Quittin’ Time
You’ve been playing in the same campaign world for years. You’ve bested dragons, conquered kingdoms, slain gods, and mourned fallen companions along the way. You know and love your characters, but…. Things have been a bit stale lately. Maybe high level combat is just too much of a mechanics headache. Maybe you had your happily ever after ten sessions ago and are struggling to find the next arc. Maybe you’ve been itching to try out the hot new system, but the old game just keeps on chugging along. Knowing when to quit is hard. Happily, we’ve got today’s blog to try and unpack the decision-making process.
A few primary options should get the conversation started:
- Press On: This is the default tactic. You’ve put too much time and effort into your game to let it peter out, and that involves coming up with ways to refresh the story. Maybe that means inviting new players, introducing new PCs, or opening up new territories. Undiscovered continents, parallel dimensions, and outer space can all work here. Of course, you might just be slapping a new coat of paint on your problem, so make sure that your exciting new direction actually excites the other people at the table.
- Swap Systems: When you’re talking about rebuilding a campaign, everything is on the table. You’ve got an opportunity to try new things, up to and including a new game system. Each time you change it injects new life and mechanical interest into play. Be warned though: having done this one a couple of times myself, there’s a very real risk of losing out on the feel of an existing PC. Some systems just can’t cope with esoteric powers and unique builds.
- New Game: When a long-running campaign begins to lose steam, you might want to try something new. Swapping GMs, starting a new adventure path, and rolling up brand new heroes characterize this option. It’s a shame to discard all the work you put into that old campaign, but sometimes the energy just isn’t there. That’s nothing to be ashamed about. It just means the group is ready to try the next thing.
- Disband: There are plenty of gamers in geek blue sea, and you aren’t bound to stick with the same four dudes you’ve been playing with since high school. Maybe your coworkers have been dying to try out that weird “D&D” thing they heard about on Stranger Things. Maybe there’s a seat open at another table’s long-running game. It may take some leg work to find another group that fits your playstyle preferences, but there’s nothing like a new constellation of gamers to bring new energy to your hobby.
- (Soft) Reboot: The term comes from the film industry, but it’s no less applicable on the tabletop. Ima quote the wiki article on this one, because it offers a nice concise explanation: “In serial fiction, the term ‘reboot’ signifies a new start to an established fictional universe, work, or series that discards continuity to re-create its characters, plotlines and backstory from the beginning. It has been described as a way to ‘rebrand’ or ‘restart an entertainment universe that has already been established’ A reboot that retains a certain degree of continuity from previous works is known as a ‘soft reboot.'” On the tabletop that might mean new characters in the same setting, an entire alternate universe, or starting over with the same dudes from level 1. Can’t imagine where I’ve seen that one before.
I’m sure that this list ins’t exhaustive, and that of course brings use to our question of the day! When a game is getting a little long in the tooth, how do you go about deciding on the next thing? Tell us the tale of your own restarts and reboots down in the comments!
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Wait a sec, you guys actually reach the end of your campaigns?
That’s how I became forever-GM. I got tired of never finishing.
Everyone’s nostalgic of level 1… But then they remember the low hp/ease at which a crit murders you, the lack of class abilities/spells/healing, and the half-baked combat build that needs a few vital feats to kick off proper.
nnnope
I am never nostalgic of level 1
maybe a bit of prestige class level 1, but never of character level 1.
Level 1 is the best! You get to learn all about the death and dying rules.
And every potion of Barkskin found in a dungeon is a priceless treasure.
I’m never nostalgic for L1, because I make a point of never starting there. I always start at L3-L5. That’s where you have abilities, an survive more than one hit, and are generally competent enough to be a hero.
Ever since Pathfinder 2nd’s release I’ve only grown more tired of base Pathfinder’s 1st level.
2nd Edition more or less totally solves the level 1 death pit by giving your Ancestry (analogous to race) a base hp value as well as your class.
So, dwarves get 10 hp base, humans get 8, etc. This means a dwarven fighter has 20+con base hp rather than the 10+con they’d get in 1st. Your Ancestry doesn’t continue to give hp at higher levels but boy is that initial boost really nice for not dying when sneezed on.
