Not Yet Ultimate Campaigns

In yesterday's post, I talked briefly about the concept of an "ultimate campaign," a RPG campaign so good or so exhaustive in its scope and subject matter that it more or less forecloses the possibility of ever again returning to the game and/or game setting with which it was played. I used my ongoing House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign as an example of an ultimate campaign, but I also referenced the D&D 3e Planescape campaign I played from 2000 to 2004 as another. I could probably add a couple more to the list, like the AD&D 2e Forgotten Realms campaign I refereed throughout the 1990s, but, for the moment, I'm more interested in talking about games and game settings where I have not – yet – experienced an ultimate campaign but would very much like to do so:

• Traveller: You'd have thought, given how often I've played this game and how well I know its rules and official setting, I'd have achieved an ultimate campaign by now and yet I have not. The closest I've ever come was, years ago, when I ran The Traveller Adventure to its conclusion. As satisfying as that experience was, it did not prevent my desire to referee (and play in) other Traveller campaigns. I wonder if, given the vastness of subject matter and setting, Traveller might not be susceptible to the creation of an ultimate campaign.
• Call of Cthulhu: This is another game that I've played extensively over the decades and yet has never yielded an ultimate campaign. This one makes more sense to me, however. Since the game's release, Chaosium has regularly published extensive campaigns for use with CoC. The conclusion of almost any of them could, I would think, result in an ultimate campaign. In my own case, I've never managed to play any of these campaigns to their end, though I have used bits and pieces of them. I don't know if this is a failing unique to me and my gaming groups or if it's a common problem with Call of Cthulhu. Either way, an ultimate CoC campaign remains out of reach.
• Pendragon: This one is wholly explicable. Since the game's release in 1985, I have participated in three excellent Pendragon campaigns, twice as referee and once as  player. In every case, the campaign ended before we reached the end of the death of Arthur, thereby depriving us of proper closure. I hope one day to get a fourth try, because Pendragon really deserves it.
• Twilight: 2000: I'm currently refereeing a T2K campaign and have hopes that it might become an ultimate campaign. We've only been playing since December 2021, so it's too early to say whether we'll be successful. However, the campaign has good forward momentum, a solid collection of characters, and, perhaps most importantly, a dedicated group of players – all the necessary ingredients for an ultimate campaign. If we can keep this up, who knows where it'll lead?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the games appear on my list of Top 10 non-D&D RPGs. They're the roleplaying games about which I think the most and thus about which I have the most flights of fancy regarding potential future campaigns. There are, of course, many other games with which I'd consider myself fortunate to experience an ultimate campaign – RuneQuest comes immediately to mind – but that I don't expect I ever will. At my age – I turn 54 in October – I no longer have an infinity of time to fill with RPGs, so I need to keep my expectations constrained. Mind you, even non-ultimate campaigns are fun, so it's not as if I'll only play a game I think will lead in that direction, though I try to keep my hopes high.

How about you? Are there any RPGs whose ultimate campaigns have eluded you? Are there any you'd like to get the chance to experience?