PDA

View Full Version : How many games you've played in have reached a conclusion?



Kiero
2011-04-08, 05:11 AM
By which I mean how many actually reached something you could consider a "proper" ending? As opposed to sudden collapse or fizzling out.

In the past I've only experienced games stopping suddenly as whomever the GM was running it got a bright idea and wanted to do something different. Leading to change in mid-game with no resolution and no return to what we were doing before. My other long run of gaming at school was characterised by that.

In my current group, we're about to conclude our long-running WFRP2e game, something I was surprised to learn last night. While the "campaign that lasts forever" is far from my ideal for a game, I just didn't realise the conclusion was so close. It's been more than two years on and off (we've had breaks with other games at various intervals) and it's been awesome.

But our GM is starting to have trouble with mechanical challenges and we're probably in danger of forever spinning out subplots without ever resolving the things that appeared at the start otherwise. We have a habit of doing that.

It's a novel feeling, that's for sure, but there's also a sense of achievement at properly concluding something. My group have pedigree in this regard, they've had a number of years-long games that have reached a proper finale. So I can't take any of the credit here!

So what are people's experiences? Do you often finish games in a satisfactory fashion?

Poil
2011-04-08, 06:00 AM
I've never finished a game. We've changed system, or that one time we restarted the setting, long before we had anything like a conclusion. On one hand it makes it harder to care for the plot when you are essentially guaranteed never to find out what happens but on the other it would be boring to have to stop playing a character I wasn't ready to give up (I've never had one of my characters die, way more luck, cowardice and weak challenges than skill).

EccentricCircle
2011-04-08, 06:13 AM
most of the games i've taken part in have been short term games based at my uni roleplaying society, or at the local club to where I now live.
these organisations tend to structure things around ten week games. so even if a game runs for multiple terms/blocks it will still have a finite duration.

a couple of games over the years didn't get to the end of the planned plot for one reason or another but most concluded nicely.
I ran a superlong running game which finally concluded last summer after about eight years of on and off play. for the first three years we all lived in the same place and met every week. for the fourth year we played regular online games but after that it shifted to having irregular games when we were all back from uni in the holidays.
although the campaign came to an end a lot of people dropped out over the years, with only two original players (myself and one other) being present at the finale (although other people had joined the group in the meantime)
consequently while the game came to an end, a lot of people didn't see that end.

i've also dropped out of games which have continued without me on occasion, though always with a nice conclusion from my characters point of view.

so in conclusion i'd say it depends, but its certainly possible to finish a game, every game I have run has finished properly and most of those that i've played in have.

Mazeburn
2011-04-08, 06:13 AM
Never finished anything in tabletop RPs, and only once in a play-by-post. As DM I always try to plan things so the whole thing can be wrapped up in maybe five to eight sessions, with the idea that a short finished story is better than a long one that never ends, but the PCs always drive me to add so many extra elements and subplots throughout the game that it would be impossible to do without major railroading. xP Soo, unfinished campaigns it is!

I'd really to finish a few eventually, though, I think it'd be a lot more satisfying that way.

Talyn
2011-04-08, 06:30 AM
I have been playing D&D (and, eventually, other RPGs) for 14 years... this year was the first time we actually finished a campaign, with the plot resolved and characters moving on to their epilogues.

So, one.

Ranos
2011-04-08, 06:54 AM
It's pretty damn rare. I must have played in dozens of game, and only ever finished two campaigns. Well, almost three. I had a campaign that fizzled out one session from the end. After two years of play, right at the final confrontation :smallfurious:

Yora
2011-04-08, 06:57 AM
I think one. We did go all the way through City of the Spider Queen, but I think that's the only one.

Mastikator
2011-04-08, 07:02 AM
Err, I guess I've played since 10 years back, but not every year.

Two.

Granted, one was a beginners module meant to teach the players the game. So I guess once.

Well, the other was a magical illusion city and the goal was to get out, but my character became a werewolf and left the party forever in the last battle.

So I'm not sure if it counts as finish or failure to be honest.

dsmiles
2011-04-08, 07:06 AM
I've been playing for 27 years, and I've finished 7.

2 as a GM/DM, 5 as a player.

some guy
2011-04-08, 07:56 AM
The campaigns that I've played in and have ended number two. The ones that have ended unfinished number also two. One because the DM moved (he gave us a fulfilling last session, though) and one because of Problems.

