Is your game ever "done"?

[Ry]

I just realized something; for the first time ever, I feel like my campaign setting is done. Not that there isn't room for expansion and improvement - just that I am perpetually ready to run game after game. My DM notes are brief and complete, my handouts are done, and I know exactly how I would approach adding any kind of new idea to the setting. I feel like no matter how long the players run through this setting, I'll be ready for them.

So, first I have to ask, have you ever had this feeling?

 

[Crothian]

Yes and know. THere is always more to do but at the same time I do reach points that I feel like I am ready for anything and have enough to cover the near and not so near future.

 

[fusangite]

I tend to write a world to tell one particular story. Once the story is told, time to move on to another world. The general structure of my campaigns is such that figuring out the nature of the world is part of the quest/metaplot; once the true nature of the world is revealed, it's just never as exciting again. Besides, I like the sort of Tolkienesque idea that world=story.

 

[Shemeska]

Well I started out with a metaplot before the first game session and the campaign (as it relates to several NPCs and large events) has had a number of possible 'end' scenarios in sight since then given what has been set up and how the PCs might possibly alter, speed up or slow down certain things. However with that 'end' the consequences are so far reaching that I've had half a dozen followup campaigns bubbling in my head for a while that I could run set within the same universe.

 

[wedgeski]

I actually thought you were going to ask a different question than you did, but as to the point of whether I ever feel completely prepared for anything the players may want to do... never! That's all part of the job description for a DM though.

You sound a little melancholy in your post... do you long for the days when you only had one small village plotted out and dreaded the time when the PC's would look to the horizon and say, "I wonder what's over that way?"

 

[Psion]

After 20 years, I can finally say that there's not much I want to add to my game world.

Of course, I am moving on to other game worlds now...

 

[The_Gneech]

I just realized something; for the first time ever, I feel like my campaign setting is done. Not that there isn't room for expansion and improvement - just that I am perpetually ready to run game after game. My DM notes are brief and complete, my handouts are done, and I know exactly how I would approach adding any kind of new idea to the setting. I feel like no matter how long the players run through this setting, I'll be ready for them.

So, first I have to ask, have you ever had this feeling?

Welcome to Nerdvana, Grasshopper!

-The Gneech

 

[Ry]

You sound a little melancholy in your post... do you long for the days when you only had one small village plotted out and dreaded the time when the PC's would look to the horizon and say, "I wonder what's over that way?"

Oh, those were the days... the days where the town of Secret Water was threatened by the warlord of Darkhold Fortress.

But Melancholy? I don't think so. But I do find myself wasting a little time with my old habits, though; trying to determine new and better ways to organize campaign notes, even though my method has finally settled down.

Now, crucially, my campaign setting isn't done because it's full - the question "I wonder what's over that way." isn't written down somewhere. Really, my campaign notes fit on 20 pages - I've just hit on a method, that reliably lets me improv in this world for as long as I want.

 

[Ry]

Welcome to Nerdvana, Grasshopper!

-The Gneech

Thank you, the Gneech! My journey to nerdlightenment is complete.

 

[Arnwyn]

I just realized something; for the first time ever, I feel like my campaign setting is done. Not that there isn't room for expansion and improvement - just that I am perpetually ready to run game after game. My DM notes are brief and complete, my handouts are done, and I know exactly how I would approach adding any kind of new idea to the setting. I feel like no matter how long the players run through this setting, I'll be ready for them.

So, first I have to ask, have you ever had this feeling?

Yes... and it was just recent. With the release of The Shining South, I looked back at all my Forgotten Realms books, notes, and information and realized: that's pretty much it. Other than a couple of isolated locations spread around the world, I can handle my players having their PCs go anywhere, at anytime, and do pretty much anything.

It's all "tweaking" from here.