How should a campaign end?

[BiggusGeekus]

I like how Doc Midnight handled it in his story hour.

After the players saved the day, he gave each of them one final game-ending wish to lead them into retirement. A troll character wished for a castle, two characters each wished that the other find their true love, and a doubting paladin wished to understand the true will of the gods. It was pretty cool.

 

[diaglo]

"How would I have liked it to end?"

and they lived happily ever after 'til the end of their days....


or TPK

 

[billd91]

From a player perspective, no campaign ever really ends in my experience. We just move on to another game after we get some loose ends tied off and maybe never decide to pick it up again. We rarely have an actual 'end' to the campaign.

As a DM? A campaign should end in blood and tears as the players mournfully tack their PCs to the dead-wall with their obituaries. Mwah-hah-ha!

 

[shilsen]

With weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness. Or a TPK. Preferably both

Kidding aside (and I'm not completely kidding above), I think having a session or part of the last session devoted to some sort of denouement beyond the "big fight at the end" is a really good idea.

 

[Cor Azer]

I like my campaigns to end by whatever story having been told - if that concludes with a drawn-out, no-holds-barred fight or a simple conversation over tea and scones (can't forget the scones), so be it.

I have yet to end a campaign in the way I'd completely like, even those few that have had their stories (mostly) told in full.

Note, while I say I want the story having been told, I do like leaving some few mysteries in the air - not every event in the campaign had to do with the PCs, and the world continues on for others (even if we never play in it again).

 

[francisca]

Paraphrasing Fritz Leiber. Heroes should not be allowed to die of old-age in a bed surounded by loving relatives and all the comforts of home. They should bite the dust performing heroic deeds.

Having said that, it's tough to lose a high level character you spent the time building up, so when my players get there, I am not sure what I will do. I guess I should look down the road and plan a termination of the current game.

 

[RangerWickett]

My current campaign might end in the next session, with the whole group stuck in a mind-**** headtrip until the end of their days. But if they get out of it, they're gonna go track down the bastard responsible, and most likely kill him. Which will leave them the most powerful people in the world.

I've got to balance a few things, though, to make sure enough of the dangling plot threads are tied up. There's the Torch, which they probably can't destroy, but which they'll need to get rid of to make sure they're not tempted more to evil. There's the Mother of Dreams, who they probably won't be able to go after before I graduate, but whom should be touched on in the ending such that they don't think they missed out. There's Shaaladel and his grey blade, who needs to get whupped up on, but only after he shows he's really evil (check!). Seaquen has already been rescued, so that's where the party can go after victory to celebrate. And Crystin can show up, bearing a last message from Longinus, who has killed himself to avoid a fate he had no other way to fight.

I think this could be a nice ending. I might have ended it last semester with a bit of ambiguity of what would happen where, but I think this semester's ending, with the main villains receiving their final comeuppance, will be much more delightful.

And I have to do it all in 4 sessions or less. Egads.

Thanks for reminding me that I'll need to plan a denoument.

 

[LGodamus]

The longest running campaign I had ended with the entire continent being destroyed in a massive battle against a demigod the PCs couldnt kill......So they sacrificed themselves to activate an artifact they had found earlier, to kill the villain.....but they didnt expect him to release all of his divine energy in a retributive strike that leveled the continent....
later, the PCs found themselves standing before IO the great god of dragons....He had created the world they just helped blow up......So, as penance they had to fix it. He granted each one of them the spark of divinity and a portfolio and made them demigods and tasked them with rebuilding what had been lost....

where else do a group of 30th level folks go?

 

[Snoweel]

31st?