TheRPGSite

I'm having several ongoing discussions with people on Discord, among my own players and in general about "High Level play" and the scaling power, alongside the expectations of a given system.

I'm currently running Savage Worlds Pathfinder (Modified to play as 1e Greybox Forgotten Realms) - current group is Veteran rank. In DnD terms this is around 7th-9th level, and the PC's are definitely hitting their stride. They're starting to put down roots, they're building a keep, and challenging powerful enemies of the Realms.

I'm seeing definitely differences in terms of PC capacities, but these were expected.

1) I run sandbox, so there is no expectation of non-stop combat "because" it's a game session. It combat happens when it happens, and that means Casters in the party are less conservative near home, and go hard. When out and about things are more fluid.
2) Magic item acquisition leans a "normal" for me - I completely eyeball it. I never put in things that I think are wildly out of the blue, unless I think I can come up with some interesting backstory for it. A quick tally of items and their respective values surprisingly was very close to the "assumed" amount of treasure from the 5e DMG (this surprised me as I thought I was going a little heavy). So the PC's are beefy.
3) Heavy Damage. Or as Rifts aficionados call it - Mega-Damage. At Veteran specialist Wizards can modify their spells to do the Heavy Weapon modifier. As such - I've modified the rules inline with Savage Rifts where such attacks cause extra effects to those without Heavy Armor (which isn't really a thing in D&D - but that will change soon enough with a few additions of True Adamantium or something like that). That said, I raised the cost of the Heavy Modifier - as well as granting it to creatures that should have it.

It's going very well thus far... but I don't consider any of this "High Level Play".

To me we're entering the sweet spot of D&D, where things start ramping up in terms of scale of quests and danger commensurate to those quests and goals. D&D starts creaking under the weight of itself at 14+ for me. At that point, regardless of edition, cracks start showing. Some editions are much more durable - for me 1e/2e 14-16 is pretty easy, 3e is a nightmare. 5e feels anemic.

But the goals of the game shift - at least for me, to players running Nations/Organizations, they have NPC delegates, allies and peers across the continent/globe or even Planes - that call upon them for crazy ass requests.

By 14+ literally every aspect of TTRPG's are on the table. Gods getting killed, Pacts and Double-dealing with Demons, crusades into the netherworlds, dethroning Liches, slaying of Kaiju-sized Dragons etc.

My observation is few people play D&D (and its derivatives) at this level. Like me they talk about it - and I confess, every single campaign I run D&D or otherwise, I'm shooting for this level of play. And my success rate at nurturing campaigns to that level of play is spotty. Because I demand detail and investment from the start, sometimes the drama and machinations take their toll and end in a TPK and it's back to the sawhorse and drawing board.

While I'm using D&D as an example, I'm not trying to shit on it, I'm using it as a reference point. There is always that slight deflation I feel at running D&D at 13+ because I don't feel in 3e or later editions there are good handholds for sandbox play that don't require a lot of effort on the GM (not that I'm unwilling - I just have better options). I always think their campaign AP's and modules  are so narrowly designed they're almost a cop-out of what I conceive high-level play to be. And I don't think the mechanics of D&D do well at this scale.

Right now, my players are skeptical about the power-level as we creep into that level of play, as if Savage Worlds isn't going to handle it. Yet, I'm feeling excited about the prospect, because the fact that Savage Rifts exists and I already know the power-level there is CRAZY insane levels of power more than Savage Pathfinder played at Legendary rank. For me - it's almost a foregone conclusion that I can feel the momentum of the game getting *better* as the PC's level up, knowing the ceiling is still radically higher than they can reach yet.

For me - I want that span of that 14+ levels to be YEARS in game-time. Not a module that takes place over weeks or months, where at "story breaks" in the adventure the PC's "Level Up" with a "DING!".

Which gets me to my main question - within the context of what you conceive of "High Level Play" - do you even engage in it? And if so what are the differences you feel about the system you're using?

I'm interested in OSR players that might engage in the CMI levels of play? I almost never see discussion threads about it. Do many of you engage in the long span of play across those levels in OSR games? What are the end-game conceits?

Do any of you that play high-powered games skip the transition of Zero, and go straight to the Hero - and play Exalted or some other system/setting where the PC's are assumed to be "High Level" in power from the start?

I've gone the full "zero to epic hero" gamut exactly twice in 41 years, with any game system.  Didn't stay long in the epic hero part either time.  As a rule, I don't much care for very high-level play, and only really do it because at various times players have wanted to.  Usually, it is accomplished by starting the game there and playing however long we want to do that. 

