The group facing defeat after a 2 year long campaign.

[Joethegoblin]

To make a long story short, our world of darkness campaign is closing in on its end after over two years of play. And unfortunately, it seems that they are going to "fail".

For context, a godlike demon is using our earth and our dimension as a dimensional superhighway. And doing so he will be causing irreparable damage to our planet.
(A twist I like. He has nothing against us, the damage caused is purely collateral)

And the clock is ticking, its happening. they are bloodied, battered, and do not have the resources to take him out.
I am rooting for them, I will never count them out.
But I am preparing for the worst.
And If they lose, I want to try to give them a good sending off. let them lose with dignity.

And I am drawing a blank. If you have any suggestions. please do, If you need more context, ask and I will provide.

[Pex]

Semi-joking

Dolphins save them while mice shake their fists at them for being left behind. The dolphins take them to a new Earth being built just like the old one offering them the opportunity to make minute changes to make it a little better than the old one.

[Batcathat]

A classic silver-lining to a bad ending is to show that the heroes' efforts did something. Maybe it means that the damage to the planet won't be quite as severe. Maybe it means that (some of the) people get a chance to escape somewhere before the worst happens. Maybe it means that the bad guy is permanently injured (Physically? Mentally? Spiritually?) so that he won't be able to enjoy his victory.

[Kurald Galain]

he will be causing irreparable damage to our planet.

Run an Adam-and-Eve plot, as in everybody gets destroyed except...

(and ideally these are two of the PCs or close friends of them)
(edit) For instance, Ragnarok from Norse mythology ends in one of these.

[Kurald Galain]

To make a long story short, our world of darkness campaign is closing in on its end after over two years of play.

But wait, since this is WOD, what are the godlike ancient Vampires doing? What about the godlike oracle Mages? Ok, the Werewolves have nowhere near this amount of power so they're probably screwed, but what about the Demons, if they're in play? What is the Technocracy doing, and how about Caine, and Lucifer?

When push comes to shove, WOD has quite a lot of heavy hitters that don't want the world destroyed. If you want inspiration, the Gehenna splatbook has a number of suggestions on how the world might end or almost end.

[Joethegoblin]

But wait, since this is WOD, what are the godlike ancient Vampires doing? What about the godlike oracle Mages? Ok, the Werewolves have nowhere near this amount of power so they're probably screwed, but what about the Demons, if they're in play? What is the Technocracy doing, and how about Caine, and Lucifer?

When push comes to shove, WOD has quite a lot of heavy hitters that don't want the world destroyed. If you want inspiration, the Gehenna splatbook has a number of suggestions on how the world might end or almost end.

I am actually not using the default WoD setting. I use some of it when its convenient. Its set in the 1920's, and they are playing mortals.

But to answer some of these questions. A big part of their problems are problems of the time. The spread of information is slow. Phones are not in every home and such. But otherwise, The heart of vampire power, is in Europe. For more insight, World War 1 never ended. The humans stopped fighting, everything else kept going.
The supernatural powers, werewolves, vampires and all their cousins are duking it out in Europe. While in the Americas, secret organizations are doing their best to keep it out.

And those who are big and powerful enough to deal with him. Are unaware of the plot. And where they are in the plot, its too late for them to reach out to Asia, Europe, or Africa. They have days, not weeks. They know one entity they know as 'Papa Azul, The God-King of Caracas', which is potentially powerful enough to deal with him. Strangely enough they have not reached out to him on that matter. On the other hand they are not aware of that he has a deal going to protect his own realm.

[Kurald Galain]

And those who are big and powerful enough to deal with him. Are unaware of the plot.

I'm rather surprised that the Big and Powerful ones don't have a spy network, or magical divination, or both. Any vampire with high Auspex, or any mage with high Time or Entropy sphere, or any high-ranking Theurge Garou would plausibly be aware of what's happening.

There's also a possible ending. A vampire/werewolf/mage acquaintance of the PCs reveals himself to be way more powerful than they initially thought, and hands the PCs some Big Guns (metaphorically speaking) and recruits them against this demon.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Few ideas since WOD. First the party loses but does something to continue the fight for a new group of heroes. Though the demon wins their actions allow something like a resistance movement to form. Secondly, the become the very evil they are fighting. Whether that is becoming vampires, demons, whatever, they sacrifice their humanity to become an evil force to combat another. Lastly, the make a deal with another evil to defeat this one but ends up costing them more and in that they have lost.

So a few ideas.

[Pex]

Don't make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just because you think they won't win doesn't mean they won't win. Of course you don't want to Dues Ex Machina to save the day, but whatever the players do don't fiat it can't work. In the chance out of the blue they come up with a solution so ingenious you're shocked, let it happen and they save the day. Otherwise, whatever they do let them have their chance. If it ends up hinging on the roll of a die, let the die fall where it may.

