When to End the Campaign?

[cj95]

Hi guys.

Been running a homebrew for approx. 8 months or so and I have an established party of characters on the verge of level 8.

My big questions for DM's...or even players is this: When should I kick off the endgame and start wrapping up the campaign?

As it is I have tons and tons of material that I could presumably go on for another year at least, but I don't want to drag things out needlessly, nor do I want to end things prematurely.

So far the players tell me they are having fun, so that is encouraging, but I am aware at least one player has been preparing his own campaign, and Im wondering if that is a form of not so subtle hints that I need to hurry up?

I realize most games never get to level 20, but I guess Im just wondering how you guys determine when to go into final chapter mode?


Thanks.

[Jay R]

First of all, no, somebody preparing his own campaign is NOT a hint, subtle or otherwise, that you need to hurry up. I start designing campaigns when I feel like thinking about a new world. The one I starting running in about 2015 has elements I thought about in the 1980s.

Most campaigns end when the DM, for whatever reason, doesn't put together the next session. If you are trying to decide if it needs to run down, then it probably doesn't.

On the other hand, if you want to produce a great ending, then start thinking about it and planning it. Once you know how you want the campaign to end, it will tell you when to do it. One of the many considerations is whether any of the players have specific goals for their characters. If the Fighter wants to win a kingdom, then you probably shouldn't end it until you create a kingdom she might rule. If the Rogue wants to create a Thieves' Guild, or the Cleric wants to build a cathedral, then that tells you what needs to happen before you finish.

[I'm still a little frustrated over a game of Flashing Blades that ended right as my character finished all the preliminaries before he could open a fencing academy, but before he could actually do it.]

[Thrudd]

I would say no reason to end until either you or the players are tired of playing it. Even if someone else wants to run a game, there's no reason there has to be an official "hard" end of yours - the players could pick up their old characters and play sessions in your campaign on a less frequent basis.

[Hackulator]

Honestly, the only reason you need to end is because you start to get burned out or it's coming to a true conclusion. It's also important to remember that just because you stop running a campaign doesn't mean you can't come back to it. One of the groups I game with is about to return to a campaign we took a break from over a year ago because the DM was tired of running. You just need to find a good BBEG for them to defeat to wrap things up for the current arc, it doesn't have to be the final BBEG.

[Seto]

What kind of campaign is it? If it's the kind with unrelated adventures and exploration and the PCs taking one job after the other, you need to end it when people (either you or the players) get tired of it. If it's the kind with plot threads and a grand ongoing narrative, you need to PLAN the ending (or, what different possible endings might look like), according to the narrative, in order to satisfyingly lead up to it.

[Kaptin Keen]

I don't think there's an answer to the question.

Personally, I like to imagine an arch, at the apex of which the characters feel powerful for the players. Like they ... have peaked. Obviously. The point at which they have become major players in the game world - even if my games generally are designed to be un-epic. I swear if I never have to see a dragon ever again, it will be too soon.

But the point is: End the game, when the characters - like fruit ripened in the sun - are ready.

Also, be ready for the fact that your players more than likely don't want to abandon their characters just because you say so. In all likelyhood they have had their eyes set on something they really want, just a level or two after the point at which you want to end. That's life.

[cj95]

Many thanks to all the replies.

The campaign definitely of the grans narrative and has a specific ending planned.....get the Maguffin...kill the BBEG...save the world (being intentionally vague here)

All the major NPC's are defined and .....I have the finale all planned in regards to run-up and final fights. (Its not a railroad....but there is a definite arc)

My main question was when to trigger all of the above. In the meantime the players are gathering clues, leveling up, and doing the occasional side quest as well. I would describe the overall progress as leisurely at present, but things could definitely be ramped up if needed.

In essence...my ending is planned and the pieces are in place....but there is always room to cram in more detail in the meantime...fetch mini-maguffins...etc etc.

For the moment Im going to continue as is.

How about you guys...what level do you guys usually reach before ending? Have you ever prematurely ended a narrative campaign ahead of schedule?

Thanks.

[Seto]

Well, established modules and adventure paths can provide a good baseline. I'm currently playing in (not running) paizo's Legacy of Fire. We're level 12, halfway through the 5th module out of 6. I estimate the campaign will end when we're level 15 or 16.
It's fun: long enough to really grow attached to our characters and the world, but not long enough that it became stale.