I did edge into it a few times with Fantasy Hero games, though in D&D terms those games were starting already in the mid-levels, deliberately handing out inflated (about double) XP, with a goal of ending the game just shy of epic.  When we really wanted to do epic with Hero System, we'd just play Champions.

Even in long-running D&D campaigns, we tend to have each player handling multiple characters, which definitely slows down the pace.

I've been running a campaign recently (it's been on hiatus for a bit and not clear if we are going to pick it up again) that has felt like it has had at least one of the hallmarks of what I think of as high-level / domain style play:

A lot of battles with units of various sizes clashing. This has been anything from 15-30 man units to ones with hundreds to a thousand. With PCs decide which unit to stand with and taking various actions to make a difference in the outcome.

Is this the sort of thing your thinking of?

I like epic play, and I regularly play at that power level, but it's usually a super-hero game. Which is rather different, but I think it might be useful to highlight both the similarities and the differences. There's less focus on leveling; characters are usually pretty static. Power differentials within the party exist, often very steep ones, rather than everything being balanced. There isn't a chase after items or new spells. From a combat standpoint, I find this means characters put less emphasis on their stats, and more on trying to come up with interesting solutions. This is a bit of a shift from a gamist mentality, to more of an exploration or perhaps a problem-solving perspective. From a party standpoint, it's less about absolute power and effectiveness, and more about everyone having something unique they can do to contribute. It's also heavily based on relationships and pathos. Characters take stands, even when they shouldn't, because the game is more forgiving. Since there's not all this stuff to collect, whether it's levels or gold or magic items or spells, it's more about relationships and roleplaying. Recurring NPCs, including villains who don't die in the first fight, also lean in this direction.

OTOH, supers is a modern genre. So it tends to be more realistic, more grounded, and heavy on science and self-awareness. So in a lot of very obvious ways, it lacks the overall feel of, say, the Silmarillion. But in some ways, it's a lot closer to that feel than D&D.

I prefer the B/X level range, because things tend to become somewhat squirrely after that point. There are mechanical issues with high level D&D, both old school and third edition. While I think both are manageable to some degree, they do require a lot more effort (for 3e), or (for both OS and 3e) a more active DM's hand. Which probably relates to your comments about sandbox, because a sandbox where the world exists on its own rather than adjusting to the PCs, works better with more robust systems. It's often blink-and-everyone's-dead, whether from 20d6 fireballs or targeting a weak save.

I'm going to start with an image so you can visualize what I'm talking about. Imagine this is a graph showing your player's overall enjoyment for each session.

(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTdo3idCAhZ2A81L6D0wEl9QRxP8PbhnKlE-A&usqp=CAU)

In my experience, players tend to enjoy the period shortly after the campaign starts best, after they've broken their characters in and are starting to learn the world and plot events. This tends to be the highest peak of player enjoyment in any given campaign, and for groups I've been in, it typically ranges from Session 3 to Session 7, but where it falls specifically is often unique to each group and campaign.

This is followed by a lull where inevitably enjoyment declines. Certain things can create an uptick in enjoyment which tend to last between 4-6 sessions. Wrapping up the story almost always contributes to this (often with bittersweet feelings) but so can applying a twist to the campaign. The problem with campaign twists is that if they become predictable, either in content (one BBEG replaces another) or in time (you apply a twist every 6-8 sessions) they start to not increase player enjoyment as much as they used to.

I'm not saying this is a universal pattern which must be true, but in my experience, while the timing and the dips and peaks might be different for each group, the general trend has been true more often than not. The best campaigns for my particular group has tended to be between 10 and 20 sessions long; this campaign length typically gives you enough space to enjoy both peaks of player enjoyment, doesn't stretch things out so far that you need to apply multiple twists to keep things going, and usually doesn't let player enjoyment fall far enough to allow for many off-note sessions.

This makes ultra-long campaigns a bit of a paradox. To actually keep quality up for 100+ sessions (which I have been in exactly once and never had happen again) you will probably need to take several "season breaks" to cool the campaign off and do other things. But RPG campaigns are living things, and each time you hang up the hat for a season break, there's a significant chance you'll never return to it. No matter how you cut it, the long campaigns required to get to high level the old fashioned way are just as much a product of luck as they are a matter of good GMing and a cohesive group.

I also have one other opinion on high level campaigns specifically; while I am usually up for breaks from the norm, almost invariably the best roleplay comes when the party is forced out of its depth in some way. This doesn't really happen at the ultra-epic level, so high level campaigns are in the process of transitioning from a heroic fantasy you can have as your everyday RPG experience to an epic fantasy which is a pallet cleanser of sorts.

