I've never been in a campaign that concluded, and it's frustrating as hell. I have to ask: Have ANY of you ever had a natural conclusion to adventures?
Seems like it's always people losing interest, the DM having something else to do, and everyone just ends up in a kind of limbo where we never continue.
Yeah, my current group of 6 years has 15 completed games
Of those games, 7 were between 1-5 sessions in length, and 10 made large use of premade content
but we have many more dropped games, 28 that got at least a few sessions and many more that never made it to the table
I've played in and run several games that have come to a proper conclusion. Just stop playing with flakey zoomers.
never, it always ended in either tpk or gm quitting
Been in 32 games since 2019 none of them concluded naturally
Yes. A handful of healthy campaigns, including a 1-1/2 year long Pathfinder game (5 players), a CoC campaign (4 players), one Curse of Strahd (5E, initial version), and an Adeptus Evangelion game that was about a year long. Plus some one-shots that were 1-3 sessions long, if those count. Most of this through Roll20 using random voicechat programs like Ventrilo, Mumble, and now Discord.
It helps that most everyone else for at least 5-6 months or at least knew the GM already so they wouldn't flake out, and we always made a point to meet once/week at the same time (and if someone couldn't make it we met and played anyway, unless it was the first few sessions where everyone needs to be there to "find their place" in the campaign).
It's normal for some "life happens" events to occur where someone has to leave a while or quit (player gets a new job and can't make the timeslot anymore, someone has a kid, etc) but 32 games w/none finishing sounds terrible, anon.
I gotta ask, what's the average # of sessions for these games, how often did you meet to play, and how did you find these games?
B/c this sounds like a GM problem (not keeping players interested, maybe bad gatekeeping that failed to keep out unreliable/trouble players), or the "playing with strangers" issues (where there's no loyalty, and people cut and run the second something more interesting comes along).
I'd put the average number of sessions at 7 with some of the longer ones being 20+
sessions. Campaigns were weekly and 2 to 3 days a week were dedicated to a different campaign. I found these games through friends of friends of friends. Most of the games fell apart I assume because the GM would get burned out, a near TPK pretty always signal the end of a campaign.
GM burnout is rough. Rotating GM's every couple campaigns helped a group I was in for a while.
I think I've finished 4 campaigns as GM
just have an ending in mind when you begin and push your group towards it
What counts as natural? I've been in several campaigns that have ended in a planned way, at a point that makes sense as the end of a story, though obviously as long as characters are alive at the end, their adventures could just as well go on. My experience is that just waiting for a natural ending point to come along will probably lead to a campaigns that'll go on until people lose interest. Doing what and having an ending in mind, not in the sense of railroading the players towards a specific outcome but in the sense that having decided that the conclusion of some quest or story will be the end of the campaign, tends to work better.
Started playing in late 2000's. Only my second campaign ever played out to its natural conclusion, and none since then! Once I got so buttdevastated that I sat down and wrote the conclusion down as a story.
I have concluded two Dark Heresy campaign, one as a player, and one as a GM.
I ran a modified version of Haarlocks Legacy (it has a lot of good ideas, but the execution needs a lot of work).
I've seen three major campaigns completed.
As opposed to around a dozen dropped campaigns, not counting quasi-oneshots that could have blossomed into full campaigns had we continued.
Finished three long and two short games as GM, finished six(?) long games as player.
An overarching goal of the campaign tends to help, a main quest if you would. It doesn't need to be particularly specific or railroaded- "get at least 12 of these 20+ mcguffins" or "kill these three frickers" is usually enough.
can you even be considered a yesgaems if you've never actually finished a campaign?
Saw my first campaign to a close last year. It was 3 months and around 12 sessions long. GM had a decently-planned campaign, and we were able to keep a regular time.
You're yesgaems if you finish even a single session.
I've concluded three campaigns and all of them were in the last 6 years. I've been DMing for over 20 years. When you're all a bunch of young college/highschool kids everyone gets way more flaky and loses interest much quicker than when you are all adults who can keep to a schedule.
I've had a few, but the indefinite ones will peter out if you don't have an endgame, so the only ones to come to a conclusion were shorter campaigns with a way for the story to end-- an enemy to defeat, a goal to achieve, and ending to reach, etc.
Start with mini campaigns, and you'll have an easier time of it because people will know it's a finite campaign.
>(mine) Frittered out and died
>GM ran out of steam
>GM got bored and moved on
>GM (different) got bored
>(me) scheduling broke down
>GM assaulted a player, later revealed to be a rapist, group ostracised him
>(me) Burned out
>GM (another) was using it as a way to talk with a girl he thirsted over
>GM decided he wanted to do a different story
>GM got bored
Currently im running two campaigns, one online. But the only campaigns that really get finished are my solo ones.
