Coming in late. This video reminded me why I like Return of Jedi so much. Stakes are constantly raised with internal and external conflicts. But still has a Master Jedi having a fantastic battle in the throne room, while a near hopeless battle occurs in space. In the end the emperor is defeated, Death Star is destroyed, and Darth Vader finds his last grasp of humanity. He is redeemed in death.
And here I am again 4 years later. This is great advice. Followed most of it for the conclusion of an epic campaign of Dune Adventures in the Imperium. And my players loved it! - I quickly ramped up the pace and kept the action quick and chaotic - Used the consequences of our heroes' past actions of victories as the reason for unexpected backup and help arriving from allies they helped along the way. - for every plot the players foiled in the villains plans, the villains had a backup, and I let the players deal with it and overcome the backup plans too. Received very high praise from my players for this finale! Thank you!
I've seen a bunch of your videos, but this one has just won me over. I've just finished DMing a campaign and then watched this video. I did everything you have talked about. You get it. I'd only add that you need to go for the ultimate narrative drama possible based on the themes of the campaign you've been running. For example in episode 6 Luke, Vader and the Emperor and the light/dark side - family themes. In dnd this could be the added danger of the environment (for a survival/hex crawl campaign) or leading an army (military/building an army sort of campaign) or whatever.
Mine ended about 24 years set in the future after all their journey's were coming to a close. A full decade of adventuring, surviving and thriving together. The group grew old and bitter. The elf within the group was losing their magic abilities. A new millennia closed and the uprising of new technology sparked the flames of an industrial revolution, buried and nestled under layers of magical fantasy. It was still there, just buried under the soot of the depressing realization that times were changing, and so were ideologies. The kingdoms the group fought so hard to protect turned against them as they decided that "vigilantes" such as themselves had no place in these lands. And so, they fought against their former alies, several encounters with former allies turn bitter as they decide to cash their chips and serve the new empire. It ends with them fighting until the bitter end, the bones broken and bruised. The tattered insignia of their banner, torn and desecrated. Those who didn't die cinimatically in a huge battle were escorted to firing lines, looking at their friends, and laughing at the time they had. Man, just thinking about it, i made the ending very depressing.
I think despite it being a emotional & depressing ending, it sounds like a fascinating campaign; a realistic one at that. Puts a lot into perspective the more you think about it & could be interpreted in many ways. But I think the best part is, they never died alone & were always themselves to the end. They died happy & with acceptance; something few would come across at that time like that I bet. That is a good ending that was never in vain I believe; whether in the afterlife or just in the memories of each other.
I think there was one thing the 5 C's didn't quite catch that I would personally hold very important; Make it personal to the players. True, the idea of saving all the NPCs and ensuring the survival of the world as we know it is definitely adequate for raising stakes, but let's dig a bit deeper. Let's make sure there's a reason the players, of all people, are standing here today, on this decisive moment in history. Maybe this might have been something you took for granted, as a given, but personally, I see it as something to emphasize. Maybe that Oath of Ancients Paladin who had her hometown burned down and pillaged was the actions of the villain, back when he was still operating on a smaller scale, before he gained this power and influence. That puts her in conflict with her tenets, tempting her to forsake her oath in search of personal vengeance, driven mad by the conflict that the DM has free-range to poke at from every direction. Perhaps the mysterious Great Old One that has influenced the Warlock has actually been the main villain all this time. The main villain has been playing this young man like a fiddle this entire time, worming his way into his mind in order to one day claim the boy who was foreseen to be his downfall, ensuring the prophecy is averted. Whether he goes with it or not is up to the player, but if he does fight back, make sure the Warlock has a recourse not to end up a level 1 nobody again. The rogue might have struck a powerful bond with an NPC, forming a deep friendship or even romance. Now is the time to break that bond. Making it a surprise-traitor mid-script might not work, unless you had planted those seeds for it to work early on, but there are other things that can work. Have the villain seduce this person to his side, kidnap this person and as they have saved him, realize that he has gone catatonic, been cursed or whatever fucked up shit. These personal attacks, should they be averted, will force the 2 to separate for the other's safety and this can fuel a drive within the Rogue to make sure the villain is taken care of. Finally, the Ranger might finally be revealed to have been close to the villain before. Maybe the Ranger is this villain's son or father. Maybe they were once colleagues, but something happened to the villain to make him that way. Maybe the villain was this Ranger's student in Arcane study and is now correcting the errors of his pupil. Either way, the Ranger has been looking forward to this moment for a long time, and can work to create a conflict of interests in the party. While most just wanna kill this bastard for ruining their lives and morbidly playing with them, the Ranger has known the villain before we went the direction he did, and intends to try and dissuade him from the darkness, to come back around and start over. Some might consider that painfully convenient storytelling, but personally, I think the player's should all be equal-parts the main characters of the story, and that comes with a bit of extra attention. It's about giving the players a reason to believe that their inclusion into the narrative is wholly unique to the adventure. To make sure that this adventure would not have been the same at all if any other characters went through it. That makes the game more gratifying and fun for everybody.
This was absolutely fantastic advice. I am nearing the end of a 9-year D&D campaign and, just on the first pass-through of the video, I have been inspired by so many cool and chaotic ideas. This has turned what would have been a good campaign ending into the most EPIC campaign ending I can dream up.
My DM had a final combat with animated rusting hulks of earth-moving vehicles crawled from the ancient ruins (upon which the fantasy world was built) and charged the evil army. Imagine a field of bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, and cranes all crawling out of concrete rubble and plowing their way through the goblin armies.
Sometimes when I'm watching a bunch of Guy's videos I think of how he must DM and I think he might drag on or speak in monotones a lot and I'm like, "Maybe I shouldn't take advice from a DM who I don't think I would like playing a game under" and then he does intros like this and I'm reminded how very energetic and creative he is while still being well mannered and intelligent. Don't ever change Guy
5 C's to Creating Spectacular Endgame 1. Cool (places, spaces or setting) 2. Chaos (massive battle) mixed with Calm for contrast. 3. Contingency (plans of both the party and the big bad) split the party with multiple objectives with alternate solvency to objectives and/or additional layer of unknown objectives. 4. Catastrophic Consequences (Stakes for failure are at their highest) 5. Climax (bring in loose ends that were left undone during the campaign)
I would like to take this moment to say that I found your channel about a month ago and I have been really spending some time listening to each video you've made. In that time, I've put several of the elements I've learned from you in a new game and so far the players absolutely love it. I very much appreciate the amount of time that you must put into each video and I can't thank you enough. Because of you, I've learned that I've spent too much time being a GM, and not enough time being a storyteller. Learning the difference between these two things has been a huge boon. Thank you.