In general for campaigns with an ongoing plot, I'd say it depends on the scale and the BBEG. I'd say lower than 7 levels long feels more like an adventure than a campaign. Assuming you start at level 1, I'd say ending at level 7 to 10 is fine if you're saving the city or the region, maybe from a local war of calamity. You're the heroes of your country/region. Ending around level 15 is good if you're facing off against a strong warlord, a cult of necromancers or demon worshippers - going as far is probably necessary if your campaign involves other planes or planar enemies. Going all the way to level 20 is long and hard to pull off, but it can be worth it if everyone is involved and you're going for a big finish, saving the world, facing off a nascent demon lord or whatnot.
It's all pretty subjective of course.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I'm really old school - I think there is usually NO END to a campaign, because I think of a campaign as being the world setting, and the characters within it. You might come to the end of a series of adventures with a common theme, or you might retire certain characters - but the campaign goes on.

I've been playing in the same campaign setting with a variety of players now for about 28 years. We've changes game rules and editions, we've rebooted and retconned as our sensibilities have mutated and matured - but one of my old gang from the 90s will still know who is who, and where they are, with only a little catching up.

So if you have lots of material that you might like to use, keep it. If you can see a way to satisfactorily end the series of adventures that you're currently in, then go for it. Come back to the setting again, after your friend's games, and use your old material. Playing new adventures with new characters in the same setting is part of what makes PnP RPGs better than CRPGs.

TL:DR? Take a break - it keeps you fresh. Keep your material and use it for a new set of adventures. Never talk about ending!

[Kol Korran]

Hmmm... As to the original question, when to end a campaign, I think it depends on a few things:
1. GM's stamina and burnout:
GMing is a demanding hobby, and depending on other life factors, the system and game, and group dynamics, planning and running the game may be charging or exauating the GM. (Many times both, but the overall balance matters).

2. Player's play styles, interests and goals:
By "players" I include the GM, and purposefully not refer to the characters. The people around the table (Or web server or whatever) all game for their own reasons. Some more scholary design articles call these "the aesthetics of play". (Google it). Some come to portray a specific character, some like a good challenge, some want to explore a fantastic world and it's mysteries, some want to hang out with friends, and more... GMing also serves various play aesthetics, a bit differently, but on the whole it's a similar principle.

As long as the game continues to sate such desires, the game can continue. Note that for some aesthetics (Narrative, which seeks a good story structure, or Fantasy, which seeks to experience the fantasy world as "real" as possible), this can be a challenge, and require good understanding of the world and game pacing.

3. The type of campaign:
The angry GM touched upon it in his article about campaign structure (Meatballs, Noodles and spaghetti. Again- google it). Episodic campaign can end, pause and restart easily, but most others need to work towards a rsolution of sort, and as some said- you need to plan it. From a certain point in such campaigns, when the players finally understand the big picture enough, major problems and the way to resolve them, the game starts to really focus towards that end. So be prepared... Though, it can also be the end of an arc, and after the climax and tension resolve, you can continue onwards...

4. System:
D&D doesn't tell the same kind of stories at all levels, at least for most groups... due to the options the players start accessing around 9th level (teleport, raise dead, planar travel, powrful divinations and more), the game often changes, sometimes drastically, in pace, challenges, scope, and more... the stories themselves change. Some players (GM included) like the change and adapt well, while for others it can ruin the game.

I remember there was a classification of the types of stories you tell by level (1-5 gritty, 6-10 high fantasy, 11-15 super heroes, or such). The E6 system came to address just that- to be able to continue to play similar types (Or at least in a similar scope) kind of games.

5. New interests?
Sometime a campaing can end due to a new interest of the group- they want to try out some new concept, new region, new rule set, new system, new characters. This may happen even if everything else is going fine, though most groups will then focus to bring the current campaign to a good closure before moving on. (Possibly to return?).

As to my own experiences:
-------------------------------------------
1. My first time GMing as an adult we ran a game from levels 2-12 (They rose to 13 at the end, but that it was when it was over). It was agood ending, and quite an epic feel to it. (They ended fighting a mysterious bounded entity while dragons fought over them, and it... threw the dragons at them...). I'm a firm believer that you really don't need epic levels to make a game feel epic. It depends on how you build the game, what is at stake, and th players themselves. (If you want to check it, look under "Many Facets of Darkness" in my extended sig)

2. Under another GM (One of my players), we mostly ran shorter campains (4-7 levels usually), before he burns out. He makes great games, but find it a hassle to plan. Nowdays, when he GMs, he makes short arcs so he can stop when he's done. He usually GMed while I was planning my stuff. He also uses such games to playtest various concepts.

