In all my years of gaming, only a single game has ever been finished. We started at level 5 and ended at level 18-ish. But there have been at least a dozen others that fell apart before the plot was completed.
Am I seriously lacking in the "finished game" department? Or is this a rather common phenomenon?
Pretty common from everything I've heard. Actually finishing something longer than a two- or three-level adventure is pretty rare.
I've run four long-term plots, three in person/over Maptools and Vent, and one via Play-by-Post. The three all petered out between levels 10 and 13, due to burnout, players moving away, or other factors. The PbP never even got out of the starting town, probably due to the same burnout (started it up about the time the third game was dying out) plus IRL interruptions.
I'm trying another PbP now with a more relaxed pace, hoping it goes better.
I have not finished a game either. I had a game go to fourth level and then die out that I was running. in 3.5. I had a pbp here that I got to second level and the gm got really busy at work and when he returned everyone else was really busy. I had a carrion crown pbp where I got a little over halfway to level 2. Yeah a lot of mine have died out and that isn't counting ones that lasted only a few encounters.
Common. Mostly for dysfunctional (can't see eye to eye, arguing, incompatible play styles) or scheduling conflicts.
It takes me six to twelve months to get a group, and I or my players end up moving six to twelve months after that...
Or, define completed...
We had a game years ago (2ed) that lasted happily for years. The game had great storytelling, awesome fights and a striking continuity (PC children became PCs!). The one thing it never did was 'end' ;D
GNOME
The solution, of course, is to be less ambitious. Plan a single, relatively short adventure, with a reasonably satisfying and closed ending. If the adventure looks like it will be wrapped up before the players quit, THEN start preparing a second adventure.
Just my $.02.
Started playing in 1986, as an adult. The DM at the time ran Temple of Elemental Evil, which we finished. After that, a different DM ran a BECMI game, which ended at 18th level. We started a new campaign using the Dragon Lance modules, but the group fell apart. I then started a campaign with my, then teenage son and his friends and finished Temple of Elemental Evil with them.
I took over DM duties and ran Shackled City which we finished. Ran a series of Dungeon magazine adventures / modules which took the players to about 19th level and had a big finale. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil which ended in a TPK after entering the Inner Fane. Then Rise of the Runelords which fell apart in Chapter 3 mostly due to DM burnout. Then a mini-campaign in Falcon's Hollow area which ended at level 9 (planned).
Now, I am DM'ing Kingmaker, and playing in Serpent Skull, both near the end of the Chapter 2 on alternate Monday evenings.
So, 2 fell apart, 1 ended with a TPK, and 6 finished as planned. This is with a normal playing schedule of weekly for about 3-4 hours, perhaps 45 weeks a year considering missed sessions due to holiday & vacation.
-- david
Papa.DRB
Edit: Rats, completely forgot Legacy of Fire before the Kingmaker/Serpent Skull campaign, so up finished to 7.
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(Player since 03) I've played in 1 game that ran to natural completion and played in another that went to its ending from the GM trying to Rocks Fall and the party defeating it (APL+7 encounter), so the next session was the end. I've only ran 1 game to its natural completion, and am on the 30th-ish session of a campaign that started as Carrion Crown and ended up as Xill eat Golarion (and spanning nearly 3 Golarion years). On that game party is currently 11, and it will probably come to its natural end at about 14.
Hmmm... Let me think...
My high school gaming in the '80s was all totally episodic and open-ended, with no overall plot or storyline. Just one dungeon crawl after another. We stopped playing when we all left town and moved on.
In college (late '80s-early '90s), I became a co-GM in a friends homebrew campaign world. Also episodic, but we had three or four different groups adventuring simultaneously in the world. The GMs met regularly to coordinate. We had very big plans to run a big finale to the campaign over our last semester, but our plans were bigger than the time available, and we only got halfway through the plot. About half of our group ended up in the SanFran area after graduation, and they ended up finishing it, but I wasn't included (I ended up in Boston).
I was in a year-long GURPS X-Files/ Cthulhu game in the mid-'90s that concluded with the party saving the world from the return of Hastur.
I designed a GURPS fantasy game after that, but we only ran six sessions before it imploded due to interpersonal issues. I got soured on gaming after that, and took a few years off playing and more than a decade off GMing.
I next played in a Champions game for about a year (1998-99)That one was episodic, but we did conclude a major story-arc before half of the players left town due to the closure of a major local business.