Very good advice. I took notes, used them, and it worked! I followed the advice in this video when preparing and running the final session of my 7-year-long running Dark Heresy RPG campaign (Warhammer 40k RPG) this weekend. Each and every participating player told me after the game how epic and awesome this final session had been. It was very fitting an satisfying. Thank you very much. Really good advice.
If there exists time travel, and PCs use it to travel back and fix their mistakes, you could always play your "Multiverse" card and claim that in every world they failed, the big bad only grew in power and ended up mastering the time travel. And have the conclusion with a clause of "no time travel beyond this point" as well as bringing all the copies of big bad from the worlds they failed, bringing their legions of doom along with them.
I actually as I am watching this am prepping for a time travel centered conclusion-- But the stakes are actually derived from the time travel, as their failure would cause a paradox in the already established time loop and essentially cause the entire universe to implode. Woohoo XD
2 years of Princes of the Apocalypse, with the end maybe just a few months away, this was phenomenally helpful. PRINCES OF THE APOCALYPSE SPOILER WARNING: After watching your video, I realized the campaign doesn't have a great ending, it just winds down as each cult dies off, and defeating the last of 4 cults as written is akin to chopping off the last of 4 limbs of your enemy. So, to heighten the stakes at the end, here's my idea : As the heroes defeat cults, the sum power level of the cults never drops, merely that opposed elements grow stronger. If the heroes defeat Air, Water, and Earth...Then they have basically chosen the element that the evil deity watching from the sidelines shall use to consume Toril: FIRE. Good choice! It's like the end of Ghostbusters when the heroes are asked to think of how they want to die. Puts some responsibility on them.
Over the course of the campaign, if you are asking the players and listening to what they are telling you, they will tell you what the climax should be. Just listen to what they like and give them a little more of it.
As the group literally breezed through the village, then it call for a climatic conclusion! ruclips.net/video/cCUdGFoYQw8/видео.html&lc=UgxWjhAn0X_SE40J2Zx4AaABAg&t=720
I've saved all of my player's dead characters' sheets and levelled them up a little bit, in the final confrontation with the big bad of my campaign, if the party is all killed, I will give a little speech about how woeful it is they all died, and now how it will go on to destroy everything...when suddenly, a light at the end of the tunnel appears, and their fallen old characters have risen from death itself with their old bodies, and attack the big bad in a final stand, that cost them their very souls. And if those old characters die, well..sucks! Y'all had two chances~.
The way our gm tends to do things is that he doesn't force anyone to end playing their character unless they die or have a very specific game ending goal and that goal comes to fruition. Like for example my dragonborn paladin wanting to turn into an actual dragon. Now that hasn't and probably will never happen but it's an example. It allows some players to go like ''Yeah I wouldn't just stay in this city even thou we conquered the region and are heralded as leaders.'' even thou 2 other players decide to stay and rule,so the one character continues his adventures and other players create new characters ''that start at about the same level as our previous characters'' and we basically go into a ''5 years later'' type of scene where things happen and after a short intro our characters meet. Usually the characters are just driven together by a basic thing like for example one character is in a mercenary group that's hiring more members and naturally the barbarian who keeps playing would love to join that group and then maybe our job is to escort a caravan and the third player is a part of that caravan. It makes the story natural and alive. During our caravan escort we get to know each other and the DM makes all sorts of encounters happen where our characters start to rely on each other and they slowly become friends and after the caravan is escorted to it's destination we all just decide to stay together. Now depending on the situation this might mean that all 3 of us are now mercenaries or we decide to basically head back to camp and say ''Hey,boss. We'd like to head out on our own adventures,we were already paid for the last job so no need to worry 'bout that!'' and then after this whole intro is out of the way the real story begins.
What if the big bad makes sure the consequences for success are as bad, if not *worse* than failure? Who thinks the big bad's defeat will be *quiet* or absolutely end the plot? The big bad could make any victory pyrric, or have set up a Xantos Gambit so that *every* possibility benifits them.
Excellent advice - my game has suffered from the 'just let it go' when interest wanes. We move on to something else. I took notes from this video because I the tips as great advice to run in 3-5 session arcs (or whatever feels right for the game). It's good to know where you're going in a game, and the recurring villains provide a nice way for the GM and Players to look back and see where they've been. Imaging hooking a few of those together to make a complete campaign! Take notes during and after the sessions .... I'm find that to be more important, in many cases, than actual prep. But I digress ...
has a vid been done on an open-to-close, location based story arc? i.e. a few session side quest designed to bring enough closure to allow it to stand alone as an aside to the main campaign?
I love using time travel in my campaigns, it gives the players some wiggle room but it also ups the stakes. Yes, you can go back in time to fix things, but the big bag can too. Or the big bad's goal is to rip time apart and remake it with him as an immortal god existing at all points in time at once. Traveling back after he succeeds is impossible but perhaps there is still a way to defeat him. I'm thinking hit and run tactics at him multiple times will distract him making him vulnerable since it's just him spread throughout time and his attention is limited.
Another amazing video! :) The only thing I would have to point out, as simply an idea to consider, is that time travel IS the catastrophic conclusion. The big battle against the grand evil is cool, the contingencies go off without a hitch, and the players fight through the chaos and slay the evil grand wizard! Hurrah! But wait... in his dying breath the evil wizard conjured a world ending event that the players must stop, but cannot. Their only option is to use the time travel device that the evil wizard has hidden under his base to go back in time to when the big bad wasn't quite so big. Maybe he was even revered at that time. What level of sacrifice must the player characters make to TRULY save the day? Just something to think about, it's never good to simply dismiss something that can be used in a clever or fun way to drive the end of the story home to the players.
Have his past connected to something that makes them who they are. If they take him out early and easily after the time travel stunt..it changes or erases them.