3. I once ran pirate themed campaign, which stopped very abruptly after about 5 sessions. Why? Because I didn't read my group's play styles well enough. The initial campaign introduced 2 major antagonists, and ended with the party capturing a fleet captain's shio and evading pursuit. Till then it was pure awesome! Some of our best gaming moments and memories.

But... I then sought to make it more sandboxy, with a lot of different hooks on different isles, and for now no major connecting story, and no lead on how to continue "the plot" with their 2 antagonists. I Thought it would be fun, but only 2 of the players thought the same. The others wanted more focus, a more structured narrative, direction and challenge. By the time I understood my mistake, the campaign lost it's momentum and interest...

4. My last GMing attempt (to date) was the Wrathnof The Righteous adventure path. I changed A LOT of it, but the game was very exciting and tense. However, it fell apart near the end of the 4th module, due to acombination of reasons:
- GM burnout: Adjusting the material (Many times utterly writing my own content), while trying to stay close to the APs line, was overly taxing.
- High level play: we got to 15th level, 6th mythic tier, and the game was so far off from what we knew, it became a whole diffeeent beast. On one side, it was exciting, but on the other hand it was jarring. Some playes for example really hate ressurection, or high speed llanar travel, and the NPCs and environs they met made it very hard for some to relate to their own characters.
- Mismatching with player styles: APs are mostly linear/ semi railroady by design. The game kept demanding the party will explore different things than they wanted. 2 of my players are heavily into the Expression aesthetic, but due to the nature of the campaign, their designs for expression were stemmed out. (It tool me time to realize it, too much time... you live and learn)

Hope this helps!

[Pauly]

I must admit that with modern computer RPGs so focused on grinding that I really dislike games that make me feel I have to reach level [X] in order to achieve the goal.

I’m happier with short campaigns (1 year or less real time) where I feel I have completed a story. By all means come back and revisit the setting and the characters, but have a break. Do something else, play another system, play another setting, whatever floats your boat. Make it feel like when you come back to the campaign like waiting for the next GoT season. Don’t make it feel like binge watching from the first episode to the last without a break.

[daemonaetea]

It's an art, not a science. I would probably wrap it up while players are still having fun, not after, just because last impressions can be important. So if attentions seem to be waning, it's probably a good moment to come to at least a momentary stop.

Although I would like to add a note here, relating to your friend that's prepping a game. The group I play with tends mostly towards shorter games of 3-4 months, and it's mostly because many of us like to DM. So we generally try to make shorter experiences just so each of us has a chance to run things. So if your friend finishes their prep and wants to run something, you might want to have a discussion with him just on what he wants to do going forward, so you can both come to an understanding that would work for the two of you.

[Zaharra]

It's all what you and your players want. I love a long running campaign, I want to go to level 20 and beyond with every game and I get really attached to the universe and characters. When I go home after the last session, I usually cry a lot for a day or two. I know we're just playing a game together, but if I see you 4-6 hours a week for two or more years, I'm gonna miss you.

[JohanOfKitten]

I think it depends a lot of your play style and the current state of your group (availability, fun with the characters, ...), but I'm more on the side of closing the loops than the side of unwind the thread if there's still a wool ball.

I've played a lot of campaign that ended by boredom, DM burn out or IRL indisponibility. It's fine when it happened once, a bit less twice, and then it's kinda annoying. Characters ends all in a trash, stuck in the middle of something, with no arc completed.
Having an end gives a satisfying closure that keep the campaign in mind as a whole, not as an unfinished business.

I think we can compare that to a TV show. The world lore is rich and the first seasons are nice. The public approve, so they continue, add other arcs, new hooks. It might go well and go on and on, bring some 12 new seasons and become something quite stellar! But it can be, like a lot of TV shows, stopped after season 5 because the network cut the money, or the main character's actor quit. Then the TV show ends brutally, with no real closure. Loose ends are everywhere, the spectators are pissed or sad.