Example; I’m currentely playing in a 2nd edition revamp of the 1st Edition adventure War For The Crown. In 1st edition, crossbow ranger is… more or less just a bad meme. Crossbows themselves suck for many reasons, mostly because a lot of the cool ranged feats (like Manyshot) don’t work for them, and they can never get a stat to damage, so even at high levels you’re rolling a hot flat die for damage without things like Deadly Shot.
In contrast, I created a crossbow ranger for 2nd edition, and because I joined this campaign at 2nd level, my build was already fully online.
I needed Crossbow Ace from 1st level and Hunter’s Aim from 2nd- that was it. 2nd edition has done SO MUCH to make builds just function at a core level way earlier. I’ve taken nothing but flavor feats since and I still work perfectly fine, regularly outperforming the rogue and the blaster druid in damage.
Granted, that may change once the casters get access to world-altering spells and I’m still just here firing a crossbow that does bigger damage dice than normal, but that’s a long way off and when it does eventually come I have a host of out-of-combat tools to keep me relevant and my absurd d20 luck to keep me relevant in combat. (The GM is fairly certain he’s cursed because I’ve crit the last 4 bosses in a row, three of which were fatally)
Same solution over in Starfinder. It does a good job of preventing the “oops I’m dead.”
Always wanted to try starfinder, just… never found a build I liked.
I was building an android engineer since that sounded cool and then I realized by level 7 there were so few feats I had wanted I had just taken all of the ‘more proficiency’ feats so now I had power armor and heavy weapons proficiencies on a class that starts with light armor and small arms.
Weirdly, I think those are “correct” feat choices.
Owen K.C. Stephens is doing some fun work on his blog: https://owenkcstephens.com/2018/03/08/dare-feats-in-the-really-wild-west-for-starfinder/
Campaigns that last to those higher levels are rare – but I think it works best if you bring things to a conclusion, and then just walk away from that game. Figure out some kind of epilogue – deciding what happened after the final session, make sure there’s some kind of closure, whether folks have died or ascended to godhood or just achieved their goals and retired from the game. But end it, and move on to something new…
In our group, the end of a campaign is normally a cue to play something different… both in genre and system. Someone always has something that they’ve been meaning to run, so a long-running game is usually followed by a few short ones, then eventually we settle into something big again…
My players are level 17 on that megadungeon I always talk about, and the end is finally in sight (another year and a half from now, but still). After all this time, it’s weird to have the “what’s next?” question on my mind again.
The new game and new system is one that often goes interesting places. Thankfully groups generally have had the point to end on the high notes, not always high levels.
But an ending note is where you can bring another saga to bear, and still leave with the smiles and views that have you eager to let one tale end with a new notes start.
I find that ~20 sessions is a good campaign length for my group. You can tell a complete arc, delve into a few backstories, and get out again before it gets stale.
One thing that is really cool if you can pull it off is what you might call the “New Game Sequel” idea: start a new game in the same campaign world, and then add little cameos and references to your previous campaign (I’m assuming that you have had a discussion with your players, and figured out a long-term fate for each character that everyone’s happy with). Maybe the paladin has become the beloved king of Lightcity, and the players are all low-level adventurers whom he sponsors to deal with minor issues he doesn’t have the time to handle anymore. Maybe the wizard founded a new school for the arcane arts, and the new PC wizard studied there. Maybe the barbarian disappeared into the wilderness with Worldcarver, the Axe of Destiny, and the PCs have to find out where he finally died and retrieve Worldcarver.
I find it funny that you mention an arcane school, because one of my PC’s (a sorcerer) did exactly that. In fact, a big part of his later arc was setting everything up to have that school, from discovering arcane universities in another country (they didn’t exist in his own), to securing land rights, to acquiring the resources and teachers for the school itself. It was satisfying to return to it in the next campaign and see my own PC running the university.
How was it hearing someone else RP the guy? Did you have to give explicit permission for the GM to feel comfortable running the character, or is it all-bets-are-off once a PC retires?
Um, excuse me? Worldcarver is the Axe of Annihilation, thank you very much:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/weapon-focus
Spelljammer all the way.
Wait… As an epic level game or starting back at 1st?
The ‘ladder from out of the sky into the market square’ to paradigm-shift a campaign at level 8 is probably a top-ten hook into an adventure module, for me.
The New is usually a campaign with fitting character concept.
I nearly recycled my Half Orc Barbarian for the current campaign but took a Hunter instead, because we need some healing around.
Our group tried Mutant Year Zero (pen and paper) for two sessions, but ⅔ of the players disliked the dice system. I would have at least played till the first casualty.