In my first campaign my GM basically had a holy war and we were fighting angels and we died. But we didn't because our god Heronius that the party worked with most of the game revived us and basically turned us into physical embodiments of him. Then we ended up fighting hextor in his relm and won. That was badads
One of my GMs ended the campaign that was about an alien invasion, with the aliens winning. How? Well, it was a Mutants & Masterminds setting and the Superhero council AS WELL AS the Supervillain council, both decided to be borderline braindead and incapable of things, even our own heroes could do. Like, we had dozens of dozens max-level superheroes and supervillains, but they collectively decided "Eh, fuck it, we just go live on a different planet or sth, lel" He then basically went "Welp, aliens now have earth and terraformed it to their needs. All humans have to flee the planet to somewhere else. But hey, you evacuated a lot!" To which i then responded "Aight. They are insects who need a warm climate. Cool cool cool...no, literally. My characters is a cryomancer, i am powerstunting his Create: Ice into a global AoE that plunges earth into an ice age, with average temparatures of -150°C (-238°F). I am also cooling it's core to make it lose atmosphere by distorting the magnetic field. If you don't allow it to be a power stunt - i have still some points to spend, i can add a metamorph or an alternate effect. They want our planet? They better start drinking antifreeze." To which he then responded "Wait...you can't do it...uhm...well, no, the numbers fit...and there is nobody to stop you...well, but the campaign ended, so no, you can't do it." And look, i don't have a problem with losing after a battle, but eeeeeverybody except us just doing nothing and tugging their tail between their legs and run? Nah, man. That just made 0 sense. Nothing we players did was of any consequence in the end, nothing we wanted to attempt to stop the invasion was allowed and nothing we said swayed and of the NPCs to actually fight instead of run away, even though the aliens were FAR from unstoppable.
paranidherc, THAT exact issue is covered by a literal litany of channels on YT about "railroading" a campaign and the issues around Player Agency in the game. I would suggest a relatively polite conversation where-in you explain to your GM that he can either allow for actual Player Agency in the game (where stuff you do as a Player effects the story/world... including consequences) or he can go write his novel on his own... Some GM's (usually less experienced) do have a tendency to lack Player Agency in their games. It's a bad habit to get into, and tends to stem from the over-concern of the GM that the Players will "derail" his campaign if they have agency. The fact is, Players come to a well constructed world and storyline... or plot-points and f*** sh** up. That's what Players do. AND they do it, because that's what they're SUPPOSED to do! A good GM, then is one who can think on the fly, figure out contingencies (a LOT of them) quickly, and has no problem with letting go of his own general story, to wrap this new storytelling group project around the PC's and their actions. A GREAT GM, already knows enough to engineer together a loose flow-chart of conflicts, problems, and dilemmas and let the PC's interact with whatever to compose the story, themselves... :o)
Imho a GM is the one "serving" the players by providing them with a world to have fun in. It should never be the GMs own agenda that takes priority. At least that's how i handle things when GMing for Shadowrun. And yeah, i talked with the guy, but he just shut down and tried to explain away why nobody stopped an armada that we warned them about a full fucking year ago through time travel. Nobody developed a genophage, nobody put up orbital defenses, nobody created a gravity well, nobody built a fleet, nobody made a massive spray can of Raid.
You can tweak the time travel so it becomes cool again: Maybe the attempts to travel are limited. The PCs getting sicker and sicker with every travel bacl. Their eyes are bleeding (stuff like that). Maybe they start to realize that whatever they do something terrible will happen and the only choice they have is which eveil is about to happen. For me the coolest possible time travel mechanics are those. where you have to time travel in order to reach new areas. Like the past-me pushs a button so the future-me can pass the locked door (stupid example i know).
For a ending for a saga I've had my group go through part 1 which is the dismal future of The Shadow. After the mystery an memory loss they must find their way to solve why they came together an what creature is stalking them, anyways after a lot of twists an mysteries solved they finally reach the final battle and realize the shadow has possessed the main NPCs father. In the battle a Archdruid came in making all sorts of Treants to guard him while he kills the shadow. The Archdruid wants to save the future from destruction so he goes after the shadow an kills him with a special dagger. A shadow dragon appears before the party while the Archdruid fled. The dragon tells them I can take you to the abyss which is immune to time changes so you have enough times to save yourselves from being erased from time as you know it. The next chapter is the past before the shadow grows strong enough and before he claims his host the main NPCs father. But I made sure they didn't know it was connected an I left many hints for which no one caught in until they met a man called Dorian. Dorian is the main NPCs father In the last chapter. He began showing symptoms of possession and right now the party is trying to prevent Dorian from losing control of the shadow. My boss battle is gonna be this The main 2 or 3 battles in the second chapter are gonna appear in the third chapter as a time rift of sorts where as the chapter one characters are going through the void/abyss. And the boss battle will be them running through time fighting the shadow and then time changes then they have their 6th level character then another rift 3 turns later Then it changes to the fight when their chapter 2 guys were level 8 and so on
Just a thought, perhaps you could do a video on the value of religion or lore in a game. Any game world devoid of culture is quite bland. And thank you for keeping the language PG for the most part, I often have my young niece and nephews with me.
Hi How to be a Great GM! Exelent video as always! 1 question though. From where did you got the chainmail? Is it a steel one, or more like a costume one? I thinking about getting one, but making it is too time comsuming and buying a steel one is quiet costy.
Yeah. The guys in my towns medieval reconstuction club/association (sry dont know the proper name) tested it and said it becomes weaker to piercing weapons and attacks (even light crosbows burst the thing), but slashing attack still do no damage exept the impact one
Recognition conclusion for murder hobos: A week after the massive trial, you are led, chained and gagged to the scaffold. The rope is placed over your head and snugged just so under your chin with the spiral knot beside your right ear. Executioner: "Any last words?.... I didn't think so" And he pulls the lever dropping you 27 ft with a sudden jerk of the rope your neck is broken. Should that fail to result in death, they lead you back up, and chop off your head. Then they dismember the corpse, separately burning each part and scatter the ash in 27 different areas of the kingdom.
I disagree on the topic of time travel. If we have a stable time loop, we have players setting up their doom in the future (present). This may be seen as "rubbing the fail in", but it's one way of avoiding the "Back tu the future" scenario. And yes, I completely agree, that time travel and consequences thereof should be foreshadowed before the grand finale. However with everything else what was said, I absolutely agree.
My campaign lasts 3.5 years. And it must end in hell. Classical. In the battle at the throne of the God of Destruction. But with whom to fight - my players have yet to decide.
