Favourite Campaign Endings

Over the years I've run a great many campaigns, and they've all come to an end. But only some of them have come to a good end. Some of my favourites, therefore:

All four of my "great campaigns" had strong endings. The first of these, the unnamed Tolkien rip-off campaign, came to an end with an epic confrontation between our heroes and the risen lich Pelenor Corariath, a battle for the ages that left the world forever changed. There's not too much more to say about this one, especially since it was so long ago - sword battled spells, and in the end the bad guy made a very satisfying 'thump' as he hit the ground.

The "Rivers of Time" campaign had the most unusual of the endings - this one came to a bittersweet conclusion as the world came to its end. The year was 2150, and our heroes were called to meet one of a former childe of theirs for a final toast. It was very quiet and contemplative, and brought together everything from five years of gaming to that point. (Sadly, that campaign had long-since outlived its best times. But the ending was solid.)

The "Shackled City" campaign ended with another great and epic battle, this time with the corrupted angel Adimarchus. As was fitting for the highest-level campaign I ever ran, this was the most epic, knock-down battle I've ever run. At the end, the PCs were victorious, but only just.

"The Eberron Code" came to another great battle, this time with the imprisoned Bel Shalor, the Shadow in the Flame. The stakes for this one were dramatic - win, and the Silver Flame would be cleansed of the corruption that had infested it; lose, and the demon would be freed on the world. This conclusion was notable for the death of a PC and his subsequent refusal to return to life, and that fact that it had a proper epilogue for all the PCs - something I highly recommend.

There are also a small number of noteworthy endings that are not from the "great campaigns". "Mists of Lamordia" saw the PCs battling Adam for their freedom from Lamordia (and Ravenloft as a whole). This one saw one of the PCs tempted with the chance to become the new Dark Lord (a role he eventually took), saw a sudden but frankly obvious betrayal as Victor Mordenheim turned against the heroes, and saw the battle hinge on the discovery of Adam's crucial weakness. This wasn't the greatest campaign, being hampered by the format, by Covid, and by a long-term player absence, but the ending was really good.

"Isles of Dread" had a decent ending, except that the climax came in the session before the last and the final session was then a brief epilogue. Taken as a pair, those sessions were solid; individually they didn't really work. Still, the battle against Red Bethena was fun to play out, and neatly encapsulated everything in the campaign.

Finally, "A Quest for Memory" had a noteworthy ending mostly because I reused the same "Forge of the Fire Giants" dungeon that provoked a TPK when running "Storm King's Thunder" itself. This time, the PCs were able to battle their way to victory, although it was a close-run thing. In truth I don't consider this one of the "great campaigns" and don't consider it a top-tier ending, but it's certainly interesting that the same dungeon run with two different groups had such different outcomes.

Experia - Goddess of Heroes

D&D isn't really made for monotheism - for the most part the game basically assumes some sort of barely-present polytheistic world view where everyone just kind of gets along. (There is potentially a storm coming there, as differing portrayals of religions gets labelled "problematic" the same way as portrayals or race have been. Or maybe not - we'll see. Anyway...)

These days, if I were to craft a monotheistic setting, the way I would do it would be as follows:

• Firstly, divorce all PC capabilities from any named higher power - Clerics get their power directly from their Domains, Paladins from the Oaths, and so forth. So no alignment restrictions, no expected tenets or behaviours, etc.
• I would then introduce a single deity, Experia, a goddess with no alignment, no temples, or tenets, and indeed no worshippers as such.
• However, what Experia is interested in is heroes. Where she empowers certain beings, her Chosen, as heroes, beings who are uniquely capable of learning and growing in an exponential matter by the completion of heroic tasks. In effect, they are the only beings who can gain Experience Points.

I suspect that the world most likely to come from this would turn out to be something like "Masters of the Universe" - a number of brightly drawn heroes, a mostly content populace around that, and several forces keen to tear it all down. Of course, combine that with the notion of having several factions (Humans, Elves, Drow, Orcs, Giants, Undead...) and the setting more or less writes itself.

Though I probably wouldn't include either Orcs or Goblins nowadays - if I included nonhuman species at all (very doubtful), I'd replace those with Goliaths.

The Thing I Never Did

I have two unrealised ambitions, one of which is to one day see my name in print. As time goes by this seems less and less likely, but it's actually the more likely of the two at this time. But that's a topic for another place.

However, in terms of RPGs that gives rise to the biggest thing I never did in gaming - I would have liked to put together something and have it published.

There were a few steps towards this, but they never paid off:

• About a quarter of a century ago White Wolf put out an open call for freelancers, to which I made a submission. I actually got a reply back saying they'd be in touch, but it never came to anything. It didn't help that the email I gave them stopped working not too long thereafter. Oh well.
• During the 3.5e days, and during the pomp of Dungeon magazine, I wrote a handful of short adventures for publication. In each case these had a single draft of the right length, but I never got so far as sending an enquiry. That's probably just as well - looking back, they're not actually terribly good. Had I known then what I know now...
• Most recently, I wrote up the "Isles of Dread" as though it was intended for publication (although in reality is was never going to be). That was an interesting experience, and I'm pleased with the result, but was never going to submit it anywhere. Plus, it became rather more bespoke than would really be appropriate.