A DnD campaign I'm currently DM'ing is running towards an end, and will end finished. The same with a CoC campaign. I'm playing in a DnD campaign that will probably end, but I have no idea how.

Tyndmyr
2011-04-08, 08:12 AM
Er, I honestly don't know. I've played a lot of campaigns. Most have not finished, or had a substitute finish, because the most common reason for a campaign ending is people moving/being deployed.

It's a major downside to playing with military folk. Oh well, campaigns are still a blast even if they often end with a fizzle.

We're also terribly bad about ending campaigns right before the final fight. Once everyone knows the major plot, and it's down to just a battle, there tends to be a lack of desire to actually go through with it. Mystery is gone or summat.

valadil
2011-04-08, 08:23 AM
Hm. I wanna say half? How are we counting exactly? I've probably been in more games with no ending than games with an ending. But I've played more game sessions within a campaign with an ending than game sessions of a failed campaign. This is because the games that implode do so quickly. There aren't a lot of multi-year endeavors that fall apart.

One of my groups is really good about ending their games properly. I've been playing with them since 2005 and we haven't aborted a campaign yet. While I don't agree with all the group's preferences, they certainly know how to write a game with an ending. Basically the difference is that there are no indeterminately long games. A GM tells a story. It usually takes 4-8 sessions. And then its over and another GM picks up after him. Short campaigns that get the job done rather than endless beasts of games that end up, well, endless.

As a GM, I only have one campaign that hasn't concluded and that's because we're still running it.

I have a trick for ending games. It's dead simple. I write the ending in advance. I feel a little dirty doing this because the PCs could go somewhere else, but so far I've been able to predict where they'll be and what they'll be doing when it's time to end. When GM fatigue hits, I run the ending I've already written.

Britter
2011-04-08, 08:26 AM
I've finished 6 in the last 2 years.

I GMed a shadowrun game that wrapped up nicely after the players ended up allied to a dragon. The second arch, which sadly never got started, would have been the secret plns and inevitable betrayal stuff.

I ran a really intencse game, using RISUS, with one of my friends. We had pre-determined that it would only go 3-4 sessions, about 2-3 hours each, and it was brilliant. Knwoing we only had so much time to resolve things, we really busted tail to drive the story hard.

I played in a short game using ICONS to simulate Shadowrun, that went three sessions or so and wrapped up beautifully.

Played in a Song of Ice and Fire game set during the Baratheon Rebelion which concluded in bloody revolt and no small degree of regret.

Played a short Dark Sun 2e DnD game that was a thrill a minute and ran about 5 sessions.

And ran a Burning Wheel game set in a crime-ridden city where my player is a guard captain. Just wrapped up the 10th session, and though we have a sequel arc in play, it ended on a good note with plenty of threads to pursue later on.

I really enjoy knowing that the game is going to be finite in length. I think it prevents turtling and passive play, and forces the players to really push hard to achieve their goals and their agenda.

Edit - Missed one. Played in a very enjoyable 4 session 7th sea game. Tons of fun, great players with great characters.

I actually completed more games in the last 2 years than the prior 15.

Telonius
2011-04-08, 08:28 AM
I've been playing for around 12 years. Not counting explicitly one-shot adventures, we've completed two campaigns in that time, both of them published 1-20 adventure paths (Shackled City and Age of Worms). Every home-made campaign I've ever seen kind of fizzles out after a few months.

Anxe
2011-04-08, 09:12 AM
I've finished 4 out of 12 in 10 years. My group currently has three campaigns going. We're trying to wrap one of them up cause three is too much.

4 of the unfinished "campaigns" were my players stepping in to be DM's for one session and then not liking it or getting bored with their campaign idea. 3 of the failed campaigns were my own ideas that the players did not like. If I'm the only one having fun then the campaign isn't a good idea, so they go scrapped. The final unfinished campaign was something my dad ran for us when I wasn't old enough to start DMing on my own. Not sure why we didn't finish that one. It just didn't happen unfortunately.

2 of the campaigns that were finished were mine. The players liked the plots and managed to work their way through about 7 levels of experience to confront the BBEG. They only defeated the BBEG in one of those campaigns though. In the other they surrendered to her. My new campaign is going to be about them dealing with the consequences of that decision with new characters.

One of the other finished campaigns was one of my players DMing for a bit. He'd designed a short campaign that got finished in three or four sessions. That campaign was done mostly because I was absent for a large portion of the summer and the group didn't want to be deprived of D&D.

