Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 82 - Ending the Campaign

Episode Date: July 18, 2021

"Part of the journey is the end," as it was so wisely said.  As tough as it can be guiding the adventure to an end, handling the end properly can be surprisingly tougher.  In this episode Jeremy talks about his favorite method to put a bow on a campaign and prime the next one for success.

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. Regardless of how the campaign ended, though, consider using an in-game vignette to reward the players. Show them how their characters' actions have changed the world for the better or made it worse and gave hope for the future. Thank you for tuning in to the Taking 20 podcast episode 82. This week, all about how to end a campaign. This week's sponsor is Christina's Custom Dog Crates.

We make dog crates without iron, steel, and other rare earth metals. Ask us about our nickel-less cage. It appears I've had a surge in downloads from Illinois. Thank you so much to my listeners in the land of Lincoln. Please reach out to me with some episode ideas to feedback at taking20podcast.com. I'd love to hear from you. You and your table have been at the same campaign for 11 months, and you already have plans for the next big adventure. In order to move on to the next one, however, all you have to do is put an exclamation point on this campaign and wrap the storyline up. But ending a campaign is harder than

you think. Sure, you could just drop the adventure and say, you guys won, yay! Now what do you want to play at the next Space Whale campaign? That's jarring, it's unsatisfying, and frankly, you can do better as a DM. At the risk of sounding simplistic, my first tip would be, in order for a campaign to end, you need to have that end in mind. Some definitive end event, action, or combat. Restart the Soul Forge. Imprison the Big Bad in the Demiplane of Woe. Return Chieftain Rauk to his village and spouse. Slay the Bandit King of the Northern Southlands or East Westerberg.

Survive the apocalypse. For pre-written adventures, the end action is usually designed for you, but you can obviously customize it to your own table story. See episode 76 for more detail about customizing pre-written campaigns. For adventures that are not following a module, you need to come up with that end action that finishes off the climax of the story. Hopefully you've been planning this end for a while and you've been guiding the story towards this eventual conclusion. But today we're focusing on how to end it, not how to guide it there. That, that's a topic for another day. My second tip should be obvious from here. Plan for the end

well in advance. While you can't control what choices your players make, as the end of the campaign appears over the horizon, you can start planning for it as far ahead of time as you can. With the mantra in mind that plans are useless, but planning is invaluable. Based on the pace your players move and the amount of material left to cover and or the actions that the characters must take, make an estimate about how many gaming sessions you have left. If the answer is, fuck a bunch, then you have plenty of time to come up with the end details. As you get closer to the end, this number should start to crystallize though. Even if you're a minimalist prep DM, part of your prep should be this huge story beat that completes the story. The campaign I'm ending soon was kind of meandering at the three-quarter pole,

but since then I've been pushing hard towards the end. I've been trimming unnecessary encounters out of the part of the adventure that's from the pre-written module. I removed some side quests and equipment chases that just weren't critical to the adventure. They weren't on the critical path. So these powerful 14th level PCs are hurtling rapidly on their collision course with the big bad, and she knows they're coming and has watched and prepared. I spent the better part of two weeks customizing the final fight. The combatants involved, what will be said, the magic powers brought to bear, in what order,

the challenge of the terrain, and it shall be glorious when we get there. Which brings me to my third tip. Customize the ending inside the campaign world based on the actions of your PCs. I love the vignette ending where multiple little short scenes are played out with the players to allow their characters to roleplay what happens after. It's a simple and clean way to give PCs some closure. Player character action should have had an effect on the game world at large. I mean, your adventure had a purpose, right? Maybe your adventure was character-driven and the purpose was the growth that the characters experienced along the way,

preparing them for whatever is going to come next. Maybe there was a big bad who wanted to burn the world, and that person has been vanquished. Regardless, at the end, something is different about the world and the PCs. I mean, something has to be different. Otherwise, what's the point? Unless that is the point, like the inevitability of Cthulhu, but throw those endings out. They are the exception. Let's talk about the rule. Certain aspects of the world may have changed, and what are those changes? The ending allows you, the DM, to highlight what's different, whether it's better or worse. When customizing your ending, consider what happens to the characters and the world at the end. And sure,

there could be sweeping epic changes because of the players. The town of Dairywood rests easy thanks to the PCs clearing out the whistling caves. The kingdom of Garglefart has a new queen who has repaired the damage caused by her predecessor. The PCs helped convict him of his crimes. But don't forget the little things. Saving that one young man from lizard folk. Hel helping that one merchant free his horse from being stuck in the mud. The merchant and his family that were rescued now have established a new home and new business in the town of Absalom. A young orphan girl who was saved by the PCs is inspired by their strength, and she grows up to be a fierce warrior. Show how the characters have

affected the world, both big and small, good and bad. Because all the endings don't have to be all sunshine and roses. The Bandit King and his evil henchmen are all dead because of the PCs, and they can no longer harass the town of Derrywood. That sounds like a wonderfully happy ending. But what if some of those bandits lived and had families in Derrywood? Maybe the families had no idea that Bob had joined the Bandit King. All those families know is that Bob hasn't been home in days, and they're starting to miss him.

