Campaigns Are Hard

What kind of campaign do you run?

We had a fascinating discussion in the Discord this week about how some campaigns end with a bang and others quietly retire.

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From RPT GM Gilladian:

Campaign endings are hard. I have been a dm for over 30, maybe 40 years. I don’t remember most of the old campaigns having endings. We just fizzled out eventually.

But I have never gone for big campaigns with story arcs. My latest campaign ended when the PCs reached the west coast of my world as a team of explorers.

One previous campaign had the same players, different characters, resolve a longstanding campaign villain/threat, and usher in major political growth, but that was a unique situation. It had grown up over the course of 3 other unrelated campaigns in the same world. None of those had real firm conclusions, just “no more loose plot, we are high level, we retire.

RPT GM Eerie One:

I think it comes down to a simple question: do you care more about the journey or the destination?

If your game is primarily about the characters and their personal stories, then these kinds of “soft endings” tend to happen very naturally.

The narrative is driven by the players’ motivations, and those don’t always resolve in a single, clean way. The momentum of the campaign comes from the players’ interest in exploring who their characters are, how they change, and what it means for them to exist in that world.

When that curiosity starts to fade — when there’s less left to discover about those characters or their place in the setting — the campaign can simply wind down. Not because the story has reached a neatly defined conclusion, but because its central question has already been explored as far as it needs to go. In that sense, “fizzling out” isn’t necessarily a failure; it can be a natural endpoint for a character-driven game.

That said, strong character writing can still help give a more definitive sense of closure. If you have a clear idea of what would constitute a meaningful turning point or resolution for a character, you can recognize when their arc has effectively reached its conclusion—even if the world itself keeps going.

On the other hand, if the campaign is built around a central plot or conflict — something like defeating a lich or resolving a major external threat — then it’s much easier to point to a definitive ending. The structure itself provides a clear moment where you can say, “this is where the campaign ends.”

So I think the real question is: are you telling the story of how these characters changed, or the story of how this particular lich met their end at the hands of the heroes?

Personally, I don’t think prioritizing the journey is wrong. It just leads to a different kind of ending—one that may feel less like a finale, and more like a quiet closing chapter in the life of the characters.

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Excellent posts. Thanks @Gilladian and @Eerie One.

I’ve learned from coaching and teaching hundreds of GMs over the years that campaigns are like fingerprints: each one is unique.

It’s amazing the variety of approaches and configurations that have developed over the decades.

I figure if you and your players are having fun, then you are winning. So you design, prepare, and run the kind of campaign configuration that’ll inspire you for months and years.

Right now, I have both campaign types mentioned above.

Obsidian Invictus is my Gilladian-style sandbox. With vault raids and dungeon crawls, I aim to let characters, foes, and treasure collide and we play to find out what happens.

Characters will retire at 10th level. So this is really a campaign of Who can you become before your arc ends? Players can choose to be the conquerors of 10,000 cellar rats, or they can shake the deep halls of power that rule the city.

Meanwhile, my The Lost Isle campaign answers Eerie One’s question with a clear destination goal: escape the island. To do so will require delving into ancient secrets, solving the island’s dangerous puzzles, and ultimately defeating an evil force older than the jungle itself.

GMing different campaign types or structures keeps the saw sharp and helps me stave off burnout with variety.

I think a great takeaway for us today is to not get locked into one style of GMing. Keep learning and keep improving by trying out different campaign styles and configurations. Keep what you like and test new ideas or approaches so you’re always filling your GM toolbox.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

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