WEP '12, Day 8 - Ending the Story

I was running my long running Fourth Edition D&D game when I came to the realization that it was time, maybe even long past time, to wrap the story up.  This particular campaign had been going for three and a half years now, with as many as six players and one DM, myself.  With some variance, the game has been played almost exclusively at my brother's dinner table.  Over those years, we've seen his daughter Julia grow from a screaming baby to a precocious four and a half year old who watches Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.  It's been awhile, in other words.

So why am I calling it a campaign?  Well there are, as with any major decision, several factors.  First of all, and the one that hit me hardest as the 23rd level party annihilated a 31st level monster without taking any significant damage, is that Fourth Edition D&D breaks down during Epic Level play.   It has become too hard to challenge them with published monsters.  They're regularly kicking the ass of creatures way above their level, and they're only 23rd level.  The game theoretically supports up to level 30, but I don't know that monsters exist that can threaten a 30th level party.  In a game I played in, we took a bunch of 30th level characters up against Orcus and we massacred him.  It wasn't even really close.

So the game itself is breaking down.  But what else?  Well, the second part is that with the mechanical aspects falling apart we have to turn to more roleplaying.  But that's hampered by the fact that the Fourth Edition universe lacks all verisimilitude.  It doesn't make sense how adventurers can do what they do, and there's no real attempt to impose some kind of rational universe.  For all that D&D 4E was criticized for being "video gamey" this is where the charge is most accurate.  Fourth Edition doesn't put forth a coherent world, and that makes roleplaying in it too hard.

Finally, I got a Christmas present from one of my players of the A Song of Ice and Fire RPG.  And I like it.  I think it could be just what I'm looking for, a low magic, rules light system that everyone can get a 10 hour briefing on the word via the HBO A Game of Thrones series.  Which you should go ahead and watch anyway, because it's worth it straight up, regardless of whether or not you're going to play the RPG.

So with reason to end it, and a successor named, I'm going to bring the campaign to an end next month and start anew with A Song of Ice and Fire.

The king is dead.  Long live the king!

EDIT: And I got this one in with less than a minute to spare.  We continue on, unbowed by time!