I just finished reading through the KS draft of second edition, and I love the game. I have one question, though: how are Games meant to end? Each Family moves through the ages trying to impose it’s agenda – cool. And some of those agendas permit temporary or permanent alliances – great. But there’s no advice for how to handle the loss of conflict if one family gets (some or most of) what it wants?
Let’s say the Servants of the One True Faith can count the Homeland as sufficiently adherent through persuasion or compulsion; then what? Maybe they can stay in the game and help another family for a bit, but fundamentally they’re done.
Or what about the families with no endpoint, like the Guilded Company of Merchants? There will always be an economy of some kind, so I feel like they risk an endless slog. They can always have conflict, pushing into new areas or pushing out competition, but that can also start to feel repetitive after a few ages.
I guess the question is for more experienced GMs and players – how do you know when the “new normal” has been achieved, and the Homeland has become the new world? Is it just a matter of table consensus, or are there more sure signs?
I don’t think any of the families have a built in end point. You can always add more threats that affect all of them.
I figure them game ends when the fiction permits it.
Aside: Generation Ship will have an actual end point for the fiction, regardless of family choices.
This is something I’m definitely going to cover in the GM section in future updates, but the two supplements we have planned – Engine of Life and End Game – are about the two ways the game could end. The Engine of Life’s optimistic, about ways to finish the process of rebuilding the world and completely remove the dangers of the wasteland. End Game, on the other hand, is pessimistic – it’s full of monsters, factions and nihilistic family playbooks designed to threaten another apocalypse and tie your game up in a final confrontation.
But yeah, as Aaron says I’ve always handled it by table consensus. If we want the game to end, we make a Turning of Ages the last one and describe in broad strokes the world we end up making. If we want to continue playing, there’s always some new problem we can try and fix.
The question could be asked of almost any game, though. When does D&D end? When does AW end?
You will know when time comes – fiction will converge Characters and Family to one big dramatic dilemma. Once it’s solved you can close the curtains.
Thanks for the responses. Aaron Griffin I see what you’re saying about D&D and AW, but D&D works under a very different power dynamic, and AW works under a significantly different story expectation. Because Legacy is tell a dynastic story, I’m not certain players will converge on a cathartic, climactic finale the way they will instinctively do in, say, AW. The Cardassian perpetual epic never really caught on as a on art form here.
James Iles I’ll look forward to that GM section. I like the Turning of Ages as a tool to let the players narrate the metastasis of the Homeland. That definitely helps picture how to handle wrapping things up.