campaign

A campaign is a connected series of sessions in a role-playing game, linked by continuity of characters, setting, and narrative threads. Campaigns range from a handful of sessions to years of regular play.

The defining feature of a campaign, as opposed to a one-shot or disconnected sessions, is persistence: actions taken in one session shape the world that future sessions take place in. Characters accumulate experience, relationships, injuries, and reputations. Non-player characters remember past interactions. This persistence is what makes role-playing games a distinct medium — the fiction develops through the accumulated choices of the participants.

Campaigns require more coordination than single sessions. The group needs shared expectations about tone, content boundaries, scheduling, and the degree to which individual character arcs drive the larger story. Session zero addresses these questions before play begins.