Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1018794First, don't have final bosses.

Second, why does the campaign end?  Were they the only people in the world?

The old heroes die, new heroes are born, the world continues.

Well, it won't be over in the sense of play stopping. But the next line of heroes could start literally the next day after the TPK in-game, or it could be ten years later after the bad guy they were fighting has won. That is the sense it would be a "final boss." They already went through like 3 TPKs and new parties, but now the timetable is almost at the end, and if they don't win this time, then the bad guy will have completed his objective. Then the face of the setting will change.

I suppose you're saying to just let them die then, regardless of whether it would feel like years of time had been wasted. I am actually somewhat in agreement with this, but I have my doubts.

Ask a comic book fan who his favorite character is. Then ask them what their favorite story involving that character is. About nine times out of ten they will say it's an "Imaginary story", Elseworlds, "What If?", alternate world, or alternate future story like Old Man Logan, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, The Punisher : The End, or some other tale where the hero died, retired, took over the world, or otherwise finally got some kind of conclusion and climax.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;1018796Ask a comic book fan who his favorite character is. Then ask them what their favorite story involving that character is. About nine times out of ten they will say it's an "Imaginary story", Elseworlds, "What If?", alternate world, or alternate future story like Old Man Logan, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, The Punisher : The End, or some other tale where the hero died, retired, took over the world, or otherwise finally got some kind of conclusion and climax.

That is as an audience member though, not your own character. Also they always come back to life eventually.

Hmm, maybe the new party's goal could be reviving the old party...

Four of the players in my decades-long D&D campaign voluntarily retired characters after they got them to a point where, I guess, they felt like they "Won", or at least had a nice stopping point (Two took over domains, two married NPCs). They exited the stage of their own volition and effectively started over with new low-level characters. This was their own idea.

Is this common? Uncommon? Do most players keep playing a PC until they absolutely can't anymore?

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;1018801Four of the players in my decades-long D&D campaign voluntarily retired characters after they got them to a point where, I guess, they felt like they "Won", or at least had a nice stopping point (Two took over domains, two married NPCs). They exited the stage of their own volition and effectively started over with new low-level characters. This was their own idea.

Is this common? Uncommon? Do most players keep playing a PC until they absolutely can't anymore?

Usually, yes. But what you mentioned is an exception, because they got to retire on their own terms. They had their "happy ending." But it might be different if they all got turned to stone at the climax of their victory or something by a medusa.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018782Actually, a related question: how do you guys feel about long term campaigns ending in a TPK?

This isn't "two sessions in and everybody wipes," but having played for years and made it to a final boss, and then getting destroyed.

Good, bad? Just play it out and let it end on a sad note? Give them a way out?

This is only a meaningful question in single-party campaigns, especially linear ones with one goal. My Wilderlands sandbox has lots of different PC groups and a TPK would not be an issue; TPK of a very high level group probably means a big victory for some bad guys (or good guys!) but the world goes on.

In a single-party campaign, the group wipes, I may use that setting again later. Again BBEG victory will change the campaign world but it likely is still useable. I certainly won't fudge to keep them alive. It makes the game meaningless if the PCs can't lose.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;1018801Four of the players in my decades-long D&D campaign voluntarily retired characters after they got them to a point where, I guess, they felt like they "Won", or at least had a nice stopping point (Two took over domains, two married NPCs). They exited the stage of their own volition and effectively started over with new low-level characters. This was their own idea.

Is this common? Uncommon? Do most players keep playing a PC until they absolutely can't anymore?

In multi-PC games it's very common to retire or semi-retire the high level ones. Eg in my Wilderlands Hakeem Godslayer defeated the Black Sun, reached 20th level, founded the Empire of Altanis-Nerath. He's now basically retired from play, the player has a 5th & a 9th level PC for regular adventuring.

In an Adventure Path type game everyone plays the same one PC to the end of the campaign.

Based on experience and what I see in a lot of responses here and elsewhere, I think, perhaps more than most things, the key to getting that "Living World" feel is multiple PCs, multiple parties.  The more PCs a player has running around doing their own thing, the more it will more like a world and less like one PCs personal story.

