What makes a successful campaign?
Everybody had fun. That’s it. My most successful campaigns were fun throughout, and my least successful were ones where either I felt the players weren’t having fun or I didn’t have fun myself. The same goes when I’m a player.
Of course, I prefer having a good story arc through the campaign. And I like it when the good guys win in the end, whether or not I’m one of them. And I like it when it’s clever, so we’re not just going through the motions while throwing jokes at the setting, but not so clever that it’s just an excuse for the DM to prove his or her intellectual superiority. And I prefer a consistent group of characters so we can see them interact and grow over time. But all this is secondary. I’d rather have a monster-of-the-week, cliché-ridden, saw-it-coming campaign that’s entertaining than a story-driven, smart, keeps-me-guessing campaign I can’t stand.
I guess what I’m trying to say is Sailor Moon is a better campaign than Evangelion. That’s how I’m going to describe it from now on.