Hey I like this advise but I came to know to END END the campaign, like... in wich moment do you say "and that's the end" to your party? If you say "he puts a medal in your neck" and end it there it doesn't sound good, all I can imagine is something like an open answer to a question but only if the player is the one who answers, and I can't control that
I'd say if you gotta time travel make sure you don't do it at the conclusion, have it be a one-time-only key part of the story somewhere in the middle that is required for the players to truly understand the big-bad's plot and the direness of the situation. Have them be betrayed by an important NPC they've grown to like and trust. Let them see the city burning, Alderan getting blown up, the dawn of the apocalypse - and then give them a single chance to fix it. I personally find these stories kinda corny especially cause it's hard to not have the timetravel seem like a cop-out. And then there's the trouble with how to bring it up, bc either it's a deus ex machina, which may appear cheap, or it's a well established plot device, which then makes the story predictable and will weaken every sense of loss immediately. ("This ancient relic is said to bend time itself", - "Oh gee, I wonder wether at some point we'll need to bend time now." - "Oh, Harry died. I guess we now need to bend time itself to fix this, good thing we got this relic.") And there needs to be a good reason as to why the time travel can only work once, if you can go back anytime you fucked up you'll lose all sense of drama, and if the reason why you can't go back again isn't convincing your story will fall apart. Maybe have the time travel device turn to dust, kill the time travel NPC, maybe have the players sacrifice something of personal value, have them strike a dark bargain with a chaos god, something cool and unique to preserve the sense of drama. I don't know man, I like the idea of time travel, of revisiting old towns and NPC's (perhaps NPCs the players liked but failed in one of the preceding adventures) knowing what will happen if you fail - there's potential there, but I just think it's really hard to not have it end up feeling meaningless as you said.
You keep referencing RotJ, but I think you got a couple of things wrong. They never got arrested on Endor and the emperor was feeding Luke disinformation in hopes of turning him to the dark-side. Now yes he might have given away the location of the generator but that was to reduce the Rebel numbers and try to steal the greatest weapon they had. Even if he didn't succeed in turning Luke, it still gave him the opportunity to remove him from the battle thus weakening the enemy that much more.
That outfit though. No padding under the ringmail, nickelplated rings and fake fur. That's a LARPers outfit right there. I don't mean to berate. LARP is an adventure and world on its own, but the historian in me cries. :)
I just discovered this channel... is it just me, or is this Shadiversity? The medieval weapons/armor guy? EDIT from 7min later: HOW DARE YOU IMPLY that RotS was a bad movie! You get to see Anakin at his strongest AND get to see him turn! He was my brother; I loved him!
Under realistic circumstances, you can't fix something by going back in time. If you went back in time and fixed it, then it wouldn't be broken for you to go back in time and fix it in the present. Either history is immutable or elastic, in which case the present will always be the present that made you think you had to go back in time and fix it (think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), or time travel creates alternate timelines, in which case you may have ended up in a better timeline, but the shitty one you came from still exists (think Dragon Ball Z's Future Trunks Timeline). Any other interpretation of time travel does not make sense on it's own. You'd have to have some sort of explanation as to why the time traveller's past, specifically the moment he became a time traveller, remains unaffected (think Prismo's Time Room in Adventure Time), or be able to actually rewind time rather than travel back in time, essentially erasing the present you came from (think Whis' Rewind ability from Dragon Ball Super).
I have a few surprises for my players for the finale, don't worry about that. Right now everyone is level 15 and they first have to get past a two-headed ancient dragon.
in the campaign I'm running right now I'm going to let them participate in a great battle and let them all die a tragic death(maybe one survives maybe not) and remind them of mortality. lol
Maybe let them decide whether or not to "Hang back" at certain points. If they keep going, that's a calculated risk on their part. If they choose to hang back, they should get to paint their own epilogue, and survive (although the military objective might not be met if they're too meek.) If they die in battle, be sure to illustrate it like a bard or historian would sing or write of their deeds, years from the date of the event. I think that would be satisfactory while still holding that core idea.
meeler the dealer; oh well... i will make it satisfying... its not about wining or losing( they will win anyway war isn't just about 5 man!) its about the story, if i give them satisfying story, a glorious heroes death is far better than the ending where they won and now have no idea what to do next? +I'm about to let a fan necromancer resurrect their characters by the time of next campaign and that will be...(demonic smile)
I personally am planning an ending to my campaign where the group is cornered by the ending villain, where they are given 2 choices at the end of it all: Live to Fight, or Die to Live. Choose to run and live to fight another day, or die so that the group who chooses to run can escape. It gives them the chance to either choose to fight for the future, or give themselves a heroic sacrifice so that the future can be lived to begin with. With our group, it feels like an amazing way to end the campaign.
Cool, Chaos, Contingencies, Catastrophic, Climax
Sounds like my love life. Just put Catastrophic at the end
Needs a Smile, Sweet, Sister, Sadistic, Surprise, Service meme treatment. Lol
I was actually expecting Closure to be a C
My player character who was a crimelord was burned alive on a pile of his own money.
That's some Mafia level stuff there.
That’s actually so epic
Coming in late. This video reminded me why I like Return of Jedi so much. Stakes are constantly raised with internal and external conflicts. But still has a Master Jedi having a fantastic battle in the throne room, while a near hopeless battle occurs in space. In the end the emperor is defeated, Death Star is destroyed, and Darth Vader finds his last grasp of humanity. He is redeemed in death.
"It could just be that the village and all the orphans die. Horribly." -How to be a Great GM 2018
As opposed to the nice way that the orphans and village die, I guess?
Watching you go from hardy soldier to intellectual show host was hilarious.
And here I am again 4 years later. This is great advice. Followed most of it for the conclusion of an epic campaign of Dune Adventures in the Imperium. And my players loved it!
- I quickly ramped up the pace and kept the action quick and chaotic
- Used the consequences of our heroes' past actions of victories as the reason for unexpected backup and help arriving from allies they helped along the way.
- for every plot the players foiled in the villains plans, the villains had a backup, and I let the players deal with it and overcome the backup plans too.
Received very high praise from my players for this finale!
Thank you!
I've seen a bunch of your videos, but this one has just won me over. I've just finished DMing a campaign and then watched this video. I did everything you have talked about. You get it.
I'd only add that you need to go for the ultimate narrative drama possible based on the themes of the campaign you've been running. For example in episode 6 Luke, Vader and the Emperor and the light/dark side - family themes.
In dnd this could be the added danger of the environment (for a survival/hex crawl campaign) or leading an army (military/building an army sort of campaign) or whatever.
Mine ended about 24 years set in the future after all their journey's were coming to a close.
A full decade of adventuring, surviving and thriving together.
The group grew old and bitter. The elf within the group was losing their magic abilities.