For my taste, when I’m trying new systems I feel like 2-3 session arcs are OK. You get a taste for the game and its rules, do a little adventure, and then move on to the next system. After 3-4 of those, you poll the group and figure out what everyone prefers for the next full-length campaign.
At least, that’s the way I’d like to do it moving forward.
Have run into this a few times, and our conclusion…? Let it end. The day is saved, peace and tranquility return to the realm… for a time.
First off, the game where this character comes from unexpectedly ended when three of the group members had to move out of the blue. It was the first time I ever had a high level character, and I wanted to do more… but Life Happened As It Is Wont To Do. But rather than letting it all die, I took the character and their arc and forged a campaign setting out of it.
Our other tactic is likely what’s going to happen coming out of Rise of the Runelords. We’re in the home stretch, our party is decidedly overpowered for the module at this point, and a few of us have done a lot of world building actions. Since RotR is only the first in a line of modules centered on that region of Golarion, those of us who’ve contributed actions to ‘change the status quo’ will see some of the results of that carried over into the next module. I’m a little concerned about this as a few of my actions were not well considered for an ongoing meta narrative… but I can say that it will make things interesting.
College, military, or bad luck?
Bad luck.
One job opportunity, one foreclosure, and one incident that I never heard the specifics of beyond legal being involved.
I have a number of theories about the last one, but it’s all speculation based on very limited knowledge.
Stuff happens, you know? I lost just about all of my 3e and Rifts books when it happened, too. ..but it’s ok. They were all poorer than I was; I figure they’ve probably needed those books to get through some difficult times.
I always imagine The Nothing from Neverending Story during these times. Some IRL event happens, and the fantasy world begins to fall apart.
Best of luck to your buddies. I hope you all find new games and new worlds.
Was years ago (2004? 2005… in there). I hope they did too, though. They had most of my books, so I’d bet on it.
I went to college in 2006, and from there, things went really off the rails.
Yeah, it’s kind of difficult as a DM to ask your players whether they would like to move on (into new setting or new PCs). I have this problem with my very first D&D group.
The goals their characters had were reached about a year ago (and the ones they started with about 3- years ago), the campaign lost the momentum it had, all of the cool setpieces have been interacted with, the power balance between nations has been changed due to their actions and now the players just gather to “do stuff”. That enthusiastic spark has dimmed.
As soon as my rip-off “Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament” set in not!Mali Empire adventure ends, I will seriously push for another of them to DM.
If they don’t want to abandon the setting, you could always move the story forward to the “next generation.” We already know that works well in the Potterverse.
That’s an idea. But a generation later I think, so they can see all their former characters have done.
Exactly! You basically get to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern yourselves.
I’m sure his subjects are eager for him to call it quits.
In all seriousness, given it is rare for campaigns to actually ‘finish’, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
One of the greatest campaigns I ever played in was a homebrew Ravenloft game. We went through the wringer, but the DMs did an amazing job. When we finally got to the finish line, saving the Demiplane of Dread, it was sad because the game had been a big part of my life for several years… but it was also hugely rewarding. We did it! Now we could rest.
Currently, I’m in a Second Darkness-PbP that is coming to the end, and I just feel sad that it’s ending. I’ve enjoyed playing with this group so much, and now I worry that we won’t be playing together again. le sigh
You could always volunteer to run the next one. I find that’s the best way to keep the band together.
The lives of characters don’t end just because they reached a proper narrative end and the narrator stopped telling the story. Unless Fighter’s kingdom knows an unprecedented era of peace and he dies to something mundane like age or illness/he’s poisoned a week into his reign, there’s stories to be told.
Does this comic mean we’re moving on to Fighter 44-45 depending on whether this comic meant 43 died, or was just visiting the land of the dead while still alive? 43-44 died here: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fail-finale
If current Fighter retires, would King-Fighter become the Handbook-party’s patron and Fighter has to talk to himself/the DM’s impression of him?
This comic has fortuitous timing. I’m actually wrapping up my campaign tonight because two of the players are moving to an incompatible time-zone, so I had to accelerate the time-table.
The 36 chambers of the Wu Tang-monastery were cut for time. The party never got to find the fabled sword of liquid. They’ll still face the old, dirty bastard; Ghost-Faced Killer among the BBEG’s lieutenants.
