My son has a 3e half orc fighter who made it to level 12 and retired. That's not exactly the same thing though. I have a 3e scout who escaped Ravenloft, he's level 9 now.

My old-school/OSR games ca 2008+ the highest level PCs have generally reached around 5th level before game ends/tails off, eg in my Yggsburgh 1e game the highest PC was Fighter-5 after 45 online sessions. My 4e game by contrast has got to 22nd level since 2011, 79 tabletop sessions.

My LotFP campaign has been fairly (intentionally) slow advancement. The highest level character there is just at level 11 now; but this is in a world where the highest level (mortal) character anyone has ever seen is about level 17.

The DCC game is really high-mortality, but thus far one player has managed to get his character (the infamous "Bill the Elf" from my DCC session reports) up to level 6.

Before that, my legion of superheroes campaign which was run with a D20 system had a few characters reach 20th level, after more than 5 years of real time and 30+ years of game time.

And of course before that, right at the far end of the '5-6 years ago' condition the OP asked for, my Epic Level 1-36 BECMI D&D campaign ended with the human characters at level 36 (and of course, the demihumans maxed out at their highest level).

In the last several months since 5E came out, I've advanced my wood elf ranger in Greyhawk up to 5th level and close to 6th. I've also got an elven rogue up to 7th and a dwarven champion up to 5th.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I like higher level play, but I can never shake the feeling that players can't appreciate the power unless they've crawled up from L1 - starting at higher levels gives me a nagging feeling!

Maybe should have started another thread, but what's peoples thoughts on the DCC experience system?  

For those without it, the party earns 0,1,2,3, or 4 experience per person based not on the preset difficulty of the encounter, but on how difficult it actually turned out after the fact.  Finding it a breeze to use so far.

Quote from: AndrewSFTSN;812248Maybe should have started another thread, but what's peoples thoughts on the DCC experience system?  

For those without it, the party earns 0,1,2,3, or 4 experience per person based not on the preset difficulty of the encounter, but on how difficult it actually turned out after the fact.  Finding it a breeze to use so far.

Not familiar with it, but let me see if I understand properly:

Suppose that I'm running two separate groups through the same adventure module. The first one is all newbies and/or stupid players who don't know the first thing about tactics, who don't use the environment to their advantage, and whose deffault response to everything is to kick down the door and go in with swords slinging. They have a tough time with some of the bigger fights, so they get 4 XP.

The second group is experienced players who think, scout and make good plans. Because of their player skill, they breeze through the same fights. Since they didn't have any real problems, they only get 1 XP.

Is this what it's like? Because if so, then it seems to me it rewards bad and punishes good player skill, so I'd never touch it with a 10' pole.

Quote from: Premier;812251Not familiar with it, but let me see if I understand properly:

Suppose that I'm running two separate groups through the same adventure module. The first one is all newbies and/or stupid players who don't know the first thing about tactics, who don't use the environment to their advantage, and whose deffault response to everything is to kick down the door and go in with swords slinging. They have a tough time with some of the bigger fights, so they get 4 XP.

The second group is experienced players who think, scout and make good plans. Because of their player skill, they breeze through the same fights. Since they didn't have any real problems, they only get 1 XP.

Is this what it's like? Because if so, then it seems to me it rewards bad and punishes good player skill, so I'd never touch it with a 10' pole.

Well, it's very loose, but the BtB rulings (definitely not rules in this case) also take into account resource expenditure, damage to stats, and so on, but you've sort of got it.  It suggests giving out 4 if there's a fatality, and 3 if there's a near-fatality.

I should point out I'd only use it with DCC though.  DCC pretty much explicity assumes that the designers expect it's main audience will be players used to the 'classic D&D' method of tactics (think, scout, make good plans etc.)  

The game also has extreme, swingy of the rules, which embrace a much higher degree of randomness and chaos than a lot of fantasy rules.  I think your party in the first example aren't earning experience, because they are already dead.

In the past few years?  

16th level in a 4e DnD campaign that played off and on over the course of 3 or 4 years.  Game fizzled out due to 4e combat fatigue.

13th level in a Star Wars Saga campaign that ended in TPK trying to take over a star destroyer.

9th level in my current 5e DnD campaign that is still ongoing.

Over the last decade or so, a level 3 fighter.

It was a basic D&D game played once a month for several years. We used the XP for treasure rule, but no training for leveling up.

Quote from: AndrewSFTSN;812248Maybe should have started another thread, but what's peoples thoughts on the DCC experience system?  

For those without it, the party earns 0,1,2,3, or 4 experience per person based not on the preset difficulty of the encounter, but on how difficult it actually turned out after the fact.  Finding it a breeze to use so far.

Yes, it's fantastically easy, and liberates the game from the need to acquire valuable treasure (though obviously players still want that, they just don't NEED to do it for level-advancement), or even necessarily from killing monsters per se.

Quote from: RPGPundit;812769Yes, it's fantastically easy, and liberates the game from the need to acquire valuable treasure (though obviously players still want that, they just don't NEED to do it for level-advancement), or even necessarily from killing monsters per se.

But doesn't that essentially reward bad play? By giving more experience for encounters that proved difficult, you're telling the players that if you do dumb things that make combat longer/harder, you're gain experience (and level up) faster.

Players should be rewarded for being clever and making fights easier (or avoid them at all), not the other way around.

Not to mention, you're still rewarding for "encounters", so players might very well look for trouble which bogs down the game with unnecessary fights.

Quote from: AndrewSFTSN;812246I like higher level play, but I can never shake the feeling that players can't appreciate the power unless they've crawled up from L1 - starting at higher levels gives me a nagging feeling!

I share the feeling at times.  For me it turns on how long the game runs though.  4th level after two years (the B/X game I'm playing in) works if you get the two years of play (and still going).  If you're a GM with gamer ADD and you're restarting campaigns every so often, you need to think about starting at 3rd or 5th level.

Somewhere I've seen the claim that Gygax's own home game later in life started everyone at 3rd level.

In the past 5-6 years?  I was DMing T1-4 which went into S2 right after.  So about level 9-11, depending on the PC.  I don't think I've been a player in AD&D in the last 10 years though.  Always the DM.  I've only been a player in WFRP1e and 5e in that time.

Historically, we typicaly retire our PCs shortly after name level anyway, mostly to try out different PCs in a different campaign.

Quote from: JeremyR;812793But doesn't that essentially reward bad play? By giving more experience for encounters that proved difficult, you're telling the players that if you do dumb things that make combat longer/harder, you're gain experience (and level up) faster.

Players should be rewarded for being clever and making fights easier (or avoid them at all), not the other way around.

Not to mention, you're still rewarding for "encounters", so players might very well look for trouble which bogs down the game with unnecessary fights.

I'd say that it depends on good GM discretion.  If I think characters are trying to drag out a fight (which would be insanely stupid in a game as lethal as DCC anyways), I would not reward that.    Likewise, if characters face a really tough opponent and beat them not by brute force but by something really ingenious, I'll reward them with good XP.