CM
Adventurer
[ramble: ON]
Well, let's see. I started running a heavily modified Against the Giants: the Liberation of Geoff campaign at my FLGS in November 2002. It's been going weekly since then, and I can only remember two times we had to cancel sessions, so that comes to about 117 or so.
The characters began at 1st and are currently closing in on 16th. I have eight regular players and at least six who have come and gone. Most of the players still play their original characters, but two or three have put theirs into semi-retirement to try something new.
This is probably the most rewarding campaign I've ever run, since I did something different at character creation: I made everyone submit at least a few paragraphs of background, and then worked with them to tie their character into the invasion storyline. What's really exciting is that the long-running "core" characters of the campaign are finally beginning to resolve their story arcs that were hinted at all the way back in 2002. I guess that's the maturation process from a powergamer into a storyteller.
It seems that heavily investing a character in the storyline is a good way to deter a player from continually retiring characters and bringing out a new "hot rod" character every month. That or I have good players. 
As an aside, one thing I like to do is take over retired player characters and re-introduce them as NPCs sometime in the future. One barbarian character recently left the party suddenly and without warning so the player could bring in a psion. With the player's blessing I'm going to have the barbarian return as a tragic villain, the victim of a dark pact he made earlier to save his hide from a terrible curse.
Anyway, as the realities of high-level play sank in, I had a hard time balancing encounters for a party of 8-9 high-level characters, so I decided to split them into two groups starting January 1st of this year. Now both groups act independently of each other but are both working toward their goal of liberating the dale of the giants. Each team has two weeks on and two weeks off, and it seems to be working well so far. I estimate the campaign will begin to wind down as they near 20th level and finally drive the giants out. I am starting to sow the seeds of an even greater threat to their safety however, so that leaves me the option of coming back for an epic mini-campaign in the future.
Well, let's see. I started running a heavily modified Against the Giants: the Liberation of Geoff campaign at my FLGS in November 2002. It's been going weekly since then, and I can only remember two times we had to cancel sessions, so that comes to about 117 or so.
The characters began at 1st and are currently closing in on 16th. I have eight regular players and at least six who have come and gone. Most of the players still play their original characters, but two or three have put theirs into semi-retirement to try something new.
This is probably the most rewarding campaign I've ever run, since I did something different at character creation: I made everyone submit at least a few paragraphs of background, and then worked with them to tie their character into the invasion storyline. What's really exciting is that the long-running "core" characters of the campaign are finally beginning to resolve their story arcs that were hinted at all the way back in 2002. I guess that's the maturation process from a powergamer into a storyteller.
It seems that heavily investing a character in the storyline is a good way to deter a player from continually retiring characters and bringing out a new "hot rod" character every month. That or I have good players. As an aside, one thing I like to do is take over retired player characters and re-introduce them as NPCs sometime in the future. One barbarian character recently left the party suddenly and without warning so the player could bring in a psion. With the player's blessing I'm going to have the barbarian return as a tragic villain, the victim of a dark pact he made earlier to save his hide from a terrible curse.
Anyway, as the realities of high-level play sank in, I had a hard time balancing encounters for a party of 8-9 high-level characters, so I decided to split them into two groups starting January 1st of this year. Now both groups act independently of each other but are both working toward their goal of liberating the dale of the giants. Each team has two weeks on and two weeks off, and it seems to be working well so far. I estimate the campaign will begin to wind down as they near 20th level and finally drive the giants out. I am starting to sow the seeds of an even greater threat to their safety however, so that leaves me the option of coming back for an epic mini-campaign in the future.