A new millennia closed and the uprising of new technology sparked the flames of an industrial revolution, buried and nestled under layers of magical fantasy. It was still there, just buried under the soot of the depressing realization that times were changing, and so were ideologies.
The kingdoms the group fought so hard to protect turned against them as they decided that "vigilantes" such as themselves had no place in these lands. And so, they fought against their former alies, several encounters with former allies turn bitter as they decide to cash their chips and serve the new empire.
It ends with them fighting until the bitter end, the bones broken and bruised.
The tattered insignia of their banner, torn and desecrated.
Those who didn't die cinimatically in a huge battle were escorted to firing lines, looking at their friends, and laughing at the time they had.
Man, just thinking about it, i made the ending very depressing.
I think despite it being a emotional & depressing ending, it sounds like a fascinating campaign; a realistic one at that.
Puts a lot into perspective the more you think about it & could be interpreted in many ways.
But I think the best part is, they never died alone & were always themselves to the end. They died happy & with acceptance; something few would come across at that time like that I bet.
That is a good ending that was never in vain I believe; whether in the afterlife or just in the memories of each other.
I think there was one thing the 5 C's didn't quite catch that I would personally hold very important; Make it personal to the players. True, the idea of saving all the NPCs and ensuring the survival of the world as we know it is definitely adequate for raising stakes, but let's dig a bit deeper. Let's make sure there's a reason the players, of all people, are standing here today, on this decisive moment in history. Maybe this might have been something you took for granted, as a given, but personally, I see it as something to emphasize.
Maybe that Oath of Ancients Paladin who had her hometown burned down and pillaged was the actions of the villain, back when he was still operating on a smaller scale, before he gained this power and influence. That puts her in conflict with her tenets, tempting her to forsake her oath in search of personal vengeance, driven mad by the conflict that the DM has free-range to poke at from every direction.
Perhaps the mysterious Great Old One that has influenced the Warlock has actually been the main villain all this time. The main villain has been playing this young man like a fiddle this entire time, worming his way into his mind in order to one day claim the boy who was foreseen to be his downfall, ensuring the prophecy is averted. Whether he goes with it or not is up to the player, but if he does fight back, make sure the Warlock has a recourse not to end up a level 1 nobody again.
The rogue might have struck a powerful bond with an NPC, forming a deep friendship or even romance. Now is the time to break that bond. Making it a surprise-traitor mid-script might not work, unless you had planted those seeds for it to work early on, but there are other things that can work. Have the villain seduce this person to his side, kidnap this person and as they have saved him, realize that he has gone catatonic, been cursed or whatever fucked up shit. These personal attacks, should they be averted, will force the 2 to separate for the other's safety and this can fuel a drive within the Rogue to make sure the villain is taken care of.
Finally, the Ranger might finally be revealed to have been close to the villain before. Maybe the Ranger is this villain's son or father. Maybe they were once colleagues, but something happened to the villain to make him that way. Maybe the villain was this Ranger's student in Arcane study and is now correcting the errors of his pupil. Either way, the Ranger has been looking forward to this moment for a long time, and can work to create a conflict of interests in the party. While most just wanna kill this bastard for ruining their lives and morbidly playing with them, the Ranger has known the villain before we went the direction he did, and intends to try and dissuade him from the darkness, to come back around and start over.
Some might consider that painfully convenient storytelling, but personally, I think the player's should all be equal-parts the main characters of the story, and that comes with a bit of extra attention. It's about giving the players a reason to believe that their inclusion into the narrative is wholly unique to the adventure. To make sure that this adventure would not have been the same at all if any other characters went through it. That makes the game more gratifying and fun for everybody.
This was absolutely fantastic advice. I am nearing the end of a 9-year D&D campaign and, just on the first pass-through of the video, I have been inspired by so many cool and chaotic ideas. This has turned what would have been a good campaign ending into the most EPIC campaign ending I can dream up.
My DM had a final combat with animated rusting hulks of earth-moving vehicles crawled from the ancient ruins (upon which the fantasy world was built) and charged the evil army. Imagine a field of bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, and cranes all crawling out of concrete rubble and plowing their way through the goblin armies.
Sometimes when I'm watching a bunch of Guy's videos I think of how he must DM and I think he might drag on or speak in monotones a lot and I'm like, "Maybe I shouldn't take advice from a DM who I don't think I would like playing a game under" and then he does intros like this and I'm reminded how very energetic and creative he is while still being well mannered and intelligent. Don't ever change Guy
5 C's to Creating Spectacular Endgame
1. Cool (places, spaces or setting)
2. Chaos (massive battle) mixed with Calm for contrast.
3. Contingency (plans of both the party and the big bad) split the party with multiple objectives with alternate solvency to objectives and/or additional layer of unknown objectives.
4. Catastrophic Consequences (Stakes for failure are at their highest)
5. Climax (bring in loose ends that were left undone during the campaign)
I would like to take this moment to say that I found your channel about a month ago and I have been really spending some time listening to each video you've made. In that time, I've put several of the elements I've learned from you in a new game and so far the players absolutely love it. I very much appreciate the amount of time that you must put into each video and I can't thank you enough. Because of you, I've learned that I've spent too much time being a GM, and not enough time being a storyteller. Learning the difference between these two things has been a huge boon. Thank you.
Very good advice. I took notes, used them, and it worked!
I followed the advice in this video when preparing and running the final session of my 7-year-long running Dark Heresy RPG campaign (Warhammer 40k RPG) this weekend. Each and every participating player told me after the game how epic and awesome this final session had been. It was very fitting an satisfying.
Thank you very much. Really good advice.
If there exists time travel, and PCs use it to travel back and fix their mistakes, you could always play your "Multiverse" card and claim that in every world they failed, the big bad only grew in power and ended up mastering the time travel. And have the conclusion with a clause of "no time travel beyond this point" as well as bringing all the copies of big bad from the worlds they failed, bringing their legions of doom along with them.
awesome
Ugh, I hate multiverse anything.
You predicted Endgame, you madlad.
I actually as I am watching this am prepping for a time travel centered conclusion-- But the stakes are actually derived from the time travel, as their failure would cause a paradox in the already established time loop and essentially cause the entire universe to implode. Woohoo XD
2 years of Princes of the Apocalypse, with the end maybe just a few months away, this was phenomenally helpful.
PRINCES OF THE APOCALYPSE SPOILER WARNING:
After watching your video, I realized the campaign doesn't have a great ending, it just winds down as each cult dies off, and defeating the last of 4 cults as written is akin to chopping off the last of 4 limbs of your enemy.