I then played in an Amber DRPG game, and that ran for about a year before fizzling out due to players losing the plot (and interest).
After that, I played in a two-year long D&D 3.0 game that did conclude with the PCs preventing magic from draining from the world.
After that, I played in a GURPS space opera game for several months, that morphed into another Amber game at its conclusion. The Amber game, however, never gained traction and fizzled.
I played in a three-month Call of Cthulhu game, which concluded with the PCs preventing the rise of Great Cthulhu, at the cost of the PCs' lives and/or sanity.
After that, I played in an 18-month long homebrew D&D 3.5 game that the GM rushed the conclusion for due to two players leaving town.
I then played in an Amber game using a custom rules set that ran for about a year and resolved a major plot arc (and ended on a cliffhanger) but like many Amber games got so cosmically weird, that I lost interest and dropped out.
I then played in a D&D 3.5 game in a homebrew campaign world. It was a sandbox world without an overall plot. After the PCs resolved a minor arc, we decided to try something else.
I then played in a year-long 3.5 game that completed, but the GM decided to rush the conclusion because he felt that the players were getting bored.
And I started my Rise of the Runelords game last June. We're just starting Book 3, and I'm planning to run to the end. At the rate we're going, it will go another year-and-a-half or so.
Sadly, common. I don't have a single notch in my game table. :(
So, unless I'm forgetting some, I've played in 16 major campaigns in my gaming career.
3 were more-or-less episodic and didn't have a scripted overall plot.
2 were open-ended sandbox games that also didn't have a scripted end, but did come to a good break-point.
3 fizzled out for various reasons.
1 I quit because I wasn't enjoying the game.
6 completed to the scripted end.
1 is ongoing.
So, for games that did end, 6 out of 15 reached the intended concluded, or 40%.
Well, i'm very new(since about last october) and im glad to say im about to be at 100%. We should be wrapping up the main plot in about 2-3 sessions i think. My group is mostly family though so that probably helps. Its my 1st time playing and im the gm. The players havent played since 2nd ed mostly.
I've been playing RPGs for around ten years now... I can think of two games that have been completed.
A Saga Starwars game set in the just after the clone wars in which my Jedi got messed up by Vader. It morphed into another campaign after that but we haven't played in awhile
And years ago we played a Paladium Fantasy game that I can't remember much of... But I'm sure we finished it.
Couldn't count the number of games that have fizzeled out or bombed.
I currently have a pbp that's up to 14th level, I'm in two that are up there, and I run a 4th level Carrion Crown pbp that's clicking along.
I had a couplea Rifts/Palladium games that went on for 2-3 years each, then everybody scattered to the corners of the earth.
Other than that, they'll usually go on for a little while then something or other will kill the game......
Longevity is a rare thing most of the time I think.
I think it's fairly common, and can be dependent on a group's ability to make time commitments.
I think when you're younger, you have more time to devote to a campaign and finishing it. When you hit college/your 20s, it becomes harder to finish a campaign. People at that age especially tend to overcommit themselves or not be good at setting priorities; people say "yeah, yeah, sure, I'll play" but then subsequently beg off because they forgot to write a paper or want to sleep in or whatever. I remember most of my failed campaigns come from around then. As people get into the working world they're still trying to figure all that stuff out and also get settled into their lives. The first D&D game I ran fell apart because one player moved away for a new job and then another also needed more time for work--at this point, the reasons for leaving were really good ones, but it was hard to set up a game because of that.
As people get more settled, it's become easier to determine how much time each of us has and how much we can put into gaming. Campaigns are more likely to finish in my life where I am now (I'm 35 soon to be 36) but we also play less often -- about once a month for both groups I'm in. So it might take a year or three to finish a campaign, but we'll get there eventually.
been playing around 20 years now, not a single campaign finished. Usually because certain players get bored and instigate infighting. Or they get angry at a situation (usually themselves started) and do their best to throw an 'in game' tantrum, tpk'ing and starting over. even a couple we just left off, trying to break up the focus a bit, with the intent to go back to, eventually.
What is 'completion' for a campaign?
I'm running with 'The Meta-Plot comes to an end', hopefully followed by 'and they all live happily ever after'.
As a GM I start with the end in mind.
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I've NEVER run a long-form campaign to completion.
Shackled City died out in a bonus adventure between Part 2 and 3 and 4 months of play.(Scheduling conflicts)
Curse of the Crimson Throne died between book 3 and 4, and 6 months of play, (Scheduling conflicts and babies).
