Too Many Storylines!

[DRD1812]

So I'm 15 levels down and 5 IRL years into a megadungeon campaign. I've got way too many PCs, way too many storylines, and find myself in need of wrapping 'em up. When it comes to long-running games, how do you go about tying up all your loose ends? I'm beginning to worry that my players will think of my game as a WoW style quest log.

"Naw man. That one's grayed out. Let's move on."

Do you let your storylines die, or do you try and give all your plot threads a tidy conclusion?

Comic Related.

[Mark Hoover 330]

I'm in the same boat as you War of DRD1812. Unfortunately, my game is only 2.5 years old IRL and the PCs are only 7th level! My own issue stems from my need for setting content.

Whining:

I run a homebrew world that I started designing from the inside out just a few years ago. I was desperate for help fleshing things out so I let the PCs make characters with any kind of backstory to encourage them to give me the seeds for people, places and things in this new setting.

The first campaign ended prematurely due to folks moving and RL issues, but a couple years ago I started this current one. The idea started so simply: a hexcrawl style campaign with PCs being able to port in and out as needed. I didn't figure I'd need a ton of plots so I just made an adventurer's guild handing out missions until some main thread began coming together.

As a result when players again wanted a variety of differing backstories I said "Sure!" I still wanted content for the setting like before and these would give me some minor threads to tweak the story with. What I forgot was: there would be MANY PCs moving in and out.

Currently I've got: an evil cult of nihilists, a recurring malevolent alchemist villain, a megadungeon with a sinister past, a powerful fey creature carrying a doomsday plague, and a community of displaced ratfolk on the verge of a civil war.

And that's just extensions of the five CURRENT characters who've been at this the longest.

How to wrap it all up? I've only done it a couple times - we're either playing AP's or my campaigns have ended early. In those rare instances I've managed it though, I've tried to either tie all the minor threads to a single villain or site, then when they're done with that person/place the PCs are done with the adjoining threads. Also I try to make threads as linear as possible, even if they're part of a larger narrative.

Think of it like your favorite TV show. In the background there's some villain or force which is completely insurmountable for the main characters at the beginning of the season so they go after smaller, bite sized chunks of conflict per episode. A single episode has a beginning, middle and an end; a mini-railroad of plot as part of the larger sandbox the PCs are in.

Finally, specifically in the case you're in, I ran a megadungeon game a few years back in another setting. That game only made it to level 6 but with that one I had already introduced the idea of rival adventurers. For example, when the PCs had a near TPK in one section dominated by kobolds, a LN kobold dissident with levels in Adept found them and hid the party in a sub-level so they could heal, then escape.

While the PCs were out of the action another group of adventurers made it down to the cavernous lake level they were seeking and raided the vault they were making for. In the process however the party made an alliance with this kobold that helped them. They got her out of the dungeon with them, smuggled her into the ghettos of the nearby city, and she became a contact for them as they shifted focus to defeating the kobold slavers instead.

[Brother Fen]

I find myself getting attached to storylines at times too, but remember it is just a game. Let the unimportant threads die and wrap up the pertinent ones. Or just leave it all hanging. It doesn't matter. Games can always be picked up again years down the road.

[djdust]

follow your players, they'll tie up the threads they're invested in.

[Caïen]

♩It takes a lot to make a campaign
A pinch of plot and laughter too
A scoop of PCs to add the spice
A dash of 20's to make it nice
And you've got...

Too many storylines...♩

[Driftborne of Almas]

In real life, every single person and organization is at the center of overlapping networks of connections, influence, obligation, power, etc. Fictional people and networks should be the same. The links between these people and organizations are your plot threads.

It doesn't take much to let plot threads be linked in this way and this also means that the plot threads tie themselves up. E.g., the fish people are the favorite munchies of phase spiders so their deathly fear means they wouldn't go into town if their lives depended on it, which means the townsfolk have subbcontracted the extermination of the spiders to the Adventurer's University and the University Facilities Department's success at that leads to the University provost taking the council seat, etc., etc., etc.

[DRD1812]

Brother Fen wrote:

I find myself getting attached to storylines at times too, but remember it is just a game. Let the unimportant threads die and wrap up the pertinent ones. Or just leave it all hanging. It doesn't matter. Games can always be picked up again years down the road.

This is pithy, but I also think it is good advice. I come from an English background, so I tend to think of TRPGs in narrative terms--an orderly plot with satisfying payoffs. This seems like one of the cases where thinking more explicitly in game design terms will be helpful.

[Meirril]

RPGs are story telling by committee. While a lot of wonderful things can happen, a lot of the ideas that get thrown out there will be forgotten, dropped, purposefully ignored and otherwise lost. Let them go and let the players explore the parts they are attracted to. It is better than hamfisting the story where you want it to go.

Been in that game a few times. Never have I felt more like what my character did was less than important.

[Dajur]

Not every story needs to be ended with a tidy little bow.

[BlarkNipnar]

While this isn't helpful to you in the moment; this is how I'm doing my campaigns at the moment:

I'm currently organizing my campaign in "Seasons." A season is just 8-12 sessions that allow me to have some "long" story arc over several small ones and let the players figure out what's going on as they explore the smaller ones.

Think of an Act in an ARPG: You enter a new area and there's a BBEG causing issues. You know that over the course of it you're going to go deal with it, but that there should be things that would help you along the way, and sub-arcs or obstacles.

_____________________

Quote:

Act 2 in Diablo II is a great representation of this with an unknown evil (sort of): Stop Mephisto from Escaping Tal-Rasha's Tomb

But what happens? The town is under attack of Undead, so you're asked to stop it.

Then you need a way to get into the tomb, so you need to go find a special staff in the desert.

Then as you explore the sun goes out and you need to crack a seal to turn it back on; coincidentally giving you the other piece of the staff.

These let you go to some strange dimension you have to wonder through until you find a book that tells you which tomb to go to and a portal to the area.

You go finally deal with Mephisto only to find out that he's gone and left a minion in his place.

____________________

While the above seems linear, the player can actually skip the first thing, go immediately to the claw vipers or wander around, get the amulet, then be told they need the staff. They can (with assistance) even find the 7 tombs and skip the inter-dimensional travel if they are patient enough to dig through an average 4 tombs to find the right one.

That's a substantial amount of freedom and side-quests that really are all the same thing.

This is all a long winded way of saying: "One way to do it is to plan your arcs in different lengths and lay them over eachother. The players will then engage some number of them and you can adjust accordingly."

Again, I realize that's not helpful to you now and if you've been doing the same one for 5 years then you're probably good at adjudicating; but the introduction of numerous unrelated NPCs and plots leaves you with less satisfying endings.

What would I do? Maybe design the last couple months you have into a "Final Season" so you can intricately tie up everything in a slightly-more-railroaded way.

EDIT: I'd mention that you can just leave some loose-ends untied. Let your players guide which ones you should tie up and leave the ones that they've forgotten to the wayside. You can always have a beer with 'em and chat about what they *didn't* do; which I've done with campaigns that died.

"Yeah, that chick was as succubus and you were probably going to kill yourself trying to sleep with her. Then she'd join the party until the time's right; you'd find out you'd have been dead by your own hand for weeks as she screws the party in a grandiose way!"

They'll still get a kick out of the work you did even if it didn't pan out. A lot of the design of being a GM (as I'm sure you know) is all of the things that "just happen to work out" that were actually woven together in a meaningful way.

My players just went to recover a blacksmith and his materials; finding several Oils' of Mending last week. Coincidentally? They happen to run into a Carytid Column and bust their weapons. Odd that.