Final Adventure

[kafka47]

Sometimes, as Star Trek says: "All Good Things Must Come to an End"...how have you ended long (however you define long) running campaigns?

For me it is usually the completion of characters into the Imperial Nobility, usually just a knight or at very most Baron. Those with already patents will have them either restored or will be given new responsibilities.

Also, which adventures for you have a Classic ending, for me, Secret of the Ancients was a disappointment but DGP's Grand Tour was a successful and I just can figure out if Knightfall ends or just continues on that Alien world.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Campaigns don't end, they just fizzle out.

 

[far-trader]

Yep, like Andrew it's been my experience that "This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper."*

*T.S. Eliot

 

[Scott Martin]

Back Slave! Back to work on Free Trader Beowulf!

(Speaking as a player on Dan's game that has just started...) It's cold out here in the low berths (this has been a favored method of mine to "suspend" a campaign for a prolonged period)

Back on topic, I think this question really revolves around where you (as a GM) are comfortable playing: If you like the "interstellar scout" type of campaign, then that fellow who recieves lands and a patent of nobility is "out of the game" because there's no way he'll be allowed to risk his life when he has other obligations.

That said, you can use this elevation in status to "shift gears" and the next chunk of the campaign revolves around elevating all of his friends (read "his fellow adventurers) to noble status, and the intrigues at court and...

It's also a good "leveling" trick to play on PC's who Min/Max to become combat gods, as they fade into the background, since they have very few "useful" skills when playing in a game at this level (and if players know that your games often follow this track, you tend to get characters who are better rounded and more fun to play instead!)

This is also good for "re-using" the campaign world, since it gives you very detailed NPC's operating at the "upper" levels, with all the nuances and subtle motivations, but without the work of having to develop them all at once (or even develop them at all in the case of the Player characters)

It's often fun to play in the game universe a few hundred years later and have the players (who know the "real" story of the establishment of some of the dynasties) encountering the hagiography that has inevitably resulted.

So I guess that most of my campaigns that have had a concrete "end" instead of stopping due to players having real life commitments have been a result of an agreement that the game was not interesting at that level: I have had a couple of games resolve this by moving a few generations into the future with new characters for the players, but the same universe (usually with an obvious injustice or three to be resolved, and more than a few less-than-obvious ones thrown in by the evil nasty GM)

Scott Martin

 

[Gadrin]

Campaigns don't end, they just fizzle out.

yeah, I recently saw some Trav PBP where the game will continue "until a fatal flaw is exposed"

Back Slave! Back to work on Free Trader Beowulf!

:rofl:I guess not everyone's a noble.

 

[Droyne668]

Smelly horsies love each other very much...

The only Traveller game in which I've ever played that had a conclusive ending was WAY back in grad school many many moons ago.

The ref, sadistic fellow that he was, had everyone roll up a K'Kree character (i.e. Patriach, attendants and bodyguards, wives, children, slaves, warriors, etc.). So we end up with something like 53 deer- and horse-sized critters in a massive courier ship. Our goal, as dictated by our Mighty Hooved Lord, May His Scent Forever Perfume the Nostrils of the Herd, was to recover some K'Kree object d'art or another that a sneaky human/G'naak had filtched (the scenario was vaguely like the one in the Alien Realms CT book in that respect).*

So we ended up inside Solomani space at a really nice port on a pleasant TL8 world. That in and of itself took several sessions since said ref was a stickler for exact travel times. The journey was nerve wracking for our Noble Herbivores, but not terribly eventful...until the group finally arrived. "We" (all 53 of us spread across four players) disembarked and really tried to behave ourselves. Unfortunately, since we had no real concept of human behavior beyond "They're evil G'naak carnivores!" we quickly ended up in a massive running firefight, funky object in hoof after stomping the miscreant thief's favorite head into mush in the name of the Lords of the 2000 Worlds, May They Never Stumble Over Their Ignoble Fallen Foes.

Once we'd made it back to the ship, minus a few Honorable Warriors, May Their Manes Forever Flow in the Breezes of the 2000 Spirit Worlds, the mini-campaign was effectively over.

Not exactly mainstream Traveller, but a helluva lot of fun.

Best,
Will

*Seems like the human had once been a trade advisor in the 2000 Worlds and had made the mistake of telling the local K'Kree warlord where his homeworld was. Contrived? Yeah, but with one G'naak looking pretty much like every other G'naak, it was the only way to get the game moving to the conclusion.

 

[Burocrate]

Scott was right...

As the "Drugged/Mugged/Dragged & Dropped into a Low Berth" character, I must heartily second my estimed college's comment.
<whisper, whisper>
Er,..um that is whenever the GM is ready to thaw my character out...

Uh...I gotta go...late for a very, um..yeah.

 

[Merxiless]

I like to end campaigns, when and where possible.

SWd6 - Blew up the 2nd death star, flying the B-wings. 1 year campaign.

AD&D, the Dragons departed for another dimension, taking magic with them, which had been prophesied for about 2 years, real time.

Conspiracy X 2.0 - the Agent team, sent to rescue a surviving Templar, blew the job, got him killed by Al-Qaeda Terrorists at a dock in Cairo, after a strike team of Al-Q failed to take out the team with an RPG, car bomb, and rooftop snipers, but the team on the defensive, just barely failed the mission. They instead torched the bad guy's merchant freighter, and quit Aegis, figuring there was a mole / doublecross somewhere. 6 months campaign. Loads of fun.

Top Secret S.I. - The agent team finally found the Russian Ex Spetznaz leader of the bad guys who had been terrorizing the USA, and went in with commandoes and Titan Teams to lay waste to and shred the bad guy desert base near Death Valley, Nevada. 9 months campaign.

Traveller - After having been screwed over and chased by Naasirka for about 15 sessions of play the team headed to Vargr Space, to try and set up new lives as alien artifact / goods dealers. 6 months campaign.

Twilight:2000 - After having travelled from near Lodz, down the Vistula, All sorts of things...saving a convent of Nuns from marauders, doing all sorts of things that could very well be classified as war crimes by friendlies, took the train, and heading towards germany, what survived of the unit, (with 150% casualties already, were mostly marauders themselves) took on elements of a Russian reinforced tank platoon in a small nowhere village on the north German plain, and after a series of incredibly unlucky events where most friendlies were killed by tank fire, or crushed by tank treads, the last guy suicided himself against the last T-72 with an AT mine, to save the village. We all agreed enough was enough, and ended it there, after a year and a half of play.

I hate it when games just .. die. I've had that happen, also, many times, mostly because players stop showing up, or political problems among the players.

 

[JAFARR]

I started playing in the Charleston, S.C. area with military personal (Navy, Air Force) and a few civilians. Seems to go like this. Life happens. Games therefore die. Either the players get transfered away, get married, have kids, end up getting lots of overtime, etc.

Moral of the story: It's a game, just like football, basketball, etc. Enjoy it when you can and wait until next season, but don't give up if the seasons don't come regularly. In between seasons vist this site to keep in touch.

Games are great, but your Faith and family are necessary. Keep everything in the right relationship to them and life isn't so hard to deal with even when the going is tough.