The final finished campaign was one my friend's dad designed. It was the first campaign we all did when we just ten years old. As such it has a very special place in my heart. That campaign took us from 1st to 7th. I could go into a lot of detail about it, but not super relevant to this topic so I won't.

bokodasu
2011-04-08, 09:13 AM
Counting one-shots? Dozens! Not counting them... um, one. In nearly three decades of playing. Zero that I've run. But while it was really cool to finish that one, I have about the same amount of fun-per-time-played whether we finish or not, so I'm ok with that.

Yukitsu
2011-04-08, 09:29 AM
DMed 2, and have been in 8 or so.

The Big Dice
2011-04-08, 10:02 AM
I've finished a couple. One as a player where I went from 1st to 21st with a fairly not optimised Ranger. Another was a Star Wars Saga campaign that ended when one of the guys moved away.

But it did end with the PCs all battered a bloody having had an epic conforntation with a Sith Lord. Who was completely undefeated at that point. The final words of the campaign came from a PC who said, "How can I serve you, my Master?"

The look on the other guy's faces was a moment to savour.

Roak Star
2011-04-08, 10:14 AM
I've played in 5 campaigns, and 2 one-shots, and I've DMed two (well, one campaign that i did twice) campaigns and one one-shot that turned into a two-shot (currently halfway through).

As a player, i've finished zero campaigns thus far, but both one-shots came to conclusions.

As a DM, my campaign finished once, and my two-shot is going to be concluded soon.

Vortling
2011-04-08, 10:23 AM
I can't recall a game I played in that finished, outside of one shots and convention games. Conversely I've only had one campaign that I ran that didn't finish due to attendance problems. I do lean towards shorter campaigns and haven't had any that lasted more than a year and a half. However they all finished with concluding resolutions.

Totals:
As a player: 0 finished games
As a DM: 6 finished games
Currently I have 2 more games in progress as a DM and one game that looks like it might finish that I'm playing.

Tengu_temp
2011-04-08, 10:38 AM
From zero to three, depending on your definition of a conclusion and what exactly constitutes a roleplaying game. In addition, one long-runner I'm playing in will reach a conclusion soon, and another game I'm DMing will get one once I put it off hiatus. Overall not terribly bad, considering that all of those were played over the net.

Lurkmoar
2011-04-08, 10:48 AM
Actual games I've finished as a player: Four. Game goals done with future hooks still outstanding? At least five.

Games finished that I've GMed: three. Games that still had more to do? A LOT.

Games abruptly finished by changed systems, someone leaving or ones that I had to drop out? Lost count. :smalleek:
A few games I've been in there was only session, and the next week I showed up, there was only the GM and one other guy!

My favorite ending was where my Dark Sun halfling escaped the arena in Draj and engaged in an long running campaign that finally ended with me returning to the jungle forests beyond the Ringing Mountains. GM was nice enough to let all the still alive players (only three out six, and I was the only one that didn't burn through my character tree) narrate our epilogue. I thought that was pretty sweet. My guy ended up as a shaman and had a bunch of kids with the respect and admiration of everyone in the community. By Dark Sun standards, that's one hell of happy ending.

big teej
2011-04-08, 10:48 AM
well...
never have I finished a campaign as a DM or a player.

mostly because my old group wanted to run a new set of characters for each combination of present players.

for instance, the group contained groups A,B,C,D,E

session 1: everyone shows up, A DM's, roll characters
session 2: C doesn't show up, A DM's, campaign continues.
session 3: B doesn't show up, A isn't prepared, C DM's, roll characters.
session 4: C didn't like DMing, and A didn't show up. B DM's, roll characters.

and so on.

however, I have high hopes for the 3 campaigns my group is in right now.

let us list the names of the incomplete....
-note this is only characters that have actually managed to see play, which is a tiny fraction of characters I've created-


blake hunts-with-bears - a Ranger that saw play in a single sessin in 1st ed.
campaign fizzled due to a busy DM

Cog Skulltaker - a barbarian, he was so much fun to play I refuse to lay down the character despite campaigns ending, so far, I believe he's been in 4.

Gideon - a Knight, campaign is ongoing.

Grok - Ogre Ranger, campaign fizzled after a session due to it only being 3 people, and the DM stopped showing up.

