10 sessions
When we were kids, it was different. We just played. A child is like a cat; they don’t understand the concept of time, living in the present with the blissful belief that things will always be the same. So, we played RPGs twice a week, after school, like kids do—a never-ending campaign, without a beginning or an end, without a story arc, just playing for the sake of it.
Then you go to college, thinking you’re growing up, getting smarter, having a girlfriend, being able to drink beer. But in reality, you’re still like that cat, unaware of time, unaware that it’s all about to end—that the weekly gaming with friends, that carefree fun without a plan, without a beginning or end, will eventually have a finish line. Life comes along, with work and kids, and you truly grow up, only then understanding what time really means.
And so it happens, you’re an adult. Life pulls you into its gears. You want to play, but there’s no time. You want to play, but maybe you’ll manage to pull off a one-shot session here and there, a hastily organized gathering, only to have it fall apart after two months of planning because one person can’t make it, and another just doesn’t want to. You’re an adult now. There’s no time for a never-ending campaign, no weekly D&D sessions without a goal. There’s no more playing like a cat, like a kid, no more playing for the sake of it.
Years pass. Work is stable, the kids are grown, and you fully understand what time is. You realize how fast it flies, how unrelenting it is, that there aren’t many campaigns left like the ones from your childhood. You age. Fifty will come soon, then sixty, and who knows what after that.
This is the time, the moment, to grab time by the throat and kick it in the butt.
It was around that moment when I came up with something that thousands of other fifty-year-olds probably thought of before me. In 2023, I invited my old friends to an extraordinary experiment in the scale of my RPG career.
“Guys, this year we’re going to play exactly 10 sessions of Cold City RPG. This will be a one-year campaign. Let’s enjoy this game, have fun, and squeeze every bit out of it. We are getting old. Who knows if we’ll ever have the chance to return to it.”
We played. I’ve been running Cold City since it came out in 2009, but it was always some hectic, one-shot games, here and there, once a few years. Now, for the first time, I managed to run a full-blown campaign, neatly wrapped up with a great finale, with a meaningful story arc—a campaign planned from start to finish by an adult, not a kid. We had one year, 10 sessions. Perhaps the last time we played Cold City ever. We squeezed the maximum out of it.
It was incredible.
In January 2024, I repeated the experiment. I invited the same old friends aboard the Nostromo ship. A few days ago, we finished a 10-scenario campaign. I don’t know if I’ll ever play Alien RPG again or where life will take us, but I know we made the most of the system and the universe this year. We played Alien like adults. And it was awesome, it felt great, it made great memories for the rest of our lives.
In January 2025, I’ll invite my friends for another 10 sessions. This time we’ll play Ars Magica. The years are passing, the time is slipping away, but now I know how to catch those grains and keep them from slipping through my fingers.
Exactly 10 sessions.
1 awesome campaign.
1 crafted story arc.
Here is my message to all my aging boomers – Grab the moment. And squeeze it.
I strongly believe that good board game is the one that tells a good story. You play it and suddenly you are sucked into it, you feel chills on the skin. Emotions grow. In a moment you defend castle. You hear roar of warriors. You smell boiling oil. You are into it.
That's how I design my games. I always want to tell a good story. I want players to be into it. As deep as possible.
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