It’s no secret that with the advent of the next edition of D&D, I have endings on the mind.
While I’ve still got to make my final decision to adopt 4e upon reading the new Core books over the summer, chances are we are going to go the 4e way.
I know many others are in a similar place and are trying to plan the end of their campaigns.
There are many ways of ending a campaign and I broached one earlier this week when I suggested blowing up your game world.
Here are a few, less drastic tips to close a heroic campaign in such a way to make it memorable and leave a good souvenir.
- Plan a final confrontation with your campaign’s main antagonist.
- Make the confrontation hard, but not impossible.
- Drama trumps dice. If need be, modify things on the fly to make it intense and fun!
- Make sure that you’ll have some playing time after the confrontation to allow a non-conflict conclusion to the campaign. This is where the world surrounding the PCs gathers and celebrates the victory (or mourn their sacrifice).
- Bring back NPCs from all parts of the campaign and plan cameos and mini-scenes where they help the PCs or thank them or just to tell them that they Rock (players love that!)
- If PCs are victorious, give out ludicrous rewards in land, titles and leadership positions in the game world.
- If for some reasons the PCs fail (they shouldn’t, but still) make their actions count! Tell a story of how they inspired younger heroes to rise up and vanquish the Big Bad in their name soon after.
- After the campaign’s Evil is beaten, plan a 1/2 to a full session epilogue where you focus on each player and play out, as a story, what they want their characters to become. Don’t roll dice, just say “that’s what happened”.
- If you plan your campaigns in a continuing game world (like we do), integrate the PCs action throughout the campaign in your world’s history. Have the ex-PCs show as cameos in future games (players will also appreciate).
Please share your own tips on how you ended your campaigns. Daniel (Omnius) over at Game on, had a very interesting post on this earlier this year.
P.S.: I’ve got a serious case of Writer’s Block for this week’s game and it shows a bit on the blog as well. Work-related stress is involved. I may take a short break from blogging to polish my Stres-management techniques a bit. Thanks for understanding.
I ended one superhero campaign set in Manhattan with a gigantic alien plant creature taking over the the entire island. That was fun. It’s still a part of our gameworld too, and the players have had a few forays into the Hattan Jungles as a result. Having new characters stumble upon the HQ of their old characters, now transformed into a croc infested swamp, was a sight to behold.
In another (The Pegasus Project) the bad guys won, bigtime. That’s a story for another time though.
I’ve found that the key is to aim big. If you can get away with blowing up the planet, do that (it’s a great way to end a Traveller campaign!). Hey, if it worked for George Lucas’ Death Star, it’ll work in your game. Otherwise, have the ending be some world-changing event. Magic returns, or disappears. The Gods walk the Earth once more, or the characters become the Gods. Something of that level. Leave the players knowing that because of their actions the world will never be the same.
Then make ’em roll 1st level characters and do it all again 🙂
I am still about a year or so out from the end of my Iron Heroes campaign, but I have been planning for the end of the campaign for some time.
I like the part about having NPC’s come back and give the PC’s a pat on the back. I will need to pull in some obscure NPC’s as I get close to the end. I try to work in a number of reoccurring NPC’s through out the campaign, to present some continuity and to display a passage of time to the players, but I will need to dig out some really obscure ones to jog their memories.
I know how the last few sessions will go, regardless of the path it takes to get there. There has been a build of the major confrontation for the past few years, and that is certainly the centerpiece of the finale. Right now, casually, I am working on how the campaign will end for the individual characters. Each character has had a major impact on their campaign world, and the finale needs to take that impact and expand upon it, and present closure.
I fully plan on having at least 1 full session to wrap things up. One of the things I loved in the LoTR movies, was that Jackson spent the time closing all his story arcs. I have to do the same thing for my players. They have done so much in the past few years of playing, that at least one session will be needed to close out all those arcs.