Personally, I no longer aim for long or high level campaigns. Ultra high level campaigns tend to stress systems out mechanically, the story inevitably hits off notes purely from the length, and it is difficult to keep player enjoyment consistently high. I will plan to end campaigns at around the Session 15 marker (give or take) and I will run sequel campaigns after cooling it off. If I build a high level campaign with 6-8 sequel campaigns, I won't complain, but considering the headaches involved at that point, I'm not going to push too hard to make it happen. The campaign series lasts as long as it lasts, and I try to enjoy it for what it turns itself into.

I did a semi high level game, running 3.5, where I got the campaign from 1st to about 13th level.  But like you said, the system started to fall apart.  I had PCs running around with multiple attacks, combat took FOREVER, and some of the players were getting a bit into the worldbuilding/domain running aspect of the game, which I like but not much- I set the campaign up around the City of Greyhawk. 

I had a big planar quest that fell apart, and I lost the enthusiasm to continue.  In those days I wanted to do everything "correctly", so I would try to completely stat up a monster- and drive myself insane in the process.  3.5 and Pathfinder is maddening to run.

Now I GM Ars Magica.  While developing a PC takes time, creating a monster is a snap, and every character has exactly one action.  Which I like.  And the domain-game is baked in from the get-go.  So the "high-level" aspect is already geared up.  My current group of players are playing wizards just out of apprentice-ship, but eventually they'll be movers and shakers in England, maybe all of Europe, who knows, which will be fun.

I ran an ultra-high level game for about a year before it (that is to say "I") fell apart. The system was Pathfinder, and the characters were all 4th-6th level.

I switched to SW from PF at level 11 because it fell apart.

Characters just have too many abilities that are OK by themselves, but stack together to become unweildy.

Greetings!

I have always liked High-Level Campaigns. I have run a good number of them through the years. I currently have a high-level D&D 5E campaign going.

High-Level Campaigns embrace a number of dynamics and elements that are distinctly different from low-level campaigns. My groups routinely get involved with building and developing realms, expanding cities, building fortresses, organizing armies, conducting high-level diplomacy, and engaging in large-scale war.

Besides all of this, there are high-level dungeons and mega-dungeons to explore; strange and wondrous frontiers to explore; and mysteries to investigate. In addition, there is typically also lots of dynasty-building, politics, and romance going on as well.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I went through the full Rise of the Runelords AP for Pathfinder. Played a sorcerer.

After about 12-15th level, I think you're going to start seeing the issues mentioned here. Competent players with only a few tools can hash many encounters; competent players with access to high level abilities are going to massacre whole scads of bad guys unless the DM tailors the encounters for a challenge.

Quote from: SHARK on February 01, 2022, 03:39:25 PM
Greetings!

I have always liked High-Level Campaigns. I have run a good number of them through the years. I currently have a high-level D&D 5E campaign going.

High-Level Campaigns embrace a number of dynamics and elements that are distinctly different from low-level campaigns. My groups routinely get involved with building and developing realms, expanding cities, building fortresses, organizing armies, conducting high-level diplomacy, and engaging in large-scale war.

Besides all of this, there are high-level dungeons and mega-dungeons to explore; strange and wondrous frontiers to explore; and mysteries to investigate. In addition, there is typically also lots of dynasty-building, politics, and romance going on as well.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Was it you that had that ENWorld thread in the early 00's that had a succubus fall in love with a paladin? I can't recall who that was but it involved very high level amounts of interweaving and kingmaking.

I've DMed a few 2e campaigns that reached high level.  With that system what I would define as 'high level play' starts somewhere around 9th - 10th as the PCs start to acquire small armies of followers, and really kicks in at 11th - 12th as spell casters get access to 6th level spells, which start to drastically change the dynamics of the game. 

For me the big change with high level play is that the players can dictate the terms of the game within the game's fiction.  They can teleport, they can raise the dead, they have the wealth to fund armies, castles, etc.  There are very few environmental factors the DM can introduce that are even going to slow the PCs down.  Instead, I found myself leaning more and more on various antagonists who had access to the same sort of world-cracking power the PCs did.  At that point (for me) the game started to devolve into an arms race, but the players seemed to find battling legions of demons and drow arch-mages riding dragons endlessly entertaining.

All of these campaigns took place in the 90s when my friends and I had the time to sink hundreds upon hundreds of hours into role-playing games.  Also, this was junior high and high school, I may have lacked the intellectual sophistication to properly craft high level adventures. 

