Two of the core players in my Call of Cthulhu game are leaving in a few weeks after graduation (these also happen to be the only 2 players who still have the characters they started with).  One will be in Korea for 4 months and the other is moving a few hours away.

Knowing this, I've been building this campaign to a crescendo during the last few sessions so I could give them some kind of resolution.  I wasn't sure if it would be this session or next session...  It turned out to be this one.

The campaign started with a one-shot written by Keeper of Secrets which Nutkinlanders may remember from the Gen Con game in 2004.  It was set in the dark ages, with all the main characters as inquisitors.  Great game.

Anyway, I slowly worked that into the campaign and eventually revealed a history stretching from the 13th century to the modern day.

For the final session, the characters went to the monastery where that one-shot had taken place; basically taking the whole campaign full-circle.

I won't go into too much gruesome detail, but in this short session, they managed to stop the threat they were trying to stop while possibly unleashing a greater threat they thought was their ally.  One of the characters was possessed and cast a spell that caused her to burn to death.  Another got eaten by a strange little girl she thought was their friend who turned into a 60'-tall tentacled beast.  One of them had his mind blasted by a cult sorceror from earlier in the campaign.  One burned in the fire.  The last - instead of running - stuck with his character concept and checked on the burning people, getting immolated himself in the process.

Long story short - it was a TPK.  But it was a great TPK - one that brought a lot of closure to the campaign's storyline.

Oh, and my players loved it.

I'm really going to miss this campaign - I quite honestly had the best group of players any GM could ask for.  They stayed consistently interested in the campaign, stayed in character, did research for the game at home if I mentioned some real-world stuff, kept in-character journals, and generally just showed up every other week excited and ready to play, never getting upset when their characters met inevitable unpleasant ends.

I love it when campaigns end well.

-O

Cool to hear man.  It's rare IME to get a satisfying ending rather than the typical fizzle that most dying games experience.

Traditionally, I always played in open-ended campaigns.  But I ran my last full D&D campaign as a story arc with a beginning, middle, and end.  It so rocked!  Everyone loved it and we all still talk about the characters from it.

It's a great thing to experience, so kudos to y'all.  

Sounds like a proper and fitting end to a CoC game.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah, all through HS and most of college, my campaigns just fizzled.  They just died out and we really don't remember them much.

I had another game where everyone got sick of it but we just wanted to close it out. (This was a heavily tactical crunchy rules-oriented game and we just got burned out on it).  We forced it through to the bitter end.  I'm glad we closed it - but yeah, it was somewhat unsatisfying.

This is really the first one I've had that's ended on an (ironic) up note.  I have enough plot threads I'll be able to run another campaign, and enough of the world is still around for future fun.  All the in-town players want to start a new campaign ASAP, and Jesse (the one going to Korea) wants to get into the next one when she gets back.  Heck; Amy has mentioned driving back and forth from St. Louis to keep playing.

-O