One Year Gone

While yesterday marked the commemoration of the birth of one of the hobby's founders, today marks a rather different milestone: one year since the conclusion of my House of Worms campaign. That's small potatoes by comparison, but it's significant to me and the six players who were there for its wrap-up, two of whom having been there for the entirety of its ten and a half year run (and several others for the bulk of that time). 

I've had campaigns end before, of course, but House of Worms was the first time in many, many years that I ended one deliberately rather than watching it sputter out due to outside considerations. That's what happened to the Barrett's Raiders Twilight: 2000 campaign after three years of play, as you may recall. Although I don't have any bitterness about the cessation of Barrett's Raiders, I was a bit disappointed that the campaign didn't last longer. I had a lot of fun refereeing that game, my frustrations with the Free League version of the game to the contrary. In another universe, Barrett's Raiders might well have last as long as House of Worms (and served as the launching point for a follow-up 2300 AD campaign – a long-held dream of mine).

I'm glad that House of Worms ended on its own terms. However, I'd be lying if I were to say that I don't look back on this anniversary with a certain amount of melancholy. Part of that is simply that, over the course of a decade, I'd grown very fond of the characters in that campaign, not to mention the setting of Tékumel itself. I really came to know them all and, if it's not to strange to say, I miss spending time with them each week. 

The other part of it is that, as I predicted several months before the conclusion actually came, House of Worms casts a long shadow. Even if I tried, I doubt I will ever top its wondrous denouement. House of Worms truly was the campaign of a lifetime, something I'll likely remember for the rest of my life. Even with smaller ambitions, how does one follow up on that? What do you do after you've achieved something so remarkable that you and the people involved in its continue to talk about it a year after it ended? I can't help but wonder if this is what Olympic athletes must feel after winning a gold medal. 

This hasn't kept me from starting a new campaign with most of the House of Worms crew. The Dark Between the Stars campaign is now just shy of a year old and it remains very enjoyable. It's also – deliberately – a very different campaign from House of Worms in many ways. For one, it's a space opera rather than fantasy and the cast of characters is quite different, so the dynamic isn't in any way comparable to House of Worms. The Dark Between the Stars is still very much its own thing and a good and fun thing at that, for which I am grateful, but it's impossible to deny that, playing with many of the same people each week and on the same day and time, my thoughts often turn to House of Worms.

It's frustrating, because I am unambiguously proud of the House of Worms campaign. Playing it consistently for so long and then bringing it to a satisfying conclusion is a genuine achievement. I suppose that, on some level, I simply wish that it wasn't such an achievement that I can't help but compare everything else I do to it. That's not fair for a multitude of reasons, yet I often find myself doing just that – human nature, I suppose.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I continue to enjoy both The Dark Between the Stars and my unnamed Dolmenwood campaign, which will mark its second anniversary next month. I hope that both of them will last as long as House of Worms did, though I have no expectations about this. I've refereed and played in enough RPG campaigns over the last four decades to know how unlikely that is. I've only ever achieved it once and, from what I gather, that's quite an unusual experience for which I am grateful. 

I just wish I could free myself from the sense that I'll never referee a campaign as good as House of Worms.