What level should a campaign end at?

[Galethorn]

Regardless of the type of game, I don't like going much past 12-14, because those fourth attacks for the warriors really bog things down. In fact, three attacks is almost too much.

That said, I think the campaign should end around...oh, three or four levels lower than the BBEG...give or take a CR or two, heh heh.

 

[kitsune9]

One of my biggest frustrations is that 90% of the time I play in campaigns which begin at 1st level and end around 5th level. Then we start over with something else. This has happened so many times I want to scream.

What would you consider the ideal "stopping level" for a campaign?

Wow, sorry that you have so many short campaigns, I certainly would hate that. If I play in a campaign, I usually plan out my character's progression to go to 20th level at least, but I've yet to play in a game that does. My highest level character got to 12th or 13th level and that was it. I try to run games to epic if I can which I did with one campaign, but the second campaign, I ended at 11th level because of loss of players.

My personal preference is to run well into epic levels, but there's no useful software programs that I can just easily install and plug away epic NPC's and monsters, so to do so manually to prepare for the next game session takes hours that I just don't have. :\

 

[beeber]

i voted epic. ideally, the characters achieve uber-greatness, all is well, and they ride off into the sunset. since that doesn't really happen, i would go with:

1. story arc ends
2. player boredom (switching genres)
3. TPK

even with the campaign ending at that time, the campaign world remains for new stuff.

 

[Mouseferatu]

A campaign should end when it's done, irregardless of level. That is a determination that can only be made by each group.

Ditto.

 

[Umbran]

I don't consider the level of characters when deciding to end a capaign. I'm more concerned with the story. If there's nowhere better to take the story, the campaign ends. Otherwise, we keep going.

 

[GuardianLurker]

A campaign should end when it's done, irregardless of level. That is a determination that can only be made by each group.

Another ditto.

I'd have to add though, that ends of story arcs are really the best places to stop. The other typical ends are often disappointing.

 

[Dark Jezter]

What level should a campaign end at?

At whichever level the PCs are at when the campaign is over.

 

[Wombat]

I'm good with the 12-14 range, 15 possibly

I don't "do" epic, a la D&D that is, but I do have Epic Campaigns (tone, not level)

Above level 15, the game becomes very odd and much less fun for me, both as player and GM, but that is a personal taste.

 

[Uruush]

I don't enjoy D&D after about 8th level - I think it's broken and not much fun. I do appreciate the value of a long running campaign though (ran a Cyberpunk campaign for 3 1/2 years) - my ideal would be a campaign starting at 2nd level and running to around 20th using some kind of heavily modified low-magic rules...

 

[Ogre Mage]

Wow, sorry that you have so many short campaigns, I certainly would hate that. If I play in a campaign, I usually plan out my character's progression to go to 20th level at least, but I've yet to play in a game that does. My highest level character got to 12th or 13th level and that was it. I try to run games to epic if I can which I did with one campaign, but the second campaign, I ended at 11th level because of loss of players.

The very first 3rd edition campaign I played in lasted till 12th level, and up until the final level (12th) we were having a lot of fun with it.

Unfortunately, this was followed by seven campaigns in a row which ended at 5th level or sometimes less.

Game 1: TPK
Game 2: DM moved away
Game 3: DM was incompetent and voluntarily stepped down.
Game 4: DM was incompetent and was ejected from the group.
Game 5: DM declared story arc over at 5th level.
Game 6: Can't remember. Game just kinda petered out.
Game 7: DM declared story arc over at 5th-6th level.

While I understand that the DMs in Games 5 and 7 felt the story arc was complete, as a player I felt cheated that the game was ending just as my character was starting to become interesting.