Have you ever finished a campaign?

[Ulrick]

I'm starting up a homebrew campaign at the end of the month. I've worked on this homebrew campaign setting on and off for the last twelve years and I've been DMing for 15 years.

Yet in all that time, I've never finished a campaign. The longest campaign I've run lasted for seven years--but it never ended...just kind of petered out.

The last campaign I ran lasted for a year and half...the original players weren't showing up consistantly so the campaign's consistancy fell apart. So it ended...

I want to finish a campaign. My plan is to have this campaign last a year and to play roughly once a week.

To do this, I've decided to be very selective on who I let into the group.
The players must...
1. Commit to showing up 75% of the time for the next year.
2. Be people I who I would enjoy hanging out with in another social setting.
3. Have two updated copies of their character sheet--one for them, and one for me, the DM. That way, if they don't show up, somebody else can run their character.

Will this work? Has anybody else tried this? In fact, has anybody finished a campaign (player or DM)? That is, finished as in 'all loose ends are tied up and the characters have retired and the world may have been saved in a climactic way."

I really want finish what I've started. I don't want it to just peter out like a lot of campaigns do. So I would like some advice.

Thanks.

 

[astralpwka]

We've finished 2 that I can remember. Both had a long run (2 years or so) with lots of changing of DM's. We've never had problems with players not showing up. By letting different DM's have a go on the world, it helps everyone keep from burning out as both player and DM, and you can get back to your storylines without struggling to keep it fed week after week. Just our method, but it worked fairly well. We usually never had more than a two month break.

 

[Cassander]

What exactly do you mean by "finishing" a campaign? Completing a story arc? Reaching 20th level? If the former, why not just make a shorter arc?

 

[the Jester]

Blink blink.

"Finish" a campaign?

Well, my old world got eaten by Tharizdun when the pcs failed to stop his awakening.

I've run a couple groups to tpks or retirement.

What do you mean by "finish?" I'm not sure whether to count tpks, ends of the universe, triumphant finishes where the pcs kept going afterward, or what.

 

[takyris]

Voted one, but wish I could change it -- I've actually finished-finished two in all the years. A few other ones died out, but two had good solid endings that tied up the loose ends and took the characters from a nice low level to a nice high level.

With the current group, I DMed one from levels 1 to 20 over the course of about three years (2000 to mid-late-2003), and have since done a few one-shots, a d20 Modern campaign wherein I accidentally TPKed the party (or rather, failed to not TPK them after mistakenly letting them work their way into an encounter that they shouldn't have gotten to until they were a lot more powerful), and am now in an X-Files-ish campaign that the group seems to be enjoying. We're going to intersperse it with one-shots using Unearthed Arcana variants, and then maybe eventually play two campaigns in tandem -- one fantasy-world fantasy game, and the X-Files game, breaking between "episodes" that would each be four to six sessions in length.

 

[Ulrick]

Finished a Campaign defined as the main plotline or story arc has come to a close, even if the main story arc goes against the PCs (such as Tharizdun devouring the world).

A TPK might constitute a "finished" campaign if it ties in directly with the story arc, not in another way like a TPK from a minor trap or something like that.

 

[Rokonin]

Out of 4 years of gaming, I've never really finished a campaign. All of the campaigns I have run have either ended for some real life reason or sort of shriveled away into nothingness.

 

[Crothian]

Yes, I've finished many. Right now I'm on my 6th campaign in the same world, the previous five all had ends.

 

[Acid_crash]

Mine have been like Rokonin's...great starts, but bland to empty finishes. It's sucks really, but that's how they seem to go.

 

[Wombat]

Over the years, I have finished 5-6 campaigns, had a couple die from unnatural causes, and had a dozen or so one- and two-shots.

Of these, 2 pairs of 2 were in the same worlds (4 campaigns total, between 2 worlds, or however that should be written to make matters clear...). I don't need to end worlds to end campaigns

Of these, the first two were set in Glorantha (heavily modified) and the second two were set in Harn using the Ars Magica rules

I have only ever completed 1 D&D campaign -- the rest have petered out due to people moving away, GM or gamer boredom with the campaign or setting, and such like.