Maximillian Thanos - a necromancer, campaign fizzled due to schedule conflicts

mikol - human ranger, campaign turned out to be a one shot

Roche Smoulderbeard - dwarf Knight, campaign stalled after I went off to college. I don't know if I can kick start it back.

Siegefried - cleric - one shot campaign fizzled due to ..... lack of fun and my schedule.

Sohn Riverheart - human bard, play-by-post on these forums fizzled out around the holidays. nobody wanted to pick it back up.

teej - self insert fighter, fizzled due to player frusteration and me moving off to college.

Valek - dwarf rogue, a very promising first session, fizzled out due to the practice of never playing the same game twice, and the DM never runnin it again.

william - monty haul power monk, fun first session, stalled out due to my move to college.

obliged_salmon
2011-04-08, 10:55 AM
I've finished 6 in the last 2 years.

I GMed a shadowrun game that wrapped up nicely after the players ended up allied to a dragon. The second arch, which sadly never got started, would have been the secret plns and inevitable betrayal stuff.

I ran a really intencse game, using RISUS, with one of my friends. We had pre-determined that it would only go 3-4 sessions, about 2-3 hours each, and it was brilliant. Knwoing we only had so much time to resolve things, we really busted tail to drive the story hard.

I played in a short game using ICONS to simulate Shadowrun, that went three sessions or so and wrapped up beautifully.

Played in a Song of Ice and Fire game set during the Baratheon Rebelion which concluded in bloody revolt and no small degree of regret.

Played a short Dark Sun 2e DnD game that was a thrill a minute and ran about 5 sessions.

And ran a Burning Wheel game set in a crime-ridden city where my player is a guard captain. Just wrapped up the 10th session, and though we have a sequel arc in play, it ended on a good note with plenty of threads to pursue later on.

I really enjoy knowing that the game is going to be finite in length. I think it prevents turtling and passive play, and forces the players to really push hard to achieve their goals and their agenda.

Edit - Missed one. Played in a very enjoyable 4 session 7th sea game. Tons of fun, great players with great characters.

I actually completed more games in the last 2 years than the prior 15.

You forgot about my 4e game, and the Vampire game (though I know he had more stuff in store). I'm not ready to call Adalbjurg completed, still SO MUCH TO DO.

...

Maybe we just play too many games?

Britter
2011-04-08, 10:59 AM
You forgot about my 4e game, and the Vampire game (though I know he had more stuff in store). I'm not ready to call Adalbjurg completed, still SO MUCH TO DO.

...

Maybe we just play too many games?

Damn, I did forget the 4e game, and the Vampire thing....

Wow...I have played many more things in the last 2+ years than I thought I had.

There is, however, no such thing as too many games.

So thats a total of like 8 or so completed for me, with maybe...1 that ended suddenly and 1 that is still ongoing.

Voice of Reason
2011-04-08, 11:03 AM
So what are people's experiences? Do you often finish games in a satisfactory fashion?

I have only ever finished three games, two by an amazing PbP DM, and one with my current gaming group at the game shop. The games took anywhere form 1-1.5 years to come to a conclusion, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Of course, when you consider that I've probably been a part of easily 100+ games...the completion ratio just isn't there; my DMs just don't stick with a campaign.

Kylarra
2011-04-08, 11:06 AM
Technically I've only ever finished one game and it wasn't all that satisfactory. Unfortunately, party dynamics were such that it only made sense for the game to end, so there it went.

Skaven
2011-04-08, 11:29 AM
One, sadly.

Hat-Trick
2011-04-08, 12:26 PM
Three completed. One was over Maptools, my Duskblade/Suel Arcanamach pirate became the captain of the greatest ship ever. Another was run by my father in HEROES system, we were a special unit of mech pilots in a Hard Science campaign, started off slumming through terrorists and finished with a raid on an alien spaceship in powered armor because our suits were too big for the small alien dimensions. The last was run by a friend, also in HEROES, we were a group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse and succeeded in reaching and earning a place at a military installation with 0 PC deaths (three PCs in all, plus 5 npcs, 3 of which died, one horribly wounded but recovering). The real fun part is, the PCs were Noah Scape, Willie Makit, and Imma Jeanna Die. Man, my friend was pissed.:smallamused:

LikeAD6
2011-04-08, 12:37 PM
I played in a 3.5 game that reached a conclusion. Our party killed a Cthulhu-based super powerful evil god. My ranger, the cleric, the wizard, and the paladin died.