To decide when to bring your campaign final arc, you should take those things into account:
- Group availability and motivation. Are you sure that everyone is still at the table in 6 month, a year, 3 years? If someone leave, how would it affect the group (some groups might deal well with roll over, others don't)? Would it affect the story (if some arcs or the lore are deeply tied with some character, having his player leaving might kill the whole thing)?
- Your ability/interest to DM high levels. DMing (and playing) low, middle or high levels is vastly different. Some people won't have much fun at high levels. (I've a friend that DMs a lot but is really inconfortable when the levels over lvl12. Personally, I prefer playing the lvls 5-10 than higher or lower)
- The level of your final arc's threat. You said you had teh whole final arc set in your mind. It's always possible to modulate the difficulty to match PCs levels, but some stories fits better at some levels. It could be a good In-Game indicator of the good time to unraveled the final arc.
- Characters growth and power. Kaptain Keen already talked about it a few messages ago. The end should happened when the characters are at the top of their potential. Sure, they can still gain levels, political power, wealth. Sure, there can still be new adventures, even if the character retired. But at some point, we have some sense of completion.
- Yours players opinion on it. It can be a bit difficult, because you can't have a totally open chat with them about it (to avoid spoilers for scenarii to come), and sometimes they'll stick with the "The game is fine, I'm for continuying" (which is a valid opinion, but sometimes said more mecanically than heartily and it block all deeper discussions afterward). But they're part of the game and it's nice if they can have a word to say about it too.



Here some of my experiences (only the ended campaigns, not the dropped ones), hoping the examples might help you find your own schedule for your campaign:
- The mines of Phandelver (DD 5e). Some might argue that's not a campaign but only an adventure for few levels, but it was nearly a year and a half for this group, as we were having complicated schedules. This one was prematurely ended, due to ours schedules becoming worse. The DM speed up things and cut secondary quests, to give us a way to end the story. We didn't have the possibility to use all the lore and material, but the main story had a good closure, and our characters might be able to have sense of completion here with their backgrounds and secondary objectives, with the possibility to continue their story further later (they were only level 4 or 5 at the end).
> Complicated IRL schedule push the campaign to close quicker.

- Selenium (DD 3.5). A pretty big campaign. There was a main DM, creator of the world, and wa switched DM sometimes for small adventures. The world and material was huge. We had some shorts adventures in it, before having a main campaign with the same characters for a long time (6 years at least, lvl1 to 14/15 for the primary ones). The story went gradually, in stakes and power. Everybody
had character growth and significant events in their characters' stories (well, nearly everybody. Some didn't have interest in it). After lvl11, the game was changing slowly in the pace for battle and in our options to deal with threats (At some point, we figured that we took more time preparing battle than actually fighting, with all the options, spells, boosts. At another point, a bit earlier I think, we stopped dealing with healing outside battles or stressed situations with successive battles, because it was tedious rolls, bookkeeping and lost time with no really ressources depletion). So the DM decided to launch the final arc, and it went big and loud stuff (as in "multiverse at stake" and "world changing choices"). The campaign's world could go on and the characters obtained satisfying closures. We launched later a new campaign in this world, going on 30 years later or so, with the previous PCs becoming some major NPCs due to their adventures and the consequences of the events unfolding. (This second campaign depleted unfortunately, due to IRL constraints).
> Characters met their goals and gained power and position. The gaming level was getting a bit too high. The stakes was getting really high.

- The hunters (WoD). It was a mortal game, and it started with a weird cross-over with the TTRPG Anima, but we sticked to WoD after two or three dual games. There was a main DM, creator of the world, and wa switched DM sometimes for small adventures. The game was modular in his operating (after the first sessions, the group of PCs became a group of supernatural hunters and when something strange was going on, just a part of the group (the players there) went to investigate it). The pace of game was high for a time, with a good conjunction of ideas and a lot of holed timetables), but it slowed down after a few months, to go nearly dormant. After a year or so of nearly no session of this campaign, the main DM convoked most of the players to end the campaign properly, instead of letting it die slowy. This final arc warped some loose ends and go big. We stopped the apocalypse by leading a nuclear bomb given by the army to the closest chamber of the Devil in hell. The final act of the Devil trying to tempt us to save his neck allow us to put nice developments to the characters at that point. That final arc made the campaign more memorable.
> Dying game, put at misery with proper closure.

