Long campaigns
- Thread starter Quasqueton
- Start date
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
The Sign of Four (2e) weekly for 1 1/2 years - Started at 1st level - 8th level
The Oath (2e) weekly for 2 1/2 years and then less frequently for another year - Started at 1st level - 8th level
"Out of the Frying Pan" (3.x) every other week for one month shy of five years - Started at 1st level - 11th level
And to the supplemental question: No.
The Oath (2e) weekly for 2 1/2 years and then less frequently for another year - Started at 1st level - 8th level
"Out of the Frying Pan" (3.x) every other week for one month shy of five years - Started at 1st level - 11th level
And to the supplemental question: No.
My current Epic game has been going continuously, more or less weekly (I say "more or less" because a session gets cancelled now and then for minor annoyances like, say, Christmas, Thanksgiving, too many people being unable to make the game, etc.) for slightly less than 6 years. It started way back in April of 2001; I still have log files from those sessions today and could in theory string the whole thing together for one continuous read. It's be a long one- the logs currently take up roughly 50 MB of my hard drive, and that's pure text- no other file types.
Several party members of that game have come and gone over the years, but the core of the group has remained the same since about level 8- and one group member was in the very first session with four people getting together at 1st level to try out this newfangled 3rd Edition of D&D (the psionic elf who specialized in item creation). The next core member (the party tank/melee Greatsword specialist) joined at 3rd level, and the party dragon joined when the PCs were 4th (she came in as a Wyrmling at the time). Next, the party Bard joined around 8th level when the party arrived in an extraplanar city after being rescued from certain death on their first extraplanar trip by another band of adventurers (we ran said other group as a one-shot right before Gen Con of 2002 for reasons I won't go into here- the rescue fo the "main" party was really just a bonus of that game). Finally, the party's sorceress/blaster mage started at 8th, a month after the Bard in real time, as a replacement character for an archer that the player wanted to retire both for roleplaying reasons (he'd just been messily killed by an archmage and resurrected) and because the player himself wanted to try something new.
The party is an average of 31st level now, with several members including the tank and sorceress being 32nd. The tank is a Fighter with most of his levels actually being in a homebrew prestige class geared towards mobile combat and extreme bursts of speed. The elf is a Psion (Shaper) with 3 levels of Sangehirn (WotC 'Psionic healer' prestige class from Mind's Eye articles) and most of his levels in a homebrew prestige class called Mindsmith which is the item creation specialty I mentioned. The dragon kept going as a pure dragon, since I'm using rules similar to the articles from Dragons #320 and #332 which allow dragon characters to gain age categories by advancing levels in the Dragon class- she's now effectively age category Ancient. The Bard has stayed as a pure Bard all the way up to the stratospheric heights of 31st level (well, 30th with her racial LA), and has quite a lot of spectacular stories to tell these days. Finally, the sorceress went through a period of getting to know her (primitive, tribal) people again after some years of living in exile, and starting at 22nd took levels of Favored Soul of the Nature goddess (by my house rules this means she actually uses the Druid list for spells rather than Cleric), and followed up with Mystic Theurge once she qualified. So she's an extremely powerful spellcaster now, effectively a 28th-level Sorcerer/11th-level Favored Soul with Druid spells.
So to answer the follow-up question- yes, yes I have seen a character go all the way from 1st to 20th.
The elf in my Epic game has actually gone from 1st to 31st.
This is certainly the longest game I've ever personally run, and one of the longest I've ever heard of from others. I still have some old, ridiculously-long-running overarching background plots that can generate adventure ideas for years to come, but in recent days nearly all of the adventure plots have been coming from consequences of actions the PCs took in previous adventures. I intend to keep it going as long as we still have fun, for however long that means.
Several party members of that game have come and gone over the years, but the core of the group has remained the same since about level 8- and one group member was in the very first session with four people getting together at 1st level to try out this newfangled 3rd Edition of D&D (the psionic elf who specialized in item creation). The next core member (the party tank/melee Greatsword specialist) joined at 3rd level, and the party dragon joined when the PCs were 4th (she came in as a Wyrmling at the time). Next, the party Bard joined around 8th level when the party arrived in an extraplanar city after being rescued from certain death on their first extraplanar trip by another band of adventurers (we ran said other group as a one-shot right before Gen Con of 2002 for reasons I won't go into here- the rescue fo the "main" party was really just a bonus of that game). Finally, the party's sorceress/blaster mage started at 8th, a month after the Bard in real time, as a replacement character for an archer that the player wanted to retire both for roleplaying reasons (he'd just been messily killed by an archmage and resurrected) and because the player himself wanted to try something new.
