Closing out your campaign


Advice


I am currently looking to close out the campaign my group has been playing for the last 8 months or so. Over the next 4 or so sessions (maybe more at the pace we are going) we should be closing it out.

That being said, I am not looking for specific advice on what to do, there is too much background information and detail for anyone to give good specific advice.

What I am looking for is what kinds of considerations other GM's or players have when a campaign is ending.

What do you feel is a satisfying conclusion to a campaign? Do you want the party to all die? Are you hoping to see potential for a return to those characters? How much does the plot matter to you?

Additionally I was hoping to hear what peoples favorite finish to a campaign was.

Thanks, hopefully this wasn't too disjointed, I was trying to figure out how broad or narrow to make this topic.


huh.

I've had "famous" players return as NPCs in unrelated campaigns (LORN the halfling barbarian who had the hots for any female elf or half elf...."ooh baby we could make sweet music together!") he's appeared at least a half dozen times over the years and was once another players character...

weve finished with everyone but a cohort dying and carrying all our gear off into the sunset (the pathfinder chronicler cohort was actually LE and no one knew it)

But our favorite group finish was Second Darkness, Were the players decided that the Plight of the DROW was the FAULT of the surface elves and so took it upon themselves to right the wronged DROW and betray the winter council and their queen to the Drow.

The party still thwarted the second darkness etc etc, but had made and kept a secret pact and helped lead the invasion of the surface elf kingdom (for a hefty profit too)

Subsequently, the party then led a Human army against the Drow to drive them back to the underworld.

Sort of a Yojimbo double cross.

Safe to say however, in THAT universe, elves and drow are both a very rare race after a genocidal war perpetuated by a band of neutral aligned PCs.

:)

Grand Lodge

It depends on the campaign, to be honest. Sometimes the opportunity just presents itself. My favorite end to a campaign had nothing to do with the GM (which happened to be me.) I was running Star Wars, and it came down to one PC having to take down another, because he was falling to the Dark Side.

It was epic, and organic. After that final showdown, everyone sort of felt sated.

--

If you need ideas, I would be willing to help figure out what could be an organic ending to your campaign.

I think the best things would be to figure what kind of end you would like to create. Most players would like their characters to survive, retire, maybe. Then there is always a possibility of playing the character again sometime. You could also do the cliffhanger ending. It can be unfulfilling to the players, but then again, it can also be really cool, because the Players can imagine how it turns out!

Anyway, best of luck to you man!


Make a list of character goals and offer possible completions. I have done that whenever I NEED to shut down a game. Even if they fail, it can be cathartic and lead the players to some form of fulfillment. The ultimate was a sky barge crashing into an elvish city while most of the party fought the BBEG to keep him from escaping...AGAIN! Two survivors out of a party of 12 - 13! And they all loved it (they really hated that guy!).


As a player, I would like a campaign to end with us victorious, and hopefully with most of the plot lines tied up. I'd hope for a personal victory or goal completed.

As a DM, I would hope that the big plots have been completed, and each PC has had some sort of closure.

I second the notion of writing out character goals and possible completions.

I'd liken the campaign to a television show. You want to know, in a general sense, what happens to each person. Does she become the queen? Does he get the guy? Is she able to rescue her father's soul? Did they banish Tiamat's avatar? Etc.


Most of my campaigns have a goal that the players have decided to accomplish, and completion of that goal is where we "pause" the campaign. About half the time the "pause" becomes permanent. The other half of the time the party will reconvene weeks, months or years in the future to continue on.

But there is a definite point of completion of existing important plot threads and a sense of accomplishment.

I've never had a campaign of any length end in a TPK. I've had a few short campaigns end that way, but if the campaign is really involved and interesting, even a TPK won't end it. I've had players roll up entirely new characters to continue an existing plot line and keep a campaign going.

Shadow Lodge

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I like epilogues. Give the players an opportunity to state what their characters did after the events of the campaign. Feel free to add something to their legacy - for example "the wizarding academy you founded becomes well-known in the region." In two cases, we've have players and DM describe character funerals, last will and testament, or NPC mourning.

I would try to avoid ending with a TPK, but for some players a final encounter ending in near-TPK could be very exciting, and even a TPK could be rewarding if the characters accomplish something through their deaths.

I'd also consider carefully whether your players as a group or individuals are the type to prefer happy, bittersweet, or tragic endings and plan accordingly.


ive been involved in three second darkness APs.... 1 ended with a TPK.

1 legacy of Fire TPK

1 council of thieves TPK

1 king maker abandoned (just got plum bored...as in the whole dang group)

2 serpents skulls- 1 TPK

2 Carrion Crowns 1 TPK - 1 bored

never have had a jade regent or a skulls and shackles.

thats alot of TPKs....so my vote.... kill em all let James Jacobs sort em out!


I've been playing RPGs for the last thirteen years and I don't think I've ever finished a whole story. Mostly a TPK happens somewhere along the way, so we either fast forward a bit and have a new band of heroes pick up the story under modified circumstances (only to get TPK'd again) or the group epilogues with the GM to determine a suitable solution to the story we were collectively telling.

