple: the House of Worms campaign would be nothing without its players. Their imagination, creativity, skill, and dedication have ensured that we continue to have a lot of fun exploring Tékumel together.

Speaking of dedication, that's the second ingredient. This one is easy to overlook, because it seems so basic as to barely be worthy of comment. Yet, I can't stress enough how vital it is that we all show up each week. While there have been plenty of weeks over the years when we haven't played for one reason or another, we strive to play every week that we have sufficient players to do so (in general, I prefer we have five out of seven players, though we've sometimes played with fewer). The cumulative effect of this is momentum. Each session builds upon the one before it. As weeks become months and months years, the campaign acquires a mass that ensures that it keeps growing and changing – and entertaining us.

That brings us to the third ingredient: change. When the House of Worms began, the player characters were all 1st-level nobodies in the city of Sokátis, bossed around by their elders to do errands for their clan. Now, they are the Imperial-sanctioned rulers of a colonial outpost of Tsolyánu in a far-away land, making momentous decisions for themselves and indeed Tékumel itself. At each step in the characters' journey, the campaign has shifted and changed – from delving in the underworld to wilderness exploration to colonial governance to the present, when the PCs contend with gods and wrestle with the deeper mysteries of the setting. Though there is a strong thread of continuity between March 2015 and March 2023, there is also a great deal of change, which has kept things fresh for both myself and the players.

None of these ingredients alone would suffice to keep the campaign going after eight years. Together they combine in ways that continue to surprise and delight both myself and the players, which is what any good RPG campaign should do. I make no predictions on how long House of Worms will continue. A couple of times in the past I briefly thought the campaign was running low of "fuel" and might finally end, but I was mistaken in this. At the moment, events have shifted toward some new problems and a new phase of the campaign seems to have begun. This has once again injected more energy into our sessions and I don't see an obvious end in sight – but who knows? After eight years, the campaign has a life of its own and it will do what it wishes. I'm simply grateful to be along for the ride, however long it lasts.