Kingmaker is my longest running campaign, my group have been playing for about 2 years now and show no signs of stopping we're at book 4 now.
The only game I ran to completion was a 3-Adventure Shards of Eberron Mini-Campaign. It was really, really fun and made me realize that there is a lot to be said for a short-form campaign with a definite ending. We wrapped it in 9 sessions over 3 months, and the players had a blast, we still talk about stuff that happened in that campaign to this day.
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What is 'completion' for a campaign?I'm running with 'The Meta-Plot comes to an end', hopefully followed by 'and they all live happily ever after'.
As a GM I start with the end in mind.
I have never seen a campaign with an ending planned. They've always been an open-ended affair that ran until the group could no longer keep going.
I have never seen a campaign with an ending planned. They've always been an open-ended affair that ran until the group could no longer keep going.What is 'completion' for a campaign?I'm running with 'The Meta-Plot comes to an end', hopefully followed by 'and they all live happily ever after'.
As a GM I start with the end in mind.
When I plan my own campaigns, I have a broad idea about where the PCs will end up after certain story arcs. In the last game I played I didn't know exactly how it might end, but I knew as I was burning out a bit and would need to end the game soon, I had enough sight ahead of how to bring everything to a big finale--which I did, and it went well, I think.
I have never seen a campaign with an ending planned. They've always been an open-ended affair that ran until the group could no longer keep going.What is 'completion' for a campaign?I'm running with 'The Meta-Plot comes to an end', hopefully followed by 'and they all live happily ever after'.
As a GM I start with the end in mind.
Sometimes I have a Meta Plot vaguely in mind, although it usually just ends when The Fonz gets on the motorcycle to jump the shark.
Well I always have a set of definite end points in the meta plot.
I tend to start out with 'assuming nothing in the world changed, this is what happens'. The campaign is then dropped into that setting and as the players actions alter the flow, the way things are playing out in the meta-plot similarly change...
So take, for example, some grand conspiracy where some BBEG wishes to take over the kingdom, the players might be working as part of the local rebellion, or even have their own grand designs on usurping the throne.
To me the most likely end points will be:
Kingdom maintained, players foil BBEG's plot.
Kingdom maintained, players killed by King or BBEG.
Kingdom usurped, players take over kingdom.
Kingdom usurped by BBEG
Kingdom usurped by BBEG, players in turn take power from BBEG
Kingdom usurped by BBEG, players killed.
Or they might turn around and say they don't really care about the politics of the Throne as they want to set up a thieves guild in the Capital and take advantage of the turmoil, in which case I look at the other options.
Guild wins, other guilds cede to party
Guild loses, party 'destroyed' by rivals.
Guild loses, destroyed by powers that be.
I usually make up a few timelines and roadmaps, and between sessions consider what the various stakeholders responses will be to whatever the party 'stimulus' is.
My current group massively altered the landscape of my campaign when they had an epic fail and due to some shockingly terribad rolls and unlucky choices let a particular NPC loose on the campaign world. Was supposed to be a shining moment of triumph for the party Paladin, yet the whole thing went awry. Ok it was heaps funny, but gee having to think through how it changed the Meta plot took a while.
Wargame it baby :)
Anyhow, I dont like when sharks get jumped, and would like to have an end point before the whole thing goes stupid and implodes... finish on a high!
Longest running game I ever ran was my first 3.0-3.5 campaign in Ravenloft, started at level 1, and fell apart around level 16, over a 2 year time period. Personal schedules, waning interest, etc are the primary culprits.
As a seasoned Ravenloft DM, it gets really hard to keep the fear and horror in a setting like that when the players are 15+ levels high. That setting is really best played between levels 1-6. I've run several smaller, shorter mini-campaigns in Ravenloft in that level range and had a lot more success; classical gothic monsters are still scary without having to add tons of templates and/or advance HD.
As far as orphaned games go, I've had at least 10 or so. One that still pains me to this day, I mentioned in another thread, was a 2 year Star Wars Saga KotOR campaign in which the players got to the very end of the game; literally standing outside of the Sith Lord's chamber, and it fell apart. We had one climactic encounter left, one single session, and it got shelved. I've tried at least 4 times to resurrect it and get it done, to no avail.
Around 20 started, and none finished. I think my record is maybe a month for game length.
As a DM, I think I'm on my fourth campaign--first one ended in drunken pvp violence; second one ended in TPK; third one dissolved because of bad blood from the second one; fourth one is on-going.
