Ending the game at Name level?

[Desdichado]

Oddly enough, in some ways I think higher level play worked better in older editions than it does now. It's practically impossible to run high level characters without a laptop at the table to keep track of everything it seems anymore.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've run games at all levels from 1 to upper teens, and have run some epic sessions with the same characters at mid 20's at even at level 40 or so. It was always the same game. Battles take longer the higher you go. Numbers are bigger. Stakes in the campaign world are higher. But nothing fundamentally changed.

I wouldn't want to run too many epic sessions, but that's mainly the bookkeping hassle.

 

[EightBitAssassin]

The games I'm in get too deadly too early most of the time to get much higher than name level.

 

[KenSeg]

In 20 years of playing with my group I don't think I have ever gotten a character above 13th level. Our DM generally has campaign arcs and they generally are completed between 9th and 11th level on average. Now part of that is my fault as well as by that point I am ready to try another character background and personality.

-KenSeg
gaming since 1978

 

[dagger]

Oddly enough, in some ways I think higher level play worked better in older editions than it does now. It's practically impossible to run high level characters without a laptop at the table to keep track of everything it seems anymore.

I know my 1e DM (and myselft) could run 15th+ games without any books. We also used mini's and Chessex battle mats.

 

[Hussar]

Most campaigns used to end around 9th-11th level--what one person I played with called the "glass ceiling" of AD&D. We didn't purposefully end them at that point, it's just that we either finished the grand story arc of the campaign or (more frequently) other issues came up that caused the game to end there.

These days (3.5), they frequently go into the 'teens. I've yet to see anyone actually hit 20, though, much less beyond.

This pretty much mirror's my experience as well. Name level was always a nice place to retire the campaign and start a new one.

 

[RFisher]

In every edition, campaigns almost always ended (or were suspended/retired) before name level. Not because of any problems we found with higher level play. Just because the campaigns had peaked. We'd accomplished some things & enjoyed the campaign & the PCs, but the DM was ready for a break & the players were ready for some new PCs.

Each campaign I've run tends to be a whole new world as well. I dream of creating an ongoing campaign world. One in which those "retired" PCs are still out there & may be semi-active in ways even if they aren't regularly adventuring.

But I have a really hard time making decisions for a world I'm going to have to live with long-term.

 

[Midknightsun]

From what I remember of my 1ed days, we made to about 12th or 13th level in one of our last campaigns, before putting the characters into semi-retirement. After about two years of playing the same characters twice a week on average, most of us were ready for something new.

 

[Delta]

I know that we never did... and I didn't see any evidence that it was expected that people would end the game at Name level since from supplement 1 (Greyhawk) onwards there were spell levels known lists leading all the way up to 20th level.

First I'll say that effectively I'm in the "dreamed about it but never got there" camp. I was around junior high school for 1E, and we didn't have the travel capacity for a full campaign 1st-teens or anything. We had to make appropriate characters from scratch for the GDQ series, for instance (which is what, 8th-14th level by the end?)

I also agree that it was probably easier to run high levels in older editions, since the sheer number of powers, abilities, feats, etc., didn't multiply for everybody as the levels went up. Nowadays I'd be comfortable with a campaign that capped out at 12th level (i.e., using 6th level spells, as in OD&D boxed set).

But even more telling is that the initial OD&D definitely expected an endless level progression, and assumed that levels, hit points, spell slots, etc., advanced indefinitely in a given pattern. From OD&D Volume I, p. 18-19:

Levels: There is no theoretical limit to how high a character may progress, i.e. 20th level Lord, 20th level Wizard, etc. Distinct names have only been included for the base levels, but this does not influence progression...

Levels Above those Listed: Progressions of Dice for Accumulative Hits, Fighting Capability, and Spells & Levels may not be evident. An 11th level Lord would get 10 +3 dice and fight as he did at the 10th level; but at 12th level, he could get 11 + 1 dice and fight at Superhero + 2...

Spell progression for Magic-Users is: 17th level Wizard — 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5; 18th level Wizard — sixes across the board; and so on. Spell progression for Clerics is: 11th level Patriarch - 4, 4, 4, 3, 3; 12th level Patriarch — fours across the board; 13th level Patriarch — 5, 5, 5, 4, 4; and so on.

 

[Remathilis]

Most of my games would fall apart around that mythic 10-12 anyway (and usually not do to HL play) but I did play in an epic (16-25!) levle 2e game. Its just as big a mess as 3.5 is at HL (moreso IMHO, there are no balance between classes. Compare a 16th level thief to the 17th mage to see what I mean)

However, these days with faster leveling, I'd just like HL balanced a bit better (so close guys. Fix stacking effects and HL spells!) and I'd love to see 1-20 properly done.