[livrem]

That is the modern (well, DnD 3E and later, so this century?) style of RPG campaign, with pre-packaged bundles of adventures to play in series, designed to last some specific time and then it ends. The traditional oldschool form of RPG campaign, still the way many groups play, and definitely the most common form last century (even if there were a few pre-packaged campaign modules for AD&D as well) is to create a group of characters and just keep playing adventure after adventure, more or less connected, replacing characters as they died off or players got bored with their current characters, but not really having a well-defined end, probably just fizzling out in the end as players drop off or the group decide to start a new campaign.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/20/us/dungeons-and-dragons-l...

(A bit extreme maybe, but I heard of shorter campaigns, but still lasting for at least a decade of regular play.)

And I think you underestimate how dedicated some people can be to playing games like CNA. It is a big game, but it is not absurdly long compared to other big board wargames.

Here is a BGG thread from 2010 (well before CNA became a mainstream meme?): https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/580214/

Note how the thread starts out "25 years after playing my last game of CNA".

So called "monster wargames" was a trend around 1980, toward the sudden end of the era of board wargames being almost-mainstream. I do not know if CNA was the biggest of all, but I think not. It was part of starting the trend, but later games were probably bigger and longer.

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/42904/the-biggest-of-the-...