As a player, I've played in three on-going campaigns that ended with: pvp violence; ????--I don't remember how the campaign with Doodlebug Anklebiter ended, how strange; third one we got to the endgame and THEN had a TPK.
Very common phenomonon.
I've been a player in some that havent completed and a DM also.
I have never seen a campaign with an ending planned.
Didn't you run Shackled City? That campaign has a built-in ending (which you're free to ignore, of course).
--
From my experience: I've been in lots of one-shot sessions that were completed, but all of the long-term campaigns I've been in have disintegrated due to GM burnout.
Actually, that's not quite true -- I played in a 2E campaign during my university years where I ended up quitting to go to grad school.
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I have never seen a campaign with an ending planned.Didn't you run Shackled City? That campaign has a built-in ending (which you're free to ignore, of course).
True, if you don't count the 'continuing the campaign' section provided, which I do count. Even so, I've never ran it to completion. I think we made it to the tenth chapter in the longest run before having to cut short.
Technically, I've only had one campaign that ever finished, but that was because of putting a cap on things due to RL pressures (we were all off to university, so we upped the stakes and instead of destroying the dark cult [which is how I'd normally do it], they powered up and destroyed the elder goddess instead, and then did a half-session "epilogue" of what they did with the power they'd gathered/freed, etc.
Having said that, however, I've had a number of multi-year campaigns (in various systems) -- and I've played through or GMed for a number of large-scale multi-adventure arcs, including 15 or 20 years of game time in some.
Some of those ended by mutual agreement (retirement of the PCs to their strongholds, etc.), others due to the loss of one or more key players, infighting, not recovering from a long scheduled break, excitement at trying something new and sticking with it... or TPK, on at least one occasion.
And some, sadly, exploded before we got very deep in them (which, as the guy who did all the prep work, is *very* frustrating).
Ultimately, I find that having a good, stable group is they key -- without that, you're doomed to blowing up -- and then to communicate with them, to make sure that everyone's getting what they want/need.
But, at the same time, I agree with ToZ -- I don't tend to go for planned endings -- I tend to work in games where you beat one big bad, have some down time, and move on to Season 2.
Apart from one which lasted maybe one and a half month, only one game in which I played reached its conclusion, two if we count a TPK. That one game however was the longest by far, about 5 years. Now we are nearing the end of one which has run for about one year. Abandoned? somewhere between 5 and 10 I think, about 6 months each.
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I actually did this in my spare time a few months ago, here's what I came up with (this is a total for every group I have played with or been a DM for, and does not include short adventures):
Total Played: 20 (1.00)
Total Completed (finished main objective): 5 (0.25)
Total Active: 5 (0.25)
Total Abandoned (for any reason): 10 (0.5)
Abandoned by logical endpoint (satisfying conclusion): 2 (0.1)
Abandoned through difficulty with a player: 2 (0.1)
Abandoned through decision of DM (either too busy or not interested): 6 (0.3)
Homebrew Campaigns (mix of published/non-published adventures): 6 (0.3)
Published Campaigns (AP): 5 (0.25)
Published Campaigns (super adventure): 4 (0.2)
Published Campaigns (mega-dungeon): 1 (0.05)
# Sessions 12+: 6 (0.3)
# Sessions 6-11: 6 (0.3) {only two abandoned, the others active}
# Sessions 3-5: 4 (0.2) {two of these abandoned due to player issues}
# Sessions 1-2: 4 (0.2)
Looking back, I'm fairly satisfied at the success rate. Most of the abandoned campaigns were done so early on, so eventually the number of completed campaigns should hit 10. 50% is pretty good!
In general, it seems to take around 15-20 6-hour sessions to complete a campaign for my groups. Once we commit past the first 10 hourse, the success rate rises dramatically to 70%!
In general, it seems to take around 15-20 6-hour sessions to complete a campaign for my groups. Once we commit past the first 10 hourse, the success rate rises dramatically to 70%!
What level ranges are in there? My group played Savage Tide and got to level 10 before the game ended, but that took a year of playing with weekly 4-5 hour sessions, missing only a handful of weeks throughout the year (mostly due to holidays).
