In this hobby of ours, it is all too often the case that a game never reaches its conclusion. Real life gets in the way, or the GM or players lose interest, or a new shiny comes to the group's attention. Other times, the game gets stretched out, whether because the players latch on to every red herring the GM throws their way, or because the GM doesn't want to stop running her game just yet.
Sometimes the game does end, but not in a satisfactory way. Maybe everyone decides to quickly wrap it up so they can start the next game, or maybe the game was only going to last for so many sessions and the player characters didn't move through it quickly enough.
Still other games are designed to never end. A "monster of the week" style game often just keeps going until everyone loses interest, with no real conclusion beyond one game being the last one ever played. Some are episodic for other reasons, such as inconsistent player attendance or rotating GMs.
Today I'll be discussing railroading and...
Just kidding. Obviously, this article is about endings.
What Value is an Ending?
With few exceptions, all stories should work towards an ending. In order for a storyteller to pull this off it is reasonable to expect that he must have, at the least, a rough idea of the ending before he starts the story. This can be as detailed as a fully-choreographed scene, or as vague as "the story ends when the characters find some way to deal with the crime boss".
Knowing how the story ends allows the storyteller to hone his story, to eliminate the chaff that doesn't work towards that conclusion. It produces a more consistent and focused story. The storyteller can pose questions confident in the knowledge that the conclusion will provide satisfactory answers. Further, it allows for foreshadowing: if the author envisions his conclusion as a climactic battle atop the rooftops of the city, he can throw in a scene where a near-fall causes his character to develop a mild fear of heights.
Knowing where you story goes allows you to eliminate dangling threads, or at least curtail them. If you know your story is building towards a courtroom debate, you can rethink whether it's a good idea to introduce a character with a violent grudge towards one or more protagonists; alternately, you could change that "bloodthirsty brawler" into a "cutthroat lawyer" to bring the grudge into line with the planned story.
Even more importantly, knowing where your story ends allows you to end it. This sounds obvious, but it's much harder than it seems. All too often, a story limps along well past the perfect conclusion, overstaying its welcome. Or it ends before the central question of the plot is actually answered.
If your campaign is about the destruction of a powerful, evil artifact, the game should end shortly after it winds up in the volcano. If, however, the story was instead about the cost of that quest and the impact it had on the lives of those who took part, then the story doesn't end until we've seen the aftermath in everyone's life, whether it be a return to their old lives or an inability to do so.
In the first example, trying to carry on past that climactic moment when the ring sinks into the lava will result in a limping, slow series of scenes. However, in the second example where the story is more about the impact the quest had, ending before seeing Frodo's departure is just as unsatisfactory.
Knowing the ultimate goal of your story allows you to recognize the appropriate time to wrap things up for good.
What Happens if I Don't Have an Ending in Mind?
Madness. Cats and dogs living together. Sunrise at midnight. A million voices cry out and are suddenly silenced.
Without knowing your ending in advance, things becomes much harder. The storyteller might throw in a hint about a dark and shadowy figure lurking outside a protagonist's house, without knowing what she wants to do with it. If she remembers, she might discover an opening to further develop that opportunity later on in the story; however, it is just as likely that no such opening will appear, or that she will forget to do anything with it. Each time this happens, someone in the audience will be left wanting at the end, wondering what ever happened with Shadowy Figure anyway.
You run the risk of stretching things out too long, of including a plethora of scenes that have no real place in the story. What starts out as a tight story about a group of friends taking their first steps into the wider world winds up, by book ten, being about a hundred different bit players each reacting to the events that took place in the last three days of the previous book. A battle which takes place on a planet fated to explode in a handful of minutes is still carrying on over a dozen episodes later.
By the end of your story, even if you managed to make it to a decent conclusion, the lack of coherency in leading up to it may leave the audience asking "That's it?"
The exception to all of this is episodic stories. When each episode, novel, or game session is a self-contained story with very little carry-over into the next, it is safe to carry on without an ending in mind.
That's All Well and Good, but How Does This Relate to Gaming?
The problem is exacerbated when it comes to tabletop roleplaying games. Not only does the GM not know how characters in her story will act at any given moment, she can't even guarantee they will latch on to the story at all.
This does not mean that a GM shouldn't give some thought in advance to how her game will end. What it does mean is that she shouldn't plan the ending in great detail. As a GM, you should think of your ending as a question, rather than a specific scene.
In a game where the characters must defeat an ancient evil, the ending would occur when the group has answered the question "how will the heroes stop the deadly king from overthrowing the benevolent lich?" She shouldn't plan an epic battle between the heroes and the king, occuring in the throne room where the king has begun a ritual to seal the kindly lich away in the same prison that once held him; the players might decide they want to try a political approach, or attempt some more subtle sabotage, in which case that ending would not fit. However, knowing that the game ends when the evil king is dealt with, the GM can react to anything the players do and adapt her story to fit it perfectly.
For the tabletop, a vague question is better. You could build the game around "will the heroes discover that the dragon is only tearing up the country because he's searching for his stuffed lamb that he loved as a hatchling?", but that forcess one path upon the players. Instead, you could ask "will the heroes find a way to pacify the poor dragon before he accidentally destroys all the nearby farms?" They may still discover the key lies in the lost little stuffed lamb, and go on an epic quest to find it, but now you've left open other options. Including, if the heroes are sufficiently heartless, killing the poor dragon in cold blood.
Another problem is that, even with an ending in mind, it can be difficult to "trim the fat". Just because the GM knows where things are headed, the players don't necessarily. They may take actions that don't lead anywhere, effectively spinning their wheels in frustration; maybe they even enjoy taking advantage of several unrelated plot threads.
Tabletop roleplaying is a strange medium in this regard. It is perfectly acceptable to let your players do as they wish, regardless of its impact on the eventual conclusion; as long as they are having fun, the game is working as intended. Of course, eventually it is best to find a way to continue the story, whether you do so by nudging the players back onto the path, changing the path to fit where they've decided to go, or even changing the ending entirely and building towards a new, more fitting conclusion.
This Article Must End Too
Have you ever successfully ended a campaign? Did you have the end in sight the whole time, or allow the story to find its own ending over time? If you've done both, which have you found works better? Feel free to leave your answers in the comments.
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