Completed 4
>First time playing, went from levels 1-10 in 3.5e, lasted about a year
>Like 10 years after that, half of that group plus a couple other friends, did an 8 month campaign that had half the people drop out and got replaced. Lasted levels 1-13 in 5e
>I DM'd myself after that for a 2 year campaign with the people in the second group. Levels 1-20, 5e
>I DM'd a couple people in a 6 month campaign, pathfinder 2e, levels 1-13
Currently DM'ing another campaign in 5e with the same group as the ones I DM'd for the 1-20 group. We're currently at level 10 after a year of playing, and there's not exactly any signs of anyone quitting or fizzling.
I'd really love to get away from 5e, but people are so attached to it. Or at least get out of the DM seat and force someone else to appreciate how much effort it takes.
>DM Ace running 5e campaign. DM Ace got fed up and just stopped DMing altogether
>Player Fred and myself both begin running two separate campaigns. Player Fred runs 5e, I run multiple different systems. My campaigns typically lasted 6-8 sessions.
>DM Ace became a player in one of my sessions. Was fairly decent but when I asked him to stop metagaming took it personally and quit all of my games.
Stop being friends with DM Ace after that because he was too exhausting. He was unemployed yet expected me to chase after him and build bridges he kept burning down, saying I was making him feel bad because I was saying he sucked at RP. To which I said "yes, what's so bad about that? Honestly it's not a big issue. What is a bigger issue is if I ask you to stop metagaming and you keep metagaming. I can't have you at my table if you keep ignoring clear rules."
Which I thought was fair and neutral, but they took very personally. For context as well, my players were all sword and sorcery barbarians in a setting inspired by polynesian/southeast asian myth and DM Ace kept trying to do regime change by "disrupting the socio-economic needs" of the chief's men instead of just hitting the chief with a big rock. I had tried to encourage him to be more aggressive and risk-taking but he feared the lethality of my fights too much, after he had some bad experiences with Player Fred's campaign being full of TPKs.
It was all a very stupid reason to lose a friend over, but in hindsight, I think that friendship was doomed from the start.
>After a very successful one shot, player Fred asked me to make it into a campaign for him and one other player. I agree, but then in the span of 16 months get constantly pushed on scheduling so that in that time, only actually managed to get 4 sessions in.
Player Fred and I were friends through thick and thin and was telling me how terrible he was having things, being on the verge of collapsing due to poor health and such, so I was very patient. Then I found it he was running 5e games every weekend for another gaming table + DM Ace. This would be fine, but he kept stringing me along to run this campaign for him, causing me to turn away other players because I kept trying to schedule his campaign in.
I've discussed this with my other players and we're just going to quietly finish our campaign involving Player Fred - it's reaching a natural end point where they kill off the final boss next weekend, and then just get rid of him. I am in a difficult position because I value this guy so much, we have been through hell together for more than fifteen years, but I don't understand why he has been lying to me for all these months.
As an amusing side-note, one of player Fred's gaming table briefly joined my group. I dropped them after one session because they thought autistically screeching was good RP. Afterwards I found out the reason they left player Fred's table was because they had been banned from their house after sexually assaulting one of the men living there. I could definitely feel the unnerving sexual tension radiating from this autist after his character encountered a prostitute who had sex with another man for money; the autist seemed heartbroken, and only then did I realise he was intending to do some romanatic RP with the prostitute NPC.
I plan to drop all but one of my players completely. I miss campaigns finishing climactically instead of autistically. I'm going to rejoin an older gaming group I used to know. I miss them so much.
I have had dozens of campaigns end with a proper conclusion, both as a player and DM over the decade that my group has been together. It is in fact far more rare for a campaign to not have a conclusion, and that’s usually been because the GM moved out of state or had a kid.
Yep, out of the dozens of campaigns (not one-shots) I've been in, exactly six have a firm ending. One time, my character became the mana battery and avatar projection of a titanic, immortal storm eagle. Another time, my character became the god of story and pretense, rumored to be the true identity of multiple minor gods, and the patron deity of my paladin in the sequel game. Another time, the entire planet was glassed under Exterminatus after the party discovered there was no way left to delay the cult and called it in on their own position so the Nurglites wouldn't breach quarantine. In another, the detective agency recovered the diamond and foiled a crime syndicate. My character in that one decided to retire and sells ice cream at the farmer's market. In another, the party disappeared into the mountains, never to be heard from again. (They were eaten by a psionically-hijacked red dragon after a serious of unfortunate events.) The most sudden was when God decided to turn off the Universe because it had gotten too silly. We honestly deserved that one and it wasn't an asspull considering how much we had made fun of God for being a couch potato.
In 30+ years of playing, I have brought 3 campaigns to a resolution and played in one game that came to a meaningful resolution.
That game was a very awesome Pathfinder 1E game that was based on the DragonForce album "Valley of the Damned." It was very railroady, but the GM (a first timer) told us it would be when he pitched the idea, because the "plot" was supposed to move us from setpiece battle to setpiece battle. Whole campaign lasted about three months, with each song being the basis for a new scenario/setpiece.
Since 2010, I've played in 32 campaigns and run ten--currently running my eleventh. Of the campaigns I played in, 16 reached completion. Of the campaigns that I ran, nine reached completion. We're just getting into the third year of the one I'm currently running, but I have a good feeling about it.