The OSR has embraced high lethality and the mantra of 'the answer is not on your character sheet'.  While the games I played back in the day were highly lethal, Raise Dead was always readily available.  Without that, few characters will ever survive to high level.  Equally, with all the items and power a high level character has, the answer in high level play is often on your character sheet.  Because of this I think there is some tension between the mainstream of OSR thought and high level play as presented in any pre-WotC edition of D&D.               

Many of my long time gaming friends love(d) Exalted.  I was never a fan.  The setting had some neat ideas, but I found the power level rendered too much of the world irrelevant.  Similar things happen with high level D&D, but at least you have to get up to that power.

I feel like the challenges of high level play have never been 'solved' in the way low level play has, for any system really.       

Quote from: SHARK on February 01, 2022, 03:39:25 PM
Greetings!

I have always liked High-Level Campaigns. I have run a good number of them through the years. I currently have a high-level D&D 5E campaign going.

High-Level Campaigns embrace a number of dynamics and elements that are distinctly different from low-level campaigns. My groups routinely get involved with building and developing realms, expanding cities, building fortresses, organizing armies, conducting high-level diplomacy, and engaging in large-scale war.

Besides all of this, there are high-level dungeons and mega-dungeons to explore; strange and wondrous frontiers to explore; and mysteries to investigate. In addition, there is typically also lots of dynasty-building, politics, and romance going on as well.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I'm similar - probably on a smaller scale than SHARK, but I've played two 5e campaigns up through 20th (Wilderlands and Golarion) and running another (Primeval Thule) at 17th currently - with 9 PCs. I think 5e handles high level really well, it doesn't feel anemic to me. I don't like high level 3e/PF. High level 4e was fine at 11th-20th, but gets sloggy at 21st-30th.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on February 01, 2022, 04:33:42 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 01, 2022, 03:39:25 PM
Greetings!

I have always liked High-Level Campaigns. I have run a good number of them through the years. I currently have a high-level D&D 5E campaign going.

High-Level Campaigns embrace a number of dynamics and elements that are distinctly different from low-level campaigns. My groups routinely get involved with building and developing realms, expanding cities, building fortresses, organizing armies, conducting high-level diplomacy, and engaging in large-scale war.

Besides all of this, there are high-level dungeons and mega-dungeons to explore; strange and wondrous frontiers to explore; and mysteries to investigate. In addition, there is typically also lots of dynasty-building, politics, and romance going on as well.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Was it you that had that ENWorld thread in the early 00's that had a succubus fall in love with a paladin? I can't recall who that was but it involved very high level amounts of interweaving and kingmaking.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Yes, I had several huge threads on EN-World about epic level campaigns, especially before 2008. Huge armies, politics, weird romances with succubi, vampires and Paladins. Kingmaking. All kinds of crazy stuff going on! ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon on February 01, 2022, 04:48:19 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 01, 2022, 03:39:25 PM
Greetings!

I have always liked High-Level Campaigns. I have run a good number of them through the years. I currently have a high-level D&D 5E campaign going.

High-Level Campaigns embrace a number of dynamics and elements that are distinctly different from low-level campaigns. My groups routinely get involved with building and developing realms, expanding cities, building fortresses, organizing armies, conducting high-level diplomacy, and engaging in large-scale war.

Besides all of this, there are high-level dungeons and mega-dungeons to explore; strange and wondrous frontiers to explore; and mysteries to investigate. In addition, there is typically also lots of dynasty-building, politics, and romance going on as well.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I'm similar - probably on a smaller scale than SHARK, but I've played two 5e campaigns up through 20th (Wilderlands and Golarion) and running another (Primeval Thule) at 17th currently - with 9 PCs. I think 5e handles high level really well, it doesn't feel anemic to me. I don't like high level 3e/PF. High level 4e was fine at 11th-20th, but gets sloggy at 21st-30th.

Greetings!

Good stuff, S'mon! ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I like high level campaigns and have done a fair amount of it over the years.  We took two parties in BECMI up to the cusp of Immortality, but I never liked the Immortals rules, so they just retired.  In AD&D I've done a lot of homebrewed stuff for 1e AD&D at levels 8+ and I'm currently writing a campaign for Castles & Crusades that will culminate around level 14.  We're also playing the BFRPG "Saga of the Giants" in our OSE Advanced campaign.  That was supposed to be the final adventure(s) for that group, but we're really having fun with it, so maybe I'll end up putting together something on my own for actual domain play.

I think it's feasible enough for simpler games, but I wouldn't want to run it for 3.5 or Pathfinder.  Even AD&D high level combats can slog on.  Having criticals definitely speeds things up.

