Playing the same character since 1985? Gwah?

[Deadboy]

I couldn't imagine playing one game and especially not one character for over 25 years like that... That's just strange to me.

My longest RPG character was a Star Wars D6 character that got used weekly for over four years. My longest D&D characters were a 3.5 character that went about two years and my current 4th character that's going on 2.5 years now, I think. Too much changes to stay with anything long for me; DMs get bored (the biggest culpirt of campaigns ending early, in my experience), people's interests shift, people want to try out new characters or games.

 

[Barroll]

Wow that sure is a feat. Honestly longest in my short career was a few months. However right now I am not playing a character as I am Dming a group.

 

[Kaffis]

Bizarre and cool story, but I'm curious what all those books are if they're playing 1e...

Probably campaign notes at this point!

 

[Pheonix0114]

I wish I could have half this playtime. I started playing less than 2.5 years ago and have not found a group that could stay stable for that time. Originally I played with a guy I met in my Biology class and his group, and then he quit DMing so another guy took over doing SWSE instead of 4e, and I was only moderately interested in that. So I started a group of my own that hasn't had constant membership and only has 2 people that have been fairly consistent in playing for more than a year. And while I like being Game Master, I wish I could just play in someone else's game so I didn't have to be the one trying to sell my vision a group that is largely divergent on the genre of game they are interested in. In the past year we have played 4e, D20 Modern, Pathfinder, World of Darkness (which I am just a player in, but the game looks to be ending soon thanks to internal drama), and no also Castles & Crusades when WoD falls apart at the last minute and I need a quick game to pull out.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey S'mon!

I don't play much. I must have DM'd [MENTION=326]Upper_Krust[/MENTION]'s PC Thrin for about 10 years, ca 1987-1996 maybe, with occasional stuff 1996-1999 and beyond. There were other PCs played for nearly as long. Technically Thrin is still around and was an offstage deity in my Ea campaign world, which I was running 4e in as recently as last July 2011.

I always used XP for gold, we played daily at school for years, and later on I gave 2e Monster XP as well, so advancement was quite fast. Last I heard Thrin was a combined 117th level Cavalier-Magic-User-Cleric Lesser God.

I posted Thrin's stats on the website a few years ago.

Immortality

Of course that doesn't include all his (thousands of) magic items, just the stuff at hand.

 

[Piratecat]

There are a few things that contribute to a long-term campaign:

- Stable players. It's just not possible to do until players settle in a place to live.
- Slow advancement.
- Mystery/investigation/conspiracy/relationship-heavy plots
- Changing world. The world needs to change as the players act within it. Wanting to see how your PC's actions create cause and effect becomes self-rewarding.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

My very first D&D character was an Elf in the late 70s. When AD&D came out, he was converted to a fighter/MU. Got him to level 13/14. He lost a finger to a guillotine trap and an ear to rats, but he survived. Sometime around 1989 he ended up a decoration for Acererak. I started playing his apprentice, an 8th level mu with the goal of leveling him up a bit and rescuing his master. Got him to 11th level when the game just petered out just before 3e came out due to people just not finding the time to play. Keep in mind, several of us took turns dming, though we did have one "main" dm. So we played other characters and other game systems, MERP, WFRP, etc. The campaign lasted pretty much 20 years with the same players, if not the same characters, with breaks here and there for other game systems. We always came back to 1e, and it's still my game of choice.

 

[Rogue Agent]

It's true that in comparing monsters and PC's 1:1 that you rapidly run out of "at-level" challenges. However, 1E is not 3E. You can still challenge the PC's by increasing the sheer number of many of the foes they might face as well as introduce your own critters that fit the criteria that is needed.

You can, of course, do that in 3rd Edition too. (And I recommend it.)

But I think AbdulAlhazred's point is exactly that: High-level encounters are not made up of "level appropriate" critters and that substantially reduces the XP you get from them.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread: Once you hit name level, you will be advancing VERY slowly compared to how you advanced in the first five levels of play. (And even those first five levels are VERY slow compared to the accelerated XP tables of 3rd Edition.)

 

[KJSEvans]

This is a reason why I love HackMaster (the new version). I played the same character for more than 6 months and only through his sheer awesomeness did I get him to level 10 in that short period of time. It generally takes 4-5 sessions to level, depending on the GM, thus it will usually take a year of weekly gaming to hit level 10 -- if you don't die.

To me, that's such a bonus for any system. Yes, it sucks when you die*, but you really become INVESTED in your character. Any achievement is a real accomplishment. Stories about what you did to become high level take on a whole new meaning because, realistically, you'd've had to do a LOT.

(*unless you take advantage of the protegee system, for which there are many advantages)

 

[boredgremlin]

Thats a crazy story. The longest I ever played a character was about 6 months.

I think part of it is where you live there. So places are stable. Most of my gaming life has been in Las Vegas. People move in and out of there a lot more often then other cities and work schedules are much more likely to change without notice into something crazy. So its tough to maintain any long term game.