Ending a Campaign... How?

[wlmartin]

So I'm running my first Campaign and was wondering how I should end the campaign. What ending can I create, so that my players say "okay, I don't want/need to play this character anymore".

The obvious choice is (of course) they have to sacrifice themselves to prevent evil. But that's kinda lame/cliche.
Also it's hard to send a Hero, who has just slain e.g. an Evil Good, back to farm potatoes. I know this kind of endings will develop in the campaign.

That's why I'm not looking for a specific answer for my Campaign, but I'm interested in your endings. How did you end a campaign (preferred campaigns ending in epic tier)? Just to get an overview of possibilities.

You have to think of the players at all times. Some players are married to their characters and scream "Why can't there be more than 30 levels!!" whilst others are eager to use new characters as soon as they can.

Like some people have suggested - Epic Destinies work well and even if you arent ending in an Epic Tier at level 30, these Destinies (ones in Dragon, Dungeon, Corebooks etc) will give you ideas on what to do yourself.

So go back to your Players.. ask them what they think about Campaign Endings. Some DM's dont include Players in these types of choices because it is THEIR WORLD, the DM is the only one to have slaved hours drawing maps and creating a political infastructure for the game.. why should they have anything to do with it? ... that's not really what DMing is about.

If you have a clear idea of what would make a great ending for your Players because you know them well enough that you know what they each want from the game - problem solved. If you don't know, ask them --- it's their game too. If you don't know but don't care (not saying you do, this is only a small amount of DMs in the world) since it is your story after all, i'd suggest handing the reigns to someone else because what you want is to write a Novel, not play D&D

So.. in summary, take your cue from your Players

 

[Ajar]

If you think about the duration of a campaign, it's likely that while the campaign is running you'll come up with all sorts of great ideas. Some of them will just occur to you; others may be sparked by your players. So you don't necessarily need to have a clear end in mind when you start -- there's a lot of time for it to become clear as the campaign progresses.