Titanium Fox
2011-04-08, 12:44 PM
I've DMed two campaigns, and played in four.

DMed completed: 1 (Finishing in two weeks when the players hit 20).
Played completed: 1

It's actually stunning when you stop to think about how few campaigns ever actually finish.

kieza
2011-04-08, 01:00 PM
Not counting one-shots, I've finished 3 out of 9 campaigns I've run. One had a thrown together ending, but the other two finished suitably epically.

The Eberron campaign I ran a couple years ago ended in a three-way battle between the Chamber, the renegade forces of Merrix d'Cannith, and the Lord of Blades over the Whitehearth facility in the Mournlands. Halfway through, someone turned on the creation forge, which unexpectedly spat out the warforged who had been a party member until his heroic death wading through molten metal to shut off a doomsday device. Having had a spiritual experience while dead, he proceeded to turn on his former employer, the Lord of Blades, and then assumed leadership of the warforged that had come with House Cannith, before taking them to Thronehold and demanding a revision of the Treaty of Thronehold to allow warforged to operate their own creation forges.

The latest campaign I've finished ended with a truly massive military coalition laying siege to the capital city of their enemy, which was the objective of the last year and a half in real-time. The scale of the battles got so big that I wound up using the WARMACHINE system to resolve some of them. The gigantic siege culminated in a battle against an insane Sidhe lord possessed by the dark goddess responsible for creating Dark Elves. Halfway through, he ascended into a dark angel, and the party had to fight him as he flew over the city raining down death on their allied forces. After fighting their way to an artillery battery, they managed to drive him off long enough for an allied airship to pick them up, after which it became an aerial battle that enden in the villain clinging to a port in the side of the ship--which, as the players discovered, was a gunport. One cannon blast later, the villain was dead. However, that wasn't the last session...in the last session, the party was forced to kill the Sidhe lord who had been their ally for much of the campaign, after he succumbed to the hubris inherent to his race and declared his intention to replace the villain that they had spent the entire campaign fighting.

NichG
2011-04-08, 01:47 PM
Games played in that concluded:

- A club-wide campaign that kinda concluded, but it felt like it was forced to rush at the end (to end with the academic year before the GMs left for the summer). Got the last of the McGuffins and decided to not actually combine them but instead to take them to the far ends of the earth so they would never be combined, since it was really obvious we were being manipulated to get them.
- A 7th Sea campaign. Fought a dark priest who was trying to bring back the Syrneth in the sewers under Montaigne.
- (Briefly played in) a Lord of the Rings campaign that concluded after I left.
- A Slayers d20/Planescape crossover campaign. Stole the Slayers campaign cosmology from the mazoku and stuck it somewhere else in the Planescape.

(Completed) games played in that did not:

- A d6 BESM campaign. Went for awhile but just kind of petered out.
- A monster-PC themed campaign. Went two games and then the DM ended up being too busy to run.
- A second 7th Sea campaign. Fell apart due to plot decoherence.
- An L5R campaign involving the Lying Darkness and Yumedo. It was one session from completion and then everyone's schedules just didn't line up and it never happened.
- A 1st Edition D&D campaign. Total sandbox, so the only way it could have concluded would have been a TPK, and that didn't happen. We did have a marathon 16 hour session at the end though.

So about 50/50.

For games I've run, I'd say only 20-25% have gone to completion though.

Last Laugh
2011-04-08, 01:51 PM
I was in one game which ended, sadly I was having trouble in school and had to miss some sessions to catch up.

So games that have ended: 1
That I was there for: 0

Eldan
2011-04-08, 02:53 PM
Once I finished a published adventure in a PbP on another forum. Does that count? I've never seen an entire campaign played through, though. Sometimes an adventure or two, but even that was rare. (Mostly when I DMed. We were all pretty bad, back when we still played on Saturday, but at least I saw things through to the end).

Lord Vampyre
2011-04-08, 03:00 PM
In 20 years of gaming, I've only seen one campaign from beginning to end.

McSmack
2011-04-08, 03:39 PM
10+ years and I've completed 3, both were relatively short campaigns with a particular DM.

Campaigns I run tend to be long sweeping nebulous affairs. Though I'm thinking about changing that and wrapping my current one up by mid summer.

Sipex
2011-04-08, 03:41 PM
Let's see

Played in: 4 games, 0 finished.

