Behind the Screen: The End-Game Party…
I wish I could cite the specific source on this one (chime in if anyone recognizes it), but I remember reading a very interesting idea that suggested throwing a actual party with cake and general non-gaming merriment to denote the end of a campaign.
I like this idea for a lot of reasons (I mean, who doesn’t like a party?), however I have the good fortune of having a tight-knit group of gamers in our squadron. We regularly get together on non-gaming nights to play Rock Band and hang out, however the non-roleplaying “partying” tends to peak when we’ve actively not roleplayed for awhile.
As Stupid Ranger has previously noted, we are in the middle of one of the more pronounced gaming droughts that we’ve had lately due to busy schedules and the dreaded Real Life, which happens to be at least a CR 30 these days for most of us. That means our next “session” will probably consist of vast amounts of pizza, music, and hilarity but likely very little actual plot progression.
Situations like this leave me a little dry on the whole end-of-campaign party front… we’d likely have to do something akin to a destination resort to muster up more of a party than we’re likely to have when our group gets back together! I’m exaggerating a lot there, but it will be fairly difficult to differentiate an end-of-campaign event from our standard fare.
If anyone has any clever ideas for putting the big red bow on a major plotline, I’d love to hear it! For those of you that regularly host the end-game party, tell us your story! What do you normally do to make it special?
I think you may be thinking of a post that was done over at Treasure Tables a while ago: Throw a Wrap Party and End Your Campaign in Style – http://www.treasuretables.org/2007/08/throw-a-wrap-party-and-end-your-campaign-in-style
Martin described how the GM of their Stargate campaign closed it out with a party including cake and give aways.
We meet once a month and have cake whenever someone has a birthday during the month. However, we also generally have cake (and pie, and cookies, and candy….) when there’s not a birthday… the only difference is that birthday cakes have candles. So I’m not sure what we will do when our campaign ends. The DM says it will probably take up most of the year, so we’ve got a while to think of it.
We’re wrapping up a three year (4? forever?) long campaign in the next two weeks. Afterwards, plans are to hold a ‘wake’ for the game, with epilogues and a eulogy. There’s a few people who’ve been following the story we’ll be inviting along as well. Seems like a good way to finish what has been a long term project for the rest of us.