100 campaign sessions!

Congrats. My current campaign has played 13 sessions so far over the course of about 6 months. We have a long way to go before we reach 100. That's if we do actually reach 100. I can see the campaign ending and us starting a new one well before then.

What level where the players when the game ended?

Olaf the Stout
 

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Olaf the Stout said:
What level where the players when the game ended?
Seventeen. High level play is so time consuming to prepare for as a DM. I can say with certainty that I'll be looking forward to 1st level play again after so long.
 

Ambrus said:
Seventeen. High level play is so time consuming to prepare for as a DM. I can say with certainty that I'll be looking forward to 1st level play again after so long.

Did your players feel like levelling was a bit slow in your games?

In my current campaign the players started at 3rd and are currently 5th level. That has felt a little slow to me. By my rough calculations your campaign would have had a similar advancement to what my campaign is at the moment, roughly 1 level every 6 sessions.

Olaf the Stout
 

Olaf the Stout said:
Did your players feel like levelling was a bit slow in your games?
No one ever complained about the rate of advancement. Five to six sessions per level was roughly the rate I'd been aiming for when we started. I felt it gave the PCs enough time indulge in some in-depth role-playing while affording a good amount of time to adjust to and enjoy each level's new benefits.

I know that the standard D&D model as presented in the RAW are designed around a faster advancement philosophy, but I've found it to be a bit too rushed for my tastes. If anything I think I'd prefer to slow down the rate of advancement a bit more, but I suspect that might start to seem to be going too far for my players.
 

Ambrus said:
No one ever complained about the rate of advancement. Five to six sessions per level was roughly the rate I'd been aiming for when we started. I felt it gave the PCs enough time indulge in some in-depth role-playing while affording a good amount of time to adjust to and enjoy each level's new benefits.

I know that the standard D&D model as presented in the RAW are designed around a faster advancement philosophy, but I've found it to be a bit too rushed for my tastes. If anything I think I'd prefer to slow down the rate of advancement a bit more, but I suspect that might start to seem to be going too far for my players.

I know what you mean by the current rate of advancement by the RAW. My XP method looks almost nothing like the RAW. I had to adjust how I gave out experience due to the lack of combat in my game. At one stage we only had 1 combat in 3 sessions (urban campaign).

Plus the current way as per RAW only really rewards defeating opponents. Roleplaying is seen as something that should be its own reward. I want to encourage my players to continue roleplaying so I had to come up with my own version of giving out XP. I still use the XP for a given CR as per the rules as written except that it scaled down by about half. Roleplaying XP and story awards make up the rest along with bonus XP for coming up with things like a battle cry, naming your weapon, etc.

Olaf the Stout
 

Spending three sessions without combat was fairly common for us throughout the campaign. I likewise had to adopt a system which rewarded socializing, uncovering lore and characterization. I eventually ended up using a XP system I picked up in large part from these boards; I believe it was originally Rel's. Maybe he'll stop by here and describe it fully. Maybe there's another thread with it here somewhere.
 

Ambrus said:
Spending three sessions without combat was fairly common for us throughout the campaign. I likewise had to adopt a system which rewarded socializing, uncovering lore and characterization. I eventually ended up using a XP system I picked up in large part from these boards; I believe it was originally Rel's. Maybe he'll stop by here and describe it fully. Maybe there's another thread with it here somewhere.

How exactly do you handle XP? And if you find Rel's example let me know. I'm interested in seeing how other people in a similar situation to mine handle XP.

Olaf the Stout
 

Greetings…

Ice-cream cake? Souvenirs? How come I don’t have a GM that is making me ice cream cake for completing campaigns?

As a side-bar. Personally, I found that adjusting the way that XP is rewarded in-game should only be done when combat is rare. Now, normally, they assume that XP is being rewarded to a party for dealing with one-to-four encounters/situations per session. Personally, I find that quite high, and in my game it pretty much averages out to one or even two encounters per session.

Where as I reward players for dealing with potential problems without conflict with the same amount of XP as I would if they had to fight with these NPCs; I also reward my players for roleplaying and problem-solving and other factors. So, in my table-top game my players generally never complained that they weren’t going up levels fast enough, even when they were just going through adventures and resolving conflicts through diplomacy, skill use and problem-solving.
 

Olaf the Stout said:
How exactly do you handle XP?
In brief, each player has a sheet to fill out during each session. The sheet has nine boxes, each one representing a thematic category:

• Characterization
• Combat
• Extra Effort
• Goals
• Heroics & Sacrifice
• Legends & Lore
• Skills & Abilities
• Socializing
• Puzzles & Plans

The players are responsible for filling the sheets with a brief two or three word description of something they did which meets any applicable category's theme. Only a handful of boxes are usually filled out each session by each player. Later I review the sheets and if I agree that the listed example is good I give the player a mark. If I don't agree I usually write a note explaining why. Any one particular act or action performed can only count for one category. I sometimes give more than one mark for particularly significant or impressive listed actions. Extra effort is the one category which can count for meta-game things which players do which improve the gaming experience for everyone such as bringing snacks, writing character backgrounds, drawing character portraits, leading the players in game related email discussions or anything else which might help out me or the group somehow.

In the end, I tally the marks, and multiply that number by 25 and then multiply the result by the character's current level. Here's an example of how it works out:

5 marks X 17th level X 25 = 2,125 experience points

A character who is one level lower than the highest level PC has this total increased to 125%. A character two levels lower gets a 150%. That way lower level characters eventually catch up to higher level characters over time.

That's about it. I can't recall offhand how Rel's original system differed from this. :\
 

Olaf the Stout said:
By my rough calculations your campaign would have had a similar advancement to what my campaign is at the moment, roughly 1 level every 6 sessions.
Usually you would think that players would complain about that. We have a similar rate of progress in the World's Largest Dungeon - and that is VERY combat focussed. The DM applied the module recommended XP awards based on Encounter Level and not Challenge Ratings. Which is fine as the module is designed with that in mind (I hope!). Everyone enjoys it and gets plenty of time to refine their tactics and skills at the current level before gaining something new to play with. Given that we only play it 11 times a year, it's going to take us a while to finish it :)

Congrats on a great finish for such a lengthy campaign.
 

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