James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
It depends on the desires of your group. 13th Age was built around the idea that campaigns are finite, and you'd reach an endgame and stop.
D&D has wrestled with the idea of "endless adventure" for some time. Basic went up to level 36, but later got Immortals rules to beyond. AD&D initially went up to 20, but later we got The Throne of Bloodstone with it's rules for 100th-level characters. 2e also initially went up to 20, but later supplements expanded on this for spellcasters, and the Dark Sun book, Dragon Kings, went up to level 30 with various gonzo abilities.
3e? More of the same, 20 levels, but then the Epic Level Handbook comes out.
4e was built to be levels 1-30, but introduced the concept of tiers, so you knew what you were getting into. Heroic Tier play was just that, you fight orcs and trolls and giants. Paragon play built on that, and by the time you were Epic, you were probably plane hopping and facing demigods- allowing you to get off the ride at any point, or keep going if that's what's best for your group.
5e goes to 20. No sign of expansion beyond that point, but it is also divided into tiers of play, which would ideally let people jump off at any point. But leveling up is too quick for that, and it doesn't take long for games to get past the "sweet spot" of D&D (somewhere between levels 5 and 8). Characters get more impactful abilities, maybe start collecting magic items, and the nature of your opponents shifts- sure, there's still high CR mortal foes, but the bulk of what the monster manual offers is more fantastic enemies to face.
While the number of player characters who reach very high levels is vanishingly small, for most of D&D's history, the desire to keep the game going, with characters continuously growing in power, facing more insane challenges, has been strong, and the game mostly tries to make that possible, even if actually running such games is a serious challenge for any DM. Normally, I wouldn't begrudge the system for allowing some to continue playing even if others find "superheroics" not to their taste.
Unfortunately 5e is seemingly built with a desire to catapult players to high levels at a fairly rapid clip. Like Pathfinder 1e, it really should have given us three different xp progressions, that way if you like Heroic play, you could linger there longer without having to adjust the rate of advancement manually. This has had the effect of making people who prefer "zero to hero" or "classic heroic" play really have to contemplate the higher level play that always existed, but they didn't particularly want to confront (or never had to).
Worse still, while the game is fully built to get characters to high levels, it doesn't do a great job of telling you what to do when you get there.
D&D has wrestled with the idea of "endless adventure" for some time. Basic went up to level 36, but later got Immortals rules to beyond. AD&D initially went up to 20, but later we got The Throne of Bloodstone with it's rules for 100th-level characters. 2e also initially went up to 20, but later supplements expanded on this for spellcasters, and the Dark Sun book, Dragon Kings, went up to level 30 with various gonzo abilities.
3e? More of the same, 20 levels, but then the Epic Level Handbook comes out.
4e was built to be levels 1-30, but introduced the concept of tiers, so you knew what you were getting into. Heroic Tier play was just that, you fight orcs and trolls and giants. Paragon play built on that, and by the time you were Epic, you were probably plane hopping and facing demigods- allowing you to get off the ride at any point, or keep going if that's what's best for your group.
5e goes to 20. No sign of expansion beyond that point, but it is also divided into tiers of play, which would ideally let people jump off at any point. But leveling up is too quick for that, and it doesn't take long for games to get past the "sweet spot" of D&D (somewhere between levels 5 and 8). Characters get more impactful abilities, maybe start collecting magic items, and the nature of your opponents shifts- sure, there's still high CR mortal foes, but the bulk of what the monster manual offers is more fantastic enemies to face.
While the number of player characters who reach very high levels is vanishingly small, for most of D&D's history, the desire to keep the game going, with characters continuously growing in power, facing more insane challenges, has been strong, and the game mostly tries to make that possible, even if actually running such games is a serious challenge for any DM. Normally, I wouldn't begrudge the system for allowing some to continue playing even if others find "superheroics" not to their taste.
Unfortunately 5e is seemingly built with a desire to catapult players to high levels at a fairly rapid clip. Like Pathfinder 1e, it really should have given us three different xp progressions, that way if you like Heroic play, you could linger there longer without having to adjust the rate of advancement manually. This has had the effect of making people who prefer "zero to hero" or "classic heroic" play really have to contemplate the higher level play that always existed, but they didn't particularly want to confront (or never had to).
Worse still, while the game is fully built to get characters to high levels, it doesn't do a great job of telling you what to do when you get there.
