Beginning Of The End (How To Finish A Campaign)

These are a few methods to help end a campaign in a way that satisfactory toward everybody at the table. If you've been a player or a GM in more than one long-running campaign, you've likely experienced the fizzle. Simply, the game dies with a whimper and not the bang we all envision when we picture a game's climactic end. The fizzle happens most commonly in three different ways:

• Things are going well, then slowly scheduling problems occur. Nobody seems able to remedy them. The game dies in stasis with empty promises to pick it up again before it is abandoned.
• The players meander around for a few sessions. Player interest begins to die down. The GM's interest dies down as well. The game is abandoned to move onto the next great thing while this world and its characters are left to be forgotten.
• The GM cannot bear the weight of their own ambition when they started this game. They put it on hiatus. It never starts again. It becomes a sore point of conversation.

The Tower by Ferenc Pinter

These are largely symptoms that come from the intersection of wildly overestimating the mortality of your game and not having a clear objective for the players to fulfill. As much as we in the OSR community tote the phrase "run situations, not stories" (or variations thereof), as a storytelling species we naturally crave a narrative and it's disheartening to see the fizzle rid a game of a fulfilling ending. But, there is a principle we as GMs can apply to prevent the fizzle:

When beginning a game, have a planned end condition. This can be anything from "this game will end when the semester ends" to "this game will end when you have collected a certain object in the dungeon or die trying". Choose a timeframe or objective that works best for you and your group's circumstances. Discuss it openly with them.

Tie the end condition into the world. "This game will end when the semester ends" is not exactly a graceful way to end a story and does not complete the objectives we are looking for. Try to tie this timeframe into the world. For instance, spinning it as "The dragonfire bomb will consume the world in flame when the semester ends" immediately says a lot about your world and gets players interested. It does not always have to be the end of the world, though, even if that is the easiest way to tie the timeframe of the campaign into the world. "The last boat leaves off this island by semester's end" and "your debtees will have your kneecaps come semester end" are lower stakes but equally as valid. All that matters is that it ties into the world and affects the players to where it'd feasibly be an end.

Be very transparent with players about this end condition. Don't keep the end condition a secret from them, even if it feels like it should be because of how it is tied to the world. Knowledge of the game's mortality will make players act in more brave ways that leads to more interesting gaming and storytelling.

Have the player's starting conditions be influenced by the end condition. If the game ends when the players escape the megadungeon-prison of Cath-Dunn, it makes no sense to have them roll 3d6x10 gp and buy their gear from the equipment list. Once the players are informed of the end condition and are comfortable with it, be unafraid to throw them into their situation with nothing but rags, loose manacles, and a skewer of cooked rats. Specificity like this adds flavor to the game and verisimilitude to the world and the situation your players are in.

Foreshadow the end condition through the world, give it a focus. The dragonfire bomb ticking deep beneath the earth, increasing in volume as the end approaches. Ships slowly leaving port, the town becomes less populated until it is just you and the last boat. Increasingly threatening letters from your debtees. Remind the players of the game's mortality from time to time to increase pressure, remind them of their circumstances, or add a grim ambiance.

Let the players define their own victory. Listen to their plans and encourage their own exploration of the world in the time they have. If their original goal was to pay off their debts but now they want a final confrontation with their powerful debtees, let them have it, even if it was not in your original vision. This tip is more for games that end over a timeframe rather than games that end when a certain objective is met (i.e. retrieve the Sword Of The Holy Wyrm from the dungeon or die trying). Games that end on an objective already have a defined victory condition - completing the objective. As a note, generally objective-based end conditions require more talk between players and GM beforehand to confirm that everybody is okay with the premise.

I have personally been using these principles for a long while and I've found them to be successful. There's been a significant drop in the amount of times the fizzle occurs. Scheduling problems still happen, gathering three to six adults in one room for several hours is a surprisingly difficult task as any GM knows - but the knowledge of the game's end motivates people to schedule more purposefully, encourages player exploration in the limited time they have, and limits the GM's scope. All of this leads to a more smooth and complete game experience.

Before utilizing these principles, I have found myself being influenced by the expectation that is rampant in Fifth Edition circles (despite not even using 5e), that a campaign should last until players naturally wander into the climactic encounter the GM was planning all along. This expectation is nigh-impossible to live up to, as herding players toward a planned climax and having them believe that this was actually what they wanted all along leads to the player's choices feeling obsolete and the world being flattened. This expectation often requires a lot of scope creep, as players naturally want to explore the world and waltz away from your climactic encounter or are simply not ready to handle it yet. The limiting of scope creep has helped me become a happier GM and get more restful hours of sleep.

Acknowledging the mortality of a campaign is uncomfortable and strange, but ultimately beneficial to how the game pans out. The times you have with your friends are limited - the times you spend together in worlds of collective imagination even more so - it is best to spend these times in a way that offers closure and completeness to you, your friends, the characters, and your world so you may speak of them with fondness instead of regret.

The Fool by Ferenc Pinter

Now for some informal additions to this post. I got carried away writing this post and wrote a small table of example end conditions, some I've even used in the past. Remember if you use these that the end conditions should influence the player's starting conditions. I hope you enjoy these:

1. When the semester is over, the dragonfire bomb deep beneath the earth will explode bathing the world in spectral green fire.
   
2. When Spring is over, your mage-debtees will come to take your organs as payment.
   
3. When the sunlight touches your flesh and you are free from the labyrinth, the game will end.
4. When the weekend is over, the archpriest shall leave the county and the heist shall have to be called off.
5. When Winter is over, Immortal Deustresses will cast judgement upon you and either smite you or make you living saints.
6. When you have found a way to the moon, the game will end.
7. When we return to campus, the Golden Rot will turn your bodies to brilliant golden statues.
8. When Fall is over, the dungeon will collapse.
9. When Summer is over, all magic loses its potency, and as mages your legacies will end.
10. When tax season arrives, if you have not paid 1,000,000 gp to the King you will be beheaded. If successfully paid, you will be freed from your knightly servitude and retire. Either way the game will end.
    

Additionally, some final design notes:

• End-conditions set within a timeframe are FAR easier to pull off than ones based around an objective. I recommend you start with timeframes if you are unfamiliar with these principles. It immediately adds pressure to the players to act in interesting ways in a way that pursuing an objective does not. Although, objective-based and timeframe-based end conditions can be mixed for fun and profit. Number 10 on the example table is a fine example of this.
  
• I cannot stress enough the importance of being transparent about your end conditions with your players. A game can be something that people get incredibly emotionally invested in, and to rob invested players of the game with an end they did not see coming can cause even more sour feelings than the fizzle. Additionally, you must remember that you can only make meaningful decisions as a player when given enough information about your situation. I believe that the game's end conditions fall into that set of information that is critical to decision-making.
  
• Remember that these are end-conditions. Start them with When, not If. The game's end will always come, this post is about ending it on terms everybody is happy with.