As for domain play, I seem to be more into it than my players.  So we don't do too much of that.

Quote from: SHARK on February 01, 2022, 05:47:10 PM
Greetings!

Good stuff, S'mon! ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yesterday the Primeval Thule PCs attacked and 'killed' the Great Old One Shar-Ngolyeth in its pit on the Gamidiri Bar, was a good fight.  8)

Assuming you play 1E by the book, I actually think the power curve starts to level out dramatically after 7th level or so.

Gamers who take on a playstyle susceptible to the 15-minute adventuring day aren't necessarily going to experience the leveling out. Because obviously an 18th level magic-user unleashing all their firepower in a single encounter can do an order of magnitude more damage and destruction than an 8th level magic-user. But if you have longer, "epic" quests, where you can't just stop every 15 minutes to recharge, and you actually have to conserve your resources over a longer period of time, things look really different.

If there's a time element to to the quest, there's a limit on daily down time. That imposes a limit on daily spell slot replenishment. That in turn puts a limit on daily heal spells. That in turn puts a limit on how many hit points you can lose in a day sustainably. And this number is far, far, far, far less than the number of hit points a fighter would have at that level.

The mode, median, and mean to the nearest integer of all ACs in the original Monster Manual is 5, and there's little to no correlation between AC and how powerful a monster is. A 7th level fighter with a +4 sword and gauntlets of ogre power can hit AC 5 on a 2. And doesn't get any better at hitting the majority of monsters in the MM beyond that point. And with every level up beyond that point, the list of monsters for which it matters shrinks.

So I don't find the game system breaks down at any level ever, because despite how big the numbers on a character sheet gets, the significance of those bigger numbers diminishes.

The real problem I see is in how the style of adventure changes. Those longer quests requiring many sessions where the party is far away from any base of operation, that's where the problem of how to handle PCs in a players absence begin to pop up. And also player attendance does suffer because of I guess you could say the increased attention span required for these long quests. The alternative is building castles and domain management, which a majority of players would regard as "Papers & Paychecks" and not something they have a lot of interest in doing.

Everyone wants to play a high level character, but few want to take on high level tasks.

Quote from: Lunamancer on February 02, 2022, 09:15:14 AM
Everyone wants to play a high level character, but few want to take on high level tasks.

Says you. I was MORE than happy to turf that motherfucker Karzoug. Watching his wail of the banshee bounce off my spell resistance made my night.

The power level of 1e *definitely* starts climbing at 7th. That to me is where the 1e and 2e really hit their sweet spot. By 13th the cracks start forming, but a decent GM can keep it together. Once you hit 15th, assuming you're doing sandbox-style play, you're going to be juggling a lot of stuff that fortunately 2e has a lot of content you can pull from that are helpful like Birthright, but you're going to definitely be dealing with casters, both Cleric and Wizard that will definitely have heavy impact on the content the PC's are dealing with.

I guess what I'm fishing around here for - Supers not withstanding and I'll address separately because Supers have their own considerations in terms of "High Level" play that I'm intimately familiar with - was how often GM's around these parts actually engage with high-level play on purpose, or is it "too much hassle", or do you just play the ball where it lands?

Personally, I'm always aiming for high-level play, I never start there. Because to me it's the fullness of gaming to let my players start wherever we start, and let the game go to the furthest maximum expression (wherever it leads) that we can all be satisfied with ending it. Sometimes it never ends.

Supers - I've run supers as a genre longer and at LEAST as consistently as fantasy. And specifically, I've probably run MSH more than any other specific TTRPG based on edition. Which is kinda scary for me to think about it, because I always considered MSH my fallback game, but it remains consistently in rotation at my table by request of my players, many of whom have never played a Supers game, and know nothing about comics. But once they get the taste... they keep coming back for me.

In the last 10-years that's what got me really thinking about the apparent bifurcation in what people think of as "high-level" play and the odd disparity of ACTUAL power afforded to players in game, depending on genre. Many GM's actively avoid high-level play because of how "difficult" it is, I contend this is a system-issue not a power-issue. Because Supers generally lets players start where the vast majority of other TTRPG's have long ended in terms of the power-scale, IN GENERAL.

Yet, Supers, while extremely popular at my table, are unpopular in actual reality. Which I think is a travesty, but one borne of the fact that it requires GM's to be real evangelists for the genre and have skills to pull it off. Supers requires a subset of genre knowledge that is hard to maintain a long-term campaign and manage PC's with veritable godlike powers, assuming you wade into Supers High-Level Play at all.

