What Makes a good ending to a campaign?

[Sammael99]

BTW, how abour running Faction War ?

OK, don't bash me on the head now !!!

 

[Azure Trance]

Wow, I realized I only have 3 - 4 months left myself. $#!+! And here I was thinking about subplots .... I feel somewhat tempted to rush-cram everything together so it will all 'fit' by times end.

EDIT

For some ideas, I'm going to check out high-CR stat creatures and see what ideas can come out of them. Also, I'll see if they'll be able to play x2 a week (x2 the time?)

 

[Silver Moon]

I'm happy to say that my campaign is still running after 21 years, but I had a friend in college, whose players were all heading off to different parts of the country, who wrapped up his campaign like this:

After the characters returned from the major climax battle he told them that they were now the heroes of the world, and that the thankful population recognized their heroic feats. He then spent an hour of gaming covering each one and what would happen for the next two decades of their lives, with considerable input from each player. It was similar to the "And they lived happily ever after" approach, except they got to each decide what that meant and discuss it as a group.

The interesting part was that most of the players were back in the area the following summer, and they resumed playing. They just picked 25 years after the other campaign, using the former characters as prominent NPC's, with new PC's who were either the children or apprentices of the original ones.

 

[Numion]

My old campaign ended something like this:

Tharizdun (GH) had woken up and was getting ready to eat nature. The pcs had assembled an artifact that gave them absolute mastery over life, death, space, time, matter and energy, and it wasn't enough to stop Tharizdun's Angels of the Apocalypse.

They tried to wake Nature up so she could defend herself, using the Locus (the cube that they'd assembled). Unfortunately, when they tried I told them to roll percentile dice and said, "You want to roll low."

98.

A secondary roll followed.

99.

They destroyed several planes, including their own, but they failed. Tharizdun ate the multiverse.

Of course, that later led to my current campaign world, and crazy crazy things happening.

Isn't that a bit anticlimatic? A whole campaign is condensed into two arbitrary dice rolls? As a player I'd want my actions to count for a bit more..

 

[guedo79]

Hey guedo,

The story arcs you have running - what's the longest or most involved one?

Take that arc, make it into something really huge, and then allow the PCs to wrap up that arc (hopefully using the method of the "showdown" with the bad guys). Then, give the rewards for that story arc and make sure the rewards are huge and life altering (maybe having PCs get lands, power, etc that make them more likely to NOT adventure, and instead become important NPCs in your world).

The idea is to make the PC's permanant fixtures in your world, and use them (or more appropriately the things they accomplished) as the basis for future characters (making them descendents or aware of the former PCs exploits).

The Major Arc (search for all the pieces to a demonic armor) will be resolved and they should face the two main bad guys.(A evil leprechaun and the Lord Dis) I'm just worried about it being another two round combat that doesn't' amount to much. All these stories are helping tho.

 

[arwink]

The Major Arc (search for all the pieces to a demonic armor) will be resolved and they should face the two main bad guys.(A evil leprechaun and the Lord Dis) I'm just worried about it being another two round combat that doesn't' amount to much. All these stories are helping tho.

The two round combat really isn't all that worrying. The last campaign I played to its inevitable end finished when the PC's suddenly put a whole heap of spells to good use, got some really lucky rolls, then took out the big bad in about six seconds flat.

They loved it. If nothing else, it reinforced that they were the high-level bad-asses they thought they were, and they were pretty proud of the tactical elements involved.

In the end, it's not going to be the combat the makes it memorable, it's going to be everything leading up to and away from that fight.

 

[guedo79]

BTW, how abour running Faction War ?

OK, don't bash me on the head now !!!

I've actually been tempted to run it. The problem is its wouldn't tie all the lose threads up. Besides the fact that converting the whole adventure would make my head hurt right now.

Don't worry you won't be bashed. You'll just be mazed.

 

[arwink]

I've actually been tempted to run it. The problem is its wouldn't tie all the lose threads up. Besides the fact that converting the whole adventure would make my head hurt right now.

So leave a few threads lose at the end. Gives you something to tie the next campaign too

 

[guedo79]

The two round combat really isn't all that worrying. The last campaign I played to its inevitable end finished when the PC's suddenly put a whole heap of spells to good use, got some really lucky rolls, then took out the big bad in about six seconds flat.

Well, when they plan ahead and use good tactics I don't mind. It when the power players and 2e broken converts take out a group of mind flayers in two rounds that bother me a bit.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I usually end campaigns somehow when I've finished the big b-plot, most often with some huge cinematic battle. I often do a sequal campaign though if a lot of the characters survived.

Nope. Running Planescape. Tho I would be interested in any ideas.

Probably the most memorable ending I ever did was a planar campaign. The PCs' world was nearly destroyed and the PCs went on a huge epic quest to stop the man responsible and reset time to save the universe.

Anyhoo, after a long time of serial plane-hopping the PCs ended up in Ravenloft, where they fought the evil overlord. After the battle two PCs were left alive. To get back, one had to sacrifice himself for the other's passage. The cleric sacrificed himself for the fighter because the fighter had a family waiting for him at home.

The cleric gave his life so the fighter could escape the mists. The fighter got through to his world, which now was all bright and happy and Disney-ish, only to discover that because they 'reset' the world, there was an alternative version of him living with his family.

He left the world in his grieve and became a NPC for a spinoff Planescape campaign.