So there it is - three steps towards doing something, but nothing that actually went anywhere. And, of course, that door is now effectively closed by the new edition, by Dungeon magazine being shuttered, and, most obviously, by my gaming career coming to an end.

The Great Secrets

I've never written these down anyway, so in order that they don't get forgotten, here are the three great secrets at the heart of my home setting of Terafa:

• The Dragonborn origin story doesn't fit with the creation myths of the other races, and indeed with the known age of the world. The reason for this is that they're not from the past of the world, but rather from the far future - the devastation their seers foresaw was actually the end of the world, and their "Return to the Egg" saw their elite using flawed technology that actually cast them far back in time.
• The origin of the split between the elves and the drow was actually due to the latter choosing to share the secrets of magic with humans. Everything since then is propaganda. Unfortunately, so pervasive has become the propaganda, and so much bitterness has grown up that the drow are now enemies of all surface-dwellers.
• Choriam, god of rulership, is actually a usurper. The true god of rulership is trapped in the Fastness of the Divine, with all knowledge of him erased by the death of Memory, the lost deity. This is also why the pantheon in unbalanced, and why the dominant mythology all feels 'off'.

But, of course, it's all subject to change if I ever get back to it!

Every Story I Want to Tell

This post was originally going to be about the campaigns that I would like to run but am now never likely to, but it changed. It changed for one very obvious reason: there aren't any. There are, certainly, campaigns I could run, and concepts I could readily work up, and there are campaign structures I'd be inclined to explore more and build upon if there was a need for a new game.

But in terms of a campaign I actually want to run? No, there's nothing. I'm actually in a really good place to be taking a hiatus right now.

About "Tales of the Valiant"

In the past year or so I've backed two Kickstarters for "Tales of the Valiant" - the first was for the development of the system itself (a 5e near-clone with some nice enhancements), and the second for the Gamemaster's Guide (which looked very nice). In backing the second I actually broke one of my cardinal rules with Kickstarter, which is to never back a second project from a team until the first has delivered - but I mitigate that by noting that Kobold Press have never let me down.

Anyway, both Kickstarters have now delivered everything I signed up for, which tragically comes just a bit too late - I'm unlikely ever to even read any of the books (PDFs) they have sent me as I just don't have use for them at this time. (Plus, I now have two 5e near-clones, the other being "Level Up", and there's a third available in the form of D&D 2024.)

But that's a "me" problem rather than any sort of a problem with the product, and the Kickstarter was pretty much impeccable in its delivery. And Kobold Press routinely do great work, so I have no hesitation in recommending them as a company. Just a shame that it's come a little too late.

"Isles of Dread" wrap up

A rather belated post - the "Isles of Dread" campaign actually ended in July. However, the end remains somewhat fresh, and so in the spirit of completeness, here are my thoughts:

• This was intended as a short six-month campaign to pass some time, and ended up running for almost two years. That's largely a scheduling issue - with so few players we really struggled to get to a quorum. And that, in turn, is why I've called time on this particular group.
• That said, near the end of the campaign I took that view that we were essentially going ahead no matter what, and that actually worked much better. I should have done this throughout. And, actually, I think that may be a lesson for even "regular" campaigns - better to fix a slot and go ahead come hell or high water, and if you find yourself regularly struggling for a quorum then that's a sign to call a halt.
• I was very proud of the way the campaign was structured, prepared, and presented - I've posted about this separately, but the work put in did pay off, mostly.
• The extended duration of the campaign did, however, mean that some key callbacks never paid off. I suspect that would have gone better had things been fresher in minds. Or perhaps not. Either way, nothing vital was missed, so that was okay.
• The campaign structure, which I cribbed from "Lost Mine of Phandelver", was great. I highly recommend this for any sort of "beginner" campaign.
• I never did get an "inventory" sheet put together. With the release of new books, and since I'm now not gaming, I'm not sure it's worthwhile any longer. But it's definitely something that I've been missing.
• The rerolls worked slightly better. One enhancement was that characters now received a number of rerolls per level equal to half their Proficiency Bonus, rounded up. That seemed to make them a bit less of a scarce resource, and so they seemed to get a bit more use.
• For the first time we saw a feat being used (Lucky), but alas it wasn't great, largely because that one served to duplicate the effect of those same reroll tokens.

And that's basically that. A decent campaign, although not a classic, and a reasonable way to close out gaming with that group. I'm a little sorry that this campaign seems to also be the one to close out my career as a gamer, but so be it - ultimately most things end badly, or they wouldn't end at all, to better to wrap things up on my terms (even if in a suboptimal manner) than otherwise.