[Mechalich]

I am actually not using the default WoD setting. I use some of it when its convenient. Its set in the 1920's, and they are playing mortals.

But to answer some of these questions. A big part of their problems are problems of the time. The spread of information is slow. Phones are not in every home and such. But otherwise, The heart of vampire power, is in Europe. For more insight, World War 1 never ended. The humans stopped fighting, everything else kept going.
The supernatural powers, werewolves, vampires and all their cousins are duking it out in Europe. While in the Americas, secret organizations are doing their best to keep it out.

And those who are big and powerful enough to deal with him. Are unaware of the plot. And where they are in the plot, its too late for them to reach out to Asia, Europe, or Africa. They have days, not weeks. They know one entity they know as 'Papa Azul, The God-King of Caracas', which is potentially powerful enough to deal with him. Strangely enough they have not reached out to him on that matter. On the other hand they are not aware of that he has a deal going to protect his own realm.

This isn't actually a WoD campaign then, it's a campaign in a homebrewed setting using the Storyteller system. That's a perfectly fine thing to do, but you should avoid describing it as a 'WoD campaign' because that will only cause confusion.

And the clock is ticking, its happening. they are bloodied, battered, and do not have the resources to take him out.
I am rooting for them, I will never count them out.
But I am preparing for the worst.
And If they lose, I want to try to give them a good sending off. let them lose with dignity.

So here's an important question: has the party consistently failed in meeting their objectives, or did you center around the campaign on an impossible task? If it's the first, then it's fine if they fail, and the manner of their death should probably reflect that failure. For example, an endless stream of reinforcements blocking their path to the world-saving MacGuffin sourced by all those minions they failed to neutralize over two years or all the bitter enemies they made. If it's the second, then you, as the GM, made a mistake and you need to recalibrate the options. Unless the game is intended to be horror, impossible tasks are not okay campaign setups. This can be done easily by providing the needed resources in some kind of windfall - have someone else reach out to them.

[Pex]

This isn't actually a WoD campaign then, it's a campaign in a homebrewed setting using the Storyteller system. That's a perfectly fine thing to do, but you should avoid describing it as a 'WoD campaign' because that will only cause confusion.



So here's an important question: has the party consistently failed in meeting their objectives, or did you center around the campaign on an impossible task? If it's the first, then it's fine if they fail, and the manner of their death should probably reflect that failure. For example, an endless stream of reinforcements blocking their path to the world-saving MacGuffin sourced by all those minions they failed to neutralize over two years or all the bitter enemies they made. If it's the second, then you, as the GM, made a mistake and you need to recalibrate the options. Unless the game is intended to be horror, impossible tasks are not okay campaign setups. This can be done easily by providing the needed resources in some kind of windfall - have someone else reach out to them.

Nitpick: Just because a campaign is a horror campaign doesn't make it ok to set up a scenario where the PCs can only fail or be almost impossible to succeed.

[Aliess]

What do you mean by end of the world?
Is it destroyed?
sucked into another dimension?
Still there but most of the population is dead?
If it's not completely destroyed then as suggested above, put in options for the players to shape the new world (potential next campaign setting).

Alternatively:
A suitably powerful message turns up and throws the PCs back in time to a key point where they can change something that will give them an edge in the present.
The PCs find an interdimensional trade document that indicates there's a cheaper, faster highway the demon could build assuming the PCs can get them out of a binding clause. Sure it would doom a totally different planet, but that one only has a population of 12 million sentient puppies so it's all fine right?

[Yora]

Since it's World of Darkness, the PCs losing and a giant disaster devastating the world seems actually very appropriate. It was never going to have a happy ending.

If the players could succeed, I'm all for playing it out to the end. It's not over until it's over.
But I would try to plan ahead to also have a way to make the ultimate defeat spectacular. The PCs getting overrun and killed by a horde of goons in some random basement while there's still three days on the clock would be disappointing. If the world gets destroyed, let the players be present at the specific place and time where it starts, perhaps being the first to be consumed in a cool memorable fashion.

Perhaps aiming for a sense of "This end was innevitable, but we kept fighting it until the last moment."

[KorvinStarmast]

Since it's World of Darkness, the PCs losing and a giant disaster devastating the world seems actually very appropriate. It was never going to have a happy ending.

If the players could succeed, I'm all for playing it out to the end. It's not over until it's over.
But I would try to plan ahead to also have a way to make the ultimate defeat spectacular. The PCs getting overrun and killed by a horde of goons in some random basement while there's still three days on the clock would be disappointing. If the world gets destroyed, let the players be present at the specific place and time where it starts, perhaps being the first to be consumed in a cool memorable fashion.

Perhaps aiming for a sense of "This end was innevitable, but we kept fighting it until the last moment."

I like your take on this.
Go down in a blaze of glory.
Last great act of defiance.
And so on.

[Easy e]

After the Apocalypse, just convert the game to Post-Apoc. Done.