A brief series of vignettes or scenes showing how different people and places are affected by the actions of the PCs shows the players the why of their adventure, the purpose of what they did, and potentially the far-reaching consequences of the choices that they made. Now before you panic, my friends, no one's asking you to write a two-hour long series of scenes showing everything that happened. No, no. A few scenes, brief description, and a line or two of dialogue at most per scene is plenty. Unless you want to write a longer scene, make sure it's something that your players would enjoy knowing about. How you present this vignette should be different depending on how your campaign ended.

If it was a happy ending like most pre-written modules have, the unqualified success of the PCs, evil is vanquished thanks to the characters, and if this were the Lego movie, the song Everything is Awesome starts playing. Have a few happy vignettes at the end to show how people lived and things have gotten better, and a ton of happily ever after scenes. The characters are celebrated, they get a parade, they get a party, they get an audience with the Chief. They get an audience with the Chief. Think of the end of Star Wars A New Hope, where Luke and Han are receiving medals and everyone celebrates and cheers, and yay, because they didn't know if there'd be any other movies. Alternately, the ending could be a quiet one.

No confetti, no parade, just the quiet knowledge that the PCs have saved the world or ended the threat. Think of the ending of the first Indiana Jones. There's a meeting while the Ark of the Covenant is secured away in a massive warehouse among thousands of boxes of various shapes and sizes, holding who knows what. I was running an adventure a long time ago in this new game system that had just been released called Pathfinder. I started with a slightly customized version of the module Crypt of the Everflame by Jason Bowman. The players were having a good time, so I expanded it to be a full adventure about a planar event that was leaking negative energy into the world and the undead were beginning to stir. By the way, I love that module. Everything is simple and self-contained.

It's a great starter module for the hobby to this day. Early on in the campaign, the player stole bedding and a table from a town inn, because why not? I'm not going to prevent the player from doing crazy shit. I mean, they wanted to do it, so knock yourselves out. Made some rolls, they happened to sneak out. With a table, for some reason. Moving on. Over the course of the year, the PCs put down some undead uprisings, saved some towns, and at least one kingdom, consulted with the great sage Arnor on how to reverse the leaking negative energy. The climax took place on a collapsing demiplane that the PCs had to hurriedly teleport from. Once the big bad was dead, I put a timer counting down from 60 seconds in front of my DM screen,

and I told them, this is how long you have to get somewhere safe. After some rapid discussion and ideas thrown out then dismissed, the wizard just says, fuck it, I teleport everybody back to the town where we started, where they were wanted for destruction of property and petty theft. One of the post-credit sequences was this cast of very powerful characters paying a 10 gold piece fine to the town sheriff because of property theft that happened in session one. But suppose instead of an unqualified success, it was just a mostly happy ending. For the most part, everything has come out great, few minor exceptions here and there. If the negative outcomes aren't going to be used as a basis for a future campaign, stick one or two sad scenes in your vignette and just be done with it.

If the sad scenes or the failures are the basis for a future campaign, then that would be the last thing I showed the players in the post-credits sequence. Now, let's suppose it was a happy ending, but there was tragedy associated with it. The PCs won, but at a cost. Someone or something had to be sacrificed in order to close the demon gate or excise the demon from the world. A good chunk of your post-credit scene should be the honoring of that sacrifice. If a popular or important area was destroyed, maybe have a brief scene showing it being rebuilt and rededicated. If a PC died, include scenes from the funeral,

including important NPCs speaking at the gravesite. But suppose it was an abject failure. I mean, what if the PCs lose? Is that even possible in a campaign? Sure it is. The characters couldn't stop the big bad. The world has descended into darkness, the dead roam the earth, consuming anyone who isn't prepared to fight them. Regardless of what the ending is, the characters just weren't up to the task. The vignette should highlight how much worse the world is and how grave the consequences were of the character's failure. But there's always hope.

Inject some hopeful scenes into an otherwise bleak series of scenes. The hope could come from an improbable way to give the characters another chance. If the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe were an adventuring campaign, I'd argue that that's what the entire movie Avengers Endgame was. One more chance to stop Thanos and save the universe. Ant-Man just happened to be in the Quantum Realm where the Infinity Stone magic happens to not work, and he happens to have a time travel heist idea. So you can give the characters another bite at the apple, no matter how improbable it may seem. The hope could be that the new heroes coming together, even if you have to fast forward by 20 years to make these new

heroes happen, like the children of the adventurers of the previous campaign. You could have rebellions forming in the basement of cities everywhere to overthrow the evil emperor. That sets up the next campaign to be successful. You could always have the kitchen sink ending where you throw everything in that you can think of. Think Lord of the Rings trilogy. There was a montage of various endings, like the weird ass jumping on the bed party, Sam married Rosie, there was the celebratory scene where Strider was crowned King of Gondor, and yes, I said Strider, I know his name's Aragorn, work with me. He's reunited with Arwen, and while I'm doing asides, by the way, I would have chosen Eowyn over Arwen

any day of the week. Arwen, your skin is getting cold. Give me the woman who led her people to safety in the mountains, disguised herself to participate in the battle of a generation while elf girls sat embroidering shit. She defended her injured uncle in the face of certain death, slayed the witchKing of Angmar. I am no man. Dammit, that's who you want by your side. Not, ew, I can make a river look like galloping horses. Self-sufficient shield maiden better than magical elf princess every day.

