Out with a Bang: D&D Finale Checklist

Back from Balticon, full of caffeine, and ready to work on the finale for my campaign!

I’ve actually managed to keep my prepwork pretty light for this campaign. I knew between full time job, full time grad school, part time game design, and (of course!) blogging that I wouldn’t have an overabundance of time to plan this game. I’ll go into more details about the methods I used next week once the campaign is in the can (and am able to spoil whatever I like), but I already know the finale is going to be a different beast than any other adventure so far.

Normally I rely on my outlines and ability to improvise to run my week to week games, but the finale is going to need a lot more structure and development. For previous campaigns where I actually get to run a finale, I’ve written pages and pages of stuff I want to happen. I probably don’t want to do that for this game, but I still want to put as much effort as I can to make it as epic and memorable as possible, and at the same time run as smoothly as possible. To that end, I’ve put together a checklist of things to do this week before the finale. If any other experienced GMs out there want to add to the list, I’d love to hear it. (And I’ll be sure to re-read some of the excellent advice out there.)

A note to my players who read the blog: there shouldn’t be any spoilers here, but you may read something that leads to guessing what happens. Up to you if you want to risk it or not.

This is my current to-do list. As always, it’s easier said than done, and no good plan ever survives contact with players!

1. Craft a scene that spotlights each PC, and lets him/her shine. At the same time, don’t spend too much time with a single player so that the other players get bored. Give each player a reason to pay attention to everything else going on, even if their character isn’t present.
2. Hammer out story specifics, including anything that hasn’t been revealed yet that the players may be curious to see finally explained. Generally, the final story details aren’t hashed out until I’m in my car on the drive there.
3. Build the antagonists’ crunch, and try to put it in a format that is easy for me to reference and use every round. This is especially a challenge with spell-casters.
4. Decide any special rules that will be in force that change the game in an unexpected (but not annoying) way
5. Focus on the climax and finale, and make sure it’s suitably epic.
6. While I’m at it, put together a finale soundtrack, different than our usual background music.
7. Make sure any reveals I use make sense. At the same time, it’s already been predicted that there will be some reveals in the last adventure, so I have to make them mysterious enough that they won’t guess mid way through the adventure and blurt it out.
8. Write engaging epilogues for everyone who survives the end (and give suitable remembrances of anyone who doesn’t make it.) Thus, 14 stories, or even more if I decide the combinations are important. I’m really happy when players like their character’s ending enough to reminisce about in future games. And that naturally leads to…
9. …Leave open the possibility of a sequel? It’s always possible.

In some ways, this is a bigger deal because it’s almost certainly the last game I will run in 3.5 ed, and so in a way I’m closing a chapter in my RPGing life as well. Though I’m generally pro-4e, I can’t help but feel a bit wistful that I’m leaving something behind and moving onto the next thing for the rest of my life. Sure, 3.5 isn’t going anywhere, but I doubt that I’ll return when there are so many different RPGs that I’ve wanted to play and so many stories to tell. (And there’s a good chance I’ll lose any wistfulness when I start having to look up spells during the finale.)

Anyway, my mild nostalgia aside, anything else I should be thinking about, as I enter into serious DM prepare mode this week?