So I kinda don't "count" Supers when it comes to this discussion, because most people don't really engage in it (and Galactus bless those of you in this thread that do regularly - because we're a rare breed). But as it pertains to this discussion, Supers looms over it because it represents something that I'm trying to pin-down with non-supers players/GM's.

IF it's about power-level or is it about system-facility?

Would you GM high-level Fantasy (whatever you want to define that as) if the system gave you good mechanical control? Or is it more important that you stick with whatever system you're used to - D&D, RQ, GURPS, whatever, and never get into the high-level play unless your game evolves into that naturally? Or do you just avoid it altogether and call it a wrap?

I ask because it's curious to me if the reticence to engage in high-level play comes from actual desire to *not* run games because of the system, which reinforces that reticence due to bad past experiences. Or is it simply uninteresting? I'm polling because ultimately this is about system-loyalty over... I dunno what you wanna call it, "concept loyalty"?

Those that homebrew nearly exclusively probably understand this since they're homebrewing their rules to envelope the concept of their campaigns. But for those of us that use specific systems - that becomes the comfortable coat we like to wear to run those "concept campaigns" and we stick with them no matter what, especially if it's not a good fit. If I see another video come across my feed about how to play Marvel Super Heroes in 5e... GRRRR...

Anyhow I digress. I'm trying to figure out whether the conceptual cart is in front of the system-horse or not.

Most of my high level play experience comes from 2e (in the 90s), when we had enough time as teens to devote the hours of continuous play necessary to even reach those levels. I found that around level 10 or so play starts to break due to HP inflation and PCs being significantly more powerful than low level opponents, including regular peasants and town guards, which the PCs could just plow through and level an entire village if they really wanted to.

Level 7 or so was also the point where casters gain access to 4th level spells and enough spell slots to start doing some real damage as well, with access to enough area effect spells to wipe out a small town on their own. Plus access to Stoneskin to become invulnerable to guard attacks. PCs didn't necessarily do this in my game--at least, not to "civilized" race settlements (Orcs and other goblin spawn and the like don't count)--but that's pretty much what happened to large enemy groups below level 3 or so, and I could just see the writing in the wall if anyone decided to RP "Stupid Evil" aligned characters a that level.

The highest level we ever reached was around level 25 or so with a handful of characters before we semi-retired them and eventually stopped playing them organically. Most other characters never made it pass level 15 or so, and rarely even broke level 10 before ADD set in and we moved on to new PCs. The highest level fighter's effective THAC0 (including bonuses and such) was so insane, he could routinely decapitate humanoid enemies using Called Shot rules, he had like 5+ attacks per round, between fighter levels, weapon mastery, scimitars of speed (Haste) and two-weapon fighting. After a while we didn't see the point in continuing to level them, cuz AC only got so low (AC was decending in those days) and I couldn't just make every enemy AC -10 just so that one character could STILL decapitate them if he wanted to.

I never got into domain building stuff, cuz its too much bookkeeping and players never got really interested (forgot about it) in practice once PCs actually got to high levels (before that, it was like "Whoa, we can eventually build castles and attract followers and stuff!"). So the focus has always been more on dungeon crawlers and random adventures, exploring stuff, killing monsters and taking treasure along the way.

Yesterday I watched a video podcast called The Grand Campaign. The first episode just came out. The focus of this podcast is all about playing and managing campaigns that last year's of in game time as well as IRL time. Really good discussion. Made me realize what I've been missing in my gaming.

Quote from: tenbones on February 02, 2022, 11:29:04 AM
IF it's about power-level or is it about system-facility?

Would you GM high-level Fantasy (whatever you want to define that as) if the system gave you good mechanical control? Or is it more important that you stick with whatever system you're used to - D&D, RQ, GURPS, whatever, and never get into the high-level play unless your game evolves into that naturally? Or do you just avoid it altogether and call it a wrap?

To me, it's about setting.  Sure, the system has an effect on how power level and setting interact.  Played straight out of the box, I can go "higher" in conceptual levels in D&D 1E than D&D 3E in a campaign that starts "first and gritty".  Part of that, though, is because how and where 3E (and later) ramp up the power level.  And of course with 4E and 5E starting the characters off more powerful (in some ways), that moves the window too. 

That can all be worked around, with some effort.  I can envision a setting where it makes sense that there are lots of adventures for 1st level 5E characters and a bunch for 20th level 5E characters at the same time.  I just don't want to run it, and don't much want to play in it. 

But then, I like running different campaigns in settings custom designed for that campaign, which means that if I want to play a different power level, I can go do what I'm already inclined to do anyway, maybe even with a different system. 