Quote from: Madprofessor;1018762I like it. It's the best way to kill a campaign.  When the hero dies, the story is over.  All campaigns are either comedy or tragedy.

...I'm not sure what's your point, so I'm going to abstain from replying.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018782Actually, a related question: how do you guys feel about long term campaigns ending in a TPK?

This isn't "two sessions in and everybody wipes," but having played for years and made it to a final boss, and then getting destroyed.

Anyone that kills you is a final boss:).

QuoteGood, bad?

Beyond either;).
It just happens.

QuoteJust play it out and let it end on a sad note?

Yes.
"As you fall, you see the future Tyrant of the World As We Used To Know It smile, and return to his experiments. Your deaths will be whispered for in forbidden legends, the agents of the TotWaWUtKi persecuting any who spread them. Still, they will be remembered, as the last people who actually got close enough to him to have a shot at stopping his ascension-and at least tried. Others would curse them for failing. But all of them will remember.
There's even a minor and unconsequential cult spreading the tales.
Some day, just as he fears, some people might be inspired by them, and try again..."

QuoteGive them a way out?

No, unless they work for it.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1018794First, don't have final bosses.

Second, why does the campaign end?  Were they the only people in the world?

The old heroes die, new heroes are born, the world continues.

Yes, this.
Though the failure might have changed it.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018795Well, it won't be over in the sense of play stopping. But the next line of heroes could start literally the next day after the TPK in-game, or it could be ten years later after the bad guy they were fighting has won. That is the sense it would be a "final boss." They already went through like 3 TPKs and new parties, but now the timetable is almost at the end, and if they don't win this time, then the bad guy will have completed his objective. Then the face of the setting will change.

Perfect:D!
See above...

QuoteI suppose you're saying to just let them die then, regardless of whether it would feel like years of time had been wasted. I am actually somewhat in agreement with this, but I have my doubts.

Look at it like this: the new PCs get to start as underdogs, in a very different place:p!
I'd actually like something like this to happen;).

Raise Dead was pretty common. Thus the -1 CON penalty so there would be an end eventually.
Of course, Resurrection was an option at very high level play.

I cap my OD&D at 10th level (11th is extraordinary, magical, etc) so Raise Dead is the go-to if the body can be retrieved. However, in many cases, the corpse isn't intact or repairable and in those cases, there can be great quests by the other PCs to revive their friend, but usually its just a funeral and 3D6 down the line.

Quote from: AsenRG;1018818Look at it like this: the new PCs get to start as underdogs, in a very different place:p!
I'd actually like something like this to happen;).

I've done it a couple times recently - one group TPKs, another group starts off in the post-TPK milieu - but in both cases it was a couple years later IRL with new players as well as new PCs. Both times it made for a stronger campaign IMO; the new players were never in any doubt that failure was an option.

The two cases I recall:

1. Rise of the Runelords AP - PCs were wiped out by Nualia at the end of Book 1 ca level 4, resulting in the destruction of Sandpoint town, the intended home base for the campaign. Years later Sandpoint was a goblin-infested charred ruin. Eventually the Black Dogs mercenary company was hired by Titus Scarnetti, one of the few survivors of Sandpoint, to clear the ruins - this went on mostly in the background of the new campaign though the new PCs did interact with Titus; Quillax the Druidess even delivered his wife's baby and ensured the child was born without the taint of Lamashtu (his wife & daughter had been captured by Nualia's Lamashtu ("mother of monsters") cult but ransomed back, so there was a fear they could have been infected).

2. My Wilderlands - catastrophic PC defeat at 10th level, in the final battle the lead PC Varek Tigerclaw fell in the doomed defence of Bisgen town against the Necromancers of the Black Sun; leading to the rise of the evil Empire of Neo-Nerath. Subsequent PCs spent years battling the Black Sun as it embarked on a genocidal campaign of conquest; at one point the new hero Hakeem Greywolf battled Varek Tigerclaw, now a Death Knight of the Black Sun - and ripped out his black diamond heart.