My groups have always liked dangling plots, though, so we often like when big parts of the story aren't wrapped up nicely. Makes it easier to start the next story.

That said, we are about to finish a three year 1-20 game and it looks like it will finish with a climactic battle between herpes and villain. I really like the idea of having a frank, out of character discussion on what would feel like a satisfying end for the players. I suspect several want to survive, but I'd not be surprised if one or two feel that heroic sacrifice was a more fitting end for their characters.

Shadow Lodge

Mauril wrote:
...looks like it will finish with a climactic battle between herpes and villain.

So where do the PCs come in?

Mauril wrote:
I really like the idea of having a frank, out of character discussion on what would feel like a satisfying end for the players. I suspect several want to survive, but I'd not be surprised if one or two feel that heroic sacrifice was a more fitting end for their characters.

Yeah, in our last campaign we had a barbarian who died gloriously in the final battle and refused to be pulled out of Valhalla. We also had one player in that campaign choose an unhappy ending for his character by opting not to resurrect the character's arranged fiancee, because he hadn't fallen in love with her yet and thus wouldn't bother. One player said he didn't care what happened to anyone so long as it was interesting. I mostly wanted to beat the bad guy, though I was pleased when my character survived (barely).

Different people want different things out of a campaign conclusion, so asking is not a bad idea, especially if you don't know these players well yet.

Grand Lodge

The PCs give the Villain Herpes?


I prefer a relatively happy ending over a tragic one, though bittersweet is fine too as long as the sweet is as heavy as the bitter. And it's never been a problem to let the players have their happy ending, since most groups I play with would rather have their characters alive and happy with their achievements by the end of the day. However, this doesn't mean that I would hand them their rewards just like that as a DM. They have to earn all of it first.


One of our campaigns ended with us riding off into the sunset, having defeated evil.
Another was a tp dispersion/kill by my characters error.
The third was a tpk trying to right the wrong of the previous campaign end.
We're wrapping up our current campaign probably this week or next. What I'm hoping for? Epic battle where maybe one of our characters survives with the child we're trying to rescue. Personally I'd like to go out in a blaze of glory.


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So, in the campaign I am in that I have dubbed 'Rocketing over the shark' (we just had the Doctor show up), the GM is probably going to end it in the next few months. I am hoping we either kill the cosmic elder evil or put him back to sleep, and from there for the individual character goals:

Unsure about the Monk, but I think he would be happy living a life in peace and meditation.

The cyborg Mystic Theurge/Archmage wants to be a pirate.

The Halfling Ninja/Fighter wants to destroy the Guild that has taken it upon themselves to assassinate entire Planes of existance. Once that's finished, he wants to become a librarian (As a way to atone), hanging up his swords/maces/guns/plasma weaponry for the rest of eternity (Score one for the ageless template!).

But the last session: Probably a battle with some serious overtones of Gurren Lagann. Each of us with our own robot.


Thanks for the input everyone, sorry I was derelict in my duty as the OP, had to review some cases for the morning.

I have seen several people say that they have never had a campaign end, no close out (other than TPK's). What would you have wanted in a game.

I guess an additional question would be, do you WANT a campaign to end? Or is it nice to just run with characters as long as you can?

Right now my group is touching lvl 12 and that is close to where the game (according to some) breaks down a little bit. I personally have no problem with high level games, and playing a character from 1-X I think is the most fun.

It does seem that the players are starting to have some interest in new characters- that is typically my signal to wrap things up.

I agree, major plot points and character stories need to get wrapped up (or at least provide a satisfying closure).

But is there anything else that you like to see in a game.

Maybe the better questions are these:
1- What was you favorite campaign ending (as a GM and/or player) and why?
2- If you have never "finished" a campaign what would you like to see in an ending and how would YOU have wrapped it up?


My campaign is close to wrapping up, I have a plan for after the BBEG falls where the pc's will get a chance to use their new toys and abilities on an army of allies the BBEG had drawn to him, basically a fun final encounter with over powered pc's taking out a small army of orcs, ogres and giants.

Along the way I've also enabled them work on meeting class goals like stronghold, men-at-arms, wizard's tower, temple, guild, etc. so those should be realized by then, if they wish.

Shadow Lodge

Favorite ending was the one alluded to above. It was a roughly two-year campaign. The PCs soundly defeated a cabal of liches who had served as recurring villains, then destroyed their Lord, a legendary villain, in an extremely close fight. One of the liches who a PC had been trying to redeem did in fact turn against his colleagues. We were able to recover our dead, aside from the barbarian who found his glorious end in battle and a few NPCs whose bodies had been destroyed by the liches and couldn't be easily raised. The DM described the immediate aftermath of the battle and then asked us to describe what our characters did afterwards. He then added a brief legacy to each character: the dwarves wept on hearing of the death of the legendary barbarian smith, the paladin had a statue built of her in her hometown, the alchemist discovered a lost continent, the undead bloodline sorcerer's school of necromancy became famous in our country, though he was incorrectly pronounced dead during his tenure as headmaster and woke up halfway through his own funeral.

It was good because it was generally upbeat, but the loss of the NPCs and the barbarian PC tempered it a bit. Players had the opportunity to make their characters' endings more or less cheerful as desired.

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