Ending a Campaign and Epilogues
The deep and rhythmic thump, thump, thump, wakes you from your light sleep. A dark, low horn blasts somewhere in the distant night. Suddenly, a massive boulder smashes into your home, taking down a large section of the wall and roof. Stunned, you see and hear more boulders crash against other homes and the walls of the town. Trumpet horns bleat in alarm throughout the town. The horde has finally arrived. The battle for the Vale begins.
For example:
Music
Wickedly illuminated by the fires upon the walls and in the flames of the horde, you witness a horrifying sight. A deafening and guttural roar is heard and a massive gout of flame spews forth from the maw of this draconic beast of legend. A crown of cruel horns surrounds the head of this mighty dragon. Thick scales the color of molten rock cover its long body. As it soars high, it dives from the heavens to wreak havoc on the structures of the northern portion of the Vale. You can hear deep chuckles of pleasure as it watches its quarry burn.
Keep it Chaotic
I hope to create chaos through the scene description, including a lot of non-player characters, characters and enemies in the encounters and through having the players having to continually use their resources. It is going to be difficult for them to get a short rest in because of the necessity of the situation. A town is being besieged by over 3000 enemy troops and the town only has about 600 to defend with. In addition, the PCs will need to quickly choose what they want to save, and what they can live without providing them with difficult choices in the impact they make. This leads into the next C, contingent.
Contingent
This was a big realisation for me. Essentially what it means, is to have events happen as a result of other events. For example, if the party does not stop the enemy from deploying their ladders and taking over the walls, then the enemy will be able to rain down arrows upon the allied troops. Originally in my plans I had multiple encounters that the party would have to choose. Between the two groups on two different nights, there would be one of 3 encounters that would be unable to be completed. The result would simply be a narrative consequence, not something tangible. After watching this video however I think I am going to change two things to make it more dramatic and epic.
Making the finale catastrophic is simple in my case, this was foreboded since the start of the campaign. A massive horde marching through the valley. However simply stating this fact is not enough. It has to feel that way for the players. Going to try an invoke this through vignettes. I think in the case of West Marches it is tough given the size of the player group. It could be done if there was more attachment to the town being defended. People really ingrained in the place with their own homes and things of that nature, or NPCs that are cared for. It would be more catastrophic in that sense, so in my case, it will just be the scene and the circumstance that is catastrophic. However, the consequences can be dire. Many innocents are lost, the town is destroyed and as a very astute player managed to deduce, the horde's leader would have the power available to summon Tiamat.
Climactic
Bringing it all back together at the end. The sum of all the parts. After building tension throughout the whole campaign or several sessions, the end should be climactic. For the West Marches finale, I have broken it up into 3 parts, because I want as many people as I can to experience it and be involved in it. Parts 1 and 2 are the lead-up to the final combat. With the parties struggling against an enormous siege from a horde of monsters. The climax of this will take the form of an entire session almost entirely devoted to combat. 10 players will participate against one foe. Now, to offset a few of the potential shortcomings of this format I have adjusted the rules slightly in advance.
Most notably will be the playing card initiative. Put simply, each player has a card, my single boss monster will have 2 or 3. I will shuffle the cards and when yours is drawn it is your turn. My intention in this alternate initiative is to give the sense of chaos and the added effect of keeping players on their toes so that people aren't bored waiting for a ton of combat turns to go round before it is them acting again. Giving my final boss monster multiple rounds to act will hopefully ensure that it does not get beaten to a pulp in an unfair fight. Players are going to have to help their allies in addition to attacking given that it can hit hard, and many times.
The second change is multiple phases. Much like the Ganondorf fight in the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time this final big bad is going to have multiple phases. Though, I dare not go over the details here just in case a nosy player is reading this. I will go over the details of the encounter in a wrap-up post following the final session.
Epilogues and Denouement
As is the standard writing layout following the climax, is the falling action. With the remainder of the time in the evening, I want to give an epilogue myself that will briefly mention each of the factions and groups that were effected as a result of the heroes action and inaction. Much like the endings in Moonhunters. I decided to have a 5 year time jump following the events of the finale fight in order for events to progress fictionally in terms of the other factions, but to also give the players a sense of growth other than levelling up and making gold.
Additionally, each player will be given the opportunity to narrate what their character does for the following 5 years. I am curious to see what they decide for their unique characters that I have grown to enjoy.
Ending a Campaign
Inspired by How to be a Great Game Master's video.
By the end of January my West Marches Season 1 will come to a close. For many months the players have striven to stop the approaching Hobgoblin horde as it marches east towards their home. Following Tuesday's session that I felt was not as good as it could have been, I'm looking to refocus and nail down what will happen at the end, and what will happen next for season 2. I will be using the 5 Cs as outlined in the video linked above.
