So when do you or your group like to retire a campaign or a character? is there a set point you need to reach? Or is it just when you lose interest? Or gain interest in something else?

In recent times, many rpg games I have played in typically "retired" due to the game and/or group collapsing.  This can be due to:

- too many players left the game (ie. not enough players left)
- the DM abruptly quit
- the game was kicked out of the venue, with no viable replacement venue

My campaigns have a start and an ending. Once it is ended either I as the DM or along with the players decide what the next one is about (in a very general sense, like "We want to play in a 'One Thousand and One Nights'-like setting" or "This time we want to be Harpers"). According to the choice we then decide if to keep the old characters or not.

I must say that my players have a certain faith in me, since usually they let me decide both of the above. Bless them

Recently we stopped a CoC campaign halfway, but mostly because it was a "filler" while two players of our regular D&D 3.5 one were away in Japan. They actually came back earlier and we resumed D&D. I wasn't happy about the CoC campaign, BTW, filler or not: sometimes things just don't "click".

This might sound a bit weird but for me when I GM it generally works like this: I'm interested in my campaign up to the point where I feel it's lived up to it's promise.

For me each campaign is different and presents a fresh challenge. Behind each one there is usually a desire on my part to figure something out as in explore a new genre or try out a different way of structuring or pacing the adventures or even just a slightly different approach to GMing. So it's all kind of like an GM technique experiment.  

It may take a good few session for me to refine my ideas and bring things to a head, but I once figured out how to do "it" (or in some instance not to do "it") - whatever that particular "it" was - I'm personally done with that campaign. I'll gladly keep running for a while if the player are really having fun and have unresolved things they want to do, but I feel I've got what I want out of it and I'm ready for something new.
 
Bear in mind historically I've always been in groups with lot's of GMs. So while we may not have a formal rota and campaign length isn't capped to any particular length,  in practice we do tend to play a game for maybe 2-3 months than move on to something new with a new GM. As such the decision to retire a campaign isn't that big a deal.

As for retiring characters, with short campaign it's seldom necessary but I have done so on occasion when I feel my character and his motivations doesn't quite fit in with the campaign direction and other party members.  It's better to create a fresh character that fit than twist an existing character concept into something he wasn't never meant to be.

Depends on how the game is set up. Some campaigns I have run have had multiple story arcs which are left having if we decide to move on to something else. Some campaigns have very specific goals which ends either in success or failure. Of course these days, I'm running a lot of one-offs, so "adventures" last only a couple of sessions and all of them are goal orientated.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;492328Depends on how the game is set up. Some campaigns I have run have had multiple story arcs which are left having if we decide to move on to something else. Some campaigns have very specific goals which ends either in success or failure.

That has been my experience as well. I've run two multi-year (play time) campaigns that had a very definite ending; the PCs created were for that game alone. On the other hand, I've been playing off-and-on in a friend's game that has run for nine years straight with three of the original PCs.

It really depends on the game.

I think the whole "retire a character" thing doesn't work the way it used to.

I could see a reason for it in a large campaign, with multiple adventuring groups, lots of players playing one or more characters at different times, etc. A more organic world - people get old, they get enough money/power, the player gets bored of playing them, they retire.

In the more constructed worlds that seem to be the norm, where it's built around the adventuring party, why retire? You always have a level-appropriate challenge showing up, and eventually you'll get to the end of the level scale, and "win". You've probably been following one storyline your entire adventuring life, and the world is going to end if you don't win. You retire, maybe, after that.

Quote from: Kaldric;492430In the more constructed worlds that seem to be the norm, where it's built around the adventuring party, why retire? You always have a level-appropriate challenge showing up, and eventually you'll get to the end of the level scale, and "win". You've probably been following one storyline your entire adventuring life, and the world is going to end if you don't win. You retire, maybe, after that.

I haven't run these kinds of epic level earth shattering campaigns for years. Which is not to say that the players have not reached very high levels (in D&D) just that I (we) don't define the "win" situation like that.

Regards,
David R

Well, they seem (to me) to be the norm. As in, the style of play I see most often. I'm sure many people play outside that style - and perhaps they "retire" more often?

I think there's a link there, even if it's not a strong one.

My campaigns usually end when an important goal for the PCs has been reached, and everyone feels it's time to move on to another game.

Don't you fools know that RPGs don't do stories?  This idea that a campaign should be "retired" when significant plot elements or character developments are resolved stands in opposition to emulation of a living world, which is the correct way to play RPGs. All of you are obviously pretentious swine who think you're Jack Kerouac, or something. You deserve to be boot-stomped in the face until you're put in the hospital!

I didn't think I was attacking "story" play there.

I've been playing RPGs with story-heavy campaign arcs for years and years, ending the campaigns when the arcs finished up.

I'm just ready for a change, after about 15 years. I just finished up running a year and a half long 4E campaign that was very linear, and ended when the characters reached level 30 and pretty much became god-like immortals. Like my previous campaigns, there really wasn't an appropriate spot for characters to "retire".

I'm kind of interested in playing a sandbox/open-table sort of West Marches/Megadungeon thing, and seeing how that goes. I think such a playstyle will lend itself to "retiring" a character when it feels right - which I've found hasn't been the case with my more linear play.

Which is really all I was saying - linear play, in my experience, lends itself to stories and arcs, and ending the campaign when the goals are met. An open, continuing sandbox campaign doesn't have the same structure - so, it might make sense to "retire" a character.

Most often, it's when the characters move on to something else. Maybe that's ruling some area or other, setting up a place of learning of some kind, getting a real job, retiring and starting a family... anything, really. Depends heaps on the setting, of course.

Unfortunately, there have been a few dangling campaigns. Very frustrating, and I still think about completing them one day, from time to time.

Quote from: David R;492439I haven't run these kinds of epic level earth shattering campaigns for years. Which is not to say that the players have not reached very high levels (in D&D) just that I (we) don't define the "win" situation like that.

I've only done the big world saving campaign one time. It was great. We didn't game for three years after it was over.  Everything else seemed like a let down after that. (These days I'd just switch systems and genres, but back then, it just seemed we should stick with what had worked for us, even when it no longer did so).
Now, if i want to do a save the world story I shove it in to my supers game where it belongs and is resolved in under 5 sessions or so, without killing the campaign at the same time.

Quote from: David R;492439I haven't run these kinds of epic level earth shattering campaigns for years. Which is not to say that the players have not reached very high levels (in D&D) just that I (we) don't define the "win" situation like that.

Same here, but the opposite My characters save the world from world-shattering events just fine, I simply don't feel the need for them to be 20th level or so to do it.

After all Sauron was defeated by two stray hobbits making a drunken run, not by great heroes on big battlefields.