Why don't more people play high level campaigns? 13th+

[Crothian]

Is it that people just way more prefer the lower level games? Is D&D just more fun for the greatest number of people at lower levels?

jh

It's what most people play. I see DM's that come up with great ideas but the ideas only last till the players are 6th level and then the DM is making things up and the game falls apart. I see Players create exciting ideas for characters but don't have a lot of room to grow so at say 8th level they really have no idea what to do with the character so they abandon it. I see games that are going just fine but the players just get excited about something new, a new game or setting or whatever; and they want to start over playing that. Low levels are the area most people play enough to become experienced and compitent in and comfortable with.

 

[Agamon]

D&D is more fun at lower levels. It suffers from micromanagement, like some PC games that are fun at first but get clogged up as you get further into it.

I've never played a game past 14th level (TttToEE) and that was getting pretty hairy by the end. I'm now running AoW, the PCs are 9th level, and I plan on taking it straight to the end (20th/21st lvl). So I guess we'll see how that turns out.

Base D&D should have a cut off of 14th, with 15th+ being Epic.

 

[Maldin]

My campaign has PCs of all levels, but we have the most fun with the 13+ level characters, and with a continuous campaign timeline of 27 years, the longest-lasting PCs are 20+. Admittedly it takes a certain kind of thinking, but I have no problem challenging the players. How do we get around the absurd powerlevels, snails-pace combat, and 20-page NPC descriptions??
Easy... we still play 2E. Those problems were all introduced with 3E.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
=====================================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

 

[Steel_Wind]

Easy... we still play 2E. Those problems were all introduced with 3E.

*ahem*

Last I checked, the problems of "save or die" high level spells didn't begin to be addressed until 3.5e.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My campaign has PCs of all levels, but we have the most fun with the 13+ level characters, and with a continuous campaign timeline of 27 years, the longest-lasting PCs are 20+. Admittedly it takes a certain kind of thinking, but I have no problem challenging the players. How do we get around the absurd powerlevels, snails-pace combat, and 20-page NPC descriptions??
Easy... we still play 2E. Those problems were all introduced with 3E.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
=====================================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!

Different campaigns, different results.

My 13th-level 2e party (I was a player) killed the Tarrasque. In one round. The only reason I couldn't kill a balor was because I didn't have +3 weapons ... we fixed that up right afterwards, and afterwards the 50,000 XP worth balors weren't scary at all.

IME, the problem with high-level combat isn't necessarily choosing or even using options. I rarely spend any time picking the spell, since I already know what I want to cast, and who/what/where to cast it on... but yet combat still takes a long time.

 

[Tonguez]

Because high level is roleplaying a medieval superhero not a fantasy hero

 

[Ry]

I hear this a lot of the boards but no one ever seems to want to explain what that actually means.

Hey Crothian! I'm happy to explain it!

This opinion comes from trying to adapt to the availability of options like teleport - blast down the town - teleport away style behaviour, and the reduced consequences of death. The various versions of "there's always a bigger fish" argument doesn't help, because if the PCs don't heed it, it's very difficult to do the kind of game you have been playing and enjoying from level 1 up. I think it's this kind of thinking that makes high level play feel paralyzing - once the lich knows where the players are, why doesn't he teleport over with a minion, blast away, teleport away, and repeat the next day? While there can be good answers to this, especially as you add context, I think the prospect of the mental effort of handling these possibilities is what deters GMs and even players from high level play.

 

[Ealli]

There is also certainly another aspect of time to this. I ran a campaign from level five to fourteenish; we completed the adventure right before life caused us to go our separate ways. Even so, I would have preferred another two weeks, the last session was both twice as long as normal and also rushed and cramped for time. Had we started at first level instead of fifth, I don't know that we would have made it to thirteen before we had to break up.

 

[Morrow]

For me, it is just because it takes so darn long to get there. All the 3e and 3.5 games I've played or DMed have started at 1st level. The 3e games ended at 5th, 10th, and ~7th levels for various reasons. The 3.5 games I'm in have been much more stable, but the Freeport game is at 11th-12th level after a year and a half, the Age of Worms game is at 11th after about a year, and the Eberron game is at 4th level after about 6 months. Its not that I've got anything against high level games, for example I could happily take my current Freeport game past 20th level. It is just difficult to maintain commitment and interest from a whole group for that long.

 

[Maldin]

That's certainly an important factor. We all have jobs, and RealLife(tm) continuously gets in the way. We actually don't get to play that often. The only way we can still play a 20+ level campaign is because I have a player that's stuck with it for 20+ years. And I'd venture to guess that my continuous-timeline campaign world is rather unusual. Most people restart their campaigns with fair frequency (whether by design, or by changing groups of players).

Denis, aka "Maldin"
=====================================
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com