Now I just have to come up with a years worth of content between now and then…. 😉
Excellent example Greywulf, it’s nice to see that incomplete successes are re-used in your campaigns to color future ones.
DNAPhIl: Good luck in your end game… closure is probably what is hardest to do because by the time you get there, everyone’s interest in the game is waning…
Or do Like we did with our high level campagin… Stop for a year come back for a session and make the closure there…
It becomes a rediscovery of your old loved character with a grand closure. 😉
Knowing how the game is going to end, I have told my players that as soon as they think that the game is getting boring or old, that I can jump us ahead to the ending phase, and start the ending of the game.
So far, interest remains high, and I have a high player investment in the game. So for now, the game moves at its normal pace. As a GM though, I quietly work on the end session ideas, so that should interest start to wane, I will be ready.
Good Plan Phil!
Woot Inspiration finally struck at lunch time and tomorrow’s game has a chance of actually being.. like… good!
My group has played Warhammer Fantasy Role Play for several years. Our GM is in the habit of having our characters retire. Then later our storyline jumps forward a decade or so and our new characters become the children of the retired characters, or at least the retired characters are mentor NPCs as previously described.
It has a nice unifying theme.
Jon
It truly is a great tip Jon (and welcome to the Blog BTW). That exactly what one of my players has asked me to do, for our next campaign. He wants to create a descendant of one character he played in a campaign over 15 years ago!
So cool!
Here is an odd idea. After World War 2, Winston Churchill was booted from his position during a political struggle. So much for gratitude. What about a situation where the PCs are forgotten or pushed aside by a political operator after the evil empire is defeated? Downer of an ending, but realistic.
Trask
I realize that we probably sit on opposite sides of the scale here (and I’m cool with that).
Here’s the thing Trask, I don’t see how a downer campaign, however realistic or likely logic wise, is going to reward your players for having invested all this time in your game… unless your group, as a whole, prefers realistic tropes to heroics ones.
I can only speak for my group, but it’s obvious that my friends come to my place on Friday nights, tired, sometimes grumpy about the job (we are a 30s-40s group) to
a) Relax and down a few drinks with friends
b) Get back at the world by kicking some serious a$$es
If I gave them a downer ending I’d probably be offered to take a break at DMing.
However Trask, I would start a High Level campaign with just that! All PCs are leaders that get ousted or get slandered by this hidden enemy with Mind Control powers (or worse, the whole world gets Amnesia about who the PCs were) and then start the quest with our powerful but destitute heroes having to either start again or seek out the BBEG.
I’m wrapping up a long-running campaign before I move.
The Players will have run characters in various incarnations from 1st to 21st level (yep, I’m taking them Epic next level) over 5+ years. It is an Incursion Campaign, as they battle the Githyanki Lichqueen. The Queen is not so much interested in taking over the world, as she is in recovering a series of 6 heartshards that contain the broken soul of a god. Once collected, she will suck the soul out of them and become a goddess herself. The heroes have 4 heartshards, she has two. Currently they are starting an all out fight to defend their home-base city in a Minas Tirith style epic battle. Once they defeat the githyanki, they will realize that the problem with battling a Lichqueen is that she will never stop coming after them, and they need to take the fight to her if they truly want to stop her mad quest.
If successful in defeating her, and recovering all the heartshards, the god’s soul will be reunited, and reborn as an infant. if the heroes agree, the old pantheon will grant the heroes immortality (tied to the infant god) to raise and protect the infant god how they choose. Their characters will become demigods/saints themselves eventually, and if I ever do a future campaign, they may have the option of worshipping their old characters.
But first they are going to have to fight an advanced half-dragon terrasque (the Lichqueen’s Doomsday Device)
I want to give the players custom T-shirts for the campaign end. 🙂
Aside: The raising the infant idea came because I have had two children myself during the span of the campaign.
🙂 I did the same thing re: the raising of children.
I started a campaign on the premise of building a new kingdom when my 1st was born… 🙂
Good stuff Shadow!