Spend enough time on the web talking about TTRPGs and rules-light systems, and you will run into some frustrating variation of the “[insert rules light game] is only good for one-shots and short adventures” trope.
The consensus among those who hold this belief is that a game needs to be more complicated from a rules perspective to support campaign play, which is blatantly false. The implied stance is that character development is achieved through new lines of text on the character sheet.
I can’t help but think this results from D&D’s narrative mixed with a healthy dose of video game logic sprinkled on top. It represents a view that combat getting more complex is what happens as a campaign progresses. Don’t get me wrong, some crunchy large-scale battles can be fun, but it’s what that battle achieves for the characters and the plot that makes it rewarding. It should be about how overcoming that challenge helps to progress the story. You don’t need a massive character sheet to do that. In fact, I would argue that it misses the point of playing a role-playing game altogether. That’s just simplified war gaming with increasing stakes.
So, what should you focus on?
Tension. I like to look at a campaign using an “energy profile,” inspired by how music composers in electronic genres tend to structure songs. It’s how I look at the macrostructure of a campaign’s story arc, of which there would be multiple.
A typical song energy profile
In this model, energy represents urgency or threats. Building up threats, dropping clues or rumors, and placing time restraints increase the players’ feeling of urgency, and overcoming those threats releases the urgency, giving them a sense of accomplishment.
Putting it to use.
Using this example, picture a campaign arc starting from level 0. [INTRO] The characters face a minor threat at a local level, such as goblins attacking some local livestock. Among the goblins’ belongings is a note from a neighboring baron, which hints at him paying the goblins to attack the town’s livestock. When the characters return to town ready to report their discovery, they find that another threat has popped up while they were gone [BUILD]. The [VERSE A] is the characters attempting to solve these threats, with additional details or time constraints layered on top to build tension, leading to a confrontation with the baron.
[VERSE B] is a relative time of peace following the defeat of the baron, where the characters solve a minor threat in the area and pick up a clue along the way. It turns out that the Baron was interested in the village’s destruction because the ancient ruins of a powerful society of elves are buried under it, and an even bigger threat was pulling his strings [BUILD]. The [DROP] is playing out that second storyline.
Using this model, a campaign is multiple layers of these story arcs, with some happening simultaneously and increasing the strength of the threats over time.
This is a campaign, and none of it concerns game mechanics and has little to do with the character’s abilities. The experience that they gain along the way is purely through experiences.
