Tsillanabor
First Post
Unless the game ends with a TPK (hopefully a heroic sacrifice if so) I usually go with allowing the PCs to detail what happened to their characters.
I feel out of it. How do you end campaigns?
- Thread starter RangerWickett
- Start date
genshou
First Post
I've only ever intentionally ended a campaign with a TPK. The game was in my Galithia setting, which is sort of a "fractured Camelot". The true heir had been found according to the prophechy, and the PCs fought alongside her in a massive battle against the orgblin hordes that had destroyed the shattered kingdom to which she was an heir (orgblin = a cross between goblin and ogre, some having the powers of blues and/or ogre magi, and no you don't want to know how the original cross-breeding occurred).
The PCs died in a blaze of glory in that battle, one by one. Every single one of them loved it.
The PCs died in a blaze of glory in that battle, one by one. Every single one of them loved it.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Normally our campaigns just go on hiatus, and we return to them after 6months, a year or whatever.
My last campaign ended in a nasty TPK, which was a shame - it wasn't even a climactic event, it was just a 13th level Cleric who had been and old adversary since he was 9th level, who knew they were coming and prepared for the battle (while they didn't do any preparation, expecting to just waltz in and smack him).
I couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't be using Anti-Life shell though...
My last campaign ended in a nasty TPK, which was a shame - it wasn't even a climactic event, it was just a 13th level Cleric who had been and old adversary since he was 9th level, who knew they were coming and prepared for the battle (while they didn't do any preparation, expecting to just waltz in and smack him).
I couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't be using Anti-Life shell though...
The Lost Muse
First Post
TPK - they've been getting all the phat lewt for, like, the entire campaign. It's the DM's turn 
My game will probably culminate with the final battle versus the BBEG. Then, with player input, I'll probably write an epilogue of some sort. My next campaign I think I'll have the players start off with 1st level characters having to deal with the results of the previous campaign (ie, if it is a TPK versus the BBEG, then the new players have to deal with the fact that the old party failed).
I ended the 2nd Edition game I ran in college with a session that was basically an extended epilogue, after the party had gotten the MacGuffin artifact they'd been after for a year or more of real time- and told them what happened to everybody and everything. They all enjoyed it, and added input for what their characters would do and what they'd like to have happen both before and during the session. It was a nice way to end things, and though I would have liked to have gone on with the game to run a couple of other adventures I had in mind, it just wasn't in the cards with people graduating and all.
My 3.0/3.5 games have ended in various ways; one was a TPK, another was a party implosion due to simmering conflicts boiling over in a party of Evil-aligned characters, another ended because of some weirdness resulting from draws from a variant Deck of Many Things, and still another ended because the players wanted to reset and try something new (we left those characters and that story unresolved, which is somewhat unfortunate). Meanwhile, the now-Epic game has been going for 5 years of real time all the way from 1st level up to the current 27th as of the end of last session. It's still going strong.
There is, however, one really obvious point to end the Epic game if we feel the desire to do so- for several years now the players and characters have been aware that on a particular date in the game world, a total solar eclipse will pass over a particular spot on a desolate island, and open a gate to the Abyss that allows demons to break several of the usual rules of planar travel and conduct for 24 hours. During this time, they are expected to invade the world with armies that are millions strong. After the most recent session, this invasion event is still about six months in the future, in game time; there's no telling how long in real time it will take to get there.
The Epic PCs are resolved to be there to fight this calamity, if they can't somehow prevent it from occurring entirely, and for my part I've always planned to make the sessions dealing with that event very special. Back before the "beta" game ended for the first time (with the TPK), I had intended the "invasion" games to be marathon sessions where both parties would be brought together and face the darkness as one, but now after the "beta" game has had multiple endings and several characters left in limbo I suppose I'd just let people join the fun with whatever characters they wanted to bring back. Obviously, once the invasion ends, for better or worse, it's a great time to give the game(s) an epilogue and end a campaign.
Which is not to say that I don't have ideas for how to run adventures past the invasion- I could easily continue storylines after it. But I doubt anything will top it. And so, if the players want to end at that point, we'll end it and be satisfied, I think.
My 3.0/3.5 games have ended in various ways; one was a TPK, another was a party implosion due to simmering conflicts boiling over in a party of Evil-aligned characters, another ended because of some weirdness resulting from draws from a variant Deck of Many Things, and still another ended because the players wanted to reset and try something new (we left those characters and that story unresolved, which is somewhat unfortunate). Meanwhile, the now-Epic game has been going for 5 years of real time all the way from 1st level up to the current 27th as of the end of last session. It's still going strong.
There is, however, one really obvious point to end the Epic game if we feel the desire to do so- for several years now the players and characters have been aware that on a particular date in the game world, a total solar eclipse will pass over a particular spot on a desolate island, and open a gate to the Abyss that allows demons to break several of the usual rules of planar travel and conduct for 24 hours. During this time, they are expected to invade the world with armies that are millions strong. After the most recent session, this invasion event is still about six months in the future, in game time; there's no telling how long in real time it will take to get there.
The Epic PCs are resolved to be there to fight this calamity, if they can't somehow prevent it from occurring entirely, and for my part I've always planned to make the sessions dealing with that event very special. Back before the "beta" game ended for the first time (with the TPK), I had intended the "invasion" games to be marathon sessions where both parties would be brought together and face the darkness as one, but now after the "beta" game has had multiple endings and several characters left in limbo I suppose I'd just let people join the fun with whatever characters they wanted to bring back. Obviously, once the invasion ends, for better or worse, it's a great time to give the game(s) an epilogue and end a campaign.
Which is not to say that I don't have ideas for how to run adventures past the invasion- I could easily continue storylines after it. But I doubt anything will top it. And so, if the players want to end at that point, we'll end it and be satisfied, I think.
Allandaros
Explorer
I ended my last AD&D campaign with an inadvertent TPK. We knew it would be the last session (everyone was going off to college) and I was hoping for an awesome really tense final encounter.
Turned out I had made the BBEG (a skeleton warrior formed from an ex-PC) way too tough, and he and his guards cut down the entire party. But it worked out, because most of the party had been corrupted by a conveniently placed evil sword*, and the game concluded with evil turning upon itself.
*What, me steal blatantly from Warcraft III? No. Nooooooo.
Turned out I had made the BBEG (a skeleton warrior formed from an ex-PC) way too tough, and he and his guards cut down the entire party. But it worked out, because most of the party had been corrupted by a conveniently placed evil sword*, and the game concluded with evil turning upon itself.
*What, me steal blatantly from Warcraft III? No. Nooooooo.
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