Have you ever finished a campaign?

[kigmatzomat]

I voted 1 but in reality it was at least 2. I ran one game 2E for ~3 years from 1st-18th level. It averaged 10 players per session and more than 2 dozen people played in total. It was a "staff of the 7 parts" variant with lots of plain hopping and deital involvement. The players won through to the final battle and succeeded despite an internal betrayal in what truly felt like an epic scale battle. (When someone kills a pitfiend because it was faster than going around, the power level is high) I confess to resurrecting the game temporarily after player outcry, but it only lasted for one minor story so I don't really count it as a campaign.

The other was a SR2 game that went through the entire Harlequin sequence plus most of the 1E modules. We wound up fairly rich (thanks to good negotiations once we realized we were being used in a big plot and careful loot management), plenty of contacts, and decent social prestige. My character became a sheriff in Cascade Ork, the samurais had their quasi-illicit gun range and weapon shop, and the mage & shaman opened a school.

I've got a Mage game that *almost* completed the campaign but all our leases expired within a month of each other and the game just died. ...I'm still tempted to run it as a one-shot and finish the blasted thing.

My current campaign (running since just after 3.0 came out) doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon which both excites and scares me. The primary arc grand finale is at least 2 years off, if not 3, and they've started the ball rolling on some things that could dwarf that. Oy.

 

[barsoomcore]

An observation, in the form of a piece of advice to all DMs:

Always keep them wanting more.

When in doubt, wrap it up. Provide a thrilling climax, kill off 90% of the party, end the world, whatever.

Ending a campaign too soon is almost always the better choice -- a memorable conclusion is better, even if it comes earlier than expected, than just petering out.

Kill your pretties. That applies to campaigns, not just NPCs.

You can ALWAYS start a new one. In the same world, even. Different place, different time. Compare my Barsoom Tales story with the Angels one -- same campaign setting, different campaigns (different rules, even).

Kill your pretties. It gets easier with practice.

One final note: you'll always have more good ideas. Don't be afraid to cut down the current ones.

 

[eris404]

Kill your pretties. That applies to campaigns, not just NPCs. You can ALWAYS start a new one. In the same world, even. Different place, different time. Compare my Barsoom Tales story with the Angels one -- same campaign setting, different campaigns (different rules, even).

That's very good advice that works really well. One of our DMs did that exact thing. He knew he was ready to stop, so we played out a climatic battle and the PCs survived. He then asked us to write out "epilogues" for our characters (what they would do with the rest of their lives, basically) and that was it. Three years later he returned to the same world to run another game, only it takes place 100 years after the first. Our old characters had an impact on the world, just not in ways that we might have expected. Good stuff.

 

[Torm]

I've only ever finished one campaign as DM - almost all of the characters ascended into godhood at about 18th level due to vacancies caused by their actions and their having been infected with magic-casting nanites that did their bidding, except one who turned out to be Arthur, King of the Britains returned to bring England back to a golden age. This was a WWII (primarily) meets American Revolution meets age of the Magna Carta meets Discworld game set on a flat, square parallel Eurasia and Africa and a flat, square parallel Mars using rules and characters from Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Alternity, Aeterna Victoria, Marvel & DC Comics (Greymalkin, Axis Amerika), and Star Trek (Borg and Species 8472). Lasted about a year, total.

Not entirely sure you'd say it completely ended, though, because I've been toying with using their characters as gods in a new campaign world.

I've finished a Star Wars D20 Campaign as a PC, and I've finished Cthlulu games before, of course, but those were meant to be a single session.

 

[derelictjay]

Never finished a complete campaign. Usually die because of atrition of people playing.

Tho. Nearly, finished a planescape campaign one time, but I let a friend dm; and he killed the party, and I just didn't have the heart to resurrect hte party. And none of the player's really wanted to either.

 

[D+1]

My first 3E campaign I did something I'd NEVER done before, which was to proceed with the deliberate goal to bring the campaign to a finite end somewhere around when the PC's hit 20th. The PC's didn't quite get that high but close enough as makes little difference. The campaign DID end, not as elegantly as I'd hoped but I wasn't UNhappy with it as it was the first time I'd ever done it.

However, I prefer to have a campaign where A) the PC's are NOT in significant danger of going epic in less than 5 years of real time gaming, and B) the campaign itself, while possibly having very core story arcs that may be concluded, is ultimately intended to be completely open-ended. It ends when we want it to, not according to a schedule or planned sequence.

 

[GrayIguana]

I accidentally voted for 4 campaigns. After some thought I guess I have either DM'd or played in several campaigns that had somewhat complete endings. Almost every campaign ended with the characters retiring. Only a few were the results of TPK. We usually tied things up fairly well after a string of adventures. There are a few groups of characters that are "retired", but may well come out of retirement if inspiration hits the DM, or the players get bored of the current campaign.

 

[mossfoot]

Only managed to finish one campaign... other times I TRY to end it, but the bloody players won't let me! I try to get out, but they keep PULLING me back IN. Argh!

 

[scourger]

Finished it!

I've never finished one as a player or a DM. They all just die or fade away. I am trying to finish an alternate-D&D game campaign now, but it's tough. The players completed about 2/3, but scheduling the last 1/3 has been difficult. I think the most important factor is to have an end planned. Most campaigns in which I've been involved don't have such a plan. I'm trying to change that when I DM.

Well, I just finished my first camapign EVER as a DM or player in 24 years!

I was running the story of the Alternity Gamma World adventures from the back of that book using 3.5 D&D core rules with the very cool Omega World mini-game from Dungeon/Polyhedron #94. We played irregularly on Saturdays for 9 months. The end was a bit anticlimactic (no combat due to the players' tarrying), but the PCs wound up very high level with lots of powerful items and information. And they saved their town, again! True heroes. Unlikely, but true.

Right now, I feel a good bit of accomplishment. The players found out the deepest secret of the camapign world. In truth, it was the biggest reason I wanted to run AGW. (The OW d20 rules just made it mechaniocally easier and more fun for me as a DM.) It was really gratifying to see one player in particular personalize the information and run with it.

The only low point was that the player who professes to be more story oriented did not seem to grasp the enormity of the big revelation at the end of the game. He did not remember the basic story that I handed out at the beginning of the camapign. I fear this would be a problem in almost any game as it seems like players (including me) sometimes have a hard time grasping the overall plot.

But, I'm willing to give it another shot! Now, if I could just figure ot how to start running the Shackled City Adventure Path...