So, to heighten the stakes at the end, here's my idea : As the heroes defeat cults, the sum power level of the cults never drops, merely that opposed elements grow stronger. If the heroes defeat Air, Water, and Earth...Then they have basically chosen the element that the evil deity watching from the sidelines shall use to consume Toril: FIRE. Good choice! It's like the end of Ghostbusters when the heroes are asked to think of how they want to die. Puts some responsibility on them.
Perfect timing! I'm finishing my campeign Saturday for my group. thank you so much for the high quality tips as always
“Excuse me....
My fur is rising....”
This is the perfect "Ooh err missus." statement.
Terrific ideas. I always love to hear your videos, as they are always helpful and very informative.
Watching this video for help to finish off my campaign, as per usual you are a life saver. Thanks!
Over the course of the campaign, if you are asking the players and listening to what they are telling you, they will tell you what the climax should be. Just listen to what they like and give them a little more of it.
Sharks with freaking lasers attached to their friggin heads!-Doctor Evil
Nice essay.
One minor point: "climatic" ! = "climactic" .
Except for tornadoes.
😉
As the group literally breezed through the village, then it call for a climatic conclusion!
ruclips.net/video/cCUdGFoYQw8/видео.html&lc=UgxWjhAn0X_SE40J2Zx4AaABAg&t=720
Contingency and alternative options to have failures that will also improve the tension but also improve the Cool Factor
I've saved all of my player's dead characters' sheets and levelled them up a little bit, in the final confrontation with the big bad of my campaign, if the party is all killed, I will give a little speech about how woeful it is they all died, and now how it will go on to destroy everything...when suddenly, a light at the end of the tunnel appears, and their fallen old characters have risen from death itself with their old bodies, and attack the big bad in a final stand, that cost them their very souls.
And if those old characters die, well..sucks! Y'all had two chances~.
The way our gm tends to do things is that he doesn't force anyone to end playing their character unless they die or have a very specific game ending goal and that goal comes to fruition. Like for example my dragonborn paladin wanting to turn into an actual dragon. Now that hasn't and probably will never happen but it's an example. It allows some players to go like ''Yeah I wouldn't just stay in this city even thou we conquered the region and are heralded as leaders.'' even thou 2 other players decide to stay and rule,so the one character continues his adventures and other players create new characters ''that start at about the same level as our previous characters'' and we basically go into a ''5 years later'' type of scene where things happen and after a short intro our characters meet. Usually the characters are just driven together by a basic thing like for example one character is in a mercenary group that's hiring more members and naturally the barbarian who keeps playing would love to join that group and then maybe our job is to escort a caravan and the third player is a part of that caravan. It makes the story natural and alive. During our caravan escort we get to know each other and the DM makes all sorts of encounters happen where our characters start to rely on each other and they slowly become friends and after the caravan is escorted to it's destination we all just decide to stay together. Now depending on the situation this might mean that all 3 of us are now mercenaries or we decide to basically head back to camp and say ''Hey,boss. We'd like to head out on our own adventures,we were already paid for the last job so no need to worry 'bout that!'' and then after this whole intro is out of the way the real story begins.
Dear Guy, thank you so much for so many great videos. This one just helped me find ideas for the end of the campaign. :)
Not a bad Emperor impression :D
I think it's cool how you geek out.
Can you do a video on evolving magical weapons?
What if the big bad makes sure the consequences for success are as bad, if not *worse* than failure? Who thinks the big bad's defeat will be *quiet* or absolutely end the plot? The big bad could make any victory pyrric, or have set up a Xantos Gambit so that *every* possibility benifits them.
Excellent advice - my game has suffered from the 'just let it go' when interest wanes. We move on to something else. I took notes from this video because I the tips as great advice to run in 3-5 session arcs (or whatever feels right for the game). It's good to know where you're going in a game, and the recurring villains provide a nice way for the GM and Players to look back and see where they've been. Imaging hooking a few of those together to make a complete campaign! Take notes during and after the sessions .... I'm find that to be more important, in many cases, than actual prep. But I digress ...
An excelent episode. Thanks for uploading this!
has a vid been done on an open-to-close, location based story arc? i.e. a few session side quest designed to bring enough closure to allow it to stand alone as an aside to the main campaign?
Thank goodness this magnificent man helped me out with my story (it's my first time DMing)
How did it go?
I am definitely going to use this when I get to the end of my steampunk DnD game.
Thank you for the information/advice!
I love using time travel in my campaigns, it gives the players some wiggle room but it also ups the stakes. Yes, you can go back in time to fix things, but the big bag can too. Or the big bad's goal is to rip time apart and remake it with him as an immortal god existing at all points in time at once. Traveling back after he succeeds is impossible but perhaps there is still a way to defeat him. I'm thinking hit and run tactics at him multiple times will distract him making him vulnerable since it's just him spread throughout time and his attention is limited.
Another amazing video! :)
The only thing I would have to point out, as simply an idea to consider, is that time travel IS the catastrophic conclusion. The big battle against the grand evil is cool, the contingencies go off without a hitch, and the players fight through the chaos and slay the evil grand wizard! Hurrah! But wait... in his dying breath the evil wizard conjured a world ending event that the players must stop, but cannot. Their only option is to use the time travel device that the evil wizard has hidden under his base to go back in time to when the big bad wasn't quite so big. Maybe he was even revered at that time. What level of sacrifice must the player characters make to TRULY save the day? Just something to think about, it's never good to simply dismiss something that can be used in a clever or fun way to drive the end of the story home to the players.
Have his past connected to something that makes them who they are. If they take him out early and easily after the time travel stunt..it changes or erases them.
This video is supremely under rated. I needed to see this. Than you So MUCH~!
In my first campaign my GM basically had a holy war and we were fighting angels and we died. But we didn't because our god Heronius that the party worked with most of the game revived us and basically turned us into physical embodiments of him. Then we ended up fighting hextor in his relm and won. That was badads
Thank you for this video. I'm a very new DM and this helped me out.
This game master, is all MASTER.
Great stuff. Grade A Palpatine impression, btw.
Great ideas and explanation, thank you! Do you have any tips on how to employ these things if I have only 2 or max. 3 players?
If your fur keeps rising you may need to see a doctor, either that or you're a werewolf.
Excellent discussion - thank you!
Hi that was a great video you are entertaining and informative content ever!!!
