Reflections on ending a campaign

[Nyaricus]

Wick, that last one was awesome man I loved that description

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Very good story. Very open ended. But it lends a sort of hope to the story. Anything can happen.

Now I wish that I had described my experience better. i left out alot and i dident feel like writeing a short story.

 

[Terwox]

He raised his sword for the killing blow, and the demon looked up with a dying smile, saying, "The murder of thousands pales to the pleasure of making one man destroy himself."

Rhuarc killed her, and that's where we ended the game.

That's quite moving. Very cool.

 

[Gulla]

Anyone have lessons to share from ending a long campaign? Good stuff, bad stuff, things you wish you had handled differently? What really worked well?

I've been in several 3 year+ campaigns and so far all of them have ended well. The "last session" has always been a large confrontation with all (or at least most of the important) plotlines coming to a end. A large battle, the finding of the Grail, saving of the Universe(s) etc. And then we always have had a "all secrets out in the light" session, often with dinner and without playing the game, where we talk about what happens now and ask all the questions the GM (and secretive players) never would answer earlier.

So I think an ending to a long campaign needs both a large and climatic finale, and a revealing epilog after that. Personally I prefere to do this over dinner

Håkon

 

[Zweihänder]

The campaign that I ran, which lasted a little under a year, had a rather climactic ending, though not the one I expected. I sent two Assassins after the party, as they were resting up before the final encounter. Now, I should back up here. I supplied the party with EVERY friendly NPC that was still alive. They were all staying in a largish citadel known as Castle Coran (due to its centrality to the city of Con Coran). The two assassins sneak in, and have a FIELD DAY. I give the party some 20 opportunities to make listen checks, but they fail every one. So, when one of the party members is awakened by a knife sliding into her armpit, aimed at her heart, there are literally only five people left alive in the castle, including the four-person party. As she slid the knife in, the crazy elf Assassin sang Elvish lullabyes to the character (a Maenad named Psyche). She told Psyche to give up, that all of her friends and loved ones were dead, with the exception of the party and her brother (the Duke; they were saving him for last). The player told me later that she had nightmares about someone doing just that for weeks. I call that a DM-win.

Anyway, as this was happening, another of the party members (a Thri-Kreen named Tik'tak) was being attacked by another crazy elf; this one an Eldritch Knight. She was decimated by spellz. The Eldritch Knight, after crushing another of the party members (a Half-Giant named Raam), used every evocation spell available to her, yet still the Thri-Kreen would not fall. So, she did what every logical spellcaster does: she casts Enervation. A lot. It ended up killing the 17th-level character by means of negative levels. While this exchange was going on, Psyche had succeeded on her Fort save against Death Attack, but not against the Eldleaf Poison (basically, more-potent Drow Knockout Poison) that the Assassin had forgotten she had put on her knife. Out goes Psyche, and the Assassin (failing a Spot check BADLY) believes she's dead. She rushes out to one of the other rooms, and catches the Cleric (a Human named Landon) with his back turned. The very FLIMSY Cleric. Landon goes down to a Full Attack with Sneak Attack damage. Psyche wakes up, and blasts the Assassin into oblivion. The Eldritch Knight, seeing her sister die, gets mad, and uses Power Word Blind on Psyche. Unfortunately, that the only spell she had left above Level 3. So, eventually, it became a fencing match between the magically-deficient Eldritch Knight (who <3s Fireball) and the blinded, fire-resistant Psyche. It was so very special. In the end, though, the Eldritch Knight gets fed up, and hurls her spear right at Psyche, finishing her off, and pinning her corpse to the wall above the mantle. The players were satisfied, if a bit unhappy.

 

[Prism]

Sometimes its great when endings don't go to plan - even remotely

We had been playing the campaign on and off for about 10 years over the 90's, had finished a couple of main plot arcs (one about 13th, a second about 17th) and it ends up that we discover our final enemy after about 6 months off heavy time divinations and calling in favours. I totally agree that at this level the DM can completely step back from providing any hooks and let the players work out what to do.

The players weren't the only one doing research though. I remember my pc getting up one morning and setting of on a trip down the west coast of Faerun with one of the other party members. About two weeks into the journey we were ambushed by a bunch of devils and Moloch as a random encounter in a forest. Now looking back, of course thats a bit wierd but at the time what do you do? You blast through every spell and tactic in the book to stay alive. Our main party wizard wasn't there that week so no quick escapes. So we both died of course but then woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare safe in our beds in Waterdeep. Safe except for the fact that we had both been targetted with a custom high level nightmare spell and had proceeded to show the BBEG all of our capabilities - and at this point we still didn't actually know who he was

So months later we eventually get to the final battle. I go down in round two to a prismatic spray (stoned) and the others eventually kill the main wizard. Its pretty epic stuff and its fairly late so we start a search of the castle while the party wizard rests to try and learn stone to flesh. We spend the week out of game wondering what treasure we'll find, whether we'll find the enemies evil artifact, is this the end of the campaign?