As for supers, the reason we'd make the jump from Fantasy Hero to Champions at those power levels is because high-level Fantasy Hero might as well be Champions and vice versa.  In fact, before the launch of FH 1E, I was getting ready with a few friends to run a "Epic Fantasy" game using Champions rules straight, just flavored different.  Or put another way, really high-level fantasy is super heroes.

Greetings!

Hmmm...power level doesn't bother me. I have already Rule Zeroed spells like Fly, Teleport, Raise Dead, and some others. Beyond that, I have taken the DM scissors to any sub-class, class, or whatever, that provides teleportation, flying, telepathy, or plane-traveling, gate, and commune spells or abilities. I also restrict shapeshifting spells and abilities.

It isn't difficult to create creatures or opponents that have the players sweating, regardless of their level. I have always been aggressive with that as DM, especially after experience playing WFRP 1E extensively, as well as Rolemaster, for years.

I don't like *superheroes* of any genre, and certainly not in an ancient and medieval flavoured campaign world. And yes, I know there's a significant difference between a level 20 Player Character and a level 1 NPC--but the whole superhero vibe is just verboten for me. Heroes are good. Even "Mythic Heroes" to an extent. Superheroes? No.

I know WOTC has been pushing the superhero thing for awhile now, and it annoys me greatly.

System wise, I just make it work for me. That's what the DM's hammer is for, and the Viking Hat. If D&D has a rule I don't like--I change it. If D&D doesn't have a rule I think is necessary, I create my own rules to cover whatever it is that I want covered. I have a vision for how my world works. I've been running my world of Thandor for decades now--so I know Thandor better than Greyhawk, better than Forgotten Realms, better than any commercial world presented out there. I always make the rules fit the world, and not the world fitting the rules. The World comes first, and the rules serve the world. You have to be absolutely ruthless about this kind of thing, or every 6 or 8 years some group of "game designers" will write a bunch of stupid shit that can absolutely fuck up everything you have spent literally decades creating.

I remain the Dungeon Master, and am always in absolute command.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Nearly all our campaigns last around 2-3 years and ends up at the 15-20 level range.   Our current one (PF2), the PC's started off as kids (0 level nobodies) and after 43 sessions they just reached 10th level.   I fully expect the PC's all hitting 20th by the end of the campaign (unless a TPK happens which has nearly happened a few times).   I'm already prepping for my next one which will be Savage Worlds Pathfinder! Converting my homebrew races over was a breeze.   Now I'm left with just working out some minor details for my setting :)   I've already ran a SWP oneshot for my group and it went well so I know they will be ready when we jump over to the new system :)

I was digging through my old Ad&D 1e DMG guide the other day and found myself pulling out all my old books and I'm prepping to run a oneshot soon which I know our younger members of the group will enjoy (these guys enjoy PC games like Dark souls so enjoy challenging play) and my core group that I started play with in '83 will also get a kick out of it :)

Any campaign that I've run in D&D (regardless of edition) that has made it past 12th level, have been multi-year campaigns that I run weekly (I've never run less than weekly).

And it's become very clear to me, anecdotally, that the vast majority of players do not experience the multi-year campaign at the volume I'm running things, and even fewer experience actual long-term high-level play. Which I often wonder about from a marketing sense. Because there has always been the image of parties fighting gigantic dragons, and demons or whatever, and outside of a planned encounter in a module or something, and contextually in my own campaigns, such encounters rarely happen without a lot of buildup and machinations merely to get the PC's into the power-strata to 1) deal with such threats 2) such threats are not typically *stupid*, they know beings like the PC's exist and they tend to be very intelligent and I play them as such, so getting caught in the scenarios where you'd have such fights takes a *LOT* of work to whittle down their respective defenses/minions etc.

That journey are often long-term goals that takes many twists and turns over the course of a campaign that can dog my players for literal years. When I read a lot of the modern 5e/PF adventure paths, I often giggle at how silly/stupid they make their villains given the contextual power they actually possess. The contrivance of having this manicured progression for the sole purpose of shoe-horning players to high-level for the purposes of a curated experience designed to have that snapshot encounter filled with Macguffins to allow you to fight Tiamat or whomever with very little requirements placed on the players and their PC's other than making it from encounter to encounter as proscribed.

I've always contended that such experiences are useful if only to prime the pump for players wanting to have a more organic and deeper game where there are no hand-holds, no MacGuffins not designed by their own machinations, or at least they're emergent form their own organic interactions of the campaign. I'm wondering if that's true at all? Or is it such a rare experience that players don't know better because they're not really looking at gaming that way?

