With its rich storytelling, elaborate campaigns and characters, and immersive fantasy worlds, Dungeons & Dragons is the ultimate tabletop role-playing game.
In 1982, at just 14 years old, Dungeon Master Robert Wardhaugh began a campaign that’s still running many years later.
Based out of his basement in London, Canada, players from across the country gather to take part in one of the longest-running D&D campaigns in history. But how do you play it? And most importantly, how do you play it well?
In this episode, Great Big Story returns to Robert’s legendary game to explore its evolution, the secrets to a campaign’s longevity, and what it takes to play (and master) D&D for life.Except, of course, it isn't really Dungeons & Dragons per se, as Robert Wardhaugh has replaced pretty much every rule from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - ship of Theseus-style - with his own personalised houserules.
Not that that, in any way, detracts from the brilliance, and enduring appeal, of this campaign - I'm immensely envious of pretty much every aspect of the group's set-up!
The Game, as Robert's campaign is known, now has its own website (here) and Patreon (here).
This latest episode of Great Big Story is an update on its first visit to Robert's world in 2017, which you can watch here:
History professor Robert Wardhaugh has been continually running this campaign for more than four decades - almost certainly the longest continuous roleplaying campaign.
He began at a teenager in 1982 with his schoolfriends and now, four decades later, has a pool of around 50 players to call upon, both around his native Canada and in the UK.
The adventures, which so far have covered more than 600 years of in-game history, take place on an alternate Earth that includes multiple real-world pre-gunpowder civilisations, as well as Robert E Howard's Hyboria in place of South America, and Tolkien's Middle-Earth (400 years after the destruction of The One Ring) as a bonus continent.
The game has been houseruled from its beginning, and now only bears a passing mechanical resemblance to modern Dungeons & Dragons (I get the impression Robert has been, forever, cherry-picking bits from all kinds of rules systems as he discovers them over the years).
In an interview with the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast in 2016 (see below), Robert revealed an interesting ruling that has shaped the nature of the campaign: death means death.
If a character is killed, the player leaves the game... unless the character has a family member who can inherit the dead player-character's mantle.
This has seen some player-character lineages extend to 20 generations so far!
(Note: there are other ways round this 'harsh' ruling - such as taking over a member of another player's family).
Averaging one or two sessions a week, usually of four or five hours, Robert has pledged to run this campaign for as long as he is physically able.
As well as mountains of custom terrain, he has a tens of thousands of miniatures to help bring his obviously prodigious storytelling to life for his lucky players.
Gamesmaster Robert Wardhaugh discusses his campaign - aka The Game - with Dragon Talk hosts Greg Tito and Shelly Mazzanoble.
You can watch The Twitch videos Robert mentions in the interview here:
Wired produced another mini-documentary about The Game (above).