Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
It hard to end a campaign because an ending implies there is a beginning, and middle. Which is the point of story gaming like the World of Darkness stuff. In contrast most games revolve around the players pursuing their individual goals in concert. Some of those goals aligning because of the plot the referee is running.
The trick is resolve all the players major goals at once in a plausible way. Like a cook trying to bring a variety of hot dishes to the table at once you need some skill and experience to pull this off without looking ham fisted. Otherwise some players will want to continue playing and the for them the campaign doesn't end but rather just stops.
I'd definitely agree. It's what makes modules so damn useful; someone who designed a whole campaign (whether it's a massive campaign like G-D-Q or a one-off like T1 (prior to T1-4)). But there's still legwork to be done; Gary notes in B2 that other monsters may take up residence after lairs have been cleaned out. Unless a DM wants to park the adventurers in that area forever, there's a question of "okay, where from here" that has to be answered, and that (for me, anyway) is where the difficulty comes in.
Yes, absolutely. The higher the stakes have been raised, the more difficult the payoff and the trickier a satisfying ending will be. I've completed two multi-year campaigns and the ending have by far been the most challenging.
On a more mechanical level, I see most campaigns, in D&D especially, tend to tank around midgame anyway, because the DM doesn't know how to handle characters who can throw hugely powerful spells.
My campaigns tend to organize themselves into 'chapters' (sets of 4-10 adventures), which tend to have natural, usually satisfying, endings, any one of which could serve as a decent 'campaign ending.' Of the campaigns that I've run in recent years, only one had a very unsatisfying end, and that was because I had to move across the Atlantic just after it had started to get interesting.
I don't carefully plan my campaigns to work out this way ahead of time, but rather, as the adventures progress, I see certain cool ways for major conflicts to be resolved, and then plan a few adventures accordingly.
In short, I haven't had any problem coming up with satisfying conclusions to my campaigns over the past decade.
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
Yes.
That's why I only do short story campaigns and sandbox campaigns. My short story campaigns are about 10 sessions and from session one onward, we are marching toward the final confrontation while the PCs are still scrambling to figure out the story. My sandbox campaigns are eternal and episodic and I do not put any world-changers in the game, just localized events.
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
RPGPundit
Yes, I would. I think it's because many campaigns tend to fizzle out, so it's very easy to get a sense of how to best start a game simply through sheer practice. Ending a campaign is something one does less often and gets less practice doing.
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
RPGPundit
Yes. It's probably the most challenging part of a successful campaign.
Actually I find the Middles the hard part. I know where I started. I know where I need to end (for that dramatic climax - and a few ending scenes to wrap up those little things). It is the road between the two that sometimes gets long, twisted, and one can get lost on.
Now, I normally plot the important or required scenes on each plot thread, from the major plot arc and the lesser arcs attached to specific characters. I usually plot a game by choosing which scenes would be available (given situation and location), who is showing up, and giving everyone things to do (often requiring a disposible one shot plot to keep others engaged). However, the players often skip things or go to odd places or decide the quest to save the world is not as important as making a few tal of silver right now, making these harder to impliment.
End?
I usually try to run open ended campaigns with mini-endings every 2 or 3 adventures, but still with some overarching plot. I don't remember a time when I ever intentionally ended a campaign with a big 'closure' type moment. In the future, I'd like to, but I'll need a definite goal at the beginning and have the end point planned.
I have been running a 4e campaign since 4e came out (played 25-ish games now) and I thought... "you know, we might make it to 30" before we started, but things are coming to this climax where we are (level 12) and I'm thinking we will actually wrap it up mid paragon tier. The way it is heading, we could really go out with a bang - who says you have to play to 30, hehehe.
So yea, I think they can be hard but in this case, a good chance at an epic ending is coming and so I'll probably take it (if it works out) - we are ready for another campaign anyway (something new) ;)
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
RPGPundit
Yes.
This is like your Tull/Led Zep question about RPG bands.
No discussion is necessary. Just yes.
Sort of. The players at my table seem to find the end before I do. Usually better than what I was thinking too.
The worst is when we miss the ending and keep playing pointlessly.
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
RPGPundit
Yes, I would agree on that. Knowing where to end is really hard for me, as I tend to drag the game a bit more than I should.
Quote from: estar;321428It hard to end a campaign because an ending implies there is a beginning, and middle. Which is the point of story gaming like the World of Darkness stuff.
That arc is presumably more pronounced in
Promethean: The Created than in any other game published by WW, since by default the PCs are on a pilgrimage towards gaining humanity for themselves, which in this case isn't some possibly non-existent myth in the background (such as, say, Golconda in
Vampire) but rather the expected in-play culmination of the campaign. Still,
Changeling: The Lost too has its "endgame book",
Equinox Road, which details various alternative outcomes, from mutating into a mad godling like the one that changed the characters in the first place, to storming the homeland of the said godlings for a bit of payback.
It's easy if you do it module-style. That is, there is something for the PCs to achieve or resolve, and once that's done, The End.
If you do something communist like let them set their own goals then naturally it'll be a mess, their goals will all clash and take them in different directions.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;321684If you do something communist like let them set their own goals then naturally it'll be a mess, their goals will all clash and take them in different directions.
Show us in this doll where the bad players did touch you. After that, do the same for the communists.
Quote from: RPGPundit;321422Would you agree with the statement that the endgame of a campaign, bringing it to a successful, exciting and fulfilling close, is probably the hardest part of the campaign and the one that the most GMs have difficulty doing with sufficient mastery?
Difficult and I am not really convinced its actually worth the effort of attempting.
It's difficult, but worth it if you can pull it off AND if the campaign is the sort that would be improved by such an addition (many are - some probably aren't). Sometimes it's better to live things in limbo with a soft ending rather than a hard one. But if the tone of the campaign has been escalating, then a solid ending can be incredibly memorable.
(*rambling begins*)
The last big campaign I ran involved the (modern-era) PCs starting out as normal humans who gained supernatural powers and ended up as gods. I knew going in that the "apotheosis thing" was a very real possibility, and prepared for it story-wise as much as possible. The only thing set in stone was the coming apocalypse; it was up to the PCs to decide how to participate in it (if at all). The campaign pretty much broke itself down into 'seasons' like a TV show, and we called them that with minimal pretension. Each 'season' had some overarching goals, but some where more meandering than others; and each touched on a different genre a little as the power levels escalated.
First season: normal humans gifted with minor supernatural powers, on the run from a vast conspiracy.
Second season: as they gain mastery of their powers, the PCs become involved with a revolution against the conspiracy (and run missions to that end).
Third season: the PCs command armies, have the chance to become 'new' gods (and in this case, they took it) and get involved in the apocalypse.
The game could have ended here fairly satisfactorily with the whole apocalypse thing, but we went on for a fourth season - kind of a "we won, what now?" story arc wherein these young deities had the chance to reshape the world, but also came to realize they now had more enemies than ever before.
The escalation deliberately paralleled BECMI. :) At any rate, looking back on it, I think I would've been perfectly justified to end the whole thing after the apocalypse. Would've been a larger sense of closure, anyhow. But we ended up with a softer ending, and an allusion to more to follow instead.