Great video, totally inspired now. Time for the party to face Tiamat!
I love the storm trooper staring into your soul from the beginning
This will come in handy soon!
One of my GMs ended the campaign that was about an alien invasion, with the aliens winning. How? Well, it was a Mutants & Masterminds setting and the Superhero council AS WELL AS the Supervillain council, both decided to be borderline braindead and incapable of things, even our own heroes could do. Like, we had dozens of dozens max-level superheroes and supervillains, but they collectively decided "Eh, fuck it, we just go live on a different planet or sth, lel"
He then basically went "Welp, aliens now have earth and terraformed it to their needs. All humans have to flee the planet to somewhere else. But hey, you evacuated a lot!"
To which i then responded "Aight. They are insects who need a warm climate. Cool cool cool...no, literally. My characters is a cryomancer, i am powerstunting his Create: Ice into a global AoE that plunges earth into an ice age, with average temparatures of -150°C (-238°F). I am also cooling it's core to make it lose atmosphere by distorting the magnetic field. If you don't allow it to be a power stunt - i have still some points to spend, i can add a metamorph or an alternate effect. They want our planet? They better start drinking antifreeze."
To which he then responded "Wait...you can't do it...uhm...well, no, the numbers fit...and there is nobody to stop you...well, but the campaign ended, so no, you can't do it."
And look, i don't have a problem with losing after a battle, but eeeeeverybody except us just doing nothing and tugging their tail between their legs and run? Nah, man. That just made 0 sense. Nothing we players did was of any consequence in the end, nothing we wanted to attempt to stop the invasion was allowed and nothing we said swayed and of the NPCs to actually fight instead of run away, even though the aliens were FAR from unstoppable.
paranidherc
Not gonna lie, it sounds like your GM was pretty ass. -_-
paranidherc, THAT exact issue is covered by a literal litany of channels on YT about "railroading" a campaign and the issues around Player Agency in the game. I would suggest a relatively polite conversation where-in you explain to your GM that he can either allow for actual Player Agency in the game (where stuff you do as a Player effects the story/world... including consequences) or he can go write his novel on his own...
Some GM's (usually less experienced) do have a tendency to lack Player Agency in their games. It's a bad habit to get into, and tends to stem from the over-concern of the GM that the Players will "derail" his campaign if they have agency.
The fact is, Players come to a well constructed world and storyline... or plot-points and f*** sh** up. That's what Players do. AND they do it, because that's what they're SUPPOSED to do! A good GM, then is one who can think on the fly, figure out contingencies (a LOT of them) quickly, and has no problem with letting go of his own general story, to wrap this new storytelling group project around the PC's and their actions. A GREAT GM, already knows enough to engineer together a loose flow-chart of conflicts, problems, and dilemmas and let the PC's interact with whatever to compose the story, themselves... :o)
Imho a GM is the one "serving" the players by providing them with a world to have fun in. It should never be the GMs own agenda that takes priority. At least that's how i handle things when GMing for Shadowrun.
And yeah, i talked with the guy, but he just shut down and tried to explain away why nobody stopped an armada that we warned them about a full fucking year ago through time travel. Nobody developed a genophage, nobody put up orbital defenses, nobody created a gravity well, nobody built a fleet, nobody made a massive spray can of Raid.
Another fantastic video. Thanks, as always.
You can tweak the time travel so it becomes cool again:
Maybe the attempts to travel are limited. The PCs getting sicker and sicker with every travel bacl. Their eyes are bleeding (stuff like that).
Maybe they start to realize that whatever they do something terrible will happen and the only choice they have is which eveil is about to happen.
For me the coolest possible time travel mechanics are those. where you have to time travel in order to reach new areas. Like the past-me pushs a button so the future-me can pass the locked door (stupid example i know).
For a ending for a saga I've had my group go through part 1 which is the dismal future of The Shadow.
After the mystery an memory loss they must find their way to solve why they came together an what creature is stalking them, anyways after a lot of twists an mysteries solved they finally reach the final battle and realize the shadow has possessed the main NPCs father. In the battle a Archdruid came in making all sorts of Treants to guard him while he kills the shadow. The Archdruid wants to save the future from destruction so he goes after the shadow an kills him with a special dagger. A shadow dragon appears before the party while the Archdruid fled. The dragon tells them I can take you to the abyss which is immune to time changes so you have enough times to save yourselves from being erased from time as you know it.
The next chapter is the past before the shadow grows strong enough and before he claims his host the main NPCs father.
But I made sure they didn't know it was connected an I left many hints for which no one caught in until they met a man called Dorian. Dorian is the main NPCs father In the last chapter.
He began showing symptoms of possession and right now the party is trying to prevent Dorian from losing control of the shadow.
My boss battle is gonna be this
The main 2 or 3 battles in the second chapter are gonna appear in the third chapter as a time rift of sorts where as the chapter one characters are going through the void/abyss. And the boss battle will be them running through time fighting the shadow and then time changes then they have their 6th level character then another rift 3 turns later
Then it changes to the fight when their chapter 2 guys were level 8 and so on
Just a thought, perhaps you could do a video on the value of religion or lore in a game. Any game world devoid of culture is quite bland. And thank you for keeping the language PG for the most part, I often have my young niece and nephews with me.
Hi How to be a Great GM! Exelent video as always! 1 question though. From where did you got the chainmail? Is it a steel one, or more like a costume one? I thinking about getting one, but making it is too time comsuming and buying a steel one is quiet costy.
That is told in "Top 10 Mistakes we make": ruclips.net/video/eYRoKoSxVgE/видео.html
Remember the glasses, they complete the look!
The fact that i is butted does not make it costume armor. I´m quite sure this baby would protect guy from a sword strike just fine.
Yeah. The guys in my towns medieval reconstuction club/association (sry dont know the proper name) tested it and said it becomes weaker to piercing weapons and attacks (even light crosbows burst the thing), but slashing attack still do no damage exept the impact one
This is golden!
Recognition conclusion for murder hobos:
A week after the massive trial, you are led, chained and gagged to the scaffold. The rope is placed over your head and snugged just so under your chin with the spiral knot beside your right ear.
Executioner: "Any last words?.... I didn't think so"
And he pulls the lever dropping you 27 ft with a sudden jerk of the rope your neck is broken.
Should that fail to result in death, they lead you back up, and chop off your head.
Then they dismember the corpse, separately burning each part and scatter the ash in 27 different areas of the kingdom.