DMed: 4 games, 1 died due to work, 3 currently running.

randomhero00
2011-04-08, 03:44 PM
hahahahahhahahah, *cough* 1 game...

Gorilla2038
2011-04-08, 03:52 PM
Again, not counting one shots.

In 14 years of gaming: 0.

Reasons include IRL drama, player death, PC death, smoking so much pot that players had to leave(guy whos house we played at, one player was Mormon and homeowner wouldn't stop smoking), marriage, moving, one player beating up another players boyfriend, one dude figuring out he was gay and deciding everyone wouldnt understand(annoying, cause everyone else knew he was gay) and a couple other dozen, including the ever popular boredom.

Hat-Trick
2011-04-08, 04:27 PM
10+ years and I've completed 3, both were relatively short campaigns with a particular DM.

Campaigns I run tend to be long sweeping nebulous affairs. Though I'm thinking about changing that and wrapping my current one up by mid summer.

I think you mean either you've completed two or all three were relatively short.

dsmiles
2011-04-08, 04:49 PM
I should add that out of the 7 campaigns I've seen to completion, only 2 came to the ending that I suspected they would come to. They weren't the 2 that I DMed for. :smalltongue:

MidnightOne
2011-04-08, 05:35 PM
Been playing for.... wow. Thirty-one years. Two campaigns finished in that time.

In the defense of the DMs I've played under, we never really had organized campaigns until we were well into decade #2.

Toofey
2011-04-08, 05:39 PM
Every campaign I've run has come to a conclusion except 1 (which is about out of 6 I think) The shortest of these was about 6 months of regular play. Once I I've come up with something I like to see it through. That said a couple of them have ended earlier than expected because of the players doing something cool/unexpected. And I currently have 2 campaigns running (one with a group that only meets once every few months for a marathon session, one with a group that meets regularly almost every week)

Of the campaigns I've played in, my primary group through high school completed 2 campaigns with our main characters before retiring those characters, with 2 false starts when new DMs were trying.

So a pretty good run it seems.

Oh tack on a gurps campaign which ran 12 sessions and ended successfully (we were following the plot of snowcrash which only the GM had read at the time, which was actually the best campaign in any system that DM ran)


edit: I think what makes the difference is that what i call my "high school" group played together for 9 years with long breaks for college and such, and my 2 groups in new york have lasted 5 and 3 years respectively. getting through campaigns takes a long time.

I've been lucky that in all the groups I've been in people have been able to create characters that were able to hold their interest, that and my DMs when I was starting as a player always had a bigger picture about what they want to do that left space for 3-4 session flights of fancy, and they "passed that on to me" as I became a DM.

Crossblade
2011-04-09, 01:52 AM
Out of the 3 DnD games? Zero.
The first, I'm not surprised about because we were kids, ranging from Grade 4-7. (forget ages, my middle brother was the youngest and the DM was my neighbor in gr 7)
Second game, I join in the last semester before I graduated university and moved back to my home town, so knew I wasn't going to see the ending to that.

But my 3rd one... is a solo campaign with my gf of almost 3 years now. Started 2 years ago, stopped at the start of this school year as its her last year of university and we just don't have time. We may pick it back up this summer as Pathfinder, I hope.

Other systems: Corporation (no one seems to have heard of it)
We're on game attempt #2 of it with the same GM, had to replace half the group, but I'm not sure if this game has a design for a type of ending. It's just super agents going on mission after mission. Rarely with any continuity.

susanexpress
2011-04-09, 02:10 AM
I have played many games, but I don't play them for a long time, none of them.:smalltongue:

Sarco_Phage
2011-04-09, 02:15 AM
Two M&M games, one 3.5 game which ended with a hilarious TPK. Which I guess is technically complete.

One Dogs in the Vineyard game as well.

Hazzardevil
2011-04-09, 02:31 AM
Out of 9 games, 3 died in less than a week, 1 happened under realyl strange circumtances.
We had a game with 2 groups. 1 DM for each. And then one left and the other said he would DM for both. He then stopped responding and didn't post even after I sent a message.

Cespenar
2011-04-09, 02:59 AM
My signature has some statistics. Add to that some ten or so games which were in RL and not in a forum but that didn't change their fate nonetheless.

