Exchange of Realities

There’s always an ending.

For games, for series, for everything. It’s hard for us to admit that, though. Maybe it’s still an attachment to this character, or this world, or a desire to see a certain social dynamic finished. Maybe what we’ve got is really, really popular, and we don’t think we’ll ever top it.

It happens. We have a really good game, awesome characters, a great plot arc. It’s just getting better, and better. But we can’t drag out the current story arc any longer, or we’ve been planning and timing it perfectly, and either way it results in that brilliant, tension-filled ending in which the BBEG is destroyed, the world is saved, most of the questions have been answered and the ones that remain aren’t particularly important, and in general, a conclusion has been reached. But we can’t just end it. We still see something missing, or think we still have something left to say in that world, that timestream. And next thing you know, there it is, like one of those shows that finished a major plot arc a while ago and really should have ended, only the characters were so popular and the merchandising potential so vast that they really couldn’t leave well enough alone.

But after the story ends, if you can’t find a new one, what else is left? Where do you go from saving the world? How are you going to keep it from going into a Dragonball Z-esque sequence of power creep and “My energy ball is bigger than your energy ball”?

At this point, there are several questions you want to ask yourself.

• Can the group still go forward? This is something of a clump of questions, including “Can I top this, or at least equal it, drama-wise?”, “Do the characters still have room to develop?”, “Are there still enough loose ends, and are they sufficiently intriguing?”, “Can I still come up with a new threat that isn’t functionally the old one with power upgrades?” and “Are there any challenges left the group can’t take?” If you can’t get a yes answer to a majority of these sub-questions, you might want to look twice at whether you should really be continuing.
• Do the players want to go forward? (This, of course, is a game-only question.) Some of them might have gotten tired of this game, for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with your storytelling skill. Maybe the character has resolved his major guiding conflict and isn’t interesting anymore. Or she’s been played the entire time as an underdog, and the player just isn’t sure how to play her now that she’s the top dog. Or there’s no possible mechanical improvement to the character that interests the player. (These can be resolved with a new character, but not always.) Or perhaps they feel that the end of the story is a satisfying conclusion to leave on, and want to try something new.
• Do you still have a story to tell? This is a vital element: A continuing game without a story is just a steadily escalating sequence of fights, and a series without new plots is just repeats of old themes with new names. Continuing without any set path after a conclusion is just asking for a decrease in quality—I’ve learned that the hard way.
• Why do you want to continue? This one is the hardest question to answer. If it’s because you’ve got a new idea or an entirely different direction, you might have a chance. If you’ve got a loose end that everyone wants to look into and you know what to do with it, there’s still life there. But if it’s just because the players don’t want to turn loose the characters, or because you can’t let go of your world, you’re going to want to reconsider. That way lie cottage industry plots and downward spirals.

If you’re answering most of these with a no, and your reason to keep going can be summed up as inertia, you should probably call it a conclusion. It’s tough, but look at it this way: If your story was good enough that people wanted to continue just for the sake of continuing, it’s good enough that it deserves to end on a high note instead of risking a downward spiral. When it’s time to let go, hanging on isn’t going to be good for anyone: Not you, not the players, and not anyone’s memories of the campaign.