The word "campaign" in the old school D&D sense is not the same as it is in the modern school sense. People often confuse this when trying to understand how games operated back in the 70s. This is also how campaigns had up to 50 players.
@Crossface02 I would have guessed "campaign" has less to do with the number of players and more to do with the setting. D&D grew out of wargames. Going on a campaign in a military sense, denotes a person going to war or an operation, eg. I was issued a "campaign medal" after a tour of duty.
@illmadenight You have a decent understanding of it in the classical sense. The modern sense is "adventure path" or "story path".
@Crossface02 Paizo was, inadvertently, correct in calling modern style campaigns "adventure paths."
@Crossface02 I always saw campaign as a world ongoing, multiple parties of adventurers could be in it and occasionally interact with each other
@Crossface02 This is how I ended up running a game with 21-26 players for 3 years.
@Crossface02 It was used in the more traditional sense of the word, if I understand correctly it crossed over from the Wargaming scene.
@Crossface02 https://x.com/ARRGETSTUFFED/st... "Adventure" play is also old-school. Linked adventures began to be called a campaign pretty early on but were not, in truth, "campaigns." Weird.
@Crossface02 I was in a Greyhawk campaign that spanned decades.
@Crossface02 The most players I had at a table at one night was 20, 8-12 players was much more common in the peak of 1e, which is still my preferred group size to DM, with the ideal group size being 10 players When 2e came around it was pretty clear they built that game around 3-5 players
@Crossface02 Do you think that one definition is inferior to the other? Sincere question, not trying to be antagonistic. I get your point about historical context. I don't disagree.