Sigh.

peacenlove
2011-04-09, 04:33 AM
1 campaign as a player lasting 1+ year. Spanning from lvl 6 to 14. DM was a newbie and we were only 2 consistent players but against all odds we finished it :smallbiggrin:
2 campaigns as a DM. One had 6 players at most, many who were complete morons and were kicked and replaced after 2-3 sessions most. (only a core of 5 players out of 12+ were reliable). 1,5 years with much drama and the greatest rules inconsistencies ever seen in a DnD table (monks with full plate and flurry with 2 longswords, vastly misunderstood grapple rules and psionics, the party frenzied berserker killing half the party TWICE etc etc). Levels 1 - 9. Average party deaths: 1.7 per session.
The other was 1 year the initial campaign with 4 players, was concluded and then 2 out of 4 asked me to continue it for another year. The second part wasn't concluded mainly due to my fault of not coming on good ideas :smallfrown: Levels 8-14 and 14-16(the unfinished part). I enjoyed that one as a DM, because the players were mature, willing and good optimizers.
I dm for 11 years so I count myself rather successful. :smallsmile: Also I give 50% exp to my players as a house rule because I disagree with how fast levels were gained in 3.5 edition

Trinoya
2011-04-09, 04:42 AM
I've had a few games reach 'conclusions' or endings... Although the bulk of those wouldn't be considered very good.


However, I recently ran an All Flesh Must Be Eaten game, extremely short game. It was designed to be played in small increments and last for four sessions. The party eventually defeated the 'boss' that had been following them around through Maryland and Delaware, and discovered that there was more to the infection than meets the eye. One of the players who was 'extremely infected' and no longer considered 'human' by any means, went out by activating a nuclear bomb to take out the BBEG, while all the other players escaped to a nearby civil war era fortress.

While they had survived the first night of the infection and invasion, they had lost a lot, and now had to deal with the fact that many of their friends and family were gone.. or worse.

As they all regrouped in the fort and gathered their supplies, the radio spoke of the world collapsing around them, governments desperately trying to hold on.. and hope for any good outcome quickly dwindling.


I then had a cut scene that went to a tattered and burned arm that appeared to be regenerating some how, it was wrapped in a 'red woolen coat.' The same type that was being worn by the player who sacrificed himself.

The hand twitches. Fade to black.

Needless to say, most of the players were interested in continuing the story, especially the one who nuked himself.

Toliudar
2011-04-09, 12:56 PM
As a DM, I've had three tabletop campaigns and two PBP reach a satisfying conclusion, and twice not complete.

As a player, I've done dozens of campaigns, and have only had three come through to a satisfying ending.

The difficulty, I think, seems to be that, in the endgame, the end becomes clear. Those of us who love the puzzle of an adventure - the mystery - lose focus.

Kurgan
2011-04-09, 03:54 PM
In about ten years of gaming, I've only seen one campaign actually completed. Everything else I've been in either fizzled due to lack of interest, players moving, scheduling conflicts, and so on. A good number of people I play with lose interest if they play a character less than once per week, so if we have to skip out for a week or two, the campaign will usually end right there. Still, regardless of our terrible track record, we keep on pushing onwards. Who knows, maybe we'll reach two in a year or two.

Mulletmanalive
2011-04-09, 04:21 PM
I've managed to bring one game to a full conclusion as a GM

Played three shorts that have finished fully [usually clumsily] by the same GM [one was absolutely freaking epic, mind]

And played in one insanely railroaded game. That finished. My sum contribution to it was managing to start a meaningless rebellion [that seemed important but we were instantly railroaded/teleported/fiated 1000 miles to the south] after I blew up at the GM for making yet another of my actions arbitrarily fail.

tbh, most of the most enjoyable games i've ever played in were things where there wasn't really a big bad to kick over and save the day. Sandbox isn't the word but there wasn't ever just one plot to follow. That kind of game, by definition, doesn't really have an ending...

Dumbledore lives
2011-04-09, 04:31 PM
About 5 years ago we managed to finish a fairly long dungeon crawl, just a basic introduction to D&D. Then we did not manage to finish something which was a bit more, I honestly didn't know what was happening, and still don't.

I as a DM have finished one campaign, but didn't finish the other, mainly because it was more of a test than a real campaign, and was started at the end of the year.

The campaign I'm doing now looks like it may well have a fitting conclusion, though that is still many months off.

PairO'Dice Lost
2011-04-09, 11:25 PM
In the past 3 years, all of the RL campaigns I've run (five) and played in (six) have come to a successful conclusion, in D&D, SWSE, CoC, and d20 Modern--"successfully" defined as the plot coming to a logical close without a TPK. My group here at college has a dozen or so players, and every semester we split into two groups and each run a once- to twice-a-week campaign that lasts through the semester.