We turn up eager the following week to wrap things up, and the DM asks the party wizard to make a save (which he fails) and then asks the other character the rogue his AC and also to make a save (he fails). "Right you're dead - end of campaign - whats next"

Total shock ending. The DM had never done anything like this before. Something had changed in that last week out of game time. If this ending had been planned for ,it wouldn't have worked but quite clearly it wasn't. Kept us talking about it for a couple of years before the real truth came out

 

[Evilhalfling]

Total shock ending. The DM had never done anything like this before. Something had changed in that last week out of game time. If this ending had been planned for ,it wouldn't have worked but quite clearly it wasn't. Kept us talking about it for a couple of years before the real truth came out

Which was?

 

[DragonLancer]

I had a 8 year Rifts that when it ended it was nice, but it seemed to end flat. I couldn't place my finger on it till I ended a long running D&D campaign and we had an epilog. The players really loved to hear what was happening to their characters and they liked it even more when the next campaign used the same world and built on the previous one.

I always end my campaigns with an epilogue of what the characters end up doing after the campaign. It does give that sense of closure for both the campaign and the players.

 

[Piratecat]

Fantastic stories. I agree about not ending on an all-night marathon, and I won't end on a huge battle, either -- I find fights exhilarating, but they aren't how I want to end a campaign. I've also promised a session where folks come over for dinner and I answer any question they might have about the campaign.

As for "telling all the sneaky stuff, and laying certain peoples' backstories and motivations bare for scrutiny by the PCs", how are you actually doing this? I'm interested in how you are going about it.

I've given the PCs a couple of tools to find out more information. The first is a book, a relic written by an angel; the book is a history of religion on the planet, and while it does take a while to look things up in it, it doubles the number of ranks of knowledge (religion) or knowledge (history) a person has. A PC took 20 in order to research several aspects of his own church, and with 25 ranks he got a 72. That kind of crazy high result gives you access to lots of secret history of the church that no one else alive today knows, including scandalous details that the church hierarchy thought buried. It's hard to think of a better tool for destroying long-standing myths and shaking up the religious hierarchy in the campaign, if someone wanted to do so.

The other tool is the Infinite Library, a version of the excellent location detailed by Mike Mearls in one of the Arcana Evolved splatbooks. Mine is a place in the Astral where all the information in the multiverse accumulates. You find a book by thinking of a topic and following your sense of unease through an endless succession of rooms, eventually following your instincts to the book that has what you're looking for in it. The time it takes varies by the rarity of the information, from minutes to many many weeks. Thus, if my PCs want to find out anything, there's a book there on it -- but finding it might take months.

Right now they're trying to balance the value of the information they'd gain with the time they'd spend locked away from the world, unable to thwart bad guys. It's a nice balance.

 

[BlackMoria]

My campaign world is going on some 25+ years and almost all of my campaigns run in that world.

My campaigns usually end differently but all have common elements, namely:

The campaign is truly not at at end. The characters are no longer actively being played but their achievements and their characters live on in the campaign world. I usually do a session after the end-piece of the campaign. The purpose of the session is to tie up any loose ends and to establish the future continuity of the characters. Sometimes this is just discussion and sometimes it means more roleplaying.

It is something like the end piece of the final LOTR movie. The campaign was essentially over when the One Ring was destroyed yet Peter Jackson showed key scenes to show the consequences of the epic quest and the glimpse of the future of the characters. I have done a similar sort of thing for years.

At any time, my players can revisit their characters to make changes in what the 'retired' character is doing in the campaign. This is most satisfying for my players, when they can direct the focus or activity of characters long since 'retired'

'Retired' characters have a tangible presence in the campaign world. Old characters can be the mentors, trainers or the 'observed from afar inspiration' of new characters. It is fun for the players to have favored old characters interacting with new characters in some capacity or from time to time.

'Retired' characters have even come out of retirement for 'one last grand adventure' or roleplaying has been done to cover the change of circumstance or activity of a old character (ie. retired character A was a baron but the king was overthrown as part of a current plot device and now the retired character wants to raise an army to overthrow the usurper)

Non-active characters continue to be movers and shakers in my campaign world. The end of the campaign doesn't always mean the end of that character's adventures....