It's a long way to the top, if you want to reach 20th level. *music*

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I'd like some advice. The vast majority of campaigns that I'm involved in (Either run or played) go from 1-7th level and finish (And when I'm not GMing, tend to peter out about 4th level.) Our group is keen on actually finishing a campaign for once so I stepped up to it.

So I'm just about to finish a WoT campaign. I've probably only 1 or 2 adventures left, and I'm not continuing the game due to the nature of the WoT universe. It means we will have actually finished a campaign. (Six odd years now and all of.. two finished campaigns, small or large. More one-shots than can be counted, though.)

And we are just about to finish. My next campaign I have planned I want it to go from 1st to 20th level in a standard D+D universe. I have a home base and a basic background area for everyone to wander around in.

1st to 8th isn't a hassle. I have several metaplots going that I intend to resolve around 12th level and let the characters deal with the Shattered Peace booklet, however they will.

I'm thinking about changing magic to the Arcana Unearthed style, though. I'm uncertain about a full change to that setting, though I am leaning in that direction.

My plan is like this.

1-4th. Deal with a group of hobgoblins who are raiding the trade route between Marchion and the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. Find out all about Marchion, it's history, and work for it's leader Dernavel Krakdfang. Find out vaguely about the CS and the wars it goes on about. Find out about the terrain around Marchion. Get party to work together. Find out about local slave ring that are using the Hobgobs to capture slaves and sell them to the CS for big gobs of cash. Deal with Hobgob leader and re-negotiate peace with the tribes there, as there was before. Dernavel does not capitulate on slavery laws with the CS and is attacked on his way down river by a group of well equipped bandits. PC's protecting Dernavel. Famed around Marchion for stopping the HG chieftains ambition.

4th-8th. Pirates! Marchion's trade is dropping like an anchor. Saltwell, a small town, has been captured by the self dubbed Pirate-Lord Santiddio Galfanandez and is holding Marchion captive. The PC's start to learn that swords are not neccesarily the best way to go about things, especially when the pirates have water-breating tamed dragons on their side. PC's grab warship and crew and do the derring-do thing for awhile, protecting trade ships and destroying pirates as they go. Taste of leadership happening. They eventually track down the Pirate-Lord's fleet and find it's actually a privateer fleet sailing under a pirate flag. The pirates were ordered to destroy trade to Marchion, but leave all ships to be able to get to the CS. (Also in line with the CS's expansionist ideals. Dernavel Crackdfang walks a fine line between letting the CS have it's way and letting his people have freedom from it's opressive taxes and laws.)

8th-10th. Dernavel Krakdfang dies to old age. PC's (Heroes now) return to Marchion to find the orcish tribes are being stirred up by an odd climate change, forcing their attentions south (Marchion) rather than northeast (The CS). Without a unifying force and under an inept new mayor, the CS pressing for Marchion to become subsidiary and trade being cut off, tensions in Marchion hit fever levels. Underlying racial tensions mount as the orcs begin to close in; if the city burns itself from the inside, it can't help from the outside. PC's learn that swords cut things. But what is cut gets replaced, stronger and tougher than before. The PC's either save marchion from itself (And therefore the Orcs) or Marchion is sacked with racial tension causing mass riots and murders even before the orc army gets anywhere. The CS marches in after defeating the orcs and enforces it's rule with a cruel governor.



Thats my plan so far. But after this things get shifty; I've never had a high level party before, and I'm uncertain as to what potential they have. (They have a light-fighter/magic-user type group.) How can I get such a campaign to 20th level without it burning around my ears? What are some good suggestions for such a high level game?

In other words; how do I run a high level game properly?

 

[S'mon]

Wars with tens or hundreds of thousands of combatants work well for high level campaigns; the PCs can't just kill the entire enemy army.

I'd say don't attempt to script the high-level plot, but have events planned, and some potential adventures. Let the PCs do whatever they want, and the 1e approach of encouraging them to get involved in the campaign world and put their stamp on it as rulers, guildmasters etc is a good one. Fighters can become Kings, Clerics High Priests or Theocrats, Wizards revered Archmages like Merlin. Dungeons can be things like the enemy king's fortress rather than random hole # 783. Planar travel & teleportation lets you include adventures anywhere you want.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I would agree with you, s'mon, if I had different players.

My players lap up plot like plot-lapping monkeys and when given free reign either split for far ends of the globe individually or sit around like stunned mullets. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but still.

I understand how power at those levels can be insane as well. I tend not to use dungeons (As in, underground buildings filled with monsters holding treasure) anyway, and I'm not bad at scripting combat so as not to be stupidly over or underwhelming.

Any examples of how over 9th level campaigns tend to go?

 

[S'mon]

The big problems I encountered in my last 3e campaign, the Borderlands Campaign, were:

1. players feeling that the plot/dungeon was beneath the dignity of their high-level PCs, too mundane/trivial/easy

2. Whenever it wasn't trivially easy PCs were getting permanently killed a lot.

I found 'balance' to be a nightmare in high-level 3e. Battles were always heavily lopsided one way or the other. My solution was to return to 1e paradigm and not worry much about such things.

I can't offer much advice on plots other than to reiterate that IME it's best to have events, not plots, and let the PCs decide how to react to them. At high level it's impossible to channel the PCs without causing lots of frustration. They have too many options, too much magic.

That said, a solution might be to buy a heavily plotted mega-campaign like Grim Tales' Slave Lords of Cydonia or Mongoose's The Drow War, & see how they do it.