Not by design, but by practice we usually ended our campaigns about the time the highest level characters hit 10th-12th level (which is more-or-less name level, depending on your class). It was a combination of boredom (by the time a character hit that level you'd likely been playing him for 2 or 3 years and were ready for a change), plateau effect (it takes a ton of XP to gain each level and unless you're a spell-caster you don't get much to show for it ("2 more hit points, whoopee!") so the drive to keep leveling up diminishes), demi-human level limits (when the guys playing dwarves and elves can't advance anymore and are effectively left out of future adventures, you start looking for things to play that can include everybody), and at least in my case (can't speak for everybody else) a bit of plain old fear -- after devoting dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of play over several years and watching these characters grow up from 1st level I'd grown attached to them and didn't really want to see them get killed -- better to declare a character safely "retired" than to risk permanent death with no chance of resurrection in the Tomb of Horrors or some such. We'd occasionally pull these high level characters out for one-off "event" adventures on special occasions, but not for actual day-to-day standard campaign play.
Ending the game at Name level?
- Thread starter Plane Sailing
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Arashi Ravenblade
First Post
nope never ended our games at named level. Ive played as high as 146th level and Dmed up to 36. There really isnt that much difference if you know what your doing. Ive been able to challenge the 36th average level party with 15th level Npc's and mooks.
Course I do understand that sometimes its more work than its worth to try and challenge the party.
Course I do understand that sometimes its more work than its worth to try and challenge the party.
kaomera
Explorer
I voted "yes". However, by the end of my run of DMing 1e we did have several groups that had made it to 12th or 13th levels. Early on I don't think any group ever survived completely intact to 3rd level, and I don't think I ever saw a group get to 6th without at least one unrecoverable fatality. When attrition rendered a party non-viable (either due to composition or low numbers) the characters where retired; I saw this happen as early as 5th level in some cases. However, we also saw a lot of retired characters get back into the game at a later date. Generally unless the character had very poor stats (and had somehow still survived) at some point it would either be brought back to replace a dead character (often characters would be swapped between players in this case) or if you had the opportunity to get in on an existing party. It wasn't for about 4 or 5 years until we actually hit upon the novel concept of just rolling characters above first level; and even then they came into the game "naked", with only normal starting gold. As such un-retiring an existing character was generally preferable to rolling a new one.
Empire-building and such never really caught on with most of the players I gamed with. There where a few DMs who engaged in that sort of things, but I generally preferred to do "actual adventuring", on either side of the screen. Retired characters where sometimes used as DMPCs, personally I had a strict rule as a DM that none of my characters could enter my campaign. This was largely because I was very proud of some of my BBEGs, whom I supposed would not survive meeting some of my higher-level PCs. Of course it didn't really matter much, since most of my BBEGs didn't survive an encounter with my players' (much lower level) PCs either...
We did occasionally have someone put together a big one-shot "Threat to the World!" type scenario, and several (or often more) of us would dust off whatever higher-level characters we had to join in. Most of these where three or four session adventures with one huge (and usually very chaotic) battle at the end. Players where given the option to level their character after one of these big to-dos, in lieu of actually trying to calculate XP totals. I rarely did, usually only if I had a specific purpose to bumping one of my characters up...
One such purpose was that we often had players who would arrange "death matches" between their retired PCs. This was out of the urge to see which of them was actually better, and as such having an 11th level Master Thief take on a Warlock was kind of pointless. These competitions rarely resorted to any real rules or play, being instead talked-out with whatever DM was available when other gaming wasn't going on. Aside from figuring out who was strongest these also allowed players to concentrate their magic item resources...
Empire-building and such never really caught on with most of the players I gamed with. There where a few DMs who engaged in that sort of things, but I generally preferred to do "actual adventuring", on either side of the screen. Retired characters where sometimes used as DMPCs, personally I had a strict rule as a DM that none of my characters could enter my campaign. This was largely because I was very proud of some of my BBEGs, whom I supposed would not survive meeting some of my higher-level PCs. Of course it didn't really matter much, since most of my BBEGs didn't survive an encounter with my players' (much lower level) PCs either...
We did occasionally have someone put together a big one-shot "Threat to the World!" type scenario, and several (or often more) of us would dust off whatever higher-level characters we had to join in. Most of these where three or four session adventures with one huge (and usually very chaotic) battle at the end. Players where given the option to level their character after one of these big to-dos, in lieu of actually trying to calculate XP totals. I rarely did, usually only if I had a specific purpose to bumping one of my characters up...
One such purpose was that we often had players who would arrange "death matches" between their retired PCs. This was out of the urge to see which of them was actually better, and as such having an 11th level Master Thief take on a Warlock was kind of pointless. These competitions rarely resorted to any real rules or play, being instead talked-out with whatever DM was available when other gaming wasn't going on. Aside from figuring out who was strongest these also allowed players to concentrate their magic item resources...
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Our campaigns tend to end around 10th-ish level mostly because by that time they've been going for 10+ years and the DM (me, sometimes) has had enough. That, and the power creep has become a power gallop...try as one might to slow it down, it always seems to end up working out that way.
Highest level any PCs in my games got to was 12th...congratulations Araglas and Leshendra.
Lanefan
Highest level any PCs in my games got to was 12th...congratulations Araglas and Leshendra.
Lanefan
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Hypersmurf said:
Most of our 1e play was along similar lines - we would all have a 'stable' of characters, of different levels. By the time we switched to RuneQuest I think my 'character book' contained a 17th Ranger, a 23rd Wizard, a 4th Bard, a 6th Barbarian, a 5th Ninja, a 7th Paladin, an 11th Druid and a 12th Cleric/9th Monk dual classed character.
