Complete a Dungeons & Dragons campaign

“Then two years ago I started a new campaign. Seemingly unrelated though in the same world, just some years later. Some of the players knew about past campaigns, and some had even popped in to play some sessions of it. We started in person right before covid. Only our session 0 and first session were in person then we went virtual. And after a first act twist a few months in, it became clear the same BBEG was back at it again. Nearly 2 years later, we were all able to finally meet in person again, but would only be in the same city for a week. So the last two nights we played a total of 12 hours of d&d to have our epic conclusion to my first 1-20 as a DM and several of the player's first 1-20 as PCs. The final sessions were everything I could have asked for. My players gave it their all and I couldn't be happier with what they did to aid the story that was being told. I'm overjoyed I got to finish in person. And excited that after 2 years of this story my players only said two thing "I can't believe it's over" and "So, when's the sequel?”

“They DID defeat the BBEG. None of the PCs died but they had an NPC that was the sister of one PC and the love interest of another that I would RP and the brother of that NPC ran in combat who did die. It came very close to them failing. Another character would’ve died and the BBEG would’ve healed up some if he got another turn. And if that happened the other characters likely would’ve died too, and they knew it. I think the best thing about this ending was they knew they would have to choose a replacement for the god of death and that person would essentially be imprisoned in hell for eternity. So that along with a few other big decisions led to a massive amount of RP and player control when they beat the BBEG. Then after the decision and one of the PCs was gone. The others mourned their two fallen allies then I took each of the players aside separately to hear what they would do in the days leading up to the funeral of their dead friend/sister and what they envisioned their lives to be after. We had a scene at the funeral where we closed the arcs on many NPCs.”

“Started the PCs at Level 3 (since originally I didn't know how long we'd play for) and now we're ending at level 20. It took two and a half years. Had some one shots and some odd weeks off here and there, but for the most part it was weekly. They even got to play a few sessions at 20 so it wasn't like they hit it and it was just over with. It wasn't my first time DMing, but it was the first time going past like 2 sessions. About half of the players had never played any TTRPG at all before, so we got to learn a lot together. [...] No character deaths. Which I boil down to a combination of me still learning in the very beginning about encounter balance and the adventuring day and then the sheer size of the party. In total there were nine characters including one DMPC (controlled by the party during combat). But enough panicked moments that I think no one felt cheated, or there weren't stakes, or there weren't consequences to their actions.”