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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7951864" data-attributes="member: 29398">It can be done in 3e - I played in one - but it requires a bit of system mashing to accomplish.  The same principles might work in 4e and more likely would work in 5e.First - and everything else hinges on this - slow down the level advance rate!  Either reduce each encounter's xp by a factor of 4 or 5, or multiply all the bump points by 4 or 5.  Even if you do nothing else at all, this alone will give you headroom to run much longer.Having done this, you need to know that any sense of wealth-by-level will almost immediately go bye-bye unless you also become extremely Scrooge-ish with found treasure (which ain't no fun at all!), and you'\ll find you're constantly having to adjust CRs and-or ELs to account for the extra wealth they'll likely accumulate.You'll probably also find that some published adventures are one or both of too easy at the start and too hard at the end, as the module expects mid-adventure level bumps which in this case won't happen.It doesn't stop it, but it sure slows it down.Allow me to give a hypothetical example that very vaguely mirrors the start of my current campaign (I'll ignore PC deaths, but see below).  I'll s-block it because it's kinda long...[SPOILER]Campaign start.Adventure 1: 4 players, each running two PCs.  PCs are still 1st level after this.Party splits in half, each player putting one PC in each half A and B.  Now you've got two parties.Each player rolls up two more PCs and adds one to each party.  Now they each have 4 active PCs.  OR, more players come in; now maybe you've got 6 total players, two unique to each party and two who overlap (this last only works if you're able to run two games a week; for these purposes let's say there's no new players)Party B gets put on hold.Adventure 2 (Party A): 4 players, each running two PCs.  PCs are 1st-2nd level after this (they don't all bump in unison here as xp are done individually).Adventure 3 (Party A): continues from Adv 2, PCs all 2nd level after this, maybe one or two 3rds.Party A gets put on hold during between-adventure downtime (very important that downtime is required for treasury division and training, in part because it's an easy way for you to fudge time a bit). Switch to Party B.Adventure 4 (Party B): just like Adv 2 except with a different crew of PCs.Adventure 5 (Party B): just like Adv 3.Now, provided you-as-DM have been on top of your careful manipulation of time, Party B get to town while Party A is there.  Now the real fun begins: there's people in each party who know and remember each other from running together back in Adv 1, thus there's a built-in in-game reason why these two parties would meet and be introduced to each other.And now you're set. You've got a large pool of characters who all know each other and who, in some way, have a common root and who can form into parties however they players desire. All you need to do is keep feeding them adventures, and - importantly! - more than one at a time so there's incentive to send multiple parties into the field. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Then, you just run those parties one at a time, bouncing back and forth until another mass-meeting opportunity arises; lather, rinse, repeat.Players who don't want to run two PCs side-along can now drop down to one, retiring their other(s) who may then form into other parties later, and so forth.  Players will also probably cycle their PCs in and out over time, depending what they want to play and-or what a particular party might need in its lineup.PC deaths slow this all down even more, as replacement PCs come in at lower level (probably raw 1st in these adventures) and thus provide another form of anchor on the overall advance rate.  The only real headache can be if all the veterans from Adv 1 in either of Party A or B die off before the two groups can meet again later, after (in this example) Adv 5.From a real-world timing perspective, you've now run 5 adventures.  At low levels and including downtime our norm is that an adventure usually takes between 6-10 sessions, with an occasional extreme outlier that gets well into the 20s. (in my current campaign this was the equivalent of Adv 1 here, 22 sessions of nibbling at Keep on the Borderlands when they weren't fighting each other)So, assuming all follow the norm 5 adventures means you're 30-50 sessions in; if you meet weekly and - like most of us - have about 1 session in 6 that for some reason doesn't or can't sail, you're approaching if not already at the one-year point in real time.  And best of all, even after this long your PCs are mostly still just 2nd level![/SPOILER]The one very important - nay, essential - buy-in this requires of the players is that they come to see level advance as nothing more than an occasional pleasant side-effect of ongoing play, rather than the reason for it.  With some players who are used to rapid level advancement, I won't sugar-coat that getting this buy-in can present a severe challenge.</blockquote>

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