Did you retire characters at name level?

[Henry]

I'm interested to see how common it was (amongst those represented on ENworld who want to vote) to retire characters once they reached 'name level' - which was about 9th-11th level, the point at which you stopped gaining HD and just gained a few hp each level instead.

Our groups did, but I wouldn't really call it "retiring" so much as "stopped playing." (Semantics, I know). Once past 9th level, the DM would lose interest frequently, because characters gained abilities that made it harder to challenge them with conventional plots (Shipwrecked? Bah, just teleport home!) or the players just didn't want to keep playing - by that point most of us had some grandiose idea for a new character (or a new kit/character combo).

Now, in 3e with so many different combos, so many cool high-level powers, etc. We keep going just as long as the DM has stamina to keep going; eventually we will shift gears due to player schedule changes, etc. but we often specifically finish up the campaign arc so that we don't leave things hanging. As we get older, we run shorter definitely story "arcs", but we do finish them up and "retire" them officially.

 

[Andre]

1E and maybe Basic Fighters could take a number of attacks equal to thier level against foes with less than 1 hit die. Or maybe it was foes with 1 hit die or less. That made Hobgoblins and Gnolls notably more signifigant foes compared to kobolds and goblins [and maybe orcs].

IIRC, both editions allowed fighters to attack a number of creatures = fighter level. The only difference is that OD&D limited the targets to 1 HD or less, while 1E limited them to <1HD.

Concerning the original question...nope, my group never retired a character just because of reaching name level. Some of the best gaming occurred when characters were gaining keeps, followers, baronies, and so on. Clearing out local monsters, fighting off armies of orcs, defeating the Egg of Coot - that was fun. Add in a demon invasion or two, and D&D continued to be fun into the mid-teen levels (as high as my group ever got).

 

[TerraDave]

AD&D had a schizophrenic attitude towards high levels.

On the one hand, a lot of games would stop for various reasons at about levels 10-15, including the perception that that was a natural time to retire, and that the game got to bent out of shape to really work. On the other hand, many of the iconic adventures where for high levels, and of course the books had those high level spells, magic items, artifacts, "name" monsters, statted up deities...shouldn't they be used?

Its funny, one of the obvious goals of 4E is to make high-level play "work". I wonder if they will figure it out after 30 years?

 

[Cabled]

We didn't consciously set a stopping point, but the great majority of campaigns were concluded around 10-12th level...thieves a little higher due to thier fast advancement under old exp charts. I only recall one campaign move past that since 1981, we played into the high teens before the group disbanded due to college graduations..that was a 2e game.

 

[Brimshack]

We retired characters when the plotline got old and we wanted to try something new. This was usually around name level, but not exactly on target. Plus retired characters could be played from time to time, brought in as flavour during a new campaign for just a game or two, and sometimes, we would even allow one player to keep one older character as a ringer in the next campaign. Over time Characters that had been retired sometimes made quite a few levels. The gains were incremental for all but the spell caster's, but we still looked foreword to every extra level, well into the 20s if a Character made it that far.

 

[RFisher]

In my experience, campaigns always fizzled before that. In fact, I think my highest level PC was ninth level.

That includes oAD&D, 2e, 3e, and classic D&D.

I have a dream of running an ongoing (classic) D&D campaign in which name level PCs tend to go into semi-retirement. I envision something almost like the troupe style of Ars Magica or Pendragon. The high-level PCs will be doing things other than adventuring. There will be new low-level PCs made for adventuring. The high-level PCs may even be patrons of the new PCs. Occasionally a high-level PC or three will have a need to adventure themselves.

 

[Agamon]

I had a 28th level cleric in oD&D and a 16th level elven fighter/magic-user in 1E. But I was easier to please as a kid. These days, for me, high level = badwrongfun.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Not only did we not retire characters we extended the HD and level progressions from 1-9 out past name level.