Need advice on ending a campaign(my players stay out)

[blackshirt5]

OK, I need the advice of the great minds of ENworld on this one.

I've been running a campaign for several months now; we get together once a week, just about, to game this same campaign, although we've had a few breaks for other things.

The problem is, although I like the characters and everything, it looks like the development of my world is going in a different direction, a First Age direction, full of fantastic stuff, legendary warriors, and high magic. I want to stop running the campaign to concentrate on working on my world and the monster book that I'm working on, although I'd still like to play.

How do I tell my players this? And how should I end the campaign? I don't want to rush it(we've all grown attached to the characters), but I'd really like to take a break, I'm really ground down right now. Or should I just take a break? Although that last one doesn't seem like such an option, as when we come back to my DMing, I want to run the new vision for my world.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Don't stop, just adjust when you play, move to a game once a month or every two weeks. This allows you to playtest your ideas.

If you feel the need to stop, pick a point and let the players know but let them know the reasons.

 

[sithramir]

My suggestion would be this: Don't end the campaign. You don't have to end it because you want it to keep going. The players might want to keep the same characters because they are already in depth and played and known well and they know the group well.

What you should try is to ask someone else to DM another campaign as a "break" while you spend some time getting your background and details for where you want the world to be. Then when you are ready they can continue the campaign except that the world can now "expand" and continue with the way you want it to go.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Convert & run the 2e adventure The Apocalypse Stone. That should end your world quite nicely.

 

[blackshirt5]

It's more than just burnout; I'm not happy with the way the world is right now, I'd like to take the time to redesign it to include a more fantastic feel and get more in depth with it; unfortunately, that'd pretty much void the characters(although I wouldn't mind seeing a second take on the current characters in a new campaign), so I don't see much point in just putting it on hold, as it completely destroys and junk-kicks the suspension of disbelief to come back to a completely different world, and I'm not gonna be happy running the world as it currently is.

 

[Ran]

Have you thought about making the transition in-game?

I know that everyone is liking the characters, including you, so you can take a time and go giving new changes, new heroes are rising, the characters as some, and you have the advantage of giving them a chance to help you design everything.

I believe that it would be the best way to design, since they can help decide what the world will be by their characters actions, make the new age rising, not there, make the world living, not static.

At least it would be a lot fun and would help a lot to have those players ideas inserted, they have a way to give you things you haven't thought before...

 

[blackshirt5]

Ran, I'm completely redesigning the backstory of the world; it's gonna be set a few millenia after the Battle of the Immortals, when the Angels clashed with Fiends and, after the betrayal of a part of the heavenly host, the gods gave the world to mortal men and...well, it's a work in progress; suffice to say it's gonna be cool; but I'm shooting for this is the mythic age that is spoken of; if I had it continue on in my normal campaign, then the old age would be the mythic age, wouldn't it?

 

[MadScientist]

Questions: What level are the characters? In the next 'generation' of your world are you going to be simply moving forward in time?

If the PC are powerful enough for it to make sence, allow them to do something truly great and historic, end the campaign on a big climax, and have them be remembered as great heroes in the next campaign. This should be a satisfying thing for the players and allow you to move your world in a new direction. Of course depending on how you want to change your world this may or may not be plausable.

 

[BSF]

You are in a bit different position than I am, so my advice probably isn't too helpful. But, on the off chance that it might be ...

The campaign that I am winding down was created specifically at the players request. (Long story and I will spare you the details.) At the time, I hadn't been running a game and I hadn't been planning to run one in the near future. Basically, my game world was "in development" and not at a stage that I was comfortable running a game in it. So, I decided to drop the campaign into the "world history". I put together a rough and tumble framework and let the characters loose.

During the campaign, I have made it clear that the actions they take now have an impact in the history of the game world. Recently, I have let them know that while I enjoy running the campaign, it really isn't the type of campaign I *want* to be running. (Now, before anyone gets the wrong impression ... I do enjoy running this game. But, I have removed most political subtleties from it. It is very frontier town in flavor. I prefer something a bit more byzantine.) I have been working on fleshing out the campaign world that I want to run in while we have played in this campaign. The events that are happening in the past are incorporated into the history.

Now, keep in mind that I took time off from running games because I wanted to develop my world more. This means that in the course of 3 campaigns, I will run in two time periods. Or, as an example, we will take my "original" game world's timeline and call it current.

1 campaign back = current
campaign that is coming to a close this week = current - 500 years
campaign I will be starting around mid september = current + 1 year.

Players generally do not have a problem with the time frames in which they play, so long as they are having fun.

Why not take your current campaign, cut it back a little and wind it down to a paused state. Take your Mythic Age and start up a new campaign there. New characters, new challenges, revised world. Play in that for a while. Let everyone get a feel for the history. Every so often, run a game with the current campaign characters in the post-Mythic Age world.

Alternately, go for the back-in-time aspect. Maybe at the beginning of the Mythic Age, there is a rip in the fabric of time. (Yes, I know, it starts to sound like Star Trek.) The characters in the current campaign have to sacrifice themselves to help seal it. Play it up very dramatically! They are saving the world through their sacrifice. Finish the session with their success. Chat up the story and find out what they liked, what they didn't like. Just before everyone goes home, drop the bombshell. "Oh yeah, your characters have been dropped back in time to the Mythic Age of Heroes. We are going to pick up from there next week. There might be a few changes that you want to make to your characters, but we can talk about that next time."

 

[Ran]

Okay, it may not be a very good idea but...

Many characters have made history, you hava chance to make them change history, I will tell how it could be done...

Sometime on the distant past, the world was in a struggle, the gods were deciding wheter to leave the world to mortal man or to make a clean up and start anew, they have chosen the latest and many disasters have been set in motion, after sometime not many survivors have been left, and they have made the world as it is today...

The players can start to have a small knowledge of that, it could be a plot of one of the gods that was defeated on the decision, so they gain knowledge of a choice made ages past, with it they start becoming epic...

And you could make a plot where the players interefere on the gods' decision and change the whole course of the world, then, it can be all made as you want.

The good point of this is that you could make the characters a kind of old heroes of the new world, they may have started some kingdoms or schools of magic, they can be the root of all this power, the very first epic heroes on this magical world...

Just a way to do it, of course it is you who must like it, I am not sure if I would use it though...