Performance Anxiety

Late last summer, I first broached the idea of my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign finally ending. As regular readers know, House of Worms is the longest campaign I’ve ever run with a stable group of players. Week after week, year after year, we have returned to Tékumel, exploring its labyrinthine politics, alien gods, and decaying glories together. It’s been a singular experience, one I never quite expected to last this long when we first began playing more than a decade ago.

In fact, when we started House of Worms, I had no expectation that it'd last more than maybe a few months. At the time, I hadn't played in the world of Tékumel in almost ten years and, even then, it was for only a brief period, so I assumed something similar would happen. This time, though, something clicked and did so almost immediately. The characters took on lives of their own. The setting opened up like a great unfolding map, rich with possibilities. The players responded with curiosity and commitment – and so did I. Before long, we had a real campaign and that campaign became a weekly tradition, a touchstone not just for our hobby lives but also for our friendships.

I’m proud of what we have accomplished. The characters evolved from unknown newcomers to key players on the imperial stage. Locations, events, and characters that began as vague sketches soon crystallized into defining elements of not just of the campaign but our conception of what Tékumel is like as a setting. Choices had consequences. Deaths mattered (often in unexpected ways). Victories felt earned. What began as a yet another attempt to play an old school roleplaying game few remembered soon became something more: a collaborative, shared history of the sort that I think is genuinely unique to this hobby of ours.

Still, it’s time. The campaign started to lose a lot of momentum in 2024 and we all recognized this. The characters had been through a lot during the previous nine years of play and, while there were still lots of places they could go, we'd nevertheless reached a point that felt like some kind of ending was in sight. Certainly, we could play on – as a setting, Tékumel is immense and filled with possibilities – but to do so would feel like lingering after the curtain has fallen. Better, we decided, to end well than to drag things out past their prime. That knowledge doesn’t make it any easier, though. There’s a sadness in ending a campaign of such longevity. 

There's also satisfaction and pride and lots of other positive feelings too. The House of Worms campaign shouldn't be mourned but celebrated. Likewise, my players are very loyal; they've asked me to start a new campaign when we finally conclude our current one. They want something fresh but with the same spirit of discovery, depth, and continuity that defined House of Worms. Their enthusiasm is heartening. It means I did something right. It means the game mattered, which makes me very happy. I often think we don't recognize just how meaningful and important a good RPG campaign can be to the people who participate in it.

So, even as things wind down, I am very pleased by what we've accomplished – but I'm also more than a little anxious about the future.

The truth is I’ve launched many campaigns over the years. Most of them didn't last. Some sputtered out after only a handful of sessions. Others lasted a respectable amount of time but never achieved the same alchemy as House of Worms. That’s the way of things. Long-running, deeply satisfying campaigns are rare. They are accidents of chemistry, timing, and luck as much as planning and design. You can’t force them into being, no matter how hard you try to do so. This is one of the more frustrating aspects of roleplaying as a hobby: there are no guarantees that you'll actually enjoy what you're playing, especially not over the long term.

Part of the challenge is structural. Life intrudes. Schedules shift. Interests drift. Players move on. Sustaining any long-term creative endeavor, especially one that depends on the consistent involvement of several adults with busy lives, is very hard. Sustaining it for ten years is, frankly, a minor miracle and, like all miracles, it’s not one you can replicate on command.

There’s another kind of challenge, too: the weight of comparison. After something as long-lived and beloved as House of Worms, anything new is likely to feel slight by contrast. Early sessions will lack the depth of history. New characters will feel unformed. The setting will feel empty until it is slowly filled in over the course of weeks and months. It’s hard not to wonder then: will this new campaign, whatever it winds up being, catch fire the same way? Will it grow into something fun and meaningful or will it fall apart before it ever finds its legs?

I simply don't know and that's what makes all of this so nerve-wracking. I’m not afraid to admit that I feel the pressure of trying to follow up what might well be the best campaign I’ve ever run, possibly ever will run. House of Worms was a kind of creative lightning strike, the sort of thing that comes together once in a lifetime if you're lucky. It had the right players, the right setting, the right spark. Trying to recreate that, consciously or not, feels daunting, even a little foolish. What if the next campaign just doesn't measure up? What if it fizzles out early? What if I no longer have whatever intangible thing it was that made House of Worms work?

These are the questions that I keep pondering as I consider what comes next. They're not unfamiliar questions – as I said, I’ve had plenty of campaigns fail before – but this time they sting a little more. They sting because I know what's possible. I’ve seen the metaphorical mountaintop. I’ve spent ten years there. Coming back down, trying to find a new path, even with the same companions, feels uncertain in a way that’s hard to shake.

Yet, for all that, I’m still going to try. What else can I do? The only way to discover whether something can grow is to plant the seed and nurture it. Even the longest, most memorable campaigns begin in uncertainty. House of Worms started without a plan, without expectations, with nothing more than a handful of characters, a legendary setting, and a group of friends willing to see what might happen.

That’s how it starts. That’s how it always starts.

So, I will gather my notes, pull some books off the shelf, and call my players to the table once again. We’ll roll some dice, sketch out some half-formed ideas, and take that first step into whatever new world awaits us. Maybe it will fall apart. Maybe it will thrive. I can’t know – not yet anyway. What I do know is that the only way to find out is to begin.

Maybe, one day, I’ll look back on what comes next and be just as proud.