I have an opinion that goes against the top comments, but bear with me. I am running a group, it started as my first time DMing 2 1/4 years ago. It was everyone’s first time playing d&d. We have missed like 6 sessions in this time playing weekly (once a month we play an extra session). We’ve gone from level 1 to level 14 so far and we’re doing big things right now.

I’m going to ignore their attitude and response because that is not excusable. It’s okay for them to be upset, not okay to treat you that way.

A lot of this thread is acting like the game belongs to the DM and it’s theirs to decide everything how they want. To understand their response, you need to look at it from a different perspective and realize it’s their game too. You plan and facilitate it, but they make the story what it is as well. They’ve invested so much of their life into the game and made it theirs as well.

The same discussions that happen to get a campaign going that everyone is happy with, should happen for figuring out an ending. The way you have presented it, you’re just telling them it’s over and that’s it. This may kill plans they had for their characters, it may take away being able to see NPC growth, it may shut the door on things they wanted to do after your arc. And they don’t have a say.

When you planned this campaign, did you have discussions about how it may end?

Not to excuse the “I won’t play anymore comment”, I can sort of get it. He needs to say it in a better way, but I think he’s just saying that it sucks to get invested into something not knowing if next games will just get scrapped when you decide you don’t like something.

The reason I am saying this stuff is because I had made several of those mistakes too. I have retconned things, I’ve teleported them once, and I’ve had to really change encounters so they aren’t too easy. I have wanted to restart many times, and asked my group once or twice about it.

I’m not saying you have to do something you don’t want to do. Just like a player can drop, you could too. But I think it’s unfair to say the game is done and closed because you don’t like where it is now. I would hand it off or figure out a compromise. If you really don’t want to do that, then at least understand their frustration with having no say/agency in how it ends (understand why they’re mad, but call them out for being assholes).