"Real time" or "time lapse" campaigns?

[Evilhalfling]

I feel your pain -
The current campaign has had 2.5 yrs "in Game" 7 months real time
levels 3rd -11th of course they have been fighting a runnig war for the last year and everytime they take a large break they see thier enemies getting stronger.
I have played in a gencon game like that - "courting murders" but it had a cast of about 15-25 and characters were first come first serve. There would be a recent events write up from the last 1-2 years, It was lovely fun but I think at least half the group changed yearly.

For a national con game - you just can't count on a steady attendence
You could certainly play a 1/month game that a (in game) year or more passes between each session.
For better realism, in a weekly game, the common wisdom to enforce realstic time passing is just get you and the players used to having OOC time pass.
After wrapping up an adventure, several months pass with nothing of note happing, you all get caught up in mundane details of life(or training, or duties)
Until the next spring when.....

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I am not sure if this addresses your point entirely but something I have noticed is that in 3e people advance much more quickly. But at the same time, it is kind of a 'false' advancement in the sense that the challenges are so much higher. It is kind of like saying 'raise the minimum wage.' It only results in higher prices. So I guess what I am saying is, don't worry too much about easier advancement as the challneges are much more appropriate for the levels.

 

[Tonguez]

I agree that slowing things down to a 3 monthly - annual progression would be good (and 3 months is good since its not too long)

A solution to downtime boredom/continuity issues is to make the 'community' a character in the game which the players can effect. During the 'downtime' between adventures, the PCs are interacting with the community, achieving goals and overcoming the challenges of communal life. Adventures arise when the 'community' needs heroes and the PCs are again called to action

A Communities Abilities
Int - The Skillbase and Learning of the Community
Wis - Culture Integrity (will save), and Awareness(?)
Cha - The Political Influence
Str - Military Force
Con - Communal Health and Economic Viability
Dex - um

 

[Plane Sailing]

Although I love 3E, one of its paradigms is that advancement happens very, very quickly, and that grates on me a little. (Just for one example, the original adventure path modules could be completed within a game-year. That's mustered-out buck private to greatsword-wielding demi-god in a year.)

This grates on me a little too. The plan I have for my next campaign is to enable adventures to happen on a broader timescale - each adventure will be a year after the previous one, and the characters all start at one level higher as a result of their actions during that year (Anyone who wishes to nitpick over details about what they did in the year doesn't get the level

Thus the adventures played reflect the most significant events of their day, but it will take 20 years adventuring to reach 20th level. At some of the higher levels it may be more than one year before the next adventure (way to go getting ageing penalties involved at last!).

I was inspired to this thought by Conan d20 which basically suggests handwaving away time between adventures in the same manner as the Conan short stories.

Cheers

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I think many of you are right ... it would be difficult to find people willing and able to make the kind of commitment a "con-paign" (heh) would require.

On the other hand, I have at least three friends that I see at GenCon -- and only at GenCon -- every single year. We've all been going for -- Christ! -- 21 years. It would certainly work for them, and it's vaguely possible we could pick up one or two new players who have a similar record of GenCon attendance and desire to play. (And potentially make long-term Con-buddies.)

And, yeah, Plane Sailing, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I wouldn't make it exactly a year between adventures (unless there was a good reason for it to be exactly a year, hmmm ... ), but that's the type of time-frame I want to explore.