Who Does It Serve?

"Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet."

-- Jane Smith, Mr. & Mrs. Smith

For those begging for adventures to have stories ... stories have endings and the last thing an infinite game needs is an ending.  D&D is stuck in the headspace that the characters should somehow get through their times of struggle and reach that point where they will live "happily ever after" ... except they won't, because they will head off to another adventure and another, and die eventually.

The notion arises that players become "tired of this adventure" and perceive that there is greener grass over the hill ... but being tired of an adventure at all is a sign that the "adventure" has ceased to be adventurous.  Now it is just one long slog to the end, with the party duty-bound to clean up the mess like a group of maids who ought to be on holiday but were forced to stay home because the owners were sick.

From a zombie site of its own.

An ending exists to resolve the plot and theme, and all the loose ends, so the audience can go home sated and refreshed from their evening at the theatre or cinema.  This is necessary because the audience can't sit in their seats forever and the actors can't simply continue the same play credibly every week ... unless it's a serial, in which case maybe you haven't noticed it yet but television doesn't have "endings."  Deliberately.  Serials deliberately avoid tying every last thread because they're under an obligation to continue this story, given that the audience never wants to live without these characters.  Naturally, after seven years or so, as the show enters into it's "zombie years" and the writers burn out and new, crappier writers are dragged onto the show for less money, the audience winnows away (except for diehards who will die with their cold, dead fingers wrapped around this TV show).

As a DM, try not to burn out.

But then, "endings" serve DMs, don't they?  Is it the players who are anxious to try a new adventure, or is it the DM, who just wants an opportunity to quit this game and this genre with the excuse that the adventure ended.  I suppose a lot of DMs don't want to contribute a quarter or a third of their present existence to the trudging, accountable work-schedule of having to present the same world with the same features and the same logic week after week for no pay and little perceived appreciation.  Better to end this adventure thing, and thus end my responsibility, kicking off this liability in search of ... well, something else.

Because, shit, after running this campaign for a whole four months, frankly, I'm sick of it.