Quote from: S'mon;1018828I've done it a couple times recently - one group TPKs, another group starts off in the post-TPK milieu - but in both cases it was a couple years later IRL with new players as well as new PCs. Both times it made for a stronger campaign IMO; the new players were never in any doubt that failure was an option.

The two cases I recall:

1. Rise of the Runelords AP - PCs were wiped out by Nualia at the end of Book 1 ca level 4, resulting in the destruction of Sandpoint town, the intended home base for the campaign. Years later Sandpoint was a goblin-infested charred ruin. Eventually the Black Dogs mercenary company was hired by Titus Scarnetti, one of the few survivors of Sandpoint, to clear the ruins - this went on mostly in the background of the new campaign though the new PCs did interact with Titus; Quillax the Druidess even delivered his wife's baby and ensured the child was born without the taint of Lamashtu (his wife & daughter had been captured by Nualia's Lamashtu ("mother of monsters") cult but ransomed back, so there was a fear they could have been infected).

2. My Wilderlands - catastrophic PC defeat at 10th level, in the final battle the lead PC Varek Tigerclaw fell in the doomed defence of Bisgen town against the Necromancers of the Black Sun; leading to the rise of the evil Empire of Neo-Nerath. Subsequent PCs spent years battling the Black Sun as it embarked on a genocidal campaign of conquest; at one point the new hero Hakeem Greywolf battled Varek Tigerclaw, now a Death Knight of the Black Sun - and ripped out his black diamond heart.

I really have to take time to read the whole blog of yours. Was Varek player controlled for the battle with Hakeem?

Quote from: S'mon;1018828I've done it a couple times recently - one group TPKs, another group starts off in the post-TPK milieu - but in both cases it was a couple years later IRL with new players as well as new PCs. Both times it made for a stronger campaign IMO; the new players were never in any doubt that failure was an option.

The two cases I recall:

1. Rise of the Runelords AP - PCs were wiped out by Nualia at the end of Book 1 ca level 4, resulting in the destruction of Sandpoint town, the intended home base for the campaign. Years later Sandpoint was a goblin-infested charred ruin. Eventually the Black Dogs mercenary company was hired by Titus Scarnetti, one of the few survivors of Sandpoint, to clear the ruins - this went on mostly in the background of the new campaign though the new PCs did interact with Titus; Quillax the Druidess even delivered his wife's baby and ensured the child was born without the taint of Lamashtu (his wife & daughter had been captured by Nualia's Lamashtu ("mother of monsters") cult but ransomed back, so there was a fear they could have been infected).

2. My Wilderlands - catastrophic PC defeat at 10th level, in the final battle the lead PC Varek Tigerclaw fell in the doomed defence of Bisgen town against the Necromancers of the Black Sun; leading to the rise of the evil Empire of Neo-Nerath. Subsequent PCs spent years battling the Black Sun as it embarked on a genocidal campaign of conquest; at one point the new hero Hakeem Greywolf battled Varek Tigerclaw, now a Death Knight of the Black Sun - and ripped out his black diamond heart.

What happened with that first group that TPK'd?

Quote from: joriandrake;1018833I really have to take time to read the whole blog of yours. Was Varek player controlled for the battle with Hakeem?

Varek at that stage was a soulless husk of a Death Knight controlled by Borritt Crowfinger, NPC Necromancer & Prince of the Black Sun. So GM-controlled.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1018837What happened with that first group that TPK'd?

In "Burnt Offferings" the encounter with Nualia in Thistletop as written is a death trap. There's a narrow 5' tunnel with a pit trap/portcullis, it's perfect for a tough fighter like her to cut through the PCs 1-1. I was using 1e ADnD; the group hit the pit trap/portcullis (one PC* got his foot severed!), then got attacked by the yeth hounds & Nualia while disrupted, and were slaughtered. When I played it myself (in Pathfinder) the GM would have TPK'd us too, if he hadn't fudged massively, letting us flee then come back and redo the encounter (with Nualia still just sitting there, yuck) now with optimised tactics. Second time round my Cleric used 'Command' to force Nualia to come to us out of the kill zone, where we could deal with her.

*An unfortunate Paladin played by Chris, same player who plays Hakeem in my Wilderlands game.