Does a campaign need an end goal?

[Tanuki Tales]

So, I left table top gaming after developing a crushing ennui that robbed any fun from playing, an ennui I'm still fighting tooth and nail as I take the helm to DM a campaign for a group of friends I just made recently who have found themselves without a GM for quite some time.

The issue I'm now facing, after deciding I will use a combination of the Wealth Bonus from d20 Modern and the Wish economy, is that I have no idea where I want the game to go. I have my initial hook that will bring the group together and I know that I want each community to be a hub of plot threads that'll develop as time passes, regardless of whether or not the PCs stumble on them (I'm a fan of an living, evolving game world), but I don't know what I want the group to really work towards.

Does a game need one, coherent narrative to pursue and tie up when everything is said and done, or can an anthology of stories work?

[Yuki Akuma]

Episodic campaigns can totally work. As long as there's some emotional catharsis and the players feel like they're actually doing something, a campaign doesn't really need one over-arching plot. Just be sure to have more material prepared than you think you'll need at any one time.

[Falcon X]

You don't need some master long-term goal for it to be fun. However, the players should always feel like they know what they are working towards, even if they only know their goal for a single session at a time.

[Tanuki Tales]

If the threads all run regardless of player interaction, does this run the risk of them feeling like they've lost agency?

Like, let's say that the heir for the family patriarch who was one of the major proponents for non-human rights had eloped with a common girl and they were posing as normal couple in a small mountain town. Now, they're being sought by the father's agents, which the PCs could be enlisted by or stumble upon the couple, choosing to aid them in their hiding or turning them in to the father. But, a faction of human supremacists will catch wind of this opportunity and after some time, will send their agents to kill the girl and kidnap the heir, to put pressure on the father and change the political landscape to allow things to become much more difficult and discriminatory for non-humans. This will eventually happen, no matter if the players even go this mountain town.

[Janthkin]

On the contrary - having plots advance in the absence of the PCs tends to give worlds more believability. When the PCs have a choice of which tasks to perform, it improves the depth of the world when the tasks they chose not to perform have some sort of change in state over time. The only trick in such cases is that PC involvement should allow for different outcomes than if they were not involved.

Also, if you haven't, I strongly encourage you to involve the players in your world-building, both before the game starts and during. Let them help flesh out the world with NPCs that their characters already know (fences, bartenders, "flower girls", guards, etc.), and then reuse those NPCs over time. Give them ownership, and you'll increase their interest.

[Tajerio]

On the contrary - having plots advance in the absence of the PCs tends to give worlds more believability. When the PCs have a choice of which tasks to perform, it improves the depth of the world when the tasks they chose not to perform have some sort of change in state over time. The only trick in such cases is that PC involvement should allow for different outcomes than if they were not involved.

Also, if you haven't, I strongly encourage you to involve the players in your world-building, both before the game starts and during. Let them help flesh out the world with NPCs that their characters already know (fences, bartenders, "flower girls", guards, etc.), and then reuse those NPCs over time. Give them ownership, and you'll increase their interest.

I absolutely agree with the first part of this. If anything, the situation described tends to put a spotlight on player agency--the PCs can't do everything, so the choices they make about what to do become more meaningful.

As for the second part, though I agree there's a lot of value to getting the players involved in worldbuilding, one has to be careful when actually using those NPCs, in case the players have become a bit too proprietary.