Wonderful as always!
I disagree on the topic of time travel. If we have a stable time loop, we have players setting up their doom in the future (present). This may be seen as "rubbing the fail in", but it's one way of avoiding the "Back tu the future" scenario. And yes, I completely agree, that time travel and consequences thereof should be foreshadowed before the grand finale. However with everything else what was said, I absolutely agree.
sharks with lazers on their friggin heads.
When will you do another adventure that the viewers can join
TPK!!!
My campaign lasts 3.5 years. And it must end in hell. Classical. In the battle at the throne of the God of Destruction. But with whom to fight - my players have yet to decide.
why does everything relate to starwars?
guy you are amazing
Hey I like this advise but I came to know to END END the campaign, like... in wich moment do you say "and that's the end" to your party? If you say "he puts a medal in your neck" and end it there it doesn't sound good, all I can imagine is something like an open answer to a question but only if the player is the one who answers, and I can't control that
Man, I don't know how to run an RPG without some crazy master plot going on. :/
Brace yourselves! The fur's rising!
For multiverse / time travel rules, see Doctor Who.
If it was possible, I would give you at least two likes for that movie!
why sharks when you can have mutated sea-bass with laser beams attached to their heads.
I'd say if you gotta time travel make sure you don't do it at the conclusion, have it be a one-time-only key part of the story somewhere in the middle that is required for the players to truly understand the big-bad's plot and the direness of the situation. Have them be betrayed by an important NPC they've grown to like and trust. Let them see the city burning, Alderan getting blown up, the dawn of the apocalypse - and then give them a single chance to fix it.
I personally find these stories kinda corny especially cause it's hard to not have the timetravel seem like a cop-out. And then there's the trouble with how to bring it up, bc either it's a deus ex machina, which may appear cheap, or it's a well established plot device, which then makes the story predictable and will weaken every sense of loss immediately. ("This ancient relic is said to bend time itself", - "Oh gee, I wonder wether at some point we'll need to bend time now." - "Oh, Harry died. I guess we now need to bend time itself to fix this, good thing we got this relic.")
And there needs to be a good reason as to why the time travel can only work once, if you can go back anytime you fucked up you'll lose all sense of drama, and if the reason why you can't go back again isn't convincing your story will fall apart. Maybe have the time travel device turn to dust, kill the time travel NPC, maybe have the players sacrifice something of personal value, have them strike a dark bargain with a chaos god, something cool and unique to preserve the sense of drama.
I don't know man, I like the idea of time travel, of revisiting old towns and NPC's (perhaps NPCs the players liked but failed in one of the preceding adventures) knowing what will happen if you fail - there's potential there, but I just think it's really hard to not have it end up feeling meaningless as you said.
Chain mail and beard. I can only imagine how many pulled beard hairs he endured for the sake of making this video.
You keep referencing RotJ, but I think you got a couple of things wrong. They never got arrested on Endor and the emperor was feeding Luke disinformation in hopes of turning him to the dark-side.
Now yes he might have given away the location of the generator but that was to reduce the Rebel numbers and try to steal the greatest weapon they had. Even if he didn't succeed in turning Luke, it still gave him the opportunity to remove him from the battle thus weakening the enemy that much more.
That outfit though. No padding under the ringmail, nickelplated rings and fake fur. That's a LARPers outfit right there. I don't mean to berate. LARP is an adventure and world on its own, but the historian in me cries. :)
Great :)
Why don´t you have a book so i can just read this and don´t have to watch 200hours of episodes?
I just discovered this channel... is it just me, or is this Shadiversity? The medieval weapons/armor guy?
EDIT from 7min later: HOW DARE YOU IMPLY that RotS was a bad movie! You get to see Anakin at his strongest AND get to see him turn! He was my brother; I loved him!
"There was no big bad at the end of Star Wars, it was *just about destroying the Death Star."*
Well....... the people of Alderaan would disagree!
Under realistic circumstances, you can't fix something by going back in time. If you went back in time and fixed it, then it wouldn't be broken for you to go back in time and fix it in the present. Either history is immutable or elastic, in which case the present will always be the present that made you think you had to go back in time and fix it (think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), or time travel creates alternate timelines, in which case you may have ended up in a better timeline, but the shitty one you came from still exists (think Dragon Ball Z's Future Trunks Timeline). Any other interpretation of time travel does not make sense on it's own. You'd have to have some sort of explanation as to why the time traveller's past, specifically the moment he became a time traveller, remains unaffected (think Prismo's Time Room in Adventure Time), or be able to actually rewind time rather than travel back in time, essentially erasing the present you came from (think Whis' Rewind ability from Dragon Ball Super).
One word: Tarrasque.
I have a few surprises for my players for the finale, don't worry about that. Right now everyone is level 15 and they first have to get past a two-headed ancient dragon.
No one survives!!!
You seem like a great DM! Too bad you live so far away....
الي من فاست يجيب الرابط ديسكورد
Can anyone Pease translate I don't want to be rude but I doubt How to be a great Gm will understand
هههههههههه
in the campaign I'm running right now I'm going to let them participate in a great battle and let them all die a tragic death(maybe one survives maybe not) and remind them of mortality. lol
Alex Sun that sounds pretty cool actually but possibly unsatisfying for the players
Maybe let them decide whether or not to "Hang back" at certain points. If they keep going, that's a calculated risk on their part. If they choose to hang back, they should get to paint their own epilogue, and survive (although the military objective might not be met if they're too meek.)
If they die in battle, be sure to illustrate it like a bard or historian would sing or write of their deeds, years from the date of the event.
I think that would be satisfactory while still holding that core idea.
meeler the dealer; oh well... i will make it satisfying... its not about wining or losing( they will win anyway war isn't just about 5 man!) its about the story, if i give them satisfying story, a glorious heroes death is far better than the ending where they won and now have no idea what to do next?
+I'm about to let a fan necromancer resurrect their characters by the time of next campaign and that will be...(demonic smile)
Alex Sun now THAT is interesting
I personally am planning an ending to my campaign where the group is cornered by the ending villain, where they are given 2 choices at the end of it all: Live to Fight, or Die to Live. Choose to run and live to fight another day, or die so that the group who chooses to run can escape. It gives them the chance to either choose to fight for the future, or give themselves a heroic sacrifice so that the future can be lived to begin with. With our group, it feels like an amazing way to end the campaign.
wwwoowww.
hhhhhhhhh
discord.gg/8rCYhV