What is the longest you've ever played a single PC?

[Halivar]

I hear people mention campaigns they've played in that span decades, and I was wondering how people do it. The longest I ever played a single PC was a fighter that took 2 years to get from level 4 to 20.

What's the longest you've ever played a PC, and what levels did you span? Alternately, what's the longest continuous campaign you've ever played in, and how many characters have you played in it?

 

[Crothian]

In D&D I think the longest was maybe three years. I took a rogue from first to thirtieth and this was second edition.

However the longest character was in Rifts where I had the same character from 91-98. My longest campaign was also rifts and that was 90-98. I had three characters in it.

 

[Voadam]

I'm still playing a character who started in the late 80's(?) right after the 2e Complete Fighter's Handbook came out. I think he's on DM number 7 now.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I've been running the same campaign with my wife as the only player for two years, although there was a reboot hiccup in the middle when we sold most of our game collection to pay rent. Same character, just rebooted from level one. First time around, she made it to level 12, this time she is approaching level 18 and going strong. Prior to that, my campaigns have generally lasted a year at the most. That is mostly due to moving a lot and having to collect new players (blame two stints in the military).

 

[TarionzCousin]

Approximately 27 hours, back when I was fourteen years old. Then I went to sleep. :\

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I started running my longest played character when I was in 7th grade. We played weekly through High School, with about a one -year hiatus to play the Dragonlance modules and another DMs short-lived campaign. Once we started college, we played only during the summer and winter breaks.

If you can believe it, in all that time my PC had only reached 12th level when I finally stopped.

The DM was a stingy bastard.

 

[Jupp]

What's the longest you've ever played a PC, and what levels did you span? Alternately, what's the longest continuous campaign you've ever played in, and how many characters have you played in it?

I've played my Paladin in AD&D 2e for 9 years and brought him to Level 9 in that campaign. After that campaign we put our chars on hibernate and did not go back to them since then. But I think it will be fun when the day comes when we dig out those old char sheets and do that one last big adventure

 

[drothgery]

Hmm... in terms of time past between rolling up the character and the character retiring, dying, or the campaign ending, about two years. But since that was an every other week game while I was in college, I actually spent more time playing my second 3.x character, which was about a year and a half in an every week game that didn't take summers off (and played from 1st level to 14th). My highest-level active character is my current one, who's 16th level, but he's my third character in this campaign (after PC deaths at 11th level and 14th level; since both PCs were devoted followers of the Silver Flame, they stayed dead -- the new guy worships the Sovreign Host).

As for the longest campaign, well, again, most time from start to finish is three years (in college), but most sessions is probably the current one (where, as per the previous paragraph, I'm on my third character).

 

[Tetsubo]

Six years of almost weekly play back in the 1E days. I took him from 1st level to 26th level demi-god status... I have his portrait on my office wall... I am a gaming geek...

 

[Merkuri]

Jiru, my Favored Soul, was my longest-lived character. I took her from level 3 to... hm... 13? I forget what level she was when she died. She lived for 52 game sessions, and we played once a week, minus a week here or there. If you count the weeks we didn't play she lasted for I think 1 year and 2 months. 52 sessions was impressive considering we were playing the World's Largest Dungeon where the death rate was high. One player went through something like six characters in ten sessions.