August 3rd, with luck, I will have finished one campaign in my 24 years of gaming. As GM. I hold out hope to one day finish a campaign as a player, but...
heh heh. I have been running Savage Tide Since (ST) it started in 07. We alternate GMs between adventures (defined by the GM--I started doubling published stories just to keep things moving.) Since I started the campaigns have looked like this:
ST,
GM A (moved away)
ST
GM B
ST
GM B (moved away)
ST
GM C (got married)
ST
GM D
ST
ST
GM A (he moved back but new campaign)
ST
GM A
ST
GM A
ST
GM D (one-adventure campaign I guess that counts :)
ST
Hiatus mostly by going to PFS in a nearby town. GM D will step up for one session though.
We meet weekly.
We will begin ST #12 in two or three weeks. Aside from a temple of elemental evil-aerie of the slave lords-against the giants-vault of the drow-queen of the demonwebs arc in the 80's, it will be the first one I have ever finished. (actually we never did finish Q1 :)
I think we will go 2-3 adventures as a campaign from here on out :)
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What level ranges are in there? My group played Savage Tide and got to level 10 before the game ended, but that took a year of playing with weekly 4-5 hour sessions, missing only a handful of weeks throughout the year (mostly due to holidays).
Also to clarify, these are all PnP games.
Completed:
Homebrew: Level 25, 20+ bi-weekly sessions
Red Hand of Doom I: Level 13, 15-20 bi-weekly sessions (3 players)
Red Hand of Doom II: Level 10, 15-20 monthly sessions
Homebrew: Level 10, 20+ bi-monthly sessions (6 years!)
DD1-DD3: Level 10, 12+ monthly sessions (3-4 players)
Active:
Kingmaker I: Level 17, 15+ bi-monthly sessions (3 players, fast advancement)
Kingmaker II: Level 10, 18 bi-monthly sessions
Return to Temple of Elemental Evil: Level 7, 6-11 bi-monthly sessions (starting level 3)
Serpent Skull: Level 5, 6-11 bi-monthly sessions
Homebrew: ECL 10, 6-11 irregular sessions (starting ECL 5)
I won't go into all the abandoned games, but they usually range from 2nd to 4th level. I also forgot to list the Legacy of Fire campaign that ended in a TPK against the giant snake, the Ravenloft game that ended around level 6 by choice, and the other Castle Ravenloft game that ended in a TPK against wights at level 5.
From what I can tell, it seems to reliably take about 6 hours to gain a level, and each campaign gets in about 5-6 sessions a year. Thus, an AP should take about 3 years (Kingmaker is an exception with the kingdom building side game). I'm pretty proud of both my groups!
Never finished a game.
My first campaign continues to this day. However, my GM tends to run three sessions in a row before scrapping everything, killing a character or otherwise relocating us, and often tries to run three tangental plots at once. My GM doesn't plan beyond a session ahead, and rarely even does that.
As a result, it's been... well... very dissatisfying. His NPCs tend to one up us at every turn, and any sense of accomplishment has been few and far between. HOWEVER, I've gotten to play a great variety of interesting characters in a great variety of interesting settings. I only wish I got to play out those characters stories. Plus, I've learned to work with my GM and have a more active role in the story, and while we butt heads every now and then it's undeniably been my most epic campaign. I only wish I had more say in what we ran... I really want to revisit my two characters in hell.
I've run two short-lived Runelords games myself, and two one-offs that never even graced the table. I'm prepping to run Skull and Shackles with a group of new players, and I'm hoping to see that campaign go as long as I can hold their interest (and hopefully leave it in a state we can come back to it.) I tend to see my interest burn out after a few bad sessions, time issues, or a character leaving, and I find it hard to recover my momentum. I can't imagine other GMs are much different.
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NOPE! In over 30 years of gaming, I have gotten to finish lets see ONE! The ones that made me the maddest where Kingmaker. The DM's wife made him stop playing because we refused to baby site her 1 year old and her 12 year old.
The 2nd was Serpent Skull the DM had a back surgery and took a break and then decided he loved our group but it had to many people so he just bailed.
In the last 7 years, I've run:
Second Darkness
Legacy of Fire
Un-Adventure Path Campaign (Collection of Dungeon mag adventures)
Curse of the Crimson Throne
The Savage Tide
Lertomoll - The Shackled City
Lords of Crazomoll (homebrew stringing together various Dungeon magazine adventures)
All of them to completion. Kingmaker is currently underway. Generally, each campaign will see two or three player changes at the conclusion of the campaign (they move on, or I ask them to move on in the eternal search for the "perfect" gaming group). There's only one player from that first campaign in the current campaign - and he was out for the three middle campaigns.