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<blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4763842" data-attributes="member: 15538">Plot matters not. The essentialy story to an RPG is what happens, not what you planned to happen. Can you stretch out events? Sure, if there is reason to do so. Is it okay to end the campign? Yes. Is it okay to resolve the central crisis, then keep gaming? You bet.A novel has introduction, rising action, climax, denoument, then maybe resolution. That's because a novel has to end. RPGs are under no such limitations. Rising and falling action is at work during every session, because you truly do not know what will happen next. While a campaign might have a natural ending point, it is not necessary to pre-plan it. My advice? All the good, old heroic stories, and I mean like King Arthur and Beowulf and LOTR and Star Wars and Samson and the rest end in one of two ways. Either you end up on a high note, or you end with the heroes being crushed by one last, glorious battle. So let the heroes save the world, and you can end there, or you can play out how the bad guy's surviving lieutenants dog them to the ends of the world and they die battling demons on an ice floe in the middle of nowhere.If you depart from that structure, you depart from heroism and enter realms like trilogy, series, picaresque, rhapsody, and the like. Which is good, too, but very modern, very different.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pawsplay, post: 4763842, member: 15538"] Plot matters not. The essentialy story to an RPG is what happens, not what you planned to happen. Can you stretch out events? Sure, if there is reason to do so. Is it okay to end the campign? Yes. Is it okay to resolve the central crisis, then keep gaming? You bet. A novel has introduction, rising action, climax, denoument, then maybe resolution. That's because a novel has to end. RPGs are under no such limitations. Rising and falling action is at work during every session, because you truly do not know what will happen next. While a campaign might have a natural ending point, it is not necessary to pre-plan it. My advice? All the good, old heroic stories, and I mean like King Arthur and Beowulf and LOTR and Star Wars and Samson and the rest end in one of two ways. Either you end up on a high note, or you end with the heroes being crushed by one last, glorious battle. So let the heroes save the world, and you can end there, or you can play out how the bad guy's surviving lieutenants dog them to the ends of the world and they die battling demons on an ice floe in the middle of nowhere. If you depart from that structure, you depart from heroism and enter realms like trilogy, series, picaresque, rhapsody, and the like. Which is good, too, but very modern, very different. [/QUOTE]

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