- Lovebites (SmallvilleRPG), Bay Witch (SmallvilleRPG) and L.A. Nights (Vampire - mix of Dark Ages and Masquerade- featuring some relationship system and world mapping from SmallvilleRPG).
Those 3 campaigns were composed with a preestablished schedule. It was due to three things: IRL deadlines (like having half the players moving to Australia next fall, or the other half having a baby in less than 9 months.), specific format (it was narrative campaigns that fits pacing and dynamics of TV shows) and schedule overload (A very intensive and demanding game, but in less than 9 months to avoid burn out)
The specific format lead to very intense sessions with a lot of character growth. There's no rest, things can get crazy and we can explore lot of thematics. But the TV show format is a tricky one. If you slow down, you risk repetition and lack of peps. If you speed up continuously, it end up with non sense and chaos. A short range of sessions help to keep things on tracks and bring a good story (We did 15 or 13 sessions for the first two, the numbers were not completely fixed at beginning and were settled as the things went, 10 for the last).
Thoses games were really overloading, specially for the DM, with a lot of preparation with short time and a constant feed of external elements (visuals, but also enough musics to call it more a soundtrack than some background music).
Even if, as a player, I might have wish sometimes that it continues and that I could play the characters a bit more, the games and stories were so great from start to end that they are my most cherished and memorable campaigns.
> Schedule fixed in advance, the unfolding of the main arc gives the pace, with everything around intertwinned to bring great moments and character developments. The end is part of the whole, not a wall at the end of the corridor.


I'll finished this post with a talk about an ongoing campaign I DM, that fits the opposite side with the idea to go on and on.
- The Sentinels of Innistrad (DD 5e). This campaign is going through the plane of Innistrad of Magic the Gathering, with some adaptation and is following the begining of the timeline (Avacyn is missing). It started 3 years ago, with a whole year paused (again, baby on the way, then in the way :smalltongue:). From now, it's gone from lvl1 to 12. I've tonns of material and I can give them a really long campaign. Heck, I can give them two, with the lore of MtG with Avacyn return's storyline and with Shadows over Innistrad's storyline.
I intend to bring them to lvl20 if things go well, but I don't know where to stop and what to do here. Lately, I've speed up the events and a really big thing is coming: the siege of Thraben, with the players taking part in the major event and having to act and choose to release or not Avacyn.
I've struggle to decide whether or not it's the final act of this campaign. I've so much material and quests they can easily up to lvl 20 before they get to Thraben.
But the things going on after Thraben siege are really interesting either, so maybe it would be interesting to bring Thraben earlier, cutting on secondary events (secondary but not minor. For example, the players have discovered that their homeland is getting more and more overwhelmed by werewolf to the point of them controlling the capital.) and then bring the madness and horror of Shadows over Innistrad to an epic fight with some interplanar titan.
Maybe Shadow over Innistrad would be a nice second campaign, with new characters in the world shaped by the previous one.
I'm still searching.




I hope it would help :smallsmile:

[Jay R]

All the major NPC's are defined and .....I have the finale all planned in regards to run-up and final fights. (Its not a railroad....but there is a definite arc)

My main question was when to trigger all of the above.

When the PCs are strong enough to defeat the BBEG, but still weak enough to believe that they might lose as the fight progresses.


How about you guys...what level do you guys usually reach before ending?

My campaigns have always ended when I ran out of spare time, or moved.


Have you ever prematurely ended a narrative campaign ahead of schedule?

I've never successfully ended a campaign with a definitive ending. [That's mostly because I'm building a world, not a story. There are always more dungeons, more wilderness, more monsters.] No PCs in my game have ever sent their own kids to Hogwarts, eaten schwarma after the last big fight, left Narnia to return to England, or come home saying, "Well, I'm back."

[cj95]

OP here...

I appreciate all the awesome comments, especially your own experiences with endgame resolution.

At this point im going to continue on as long as the players are happy and interested.

The clues for my endgame are scattered all over the world, and while not all of them are strictly necessary to figure out the final mystery, they do tend to add a bit of flavor.


Probably the only bit of advice that might be hard to follow was the idea of saving ideas for later adventures in this world.

The endgame is designed to be apocalyptic and world ending in nature with the players making the final decision on the lesser of various evils in the world. Without being spoilery...the world was a failed experiment of the gods and is falling apart...."Winning" the campaign involves figuring out how to jump start a newer...better designed reality with perhaps the players becoming "gods" in a more successful world.

(hoping my players don't read this...)