Ending The Story with Style: Tips for Creating a Satisfying End to Your Roleplaying Game
So you’ve been running a tabletop roleplaying game for your friends. It’s been a great adventure. Everyone has had a good time, but now it’s time for the story to come to a close.
Regardless of whether you’ve only played a few sessions, or you’ve been playing for months, players get attached to their characters. After all, each character started as someone’s creative vision. They reflect a tiny slice of how that person sees the world.
Why Creating a Satisfying End to Your Roleplaying Game Matters
Even if your campaign hasn’t been a long one, each character has been an avenue through which their player has interacted with the game and with the other actual humans sitting at the game table. The end of a campaign marks the loss of both the creative storytelling activity the player has been doing and the loss of the social activity of playing a game together.
Even though the end of the game marks the end of a lot of good things, there are a few simple things you, the storyteller, can do to leave players feeling fulfilled and excited to try the next thing.
Give the Players The Ending They Want
Most players will have some idea of what they’re hoping will happen to their characters after the end of your adventure. Some just want to see their characters settle down happily at home. Others may imagine their character continuing on more exciting adventures even though this one has drawn to a close. Some players may even want their characters to meet a spectacular end at the end of your campaign, dying at the hands of a great adversary but living on in story and song.
As you near the final session of your game, try to get a sense of what each player hopes their character will do after they’ve reached the end of this adventure. Embrace what they’re hoping for and don’t be afraid to make it spectacular. After all, this is the end of the tale. You can give each character as grand an epilogue as you want without worrying about it affecting future games, so go for it!
Let Each Character Shine
During the final session, try to give each player the time and space they need to do any final cool things they have in mind. Maybe they want to make sure their character visits a favorite NPC one last time, or maybe they’ve been waiting for their moment to finally stick it to their rival.
Once the boss is dead and the characters have returned to safety, ask each player what their character does next. Where do they go? Who do they seek out? Many players are cautious about taking up too much time in the spotlight. Asking each player individually what their character would do lets the players know that it’s okay to focus on their individual character for a little bit.
Tie In Backstories
Chances are your game began with a powerful call to adventure, but that’s not where the characters necessarily began. Tying in references to character backstories both shows players that you value the creative energy they put into their characters and helps to make the end of an adventure feel more like a transition rather than a loss.
Especially if you’re playing a story-driven game, players have likely imagined where their characters came from before their current journey. Both literally and figuratively, this is the place the characters will be returning to as the game concludes.
In a literal sense, the characters are likely going home or returning to where the adventure began. In a figurative sense, each character began purely in their player’s imagination. While they entered a realm of collaborative storytelling during your gameplay, once the game concludes the character once again solely exists in their player’s imagination.
Referencing a character’s backstory during the conclusion of a game creates a bridge back to the character’s origin point, helping the player feel like their character doesn’t abruptly cease to exist even though the game has come to an end.
Set the Characters Loose Into a Continuing World
After you’ve set the groundwork for players to imagine their characters returning to a place that continues after the end of your shared story, work to give each character an epilogue that lets their player fondly imagine what might come next.
Some players will want to envision their characters heading off to further excitement, while others will find the thought of their characters living a quiet, cozy life at home to be a fulfilling end. Hint at what the characters might be doing in the days, months, and and years after they finish their quest, but leave things vague. The game is over and the story you’ve been telling together has come to an end, but leaving players with the sense that their characters have a future, and giving them room to imagine that future however they like, makes the end of the game feel less like a “goodbye” to the characters and more like a “see you around!”
Creating the sense that the characters are living on in your shared world also helps to ease any sense of loss associated with the end of the real-world social activity the players have been a part of while they’ve been getting together to hang out with friends and play a game. The thought that the characters will continue to interact with each other in your shared, imagined game world can help players to continue to feel connected even after the actual gameplay has ended.
Resolve Loose Ends… Mostly
Especially if you’re playing a story-driven game, the characters have likely explored some threads outside the main plotline. As you near the end of your campaign, try to identify any unanswered questions the players have. Don’t be afraid to reveal the villain’s motivation or hint at what a particular NPC did after the players left town. Do your best to answer the lingering questions about the world before you all walk away from it.
But you don’t have to tell them everything!
Leaving a few ananswered questions not only provides a fun hook for future games, but also helps to enhance the feeling that the game world continues and the characters in it still have meaningful things to do.
Maybe a cursed ring disappeared during the campaign. You can mention that it has not been found… yet… And maybe from time to time, as the characters settle down to their “happily ever after,” they occasionally hear rumors of unnatural blights striking a distant land that sound a bit too familiar.
Little snippets of foreshadowing show that the characters have returned to a world rich with potential for an exciting future, even though you won’t be telling those stories in this particular game.
In Summary
The end of a roleplaying game is a time full of powerful emotions. Navigating those feelings to create a satisfying end of the tale is a unique process for each group. While these simple tips can provide a good starting point, no blog post will ever be a substitute for your personal experience with the people in your gaming group. However, with some careful forethought and some excellent storytelling, you’ll be well on your way to crafting a final session that leaves your players feeling content, valued, fulfilled, and ready for whatever comes next!