Back home, the majority of my 3e campaigns I've run (at least eight by now, we've been playing since shortly after 3.0 came out, several of those campaigns overlapping as we played two at once under different DMs) have come to a successful completion, and the two each long-running 1e and 2e campaigns I played in ended successfully (though there were plenty of TPKs along the way). I've never had a RL game die due to players dropping out; I was the only one in my group to move around a lot as my family's in the Army, so we ensured that campaigns finished before I left.

My PbP games haven't been as successful, but hey, they're PbPs, it happens.

Vknight
2011-04-09, 11:29 PM
By conclusion do you mean the party destroying the entire continent there own by crashing a floating city and effectively nuking a tenth of the planet? Then Yes

If you mean completing the story line then yes. Sure the failed but they stoped the big bad. By destroying his city fortress and part of the planet

Dr.Epic
2011-04-09, 11:33 PM
I'll give you a hint: it's less than 1; unless you count the one where we found an ancient red dragon who gave us a deck of many things that resulted in one of the PCs losing their soul, and another getting a wish letting their half dragon become as powerful as the ancient red dragon, they duel, everyone else dies, and the half dragon get a new horde of treasure. That was a conclusion(?).

zephyrkinetic
2011-04-09, 11:40 PM
1. Though technically, I DMed it, so I wasn't playing in it.

Also, 1 "tournament" in college, but that doesn't really count.

Knaight
2011-04-09, 11:59 PM
Off the top of my head I can say that 3 of my long running face to face campaigns ended. There have easily been 3 long running fizzles as well, and a great many games that died quickly due to scheduling.

Drakevarg
2011-04-10, 01:22 AM
I've been playing for about 12-ish years now, and been in more campaigns than I care to count (mostly due to the fact that every time I visit my cousins we do a handful of campaigns that always, ALWAYS get abandoned). I have yet to finish a single campaign.

I think this is largely because we seem to prefer playing the kind where the adventure simply continues.

I had once character that I played for over five years, who started as Level 1 Elf Fighter and ended as a Level 14 Demigod Lizardman Gish. I could not begin to describe what happened between those times, because playing in a party full of demigods with free access to the multiverse results in more wacky fun than you could imagine. Any time we might've come close to some sort of resolution (even to the latest side quest) it either got completely forgotten as we landed in yet another dimension or was dealt with so offhandedly you could've blinked and missed it. I think we once had to do some sort of labyrinth thing as a trial or something. I'm not sure exactly when we beat it and continued to the next adventure, because we never stopped moving.

Even discounting that nonstop rollercoaster of fun, every campaign I've ever been in either simply died two or three sessions in, or kept going for a while and eventually just faded away.

Ones I've DMed were more or less the same way; either more-or-less oneshots that never went anywhere, or simply faded out after a while. My most successful one lasted about a dozen sessions before I just got bored and asked my party if they were interested in a low-magic campaign.

I think next time I'm at my cousins' place I'm not gonna bother with my usual snooty "expression of philosophy" settings. I'm gonna do a zany, aimless fun rollercoaster because that was how the best campaign I was ever in ran.

[EDIT]: Somewhere in there I just started mumbling to myself.

Cheesy74
2011-04-10, 07:25 PM
My 3.5 game of five years finished up with the party slaying Father Llymic this January. It was a very satisfying end for everyone involved.

Ceaon
2011-04-11, 05:27 AM
I've played in 10ish games and was a DM for another 8 or so. Of these, about half reached a conclusion.

potatocubed
2011-04-11, 05:48 AM
I finish about 2/3 of the games I run. (Tabletop - my record for PbP is much worse, but I'm working on it.) I try to steer things towards a conclusion when I feel burnout setting in, so that I can walk away at the end of an arc, but sometimes the group just falls apart before that happens.

Games I've played in... I think one actually concluded (with a TPK) but the sample size is pretty damn small. Oh, and the Planescape game I'm in is looking set to wrap up by the end of the month, too, so +1. Most of the games I've played in disintegrated after the party did something so absurd the GM couldn't cope any more.

EDIT: Although that reminds me of the 4e game I ran...

Player: "How about some quest XP?"
Me: "Have you finished any quests yet?"
Player: "...not really."

They were so bad at finishing quests. So bad.