I'm just curious having touched the 1.5k post mark with a group of marvellous, enthusiastic players who post regularly. I wished to inquire of GMs and players alike. How many games so far, memorable or not, have you been able to actually finish, or atleast neared the end of? I find incompletion an all too common phenomenon in PbP, alas, though of course troubles are truly brought on by real life. Only one or two other games I play in seem like the kind that are stable and will reach a decided eventuality.

For me, good games never finish, they evolve. If I have a good group of players with a good GM then why finish? Keep rolling on, change direction, refocus.

If a player is bored of their PC then retire it and bring in someone new.

I agree, good games never end, as such a better question is how many story arcs or campaigns have been completed, which for me has been two out of the forty or so games that I have been in for more then a single session, plus about six one offs five of which were dnd encounters.

A couple in RL. None on rpol. I agree with Jarodemo, good games never end, just story arcs.

I am working on finishing mine.  I am at 13.437k posts which is six and a half years real time in. There is a finish, the story is being weaved by god players and is set in my favorite published setting Eberron.

Characters are 10th lvl, I fear the players will die of old age before we finish, but getting there is a blast.

... it rarely happens, but good games -do- end naturally. Especially in tabletop. I've had a few games where they ended; there was nothing left for the heroes to do. Especially in tabletop, then you usually take a few weeks off; and the GM for whatever will be played next designs stuff.

Since I joined Rpol in 2010, I have brought four games to completion as GM (out of five that have ended with two in progress). As a player I have seen a conclusion to four games out of about eighty. I resigned from fifteen or so of those.

Around the tabletop, I have finished, mostly as GM, several dozen stories/campaigns over forty years in a variety of systems. That doesn't include about 90 iterations of fifteen or more convention events that my daughter and I have created and run.

A few in RL were 'retired'.  Here, none, but I just started here a few months ago.

Looking at the few posting numbers people have put up, I'm wondering something.

My game started on August 30 and actual RP started 4 days ago.

1123 posts in the game and 43 in the RP thread.  Is that abnormally large?

In reply to pfarland (msg # 8):

I think that just means the DM is reusing an old game set up instead of starting a new one.  Or else he has a ton of hidden info.

In reply to Shiv (msg # 9):

Well, it's my game, so very little hidden info.  Almost all of the 'hidden threads' are just focused at a few specific characters.  And I'm certainly not reusing an old game.

Just a rather prolific GM and some seriously devoted players.

I have never seen a game completion. Plenty of "ok, time to call the game, goodbye" but no satisfactory conclusions.

I've never played a game that had a specific finish...any of them that had a definite story-arc that could have been considered as having a finish-point, we enjoyed enough that we kept playing beyond that point (or had plans to, at least...when the GM moves out of state, that kind of ends the game, no matter what plans were...)

It's tough to say a game has a 'finish.' That being said, the games I've been in have pretty much all died. One Cthulhu game ran through two adventures (or was it three?), each time 'ending.' After some talk we resumed with the new adventure. Other than that, no, they always die out and blow away.

One, I think, here, was meant to be a short game.
Lots in tournament play, because of their nature.
On another site, one long term game finished (GM started up a new one), one nearing the end after ? years and several chapters.
There may be more, after all it's the fun of the journey more than arriving at the destination.

For my tabletop experience, I consider the completion of a campaign or a story arc a finish, even if the characters continue on.

Agree with Gaffer, the completion of arcs. I tend to place equal importance on reaching some conclusions as well as the journey itself.

In reply to Knell (msg # 1):

One. It took two years, but my group of Warhammer 40k players managed to reach the end of my campaign.

Ended? Two. One was short but one of my all time favorites, the other lasted four years and the end of it was planned before the campaign began, so it felt very natural.

On here? None. Simply put, games on rpol don't often last long enough.

Here? One. The GM, Snowy (don't know if its allowed to name or praise a GM) took us to over 32,000 posts. It was a planned ending, too.

32,000!! -gulps- I hope to reach that fantabulous number someday!

Was in one game that is nearing 70,000 posts over on paizo. I think having plenty of players helps.

In reply to DarkLightHitomi (msg # 21):

Well, at least it helps in racking up the post numbers. ;p

I finished GMing one campaign here, it was planned to be a one-shot.

Unfortunately I then tried to extend it beyond the planned finish and that went nowhere fast :(

In reply to cptcthulhu (msg # 19):

I'm in one right now that's closing in on 28,000 posts, and I don't think it's anywhere close to its ending-point, yet...

I have been in a number of games many are still going on. I have completed gods at least 20.