What percentage of your campaigns have good conclusions?

[Cor Azer]

Hmm... There've been a lot of campaigns I've played in and run over the years, and unfortunately, I can only really recall three or four coming to a satisfactory conclusion. While I may be forgetting some of the better endings, even the ones that got "official" endings didn't always feel right - for whatever reason, the DM and players had gotten burned out and rushed a conclusion to the campaign so that there wouldn't be unresolved issues (which usually caused a big shift in the tone/pace of the campaign for the last session or two, hence the less than satisfactory).

Most however, simply fade out as RL invades and when the group canget back together, we feel like trying something new instead of trying to revive the old game.

 

[Wombat]

Over my entire history of gaming, I'd say 50% of my campaigns come to a real conclusion.

That number is on the rise, though. Early on the notion of "campaign" was somewhat alien.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I've run a lot of older campaigns that broke down early. Since I started my current campaign setting in 3e, I've had much more success:

Campaign 1: PCs defeated the BBEG, only to awaken another one (essentially a big "To Be Continued," but planned)
Campaign 2: PCs defeat the BBEG, then experience some post-campaign fallout when certain cards from the deck on many things come back to bite them
Campaign 3: PCs achieve the goal of stealing a major artifact from previously awakened BBEG, which then leads into my novel Shadowslayers (which in many ways was a campaign in and of itself)
Campaigns 4&5: Still going, no ending in sight.

I voted 90%, but I guess it's closer to 60% by the math (and maybe 10% if you include all the pre-3e games that crashed and burned). Still, I'm pretty confident that my current campaigns will wrap up well, so I'm counting them, with a 10% chance of error.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

About 50%.

I count a campaign that ends with the PCs accomplishing their central goal as a 'good conclusion.' The other 50% ended because:

a) The GM needed or wanted to stop running games in general or that game in particular. (20%)

b) Irreconcilable differences between the GM and the players or individual players. (10%)

c) The campaign never had a central goal or a main villain, so it just sort of petered out over time. (20%)

Category c) includes the best campaigns I've ever had, so I'm certainly not knocking it. The other two types have been much less satisfying.

I'm not counting campaigns I left because of irreconcilable differences that, to the best of my knowledge, went on without me. Those really weren't all that bad of experiences, either.

 

[Mycanid]

Well my good thief Glyfair, I would have to say that about 50% of them end "well".

More often than not people move away or interest is lost - that is, they are never finished!

But also, more often than not it is just plain fun playing while we do.

 

[Ciaran]

Campaign 1 (Ars Magica): Petered out when a key player moved back to her home country

Campaign 2 (Vampire LARP): Came to a sudden, crashing halt when PC conflicts escalated out of control in a single session, leaving the city in flames and most of the PCs either dead or in self-imposed exile. Most of the players seemed pretty happy with this, though.

Campaign 3 (Vampire): The PCs neatly wrapped up the main plots and their own personal issues.

Campaign 4 (Exalted): Collapsed after one player moved out of state and another one flipped out and quit the game.

All in all, I'd put that at 50%.

 

[Talic]

About half of ours have ended with a nice lil wrapup and all. Sadly, the other half just kinda stalled and remain in limbo. I'd rather just have em knowingly canceled prematurely than keep the character sheets fresh with a glimmer of hope that they'll get played again someday.

 

[Lanefan]

Hard to vote on this one: I'll just list what's happened, and you can draw your own conclusions...

Campaign 1 (player): 1e system, broke down at high level after 9 years, DM abandoned.
Campaign 2 (player): 1e system, no idea how it ended as I wasn't around for it.
Campaign 3 (DM): 1e system, had a definite end with no going back (world became non-magical).
Campaign 4 (player): 1e system, interest lost out of game, party split up in-game, still "on long-term hold" since 1998.
Campaign 5 (DM): 1e system, still going; will go on hold but not have a definite end so it can be resumed later if desired.
Campaign 6 (player): 3e system, still going, no idea how, when, or if it will end.

Lanefan

 

[Arnwyn]

I'd say about 90%. Most of them have ended in a TPK, but that's due to the players' preference - they want to "keep going until there's a TPK" and have only rarely in the past considered retirement. 10% have been 'fairly early TPKs', though, which we consider to be unsatisfying conclusions.

 

[Glyfair]

Most of them have ended in a TPK, but that's due to the players' preference - they want to "keep going until there's a TPK" and have only rarely in the past considered retirement. 10% have been 'fairly early TPKs', though, which we consider to be unsatisfying conclusions.

I would never have considered a TPK to be a satisfying conclusion, unless it happened during the climax of a campaign. Interesting.