The party is an average of 31st level now, with several members including the tank and sorceress being 32nd. The tank is a Fighter with most of his levels actually being in a homebrew prestige class geared towards mobile combat and extreme bursts of speed. The elf is a Psion (Shaper) with 3 levels of Sangehirn (WotC 'Psionic healer' prestige class from Mind's Eye articles) and most of his levels in a homebrew prestige class called Mindsmith which is the item creation specialty I mentioned. The dragon kept going as a pure dragon, since I'm using rules similar to the articles from Dragons #320 and #332 which allow dragon characters to gain age categories by advancing levels in the Dragon class- she's now effectively age category Ancient. The Bard has stayed as a pure Bard all the way up to the stratospheric heights of 31st level (well, 30th with her racial LA), and has quite a lot of spectacular stories to tell these days. Finally, the sorceress went through a period of getting to know her (primitive, tribal) people again after some years of living in exile, and starting at 22nd took levels of Favored Soul of the Nature goddess (by my house rules this means she actually uses the Druid list for spells rather than Cleric), and followed up with Mystic Theurge once she qualified. So she's an extremely powerful spellcaster now, effectively a 28th-level Sorcerer/11th-level Favored Soul with Druid spells.
So to answer the follow-up question- yes, yes I have seen a character go all the way from 1st to 20th.
The elf in my Epic game has actually gone from 1st to 31st.This is certainly the longest game I've ever personally run, and one of the longest I've ever heard of from others. I still have some old, ridiculously-long-running overarching background plots that can generate adventure ideas for years to come, but in recent days nearly all of the adventure plots have been coming from consequences of actions the PCs took in previous adventures. I intend to keep it going as long as we still have fun, for however long that means.
DragonLancer
Hero
Quasqueton said:
In the SC campaign that I just finished running a couple weeks ago, the party went from 1st through to 20th over the 18 months it took to play.
Yes. See above.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
In various 1e-based games, I've seen several get from "raw" 1st (i.e. 0 ExP) to 10th (one *almost* made 11th but the game ended). That said, we've only ever had 2 PC's get to 12th, and all those who made 11th or higher either started higher than 1st, or (in one case) started at 1st, retired, and wasn't seen again until 7th.
In our 3e game, I've got a PC up to 10th from raw 1st; and if we can ever mop up all the loose ends from the current adventure the "dungeon bonus" ExP should get her to 11th.
Lanefan
In our 3e game, I've got a PC up to 10th from raw 1st; and if we can ever mop up all the loose ends from the current adventure the "dungeon bonus" ExP should get her to 11th.
Lanefan
In my D&D campaigns, the longest one has been 1st - 18th
In a Rolemaster campaign that ran for over 2 years it was 1st - 29th.
I really do prefer long campaigns but they are the most difficult to maintain. The fact that I also suffer from DM - ADD and want to switch settings at the drop of a hat is also a problem.
In a Rolemaster campaign that ran for over 2 years it was 1st - 29th.
I really do prefer long campaigns but they are the most difficult to maintain. The fact that I also suffer from DM - ADD and want to switch settings at the drop of a hat is also a problem.
Herpes Cineplex
First Post
I think we played one campaign where the characters went from 2nd to 11th level, which was pretty much the highest-level, longest-running D&D game we ever did.
Two things in particular make it unlikely that we'll ever surpass that record:
1. No one likes fantasy settings enough to want to run one continuously for more than a few months (or even to play in one, for that matter); given that someone's usually willing to step in and run a game in a genre that our group likes better, it's always easy for a D&D game to reach a stopping point just so we can switch to a different game.
2. The person who's most likely to run a D&D game doesn't like running them for higher-level characters. By the time PCs get to 6th level, he starts actively looking for a way to end the game. (It's partly because of this that I am now firmly set against playing low-level D&D ever again. We've officially done that to goddamn death, and I want no part of it.)
--
but the first reason is the most significant one, really
ryan
Two things in particular make it unlikely that we'll ever surpass that record:
1. No one likes fantasy settings enough to want to run one continuously for more than a few months (or even to play in one, for that matter); given that someone's usually willing to step in and run a game in a genre that our group likes better, it's always easy for a D&D game to reach a stopping point just so we can switch to a different game.
2. The person who's most likely to run a D&D game doesn't like running them for higher-level characters. By the time PCs get to 6th level, he starts actively looking for a way to end the game. (It's partly because of this that I am now firmly set against playing low-level D&D ever again. We've officially done that to goddamn death, and I want no part of it.)
--
but the first reason is the most significant one, really
ryan
the Jester
Legend
I voted 21+. In my current epic game, several of the pcs started at 1st level and have now risen as high as 27th or 28th level.
Absolutely- in 1e and in 3e, but I don't believe I saw anyone make it that far in 2e.
Quasqueton said:
Absolutely- in 1e and in 3e, but I don't believe I saw anyone make it that far in 2e.
