MaBarry's Rules (I) (b)
"Let's make death more dangerous, shall we?" Because you know, death is merely the beginning of the tortures we'll inflict on your...cold...lifeless...uncaring...hey, wait a second!
("That was the last post, dear. The fairy sex manual post is done..." - Shadowpryde
"That's better than what I was thinking." - the LintKing
"What was that?" - SP
"`...and then they buried her.' Did she tell you that one?" - tLK)
Anyway.
1b) Know when to call it quits.
("A rule we could have used moments ago [...before the joke]." - tLK)
Calling it quits is a tough line for a GM to draw. Sometimes it's because you still have about a half-dozen plot hooks to explain ("No, no, I wasn't using the hooks to fish for red herrings!") ["For a second I thought you were going to type 'red heads,'" - SP] Sometimes it's hard to see where a campaign is dragging on somewhere. Has the main objective been accomplished?
...but what if we're still having fun?
There's no rule that says something has to be x number of sessions long, or even that a session has to be x number of hours, or... (There can be deadlines, but it's harder to decide that it's thirty-three minutes and that's it each time. Ending at, say, nine p.m., yes. Ending 33 minutes after we start? No.)
The problem occurs when the story is done. To some extent, unless you've killed everybody off, the characters always have the potential to have "another story."
("There isn't an easy solution to everything. If there were, we wouldn't be on this plane of existence." - SP
"Are you sure there isn't an easy solution?"
"There isn't an easy solution to everything that's," [in stereo] "acceptable to everybody." - SP)I think I had it right when I wrote, "There isn't an easy solution to everybody."
I'm reminded of the bit at the end of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." You know, after the credits. "Go home!" It's not quite that I'm throwing you out, but after a while, you're malingering. (That might be a pretty girl's name. "Mal" for short? Nah, it's too close to "ding-a-ling.")
It's kind of "when good games go bad." There's a hidden expiration date for a campaign. Sometimes you see it coming... there's a cottage cheese consistency to your meetings. Other times, you've already gone and poured it and tasted it. Cut it short. There's another campaign in the fridge.