(The Barbarian class came from an early issue of White Dwarf magazine, the Ninja class came from Underworld Oracle magazine, I don't recall where the Bard class came from)
Cheers
HolyGrenadeFrenzy
Explorer
Yes, I have done any and all of those things for different reasons. When stopped and new build rebiggins,it has sometimes been because of players wanting to try something else or the characters are too busy with life so players want to start a new character. Many times it is because a DM is unwilling to run such a game as one that dares to be over a single level digit. But at last things take shape where the survival and conditions are right and the Hack and Slashers want to try something new or they simplily are not in your game anymore.
It has largely depended on the group and their ablity to play the mechanics in an effecient manner vs. their adversaries on one end and their ablities as players to role play situations on the other. Other than that, it has usually depended on frequency of play.........Most campaigns never see anything above 8th to 12th. Yet, some games go on to Epic level of play.
I don't really have difficulty keeping it challenging at those higher levels of play although characters are fairly easy to kill off at lower levels of play. So, much easier that "accidents" can kill all the original party members off in a few sessions if the players or characters are not catching on to even a simple trap.......If someone dies and can not report what has taken place I see no reason to reveal it completely, the method of death without full disclosure is often best.
Higher levels of play do have different approaches to many things yet it is every bit as playable and allows for many different settling in of responsiblity demands upon the characters as they learn that being responsible for a small successful adventuring band was only the beginning of their troubles and was in fact far easier and simpler before their success and enlightenments.
Basically the old addage of "With great power comes great responsiblity" & "To whom much is given much is required" comes into play full blast and the DMs job changes yet is often even more fun as being a nuisance and informer of "issues" becomes a mostly role playing issue and less to do with mechanics until things really warm up!
Fun times all round. Retirement? If characters are still alive after being blessed with a life, that hasn't ended, to give them position in a world; then they could be so lucky......Time to show them why being a nobody was easy! zzzzzzzzzing. Ha!
I could give details on how recording sessions can haunt players later when you start doing to them what they have been doing to other High ups! HA
I have had my own DMs do the same to me........and I enjoyed every bit of it on both sides of the gaming table.
The mixed levels keeps things interesting and honestly more realistic.
I say,"If they endure, keep the campaign alive long enough to become a burden to your players!".......If you do that well they will love you for it!
HGF
It has largely depended on the group and their ablity to play the mechanics in an effecient manner vs. their adversaries on one end and their ablities as players to role play situations on the other. Other than that, it has usually depended on frequency of play.........Most campaigns never see anything above 8th to 12th. Yet, some games go on to Epic level of play.
I don't really have difficulty keeping it challenging at those higher levels of play although characters are fairly easy to kill off at lower levels of play. So, much easier that "accidents" can kill all the original party members off in a few sessions if the players or characters are not catching on to even a simple trap.......If someone dies and can not report what has taken place I see no reason to reveal it completely, the method of death without full disclosure is often best.
Higher levels of play do have different approaches to many things yet it is every bit as playable and allows for many different settling in of responsiblity demands upon the characters as they learn that being responsible for a small successful adventuring band was only the beginning of their troubles and was in fact far easier and simpler before their success and enlightenments.
Basically the old addage of "With great power comes great responsiblity" & "To whom much is given much is required" comes into play full blast and the DMs job changes yet is often even more fun as being a nuisance and informer of "issues" becomes a mostly role playing issue and less to do with mechanics until things really warm up!
Fun times all round. Retirement? If characters are still alive after being blessed with a life, that hasn't ended, to give them position in a world; then they could be so lucky......Time to show them why being a nobody was easy! zzzzzzzzzing. Ha!
I could give details on how recording sessions can haunt players later when you start doing to them what they have been doing to other High ups! HA
I have had my own DMs do the same to me........and I enjoyed every bit of it on both sides of the gaming table.
The mixed levels keeps things interesting and honestly more realistic.
I say,"If they endure, keep the campaign alive long enough to become a burden to your players!".......If you do that well they will love you for it!
HGF
Last edited:
Jack Daniel
Legend
When I play, I use BECM and not B/X, but even still, my games never seem to get much past expert-level play. Name level never heralds the end of the game; pulling out the green Companion rulebooks is usually what does.
From about 9th to 15th level or so, the player characters are usually well on their way to completeing the final quests and cleaning up the BBEGs. They have a few levels to enjoy being paladins and quivering-palmers and casters-of-the-6th-level-spells, but it's really, really rare to see one of my campaigns go any farther than than (and probably because of this, I can remember any instance where a player character decided to be a "land-owner" instead of a "traveler" -- where a fighter settled for being a simple lord rather than a paladin, for example, or where a wizard built a dungeon or priest built a temple -- they always just keep adventuring).
From about 9th to 15th level or so, the player characters are usually well on their way to completeing the final quests and cleaning up the BBEGs. They have a few levels to enjoy being paladins and quivering-palmers and casters-of-the-6th-level-spells, but it's really, really rare to see one of my campaigns go any farther than than (and probably because of this, I can remember any instance where a player character decided to be a "land-owner" instead of a "traveler" -- where a fighter settled for being a simple lord rather than a paladin, for example, or where a wizard built a dungeon or priest built a temple -- they always just keep adventuring).
Son_of_Thunder
Explorer
Jack Daniel said:
Dude, I envy you. I would so love to play BECM.
Philotomy Jurament
First Post
What's stopping you?Son_of_Thunder said:
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