Fight me. I'm sorry. I guess I kind of just discovered something about myself. I am more passionate about that argument than I really expected to be. The journey to self-discovery is small steps along the way, and sometimes you don't expect one that kind of catches you by surprise. But back to Lord of the Rings. You had the sad ending because Bilbo and Frodo and Gandalf sailed into the West.

You could show the departure from the story, leaving the world, the loss of connection with other members of the party, and maybe even a character death. Regardless of how the campaign ended, though, consider using an in-game vignette to reward the players. Show them how their character's actions have changed the world for the better, or made it worse and gave hope for the future. Fourth tip, have post-credit scenes for each of your players. Before the final session, pick a period of time to fast forward, whether it's one day or 10 years, it doesn't matter. I usually ask my players for a one-sentence explanation of where are they now or where do you hope your character is, for example, one month after the

end of the adventure. If you have players that enjoy improvising, yeah, you could surprise them with this question after the final fight, but I like asking them in the final weeks leading up to the final session. Gives them advance warning that the question is coming. I help them if they're stuck, and you may be asking yourself, why am I asking for only one sentence? Because one sentence from that player leaves hooks that you, the DM, can connect to your world post-credit scene. It's the same benefit as a short backstory. Too much and the GM's painted into a corner.

One sentence is great, though, if you like to improvise the connections between that particular character's after-the-credit scene and the rest of your world. For GMs who don't like to improvise, though, you can ask for a longer where-are-they-now description from the player and write something to read ahead of the final session. Examples of this in popular media, by the way, include Saving Private Ryan and the original Conan movie, where the end shows something that happens in the future. You see Ryan as an old man with an ending that I can't watch without weeping openly.

You see Ryan as an old man with an ending that I can't watch without weeping openly. You see Conan as a king, ruling and miserable. If you're stuck for how to give your PCs a last scene together, have everyone get together at a prominent NPC's or one of the characters' funerals. The entire campaign has been the living adventurers telling the story of their lives together. But regardless how you do it, give your PCs one last chance to step into the spotlight and talk about their characters. Are they running an acolyte training camp somewhere? Do they just own a tavern? Do they give away their gold and they're living an austere life of simple happiness? This is their character's

swan song. They're right off into the sunset and maybe the last time these characters will ever appear in your game. Allow your players to make it memorable and to put a bow on that character's story. Tip number five. The ending of a campaign should be celebrated around your table. This is your players, not your characters. This should be a big moment for your gaming group. Give your players a chance to celebrate together with you. Have a toast to the characters that played. Honor those characters who died and cheer the friends spending many hours together telling the story of your adventuring party. Pitch in. Get some nicer food than usual. Have some drinks. Take some time to unwind from the

previous campaign, even if it's just a 15 or 30 minute breather before the next one starts. Speaking of which, tip number six. If the same group is staying together, use the end of this campaign to lead into the beginning of the next one. Let the ending of this campaign kickstart the next one. Get it going forward with some momentum. If it's in the same world, maybe hint at what the overall threat will be. If it's in a different world, maybe the very end of the session, you should mention your excitement for what's coming. I've been dropping weekly hints to one of my groups about the next campaign for about a month now,

and I think the excitement is really starting to build. Try to build on that excitement by revealing some of the details. Encourage your players to start building their characters and get ready for the next Session 0. But if the campaign ended tragically, use the next campaign's preview to give hope for the future. So in summary, when you're wrapping up a campaign, have a definitive end in mind, whatever that end event is.

Plan for that ending well in advance. Customize that ending based on the events of your campaign and the choices that your player's characters made. Give each of your characters the spotlight one last time, at least for a where are they now type post-credits sequence. The ending of an adventure or campaign is a chance to celebrate with your gaming buddies, so make sure you raise a glass to what you have accomplished together. And if the group is staying together, kickstart the next campaign's beginning at the very end of this one.

Adventure and campaign endings are special moments of transition. They should be used to highlight the accomplishments of the characters and reward both the DM and the players for having fun through the adventure together. Please consider supporting the podcast by buying me a coffee at ko-fi.com slash taking20podcast. Tune in next week where we'll be starting a new series suggested by one of my listeners, the Class Series. We'll be focusing on the Barbarian and the Bard. Once again, I want to thank our sponsor, Christina's Custom Dog Crates.

Come see us to help keep your pet, werewolf, or submissive partner safe and protected at night and while you're away. This has been the Taking 20 Podcast, Episode 82. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube

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