Is There Ever Happily Ever After?

[Âmesang]

I can't recall ever having a character truly "retire" to a happy or even neutral ending; more often than not the game ends short (leaving the character with numerous unresolved plot hooks that could potentially be taken up later), or (because we're running through a pre-made adventure) we save the day but the saved day has little impact on the characters themselves; why should my drow care if giants are no longer attacking the surface world?, unless she does succeed in uniting them under the banner of House Baenre and reenacting Against the Giants in Faerûn.

(Of course had she not lost all of her material wealth due to circumstances… and had I been aware that one could purchase buildings… I could have invested five grand into a guildhall—perhaps set up her own rogue/thief/assassin clan in Waterdeep or Baldur's Gate.)

In RPGs, usually one of two things happen

1. After the whole affair is done, the king rewards the party with a rusty nickel after sustaining heavy injuries.

The Avatar can attest to that!

Spoiler

Show

[8BitNinja]

The Avatar can attest to that!

Spoiler

Show

This is exactly where I took the hyperbole (although sometimes it's completely true) from.

[GloatingSwine]

(2) In this other game, I was the GM. The game was complicated to describe

Battleworld isn't that complicated to describe.

You just call it Battleworld and let everyone google from there.

[MrNobody]

Most of my characters just die mid-adcenture. This might be because I suck, but I don't know.

This happened to me too, and once it was even an happy ending!
Pathfinder, a CE half orc dual cursed oracle (haunted and blackened) lost all his relatives and friends in a fire during a siege, almost losing his own life. He was then haunted by the spirits of his relatives that pushed him to revenge wishpering him words of hatred and not allowing the burns he gained in the fire to heal.
Well, he died. And in death he found peace! Once dead, his relatives could no.longer ask him for revenge, and the loss of body prevented him to feel more pain. He was free!!! And when his teammates tried to resurrect him the answer was: no, i'm finally fine.and happy!

[Jay R]

We don't want to play out settling down, investing the treasure, mowing the lawn, etc. So if we are still playing, then it hasn't happened yet.

"Happily ever after" is just stopping play while the characters are still alive.

I like to think that in every game that ended, my characters have settled down and are contentedly spending their enjoyable, safe retirements not risking their lives adventuring.

[SimonMoon6]

Battleworld isn't that complicated to describe.

You just call it Battleworld and let everyone google from there.

It wasn't Battleworld. I mean, okay, you might see an influence from Battleworld. But I was more influenced by the "Midnight at the Well of Souls" world. Each world fragment had its own world-rules: in some places, magic worked; in others, technology; in others, superpowers... but that's reducing things to mere basics when it was more subtle than that. There was a generic fantasy world, a fairy tale world, a Universal horror monsters world, a martial arts world, a pseudo-Roman world, a "robots have taken over" world, an opera world, a generic superhero world, a beach adventures world, a happy silly cartoons world, and so on and so forth, with each world having a genre of its own and therefore different flavors of adventures in each world fragment.

But when I said the game was complicated, I didn't just mean the world's setting. There were other complications, like how the PCs were the players themselves who were slowly gaining the abilities (powers, skills, equipment, etc) of their favorite characters from fiction as they found certain MacGuffins in each world fragment. Gaining such power was necessary as their enemies included evil versions of themselves who already had ALL the powers of all their favorite characters, which meant they had to be very careful. And taking advantage of locations where some things would work and other things wouldn't work was very important.

[Knaight]

"Happily ever after" is just stopping play while the characters are still alive.

It's a bit more than that. If you have a game about political dissidents trying to cause a revolution and it ends with them all in the equivalent of a Siberian gulag it's not a case of "happily ever after" even if they are still alive.

[Vrock_Summoner]

Let's nip a semantics war in the bud here. "Happily ever after" defines itself. It means you live for a long while, in generally a good environment and positive mood. You can cut bits out to get different versions of endings - maybe they lived "happily after," but not for very long; or maybe they lived "ever after," during their life sentence in prison - but happily ever after means what it means. (Hm, I wonder what living "happily ever" without the after means. I guess they were never unhappy before this point, either?)

Most of the campaigns I'm in have the characters living ever after, but happily is a lot more rare. Of course, this has a lot to do with my favorite types of characters to play being Guts-type avengers (who won't have anything left but rage when they've quenched their vengeance) or former villains on lifelong redemption quests (who will, uh, be busy a while).

[veti]

It seems to me that the OP is basically asking "do PCs ever retire?" To which the answer is clearly "yes".

But it's something that will vary widely between campaigns, groups and play styles. The precondition is that the PCs have to outlive the player's ambitions for them. That implies either very limited ambitions (possible if, for instance, you were told that this campaign would only last a short time), or a campaign that runs long enough, with the same characters, that players feel they've met all/enough of their personal goals.

[8BitNinja]

It's a bit more than that. If you have a game about political dissidents trying to cause a revolution and it ends with them all in the equivalent of a Siberian gulag it's not a case of "happily ever after" even if they are still alive.

That seems like a "death" scenario. Not exactly them dying, but they rot in jail, making the characters unable to play, putting them in the same state as death.

[Jay R]

It's a bit more than that. If you have a game about political dissidents trying to cause a revolution and it ends with them all in the equivalent of a Siberian gulag it's not a case of "happily ever after" even if they are still alive.

Depends on the level and direction of your imagination. One game ended while my character was about to be married, and was throwing a major politically dangerous celebration and tournament, while another kingdom was preparing for war. In my head, the tournament took place, the politics were dealt with, the war won, and Ornrandir and his bride are living in peace and plenty.

Similarly, Gwydion and his allies were about to attack Dragon Isle. In my head, they are now living large on the profits of several dragon hoards.

Darkstar and Endore have built a small keep, with their rod that repels evil creatures to a distance of 300 yards buried at its center.

etc.

If the DM wants to keep my characters captured, or poor, or threatened, he's going to have to keep running the game.

[hifidelity2]

The group I play in has had two “Happy ever afters” recently

GURPS fantasy (I was DM)
Party defeated the BBEG(s) and retired
2 got married and run a kingdom
2 got married and became rulers of the nomads (think Mongols)
1 became head of Wizards guild
1 became head of Bards guild

I have now started a new campaign in the same world set 30 ish years in the future so the PCs are now (very detailed) NPCs


In another game (D&D) something very similar happened except that approx. ½ the new characters are the offspring of the original Characters but the original Chacaters are arounds as DNPCs

[8BitNinja]

If the DM wants to keep my characters captured, or poor, or threatened, he's going to have to keep running the game.

Which may be motivation to not let the game end happily.

[GungHo]

PersonMan is right. Each adventurer is a fantastic John Rambo waiting to happen and liable to renact First Blood in Sword & Sorcery setting.

I have more than once had a "retired" character get "reactivated" by Rikard Crentos coming to look for my guy who was busy rebuilding a temple by driving nails with his forehead. "Ragnar, I want you to try to forget the war. Remember the mission. The old Cyrilos is dead." "Sir, I'm still alive, it's still alive, ain't it?"