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Hypothetical: What would your Ultimate (and Final) D&D Campaign Look Like?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
Oh...missed the line about it occurring over the course of one year. I wouldn't do that if there were an ELE sized meteor headed for the North Pole.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Missed this in the OP.
These two requirements are in complete opposition to each other. A true campaign barely gets nicely going in a year (about 45 sessions, on average), and to get to level 10 - about as high as our games usually get - takes more like 8-11 years.
The listed requirements put a campaign on a pace to level up every 5 sessions at the slowest (10 levels over 50 sessions) and every session (!) at the fastest (20 levels in 20 sessions). And that's just silly talk.
Lan-"if I-as-character had levelled in each played session I'd have blown past deity status long ago"-efan
Mercurius
Legend
I agree that one level per session is too fast (for my tastes), but one every five sessions being "silly talk?" I think you'll find yourself in the minority there. If I remember correctly WotC did a poll about leveling up and the most common preference was once per three sessons, with once per four just a bit behind, and once per two also receiving votes. Once per five sessions is on the slow side for most - and one level per year is a mutant snail-sloth.
While I can't speak to the accuracy of their survey (or your recollection of it), I know our group progresses variably. Our one and only 4Ed campaign started in late 2009 or early 2010, and finished in late 2013. Our characters went from 1st to 6th. The prior 3.5Ed campaign made it to 13th in about the same amount of time.
A lot of factors go into that.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
Rocks fall: everybody dies.
It might need some work.
It might need some work.
Mercurius
Legend
Perhaps the most important of which is frequency of sessions. If I was to run a game once per week, a level every 4-6 sessions would be perfect, or every month, month and a half. But my last campaign, a sporadic 4e game that ran for about 3 years, met about once a month on average, or around 10-15 times a year. I had them level up every 2-3 sessions, which turned about to be about once every two months. If I had them level up every 4-6 sessions, it could be as much as half a year between levels and, well, frankly life is just too short for that.
samursus
Explorer
I have had a campaign idea percolating for years. PCs come from a ziggurat city in its decline, dealing with a nightly assault by undead rising from the surrounding desert. The losses in the fighting are slowing decimating the population and they haven't been in contact with the other ziggurat cities for generations. Every expedition sent out to make contact or find a better place to live has never returned. The society had become tightly regimented... No racial prejudice is allowed... But knowledge is being lost as the population dies and the city is falling apart, it's magical and technological marvels from the distant past failing. The PCs would form one of a dozen or so specially trained units created to shore up the main body of defenders... Also meant to take out the more power undead leaders that would occasionally arise.
The first levels would involve defending the wall as well as discovering what little is known of the world and cities history. Plus the intrigue among the city factions.
Eventually around level 5 or so they would be let in on how truly desperate things have become. And they would leave the city to attempt look for help or find a place for the cities inhabitant's to escape to. Or find out if they are the only ones left.
This would lead to a sandbox style where the PCs can explore the world and discover what exactly happened... And what, if anything lies outside the desert. All the while knowing that more of their people are dying each night.
I expect at some point that they will return and lead their people to another city or location. This would play out as a mass exodus a la Battlestar Galactica for a level or 2.
From there would be discovery of the "secret history" that would lead the players to fix the world/reform the empire/take down the BBEG/bring back the gods.
Throw in a few side quests/plots and that's my dream campaign.
The first levels would involve defending the wall as well as discovering what little is known of the world and cities history. Plus the intrigue among the city factions.
Eventually around level 5 or so they would be let in on how truly desperate things have become. And they would leave the city to attempt look for help or find a place for the cities inhabitant's to escape to. Or find out if they are the only ones left.
This would lead to a sandbox style where the PCs can explore the world and discover what exactly happened... And what, if anything lies outside the desert. All the while knowing that more of their people are dying each night.
I expect at some point that they will return and lead their people to another city or location. This would play out as a mass exodus a la Battlestar Galactica for a level or 2.
From there would be discovery of the "secret history" that would lead the players to fix the world/reform the empire/take down the BBEG/bring back the gods.
Throw in a few side quests/plots and that's my dream campaign.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Yep, silly talk.
If you're referring to the pre-3e WotC survey, keep in mind that by design it excluded most long-term gamers (the responses of anyone who self-identified as age 35+ in the survey were thrown out) and thus skewed its results considerably toward a shorter-term game geared to younger players.
If you're referring to a later poll, I haven't seen it.
Over the long term I've found our games *on average* go up about a level a year. Individual characters invariably go faster, but death-and-replacements, retirements, etc. slow the overall progression down.
Lanefan