It was one of those Odysseus style trips to the underworld. Fighter and Wizard were alive when they met the boatman.
I can’t tell if the Wu Tang-monastery is a real thing you’re playing or a funny-ha-ha goof.
The question stands but more clear this time; is 44 retiring and we’re with 45 going forward?
Both. When I DMed everything was puns. One of the other notable villains was a silent, but deadly Elven Assassin called “The Green Wind”. The secret demiplane where powerful casters conspired was “The Magic Kingdom”, etc.
Ironically said two punniest villains were the ones who managed to escape when the final battle turned bad for them.
I always felt D&D acknowledged this problem as a possibility at the start, with higher levels in early D&D versions getting mechanically tied to land and titles.
At midlevels of power, still, even if just because you’re destroying the local economy selling treasure, you ARE a mover and a shaker.
1e and such, right? I do miss the idea of fighters becoming leaders of armies. It makes a lot of sense in my head for casters to affect the world through magic and fighting-mans to affect the world through people power.
I get how Fighter feels a bit. In the last campaign, we were at level 16 and I was starting to get a little bored of playing Irlana. While it was fun constantly critting, it was getting a bit ‘same old, same old.’ But I couldn’t just switch to a different character because said character would also be level 16 and be completely optimized. And that wouldn’t have been any fun.
The campaign did end soon after that not long after we reached level 17. We started a new campaign but the DM starting getting burn out and it ended.
Swear to god, I think that DM burnout kills more campaigns than any other cause.
Sitting behind the screen is crazy rewarding. However, it’s also easy to get to a place where it feels like more work than fun. At that point, it takes a mental effort to dial down the pressure you’re putting on yourself and just have fun gaming again.
…
I may be talking about myself now. :/
It was too bad because I had a nice backstory for my character that was going to be played out if the campaign had kept going.
Looots of history with games being quit or ended. Let’s see…
1) My very first Pathfinder game had a nice DM, and a few odd players, and we were playing Rappan Athuk. I was inexperienced and enjoying the system, but the other players were having some conflicts with each other, me, and the DM. This game would end up disbanding abruptly, with the DM, out of the blue, deleting the campaign on roll20 and ghosting us entirely. We later learned they pretty much tried to restart their game under a new roll20 account.
2) My current group is stable after many, many, MANY problems in the past. Most of them coming from a single player/DM who was a very subtly toxic influence. We’d go through many players and APs. Iron Gods I would leave due to conflicts and drama, only to later learn that the DM destroyed the campaign himself, ‘rocks fall’-ing the players. He would be a player in RotR, which our DM would end up ‘resetting’ due to frustrations with trying to challenge us and the aformentioned toxic influence. We’d eventually kick that player out and try with new players, catching a few more bad/problematic players.
3) Now, I am happy that our group is stable, with two-three DMing capable players. We’ve went through Rise of the Runelords and Return of the Runelords from start to finish, and are currently going through Mummy’s Mask and Dawn of Flame as well, our DMs focusing on the AP adventures. We know what we like and dislike so picking a campaign is less hit & miss than it was before, with various unreliable or random people.
4) As far as ending games goes, we have two options, pretty much, on account of playing APs exclusively. Either we finish the AP from start to finish (with the occasional character swap), or we end up not liking the AP enough to end it early (this happened with Crimson Throne and Kingmaker, albeit for differing reasons).
Grats on getting your group to a good place! That mess takes work, but it’s worth it. 🙂
People playing Adventure Paths or Campaigns have it easy on the quitting aspect. Either they finish the campaign (which can take about a year or more, depending on scheduling) entirely, up to specific books, or they end it prematurely if they’re not liking the campaign (or TPK).
You’ve still got to decide whether to call it quits when the campaign ends.
“Hey guys! Why don’t we keep playing to epic level!”
Unfortunately, after the tight plotting of an AP, it can be difficult to make that transition without suffering anticlimax.
I don’t understand this “campaign ending”… you play until something dies, the PCs, the Game, you, or the GM.
There is no quitting in roleplaying!
Naw man. Eternal Champion style. Same hero, different face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Champion_(novel)
(Soft) Reboot, difficult to do, one, for not say the only one, good i have seen is the Battlestar Galactica one. Too much problems to resolve, too much time to do properly, high reward higher risk 🙁
Oh, and thanks for the painful memories of the ending of Chorus of the Neverborn 🙁
Disband is what my group have done more or less. They followed your poisonous temptation of playing online and invite me to join with them. I refused and now they are playing without me 🙁
But the New game and Change systems are something we do a lot 🙂
Text-based or Role-20? And which do you find more objectionable?
