Takeaways from my last campaign
With my 2.5 year campaign over, I think these are my main takeaways from this campaign:
Signature Items. Signature items are items that are closely associated with a character. I use them to better fulfil the fantasy my players have for their characters. These are routinely a highlight of my games, and something I wholeheartedly endorse. They can be anything - a family heirloom, a homemade creation, the armor of a mentor, the blade from a formidable foe, or anything else. Basically, the item that people in the world would forevermore associate with your character. (Like King Arthur and Excalibur)
Hexcrawls good GREAT. I really came around to the idea of (pointed) hexcrawls this game. They're more work up front, but I never felt more excited to run, nor found the session prep easier than when I was running a hexcrawl for a half dozen sessions. They were a place where it really felt like the party could experience and influence an evolving world in a real and impactful way. I think a full campaign in a well made hexcrawl could be amazing.
(Open) End Goals can be nice. I was too enthusiastic about my game, and I had a dozen plot points that never quite got resolved. Some were world-ideas, that could be full campaigns, while others were character-specific. When the game ended, I felt like I had only explored a little part of this little part of the world. But moreso, I feel like the campaign had a coherent goal throughout, and it was all leading up to a final confrontation, and that was valuable.
Just do the cool thing. Yeah, I know this is basic advice. But just do the cool thing. Put the personal villain in front of the players instead of behind a barrier. Make this place have the cool things the party is interested in. Let the world be fantastic. I feel like I did half as many cool things as I could have, and that was in part because I wanted the game to feel less 'high fantasy'
Duet Sessions. Duet Sessions are some of my favorites, and this campaign, I made a point to run a duet session with every player. I am always astounded how much faster a Duet session is - an hour in a Duet session can be 2-3 sessions worth of events. They also allowed them to better interact with personal goals, meet NPCs, and tell their own stories when the party reconvenes.
Mini-campaigns. Within our game, I ran what I think of as two 'mini campaigns'. Rather than run a Duet session with a PC, I instead ran a mini campaign with the party. It was a 3 session long adventure (1 original PC, and the other 2 were made for this adventure), with the original PC being significantly higher level than the ones the rest of my players made for the mini adventure. It was an awesome adventure, imo, and because the character was higher level, it really showed the experience and value a PC has to an adventure.
Other parties. Rivals, friends, villains - parallel parties can be a lot of fun. I know they can be a pain to run in combat, but they have been the most fun, interesting, difficult, and fulfilling fights in this campaign. They have been the center points of some of the most emotional and impactful moments of this campaign.
I think most of these can be applied to other systems, too.
