I usually like to end a campaign according to plan, thought he plan often evolves. As my campaigns average about two and a half years, this is important, as it allows the players to separate from their beloved characters and get ready for the new campaign. I allow them a denoument to bid farewell and write the happily ever after, then end it. I’ve had my “whimper” endings and hated them too, but those were often forced by circumstance, so my regrets are minimal.

@Swordgleam – That’s not a bad ending, but it’s not much of a bang — you’re right about that. I assume the village is threatened regularly? If so, why not foreshadow an impending larger threat — even just a session or two before it happens should be enough — and then use that as the bang?

There’s no main villain, and the main goal is “stay alive and make sure the village does, too.” Perhaps, once I feel like we should be approaching an end, I’ll give the players some apprentices, and make it clear that their last ‘quest’ is to train the next generation of heroes, then retire happily. It would be a nice symmetry to how this whole thing started – with the deaths of the old heroes. But that doesn’t seem like much of a ‘bang’ to me. What do you think?

I mean, one of the tropes of long running TV shows is that bad things always seem to happen for no reason whatsoever, with no rhyme or reason. Do you want that to happen, or do you want a singular cohesive story?

That said, I like the feel of the approaching finale of the chronicle. I haven’t felt like I’ve been rail-roaded into a certain finish, but I do have the sense of a building climax. It ties in very well with the theme of destiny that’s been going on throughout the campaign.

We’ve had an inkling of the “villain’s” plan for quite a while now, but we haven’t been able to stop it. Not only is he very powerful, but we haven’t had a lot of information we would need (we think) to stop him. The coming encounter seems like it’ll be natural and timed appropriately with how the rest of the campaign has flowed, rather than a simple fiat of “You will battle Kafteros at the 20th session!”

I also feel like other elements of the campaign are both wrapping up well while leaving threads to pursue in a future chronicle. While the climactic villain is probably Kafteros, a Gambit member escaped, the Consilium is still hostile (although not actively in our faces), etc. In other words, I don’t feel like there’s a bunch of open lines for us to get frustrated with, but the roads to future campaigns have been laid out.