I don’t know and i don’t want to know. I am not interested on that. I know and understand that this plague thing is annoy and people have more than one itch of normalcy to scratch; but online rpg isn’t the same, at least for me 🙁
Also they are taking the opportunity to play Don’t rest your head. Even if i wanted to join i couldn’t. That game is… i don’t know if its the themes it treats or how i does that, or the general feeling of the game but it’s unsettling to me 🙁
Check it with the traitorous scum, text based on a forum that nothing has to do with roleplaying or games 🙂
The only game I’ve been in that ended properly, was a mud-based one that had the ending planned for a months deadline from the start.
It felt strange when we actually got to that deadline. It had been the longest and probably best gaming experiance I ever had.
Mud-based?
MUD I think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD
Nothing like a deadline to force you to stay on task!
Am I the only one who likes high level? It feels so odd to me that everyone opines about the low levels. I hate level 1 with a burning passion. When I got to be DM, I even mandated level 2 as the starting level.
I have played up to 17th level in Pathfinder, as a spellcaster no less. And it was an absolute treat! I had a special printout page for all of my spells (all my spell slots, my domain spells, my regular memorized ones). I even had an excel spreadsheet that let me calc my buffs in real time.
I have played up to 19th level in 4th Edition and I was supremely disappointed we never got to level 21 where the Epic track starts. I even had my character plotted out to level 30 and everything. 4th edition high level is SUPER fun, I remembered cutting out my powers and putting them into card sleeves so I could track what I had used better. I had an amazing changeling assassin that could teleport at will I wished I could’ve played more of.
You know what I’m not seeing here? “I have GM’d up to Xth level.” I’m beginning to wonder if that might not be the difference.
Have GM’d up to
checks notes
7th level
In my defense. It would probably be higher if it wasn’t for the Rona shutting down my tabletop game.
No worries. Not trying to call you out or anything. It’s just that I’ve posted the comic to a couple of forums so far, and I was beginning to notice a divide in reactions between “I love high level play” and “it’s hard to run high level games.”
“WHEN I WAS A FIGHTING-MAN, THE KETTLE-DRUMS THEY BEAT, THE PEOPLE SCATTERED GOLD-DUST BEFORE MY HORSE’S FEET; BUT NOW I AM A GREAT KING, THE PEOPLE HOUND MY TRACK, WITH POISON IN MY WINE-CUP, AND DAGGERS AT MY BACK.”
– Conan the Barbarian
Fighter’s expression really reminds me of this quote.
Nice! Where were you when I was writing the scroll-over text, lol?
Having lunch with a cute copperling, if I’ve got the timeline correct.
Once our LMoP campaign wrapped, we decided to shift to WDH with new characters back at level 1. Theoretically, it’s a year after the end of the first campaign, so those characters could still be kicking around. My shillelagh Samurai has been doing well in the new campaign, but we’ve almost got a tavern open, so maybe it’ll be a good opportunity to retire him once we reach a similar level to where we left off from the 1st campaign, and then bring back Derrik from LMoP, he was only just hitting his stride at the end of that.
the longest running campaign i’ve been in (a rifts game) actually ended with a reboot.. after years of playing, crossing continents, travelling into other dimensions and even going into space, he decided to end the campaign with a time travelling arc where we found out our characters had all been gathered by deities of order because someone had been meddling with the past, and our various origins made us immune to destiny and being rewritten by the changes to the timeline. so once the gods figured out what all had been changed, we got sent back in time to each point of change to set things right, starting with the oldest point. which included triggering off the apocalypse that created the world the game took place in. the last one saw us confronting the BBEG and facing him down.. with our cyborg sniper getting in the killing blow from half a mile away. cue blinding light, the gods telling us they can now set everything to rights, but we can;t remember everything, but we will be rewarded.. then the final scene was all our characters from the whole campaign being summoned to the meeting that started the whole campaign, as the original campaign scenario started up again. fade to black.
was actually really really cool, especially the way he integrated some of the characters and group NPCs that had joined in later during the dimensional trips (or replaced older characters due to players chaging chars) as being there from the start in the new timeline.