- Making it Cool
- Keep it Chaotic
- Contingent
- Catasrophic
- Climactic
Making it Cool
In order to make it cool, the setup will be defending a walled town from the massive horde. War drums and war horns blaring, boulders careening into walls thrown by giants, ogres smashing at the front gates. I really want to invoke the feelings akin to The Lord of the Rings movies in pivotal moments such as defending Minas Tirith or the battle for Helms Deep. As I write this, at the start of each encounter, I will play a scene from the movies if possible to get that feeling, as well as some epic music from Dragon Age: Inquisition and other soundtracks. Accompanying this will be a imagery invoking "boxed text" to set the scene.
For example:
Music
Wickedly illuminated by the fires upon the walls and in the flames of the horde, you witness a horrifying sight. A deafening and guttural roar is heard and a massive gout of flame spews forth from the maw of this draconic beast of legend. A crown of cruel horns surrounds the head of this mighty dragon. Thick scales the color of molten rock cover its long body. As it soars high, it dives from the heavens to wreak havoc on the structures of the northern portion of the Vale. You can hear deep chuckles of pleasure as it watches its quarry burn.
Keep it Chaotic
I hope to create chaos through the scene description, including a lot of non-player characters, characters and enemies in the encounters and through having the players having to continually use their resources. It is going to be difficult for them to get a short rest in because of the necessity of the situation. A town is being besieged by over 3000 enemy troops and the town only has about 600 to defend with. In addition, the PCs will need to quickly choose what they want to save, and what they can live without providing them with difficult choices in the impact they make. This leads into the next C, contingent.
Contingent
This was a big realisation for me. Essentially what it means, is to have events happen as a result of other events. For example, if the party does not stop the enemy from deploying their ladders and taking over the walls, then the enemy will be able to rain down arrows upon the allied troops. Originally in my plans I had multiple encounters that the party would have to choose. Between the two groups on two different nights, there would be one of 3 encounters that would be unable to be completed. The result would simply be a narrative consequence, not something tangible. After watching this video however I think I am going to change two things to make it more dramatic and epic.
- Not completing objectives will have mechanical effects and narrative effects for future encounters within the finale.
- The party has the option to split up to cover more ground, but it will make things more difficult.
Hopefully this will make things more tense with the scenario, but not remove the player's agency.
Catastrophic
Making the finale catastrophic is simple in my case, this was foreboded since the start of the campaign. A massive horde marching through the valley. However simply stating this fact is not enough. It has to feel that way for the players. Going to try an invoke this through vignettes. I think in the case of West Marches it is tough given the size of the player group. It could be done if there was more attachment to the town being defended. People really ingrained in the place with their own homes and things of that nature, or NPCs that are cared for. It would be more catastrophic in that sense, so in my case, it will just be the scene and the circumstance that is catastrophic. However, the consequences can be dire. Many innocents are lost, the town is destroyed and as a very astute player managed to deduce, the horde's leader would have the power available to summon Tiamat.
Climactic
Bringing it all back together at the end. The sum of all the parts. After building tension throughout the whole campaign or several sessions, the end should be climactic. For the West Marches finale, I have broken it up into 3 parts, because I want as many people as I can to experience it and be involved in it. Parts 1 and 2 are the lead-up to the final combat. With the parties struggling against an enormous siege from a horde of monsters. The climax of this will take the form of an entire session almost entirely devoted to combat. 10 players will participate against one foe. Now, to offset a few of the potential shortcomings of this format I have adjusted the rules slightly in advance.
Most notably will be the playing card initiative. Put simply, each player has a card, my single boss monster will have 2 or 3. I will shuffle the cards and when yours is drawn it is your turn. My intention in this alternate initiative is to give the sense of chaos and the added effect of keeping players on their toes so that people aren't bored waiting for a ton of combat turns to go round before it is them acting again. Giving my final boss monster multiple rounds to act will hopefully ensure that it does not get beaten to a pulp in an unfair fight. Players are going to have to help their allies in addition to attacking given that it can hit hard, and many times.
The second change is multiple phases. Much like the Ganondorf fight in the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time this final big bad is going to have multiple phases. Though, I dare not go over the details here just in case a nosy player is reading this. I will go over the details of the encounter in a wrap-up post following the final session.
Epilogues and Denouement
As is the standard writing layout following the climax, is the falling action. With the remainder of the time in the evening, I want to give an epilogue myself that will briefly mention each of the factions and groups that were effected as a result of the heroes action and inaction. Much like the endings in Moonhunters. I decided to have a 5 year time jump following the events of the finale fight in order for events to progress fictionally in terms of the other factions, but to also give the players a sense of growth other than levelling up and making gold.
Additionally, each player will be given the opportunity to narrate what their character does for the following 5 years. I am curious to see what they decide for their unique characters that I have grown to enjoy.
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