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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AlViking" data-source="post: 9716140" data-attributes="member: 6906980">My last main campaign lasted for 4 years and went to 20.  My current campaign has been going for a 1.5 years and is still going strong.  Looking back at a couple others, I'd say the campaigns I run tend to average 3-4 years.  We generally spend 4-6 hours playing per session, and lately we've only averaged once per month even if I'd like to meet more frequently.  I use milestone leveling and level up every 2-3 sessions, occasionally stretching to 4 because I prefer to have significant downtime between levels to reflect training and whatnot.I'm not sure why my campaigns tend to run as long as they do but I suspect that it's a few things.  <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I run sandbox games.  General themes may emerge after a few sessions but I let the campaign go in whatever directions the players want.  The goals of my campaigns change and shifted depending on what made sense for the ongoing fiction of the world providing different challenges and opportunities.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sometimes there's planar incursions or aberrations from the far realms, other times it's all contained in the material realm.  The campaign before last had an ancient red dragon declaring himself emperor trying to take over a region and building an army of half-dragons.  Even in a single campaign there are shifts in tone and what challenges the players face.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I allow people to swap out characters whenever they want I prefer that the change make sense but we can usually figure that out.  Frequently the player takes over some already established NPC.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I limit some spells, making long distance teleportation and plane shifting more difficult so the characters can't just bop around the multiverse.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I've never been afraid to turn up the threat level to 11. While the characters sometimes completely obliterate the enemy, other times there are multiple characters knocked to 0 even at the highest levels.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I don't tie any campaign theme or goal to one specific character to the degree that the campaign would suffer if the player has to drop out.</li> </ul>Since my campaigns average 3.5 years, if other people's campaigns are averaging 6 months then those other groups are going to have 7 campaigns to my 1.  So of course statistically short run campaigns will dominate.  I'm just glad they continue to support high level campaigns, even if I think they could do far more.</blockquote>

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