Campaign climax and group hiatus

[Nebten]

I have been apart of 1 campaign that came to a close with an all night battle against 5 liches (3 to 4 12 to 14th level players) and then I've DM'ed 2 campaigns that will come to a planned end as well. I am currently on my 3rd campaign which is going along pretty well trying to avoid many of the pitfalls. Now its dependent on ending sooner or later.

But to answer the question: I would have the game come to a climax. Just because Helm's Deep was the climax of Two Towers doesn't mean the trilogy was over. You can leave a few loose ends you can pick up later when your group gets back together. But the reality is that it is hard to get that group back together again as time goes on. People move, get into relationships, fall out of interest. So better to end on a high note instead of just finishing in the middle of a dungeon and saying you'll pick it back up in 6 or so months.

 

[ggroy]

Of the D&D campaigns I've played in or DM'd, only one has ever finished to the very end as intended. It turns out it was the 1E AD&D giants-drow-demonweb pit adventure path of modules G1-2-3 -> D1-2-3 -> Q1.

In most of the the other D&D games I've played in or DM'd, many floundered after a few sessions. For the ones which actually lasted longer than 5 sessions, they frequently ended up falling by the wayside whenever the DM got kind of boring. This was especially the case for "sandbox" type worlds with the game becoming "rudderless" with no direction, and the DM not doing anything to give some direction to the game.

The other common case of games abruptly ending, is due to several players and sometimes even the DM, "burning out" from gaming.

What I found easier to do, is to play shorter campaigns with either a module or something which ends with a reachable milestone. These are games which may fit into 10-15 sessions or less. In my experience in most of the games I've played in or DM'd, the cohesiveness of the players starts to fragment after 10-15 sessions. Obvious symptoms of player cohesion fragmenting are:

- players' attention spans wandering away
- players falling asleep
- lots of grumbling and complaining from the players about the game becoming boring or tedious
- the DM having no clue about the players nodding off, etc ...
- less general enthusiasm for the game