I'm pretty sure that most people here aren't still playing the first character(s) they created in the same campaign on a regular basis, so my question is, at what point to you typically wrap up your campaigns, and how do you do it?

Myself, I'm going to use D&D as a reference because that's the game we play the most often (1e for context).  Most of the time, we pretty much stop playing PCs between level 7-10 (assuming they a lived of course) before shaking things up and playing something else.  In most cases, the PCs just move the background and nothing special happens with them anymore.

However, when we are playing a deliberate campaign, we will play PCs up until level 10-12, on average.  Upon reaching name level, some of the PCs begin to get involved in getting their strongholds, etc, but keep design and managment typically is done between sessions with adventuring done during actual play.

Once the key plot of the campaign has been finished, the PCs usually go into full retirement/kingdom management mode, and occassionally become NPCs in future adventures with other PCs.  Only very rarely are they used again.  Playing PCs above level 12 or so has almost never happened in over 30 years of gaming.  Only a couple times.

Some campaigns end if the PCs all get wiped out.  Some just kind of get dropped and never resume due to scheduling conflicts. Some actually get to completion.

Either there's a huge argument, or everyone just stops showing up.

It's weird, but the ones we've been gaming for years tend to end very organically. We all kind of know when it's time to wrap it up.

Normally it's when we've just achieved something that we seriously doubt we can top in that campaign. Better to go out at the top rather than have a slow decline into mediocrity.

Rare it is when I get to actually wrap up a campaign. Twice thats been for Star Frontiers , the first time due to immenent moving and the second due to players pissing me off enough I actually drew the campaign to a close.

In both cases the players were fairly well off and it was a good closing point.

In the second case I ran the game long after Id concluded I wasnt enjoying GMing it as much as I should. But the players were kinda desperate for a competent GM. And that be me. In that case I just steamed on as normal but allways looking to some point where things could be wrapped up.

In nearly every other case campsigns have ended prematurely due to group fraction, group dissipation, or conflicting work schedules.

Robotech I ran for a year or so and more or less drew it to some semblance of a close as members moved to other states. Just not the close Id have preferred. Too soon.

Sometimes with a bang, sometimes with a whimper.

But preferably after the resolution of a major in-game event.

Once you all wrap up with teh campaign, what do the PCs do?  Just fade off into the sunset?  Do players still want to keep them around for kingdom management?  Are they just infrequent NPCs in future campaigns?

Never "ended" a campaign and only been in one that "ended."  Usually, they just slowly lose energy due to distractions from real life on the players.  Eventually they grind to a halt.  Anywhere from 2 to 20 years later the referee says they want to start running again, and people either dust off old characters or create new ones.

My weekly group just ended our Dungeon World campaign this Monday.

It wrapped up a bit unexpectedly for us players. We had been working on collecting stuff to defeat a giant worm that had been loosed upon the world. We went found out that the orb we had gotten was just what was needed to defeat it - and we went through with stopping it, destroying an elven city in the process. This was apocalyptic enough that it made a natural stopping-point for the game, and we agreed to wrap it there.

I've had a number of campaigns have definite ends like this, but about the same number just fizzle.

Mostly mine just fizzle out due to schedule conflicts.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;727846How do you end your campaigns?

We stop playing.

Like everyone else, mine fizzled away as other life concerns and schedules took precedent. Sometimes mass PC death was the turning point.

My high school AD&D game faded as schoolwork and early jobs took over. Then we graduated and went our separate ways.

My college campaigns went the same way. We got too busy with other stuff to adequately run them anymore. In my main campaign the players had mostly won out anyway, except for one PC who had died. One player had done something very unexpected which would have ended half the conflict anyway.

When I lived near Portland, OR. the campaign came to a close when two of the PCs had been killed off and a third joined the bad guys, who were for the moment winning the struggle. Then I moved away and the group soon dissolved.

In my new home I joined a group and had fun for a while. Then the GM starting moving around, one player moved away too, another got too busy with work. That whole scene just collapsed.

It's the nature of the hobby.

If it's an official campaign, like Horror at the Orient Express, we decide if we're continuing the campaign or if we change games.

If it is my own stuff, we play until we decide we do not want to play anymore. Usually after some big conflict or problem has been solved, as they tend to provide a good feeling of closure. If there are some hanging threads for later, much better.

Interesting.  It seems most campaigns never finished.  I wonder if most people who play high level games just started their PCs at high level already, or otherwise I see that as a phase of game play that most people just never get around to.

I already mentioned that in AD&D, we rarely had PCs over level 10, and pretty much never got into the teens.

Rather than have all these campaigns out there that never get finished, should the campaign model be one that ends around level 10, with a completely separate campaign above that for those few groups that get that high?  I.e., should campaigns narrow their scope with the assumption that most groups will never complete a long one?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;727916I wonder if most people who play high level games just started their PCs at high level already, or otherwise I see that as a phase of game play that most people just never get around to.

'There is no thematic, discrete end of the campaign' != 'we didn't play our way to high level.'

You're conflating two separate things here.

In high school, our Traveller campaign finished after our crew returned, having earned close to a billion credits, from a four-year (in-game) trading mission beyond the Imperial border. The game didn't end because our characters made a vast fortune and could retire and live like merchant princes, but because we were heading off to college at the end of the summer.

I've often wondered what would've come next for ol' Cap'n Hauser. While he came back richer 'n Croesus, he never reached his objective of establishing a long-range trading route; would he refit and try again, set up a merchant line of his own somewhere on the Imperial fringe, buy a palace and enjoy wine, women, song, anagathics and rejuvenation therapy, or . . . something else?