What percentage of your campaigns have good conclusions?

I'm curious what percentage of the campaigns you play in have satisfying conclusions? With some campaigns ending because of the TPK, some ending because interest gets lost, some ending because everyone just wants to try something different, etc. many games don't have endings.

I think, least from my own point of view, all of them have ended well. Some have ended with TPKs and by other sudden circumstances. But I have always felt I was able to bring the game to a good conclusion.

Most of mine have had good conclusions. I'd say 75%. I have had one TPK that ended a campaign, and I've had one campaign where I just ... gave up (hated doing that!). Otherwise I had big climactic adventures that tied things together. I love it when it works out! For me, RPGs are at least somewhat about telling a story, and the climax/resolution are the payoff. Always leave them wanting more, and all that...

Campaign 1: Ended a session mid combat, never got back to it.
Campaign 2: Ended with half the party dead and the rest lost in the mysts of Ravenloft.
Campaign 3: Still going.
Campaign 4: Ended in the middle of the final epic arc because of burnout.
Campaign 5: Ended out of boredom with the campaign.
Campaign 6: Ended because players moved away and so went back to Campaign 3.

Not a great track record for ending campaigns on a good note.

About half, I guess. There've been a lot of campaigns through the years. So many players, GMs, systems, settings. . . it's a wonder any of them have ended.

In the two campaigns I've actually played in, only one of them actually had an ending; the other just sort of faded away.

In the games I've GMed, it's a worse percentage; of the seven or eight games that lasted long enough for me to count them as campaigns, only two ever made it to a conclusion; all of them fizzled out from lack of player availability or GM interest; the two that succeeded were especially fun, though, and one was a 2-month, weekly Star Wars game, and the other was a 4-month bi-weekly fantasy game.

Generally, I can't keep a hold of players long enough to run a truly successful game; some have gone off to college, a couple have gotten full-time jobs, and so forth.

Does this only count campaigns we have finished? Because we just don't tend to finish them (due to inability to play very often). I think we've only had one with a legitimate conclusion, and it was my first game ever, self-contained in 2nd edition from start to finish over years of play.

Never had a campaign end well. Never had a TPK either though, at least that I can remember. I seem to know well enough what will be a hard as heck challenge without going that extra step and killing everyone. For the most part, one of the players either ruins the game for me with his attitude or with the character [essentially when he powergames and everyone else doesn't, switches to another powergamed character, etc]. I think in only one of my games has it ended because everyone else wanted to stop instead of me.

Rystil Arden said:

Does this only count campaigns we have finished?

Click to expand...

If it's an ongoing campaign, it doesn't count. If it's a game that isn't run anymore, then the question is whether it came to a conclusion.

Feels like 0%, but could be as high as 25%.

Campaign 1: Ended because DM got sick of high-level D&D.
Campaign 2: DM lost interest after about 10 sessions.
Campaign 3: Ended after a triumphant battle. Usually this would be okay, but no one in the party knew we had finished the campaign, and we had to use a scroll of commune to figure out the game was over.
Campaign 4: DM lost interest and wrote an adventure twenty years in the future. We remade out characters and had a quick high-level battle that solved all the worlds problems. Close, but gaining 10 levels overnight isn't all that satisfying.
Campaign 5: DM and players lost interest after a few sessions.
Campaign 6: DM and players lost interest after a TPK and a few more sessions with a new party.
Campaign 7: DM lost interest after about a year. He didn't really like D&D and was pressured into running it.
Campaign 8: Still running.