I know I get some good players that do the module-running thing for years, they're smart people. But when they hit my game, it's like they're loosed off the chain (often to dangerous and deadly ends) because they either can't believe all the freedom I allow for them to pursue whatever it is they wanna do in context with the setting - even other players have to tell them to "dude, be careful - this isn't a Disneyland themepark, one doesn't merely ignore the sign that says "Here Be Dragons" thinking the GM isn't deadly serious about there being a potential dragon there at 2nd level. Or is there? Or worse, I get a smart player that is indoctrinated into this "game-logic" where they react to everything like it's a movie-prop designed to push some narrative that only exists in their minds? Where they think that the Death Trap has to have some way out that I, the GM, places there for convenience for the Heroes to escape. No, when my NPC's decide to the kill the PC, I'm precisely as ruthless as I believe their intelligence and ability will allow them to be. So when I set up a deathtrap - I'm going to try and do it as efficiently as reasonably possible.

Likewise I play my NPC's as stupid as they might be. The tension keeps the players grounded, and they feel great that everything they possess they earned, even if it comes by opportunism (which is a big ethical and moral check in my games - how much to the PC's actually show a little mercy or contrition in their undertakings with their adversaries that don't always simply want to "kill" the PC's. Basically I try to make it feel dramatic with a healthy dash of "real" for verisimilitude. I don't like babying my players at all - and I find that those players, especially new ones, raise their game and like it. We aim to go as far as we possibly can in every campaign. We don't usually make it. But that's okay too. When we do, the real magic is there - that odd but awesome vista of "How the hell did we get this far from relative humble beginnings?"

But I'm starting to think that system plays a much larger role in this lack of experience - and obviously D&D looms large - because it's not some secret that high-level D&D play is uncommon because we know the system gets really unwieldy beyond 13th. I can't but help feeling that it's a put-off to GM's that stay in that D&D ecosphere - and I'm not limiting this to any particular edition. I wonder about GM's that started in Palladium Fantasy, or Rolemaster, or any other non-D&D system, do they do "high-level" play more/less?

For me - I know MSH tossed me into the deep end of the pool early on, but my forays into other non-D&D fantasy games (Talislanta and Palladium specifically) caused me to question a lot of assumptions because they are *much* higher octane in terms of power but also different enough mechanically from D&D they process that high-octane power more efficiently. But even then it took years for me to hit that stride in D&D. I just assumed *every* GM went through this. Now I'm thinking GM's that run these long-term campaigns that reach and hold at high-level for a good amount of time are rare unicorns that are basically invisible to the rest of the TTRPG game-o-sphere. To the point that not only are the way we run our games extreme outliers, but there is a fiction that everyone else believes about high-level play (the curated form ala Adventure Paths) that renders the way we run our games as practically impossible to really comprehend.

When others on this thread say "My campaign ran for 5+ years..." I know people at my LFGS that do *not* believe such things exist (and I'd generalize a bit and guess most of them got into the hobby in the latter-era of 3.x). 4e and 5e has only cemented this kind of attitude that high-level play only exists for a brief time you could count on a few encounters likely at the end of a Box Campaign set. At least that's the attitude I get from a lot of newer players.

Quote from: Krugus on February 02, 2022, 06:52:31 PM
Nearly all our campaigns last around 2-3 years and ends up at the 15-20 level range.   Our current one (PF2), the PC's started off as kids (0 level nobodies) and after 43 sessions they just reached 10th level.   I fully expect the PC's all hitting 20th by the end of the campaign (unless a TPK happens which has nearly happened a few times).   I'm already prepping for my next one which will be Savage Worlds Pathfinder! Converting my homebrew races over was a breeze.   Now I'm left with just working out some minor details for my setting :)   I've already ran a SWP oneshot for my group and it went well so I know they will be ready when we jump over to the new system :)

I was digging through my old Ad&D 1e DMG guide the other day and found myself pulling out all my old books and I'm prepping to run a oneshot soon which I know our younger members of the group will enjoy (these guys enjoy PC games like Dark souls so enjoy challenging play) and my core group that I started play with in '83 will also get a kick out of it :)

You are a Unicorn. This sounds very much like my own experiences.

A thing that has worked for me is asking that people have the next 3 months free in advance and also never skipping more then 1 week of game. Before long it becomes a habbit.

Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:03:40 PM
Greetings!

Hmmm...power level doesn't bother me. I have already Rule Zeroed spells like Fly, Teleport, Raise Dead, and some others. Beyond that, I have taken the DM scissors to any sub-class, class, or whatever, that provides teleportation, flying, telepathy, or plane-traveling, gate, and commune spells or abilities