GRRM: At the end of the first session I kill the PCs. Next session I tell them about how the NPCs from their backstories are getting killed and captured by the villains. Then the session after THAT I let them roll stats for the surviving backstory NPCs.

Brandon Sanderson: after like 3 sessions we start a new campaign with new characters. A few sessions into that, we start again. Then we go back to the first one. Then we start a 4th. Around this point, you all find out that actually, all of these campaigns take place in the same universe and you keep running into this one asshole NPC in every campaign. You meet 4 times/week.

Robert Jordan: The campaign is really good overall, but there are a lot of side quests and random adventures. It started with 5 PCs, but then they split the party, and some other friends wanted to play too, so now there are 20 PCs running around. This game has been going on for about twelve years, then I die and a friend who’s been following the story but hasn’t played takes over the campaign to finish it off.

Terry Pratchett: You start off by raiding an ancient tomb. You steal the treasure, and the dead in the tomb rise. They don’t attack you. They start complaining, asking you if they wander into your house and steal your nice burial urns, no they don’t, so could you please put that back and stop screaming, you vitalist fucks? When you finally get out, you run into the city guards who are all level 15. They arrest you and you get tried for thieving without a license. There’s a dragon in the cell next to you. It didn’t pay its taxes.