[Glorthindel]

Absolutely ignore the suggestions of pulling in big bad super-vamps (or whatever) from elsewhere in the setting to save the day; the only thing worse than failing is learning that everything you were doing was a waste of time anyway because deus-ex machina was always coming to render all their actions pointless.

Either let things fall as they may, or allow their failure to mitigate the damage somehow. Perhaps give them an option that would guarantee their deaths, so they have the choice to accept sacrifice for a small degree of success, or gamble the dice one last time on an all-or-nothing showdown (that they know the odds are stacked against them on)

[Slipjig]

An important question is whether the players have been painted into a corner by their own bad decisions over the course of the campaign, or if you gave them a no-win scenario from the get-go.

If the players have been fiddling while the world burned around them, it's okay, tell the story as a tragedy caused by their own hubris. Once it's become clear they can't win, though, don't drag it out. Maybe give them a single game session to shove people they care about into some kind of ark or dimensional rift, and then end the campaign on a downer note.

OTOH, if you designed a no-win campaign from the start (or had a very specific path to victory in mind that apparently wasn't adequately signposted), you owe your players a better ending. And they don't need to know it's a retcon, as far as they know the plan was always to make the situation look incredibly bleak right up until they had an opportunity to save the world.

There have been some good suggestions on options for doing that. Personally, I like the idea of a powerful Mage casting them back in time to the point when the plot went off your intended rails, knowing that Paradox will utterly destroy the Mage (and, after a brief interval, the PCs as well). The PCs have to be the ones sent back, because Paradox Spirits have a harder time tracking Muggles, so they will have a brief window (i.e. one game session) to set in motion a new chain of events that leads to a different outcome. Actually, a fun moment could be letting the PLAYERS figure out what the critical moment was, it could serve as a fun retrospective of the highlights of the campaign. Whatever they pick, though, work to make it a correct choice. It may not fix everything, but it should at minimum give them a slightly less Crapsack World ending, and feel like their characters accomplished something in the end.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Don't make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just because you think they won't win doesn't mean they won't win. Of course you don't want to Dues Ex Machina to save the day, but whatever the players do don't fiat it can't work. In the chance out of the blue they come up with a solution so ingenious you're shocked, let it happen and they save the day. Otherwise, whatever they do let them have their chance. If it ends up hinging on the roll of a die, let the die fall where it may.

Agreed.

Do you want the players to win? Make it easier to win. Whatever their last big desperate idea is, let it be a viable path to victory.

[elros]

An important question is whether the players have been painted into a corner by their own bad decisions over the course of the campaign, or if you gave them a no-win scenario from the get-go.

If the players have been fiddling while the world burned around them, it's okay, tell the story as a tragedy caused by their own hubris. Once it's become clear they can't win, though, don't drag it out. Maybe give them a single game session to shove people they care about into some kind of ark or dimensional rift, and then end the campaign on a downer note.

OTOH, if you designed a no-win campaign from the start (or had a very specific path to victory in mind that apparently wasn't adequately signposted), you owe your players a better ending. And they don't need to know it's a retcon, as far as they know the plan was always to make the situation look incredibly bleak right up until they had an opportunity to save the world.

There have been some good suggestions on options for doing that. Personally, I like the idea of a powerful Mage casting them back in time to the point when the plot went off your intended rails, knowing that Paradox will utterly destroy the Mage (and, after a brief interval, the PCs as well). The PCs have to be the ones sent back, because Paradox Spirits have a harder time tracking Muggles, so they will have a brief window (i.e. one game session) to set in motion a new chain of events that leads to a different outcome. Actually, a fun moment could be letting the PLAYERS figure out what the critical moment was, it could serve as a fun retrospective of the highlights of the campaign. Whatever they pick, though, work to make it a correct choice. It may not fix everything, but it should at minimum give them a slightly less Crapsack World ending, and feel like their characters accomplished something in the end.

I would give the players an option to go back in time, but warn them it would trigger a paradox so they eventually be damned, but they could save the World. I like the noble sacrifice trope.

[RazorChain]

If they lose, then it should be spectacular.

My group still remembers when we destroyed the true pattern and destroyed Amber and all order in the multiverse. This we did to kill the villain and didn't fathom the consequences of our actions. We all loved the ending except for one players who was so unhappy that he wrote some weird Amber fanfiction where our campaign was just a dream or something.

[2BobHeroes]

For me, the most salient parts of your follow up explanatory post are:

1. The players "are playing mortals."
2. Mortal secret organizations are so far successfully keeping the supernatural (and supernatural WWI) out of the Americas.

So offer them a deal from the devil. A representative of a faction who does not believe there is a Real World-Ending Problem, but knows (1) they are heavy hitters for mortals and (2) they are involved in something they think is desperate offers to embrace them (or whatever, depending on faction) in exchange for Owning Their Rears in two weeks.