How long has your campaign ran?

[khanjohn]

My group has always ran role playing with mech warrior. We develop characters that we call or start at level 1 and run with it. One of our campaigns ran for over 5 years. Exp is given out and they raise appropriate stills and stats but have to justify them. At some point we retire the game and start a new one. Our characters have ran the gambit from pirates to house unit to mercenaries. We play with common sense and do have some house rules but nothing outrageous. My current campaign has ran for almost 4 years now and not slowing down. SO tell me your stories. We have been playing since inception and on player wrote a alternate ill say house long before the clans came in and its scary how close they are in story. We don't recreate scenarios nor do we print up mechs for one battle.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  Heh, we are currently in a scenario that started five years ago...I generated my current character in the mid 1990s... Due to my current work schedule, I have 12 weeks for gaming annually.

[bytedruid]

We're starting on our 5th year, running sessions mostly once every two weeks.  The players have become very attached to their main characters buy now, so I'm much more willing to blast their machines out from under them then to take out a PC due to a random die roll.  Though if they're dumb enough death is always waiting. 

We're running a good ole mercenary campaign, with a twist.  In universe, the player's unit started out on Canopus IV in 3011 with 2 salvage quality mechs, less than a half dozen vehicles and a short platoon of infantry.  With smart choices  (and not a little luck) they've grown into a short company with about 10 mechs in operational condition at anyone time, and a buccaneer dropship for mobility.  At this point the campaign year is 3015 and the players are currently deciding how to profit from a civil war on Halla in the Outworld's wastes.

If they manage to get near battalion size I probably try to drag them into House battles on the DC/FedSun boarder.

[hive_angel]

Mine has ran for more than a year. I have finally successfully tackled melee and ranged combat, lol. I don't track time as heavily so the charcaters don't age fast I suppose.

If I may add to your game length question do your XP rewards stay the same mostly and alternate depending upon situation?

[khanjohn]

Ours alternate depending on what happens, every now and then the players or a player will do something worth while to reap the rewards. Sometimes I don't award exp but may give them a free tick in a skill if they have worked hard on it etc. Its your game do as you wish. One gm allowed for us to (Prior to ATOW) generate new type of skills as long as didn't unbalance the game. I had to put exp into it to get it to progress and after 4 years i had a plus 3 or 4 in it.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

  We are still playing out scenarios for unit owned by a player who died over a year ago. I've told the GM to bury the campaign but they were high school friends...

[Kitsune413]

I had a long  Solaris Mechwarrior campaign a few years back. My longest campaigns have been for a year or two. But nothing like the decade long units people on these boards have run.

I did one on the Andurien rebellion
A Solaris one, it was supposed to be about some rasalhague Mechwarrior who went to Solaris and formed a unit to bring back to the Ronin wars but it ended up being this crazy shadow run spy games thing that lasted a few years.
a Lyran social general campaign. Short, but maybe my favorite.

Those are my favorites. I've got some I've been working on for awhile. Some that I ran when I was a teenager (man, third edition is super old now) that I try to forget. But the players had a lot of fond memories of the characters and I learned a lot about storytelling.

I run a lot of shadowrun. So one of these days I'm sure a 'Best Ever' Campaign will happen.

[khanjohn]

  We are still playing out scenarios for unit owned by a player who died over a year ago. I've told the GM to bury the campaign but they were high school friends...

I understand. We are running one that the Gm wife died almost 3 years ago but everyone loves it so we keep it going. We love to sometimes just sit and reminisce (SP) of the funny things that happened. One of our favorites is a player we had that always had to be the best. Well one night he got shot out of three mechs in 30 minutes. one fo them was he jumped a wasp in front of a 100 t and said that should scare him. NPC shot and took him out one salvo. Still brings tears of laughter to group.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

I understand.

  Make no mistake, I loved the guy like an older brother but there are players waiting for their turn to be reffed and the GM just won't let go.

  2013 was a bad year for our club -we lost three longtime members, who deserve to be remembered for decades of good times and quality war gaming. I put up what photos I had of them on my Facebook page and invited friends to write about them. We are still inventorying the massive storage locker of models and miniatures one collected over the years. I can only spend 3-4 hours a week and we've barely made a dent in the collection.

  Another has boxes containing literally every model plane he built in his life; 50-60 planes per box in a dozen boxes, all museum quality work. Once we get them inventoried, I'll auction them off and give the money to the family. I just can't see tossing them out with the garbage.

[khanjohn]

That is the right thing to do. We are down to 3 out of our original group of 6.

[Col Toda]

It varies a great deal , depending on why were running . In the old FASA days it was as much about play testing a scenario for publication as anything else . Depending on E A  . Mercenary group called the Stone Ponies before the Clan invasion . The Clan invasion and. After we each made an A unit that moved on from Campaign to Campaign . Each game might last as long as 5 years or less than one but the material used was decades in the making.

[Lord greystroke]

Well my groups last battletech campaign was 2 years real world gaming once a week in game time it was 5years from before the start of the Fed Com civil war until its premature end caused by the PC's action and the formation of the federated combine commonwealth I wouldn't of believed it either unless I was there

[Taron Storm]

Longest game that I ran: 9+years (two of the players didn't like what happened and bailed, it went down hill after that)

Longest campaign that I have a character in: 20+ years.  I have not played with that character in a couple of years, but some new players might allow him to come in.  He started out as a green MW in a Valkyrie circa 3010's and is now an elite, semi-retired commander as of the beginning of the Jihad. His merc unit is alive and still kicking as of the dark ages.

[acefalcon]

I am participating now in a mercenary campaign that lasts since September, 2011, with some major characters from the starting crew (not including mine) still alive and active. The starting year was 3058, now it is 3065. It is IRChat-based, so sometimes we were able to play daily for weeks or months.