What level should a campaign end at?

[Mystery Man]

When the expectations of the players exceed the DM's ability to provide the levels they want its a tragedy. If everyone at the table (DM included) is satisfied at ending a campaign at level 5 more power to them.

I like high level play better and can't get to it fast enough. Problem is my players like high level too, but like to start at level one to get there.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Of course, the answer is: "When the story's over". But I think the DM should plan that well, so the characters advance to level 20 and maybe a little beyond, so I chose "epic". Otherwise, all those levels in the books are wasted ;-). If it's a good, long story, this is no problem, and otherwise you can always speed up the advancement.
Epic in this case means that the campaign goal should not be "to reach level 20", but that the players get to play with their last abilities a little, and maybe get to level 21. OTOH, I have no problem with campaigns going way beyond level 20 (as long as there is a reasonable limit to it all).

 

[Jolly Giant]

Once we hit a TPK, the campaign ends. If we don't, it ends once the PCs are powerful enough to defeat the major deities of the world!

 

[kigmatzomat]

I'm a proponent of "when it's over" so I posted Epic. (IMO all levels of play are functional. I've enjoyed playing many games with cruddy systems so the "ELH suxx0rz" arguement fails with me. )

I believe a DM should give players an idea of how long the campaign arc is expected to last. When I started running the first 3.0 campaign in my area, I told the players I had enough material to get to about 6th level or so and we'd see how things went from there. That was several years ago, they're now 16th level and I've got enough material to go another 10 levels or so.

I've never been a player in a game that lasted for more than 2 years, which is a touch disappointing.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

The regular game ends around 40th level on easy or normal, 45th on hard mode, 50th to get the good ending. Then they go to the Seraphic Gate...

Actually, I prefer a D&D campaign to last until low Epic (21 to 30), although I dislike high-level D&D magic. I try to avoid single-storyline campaigns - enough elements get woven into the first arc that the second flows naturally from it.

 

[D+1]

It's over when it's over. It's going to vary from group to group, campaign to campaign - and it's not even going to hinge on whether the campaign has a planned "conclusion" or not.

If you plan to end a campaign at 20th and it feels right to do so - do so. If you plan to end it at 15th but it's wearing thin before you get there - wrap it up and move on/start over. If you don't have any end planned at all and you never intend for it to end, even fully expect it to eventually go Epic - then you simply have to be sure that the campaign will continue to be fun for all involved.

No matter how much work you put into them sometimes characters, story arcs, or the very campaign world itself just gets OLD, same-y, boring, etc. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

For my own part, 3E gets... unwieldly to me as it gets higher level both as a player and DM. My current and future 3E campaigns will be run with a fairly close eye to allowing a proper wrap-up to campaign events as it nears 15th+ in PC levels. I probably won't PLAN to end it there as such, but both as a player and as DM I like a more middling level range for PC's. In the earlier stages, perhaps the first half of a campaigns shelf-life, I want there to be a lot of stuff going on, with the PC's lower level than local and world leaders - but WITHOUT those leaders needing to be high-teens in level in order to seem truly powerful. The latter half or so of the campaign would be where the PC's meet and even exceed the dedicated power level of typical NPC leaders and the high-teens to 20th level NPC's will be used very sparingly.

I just don't care for the idea of "epic" games so ending them at or close to 20th feels to me to be pushing the boundries of what will work for me in the 3E system.

 

[Arnwyn]

I voted "Epic", but my correct answer wasn't there:

We don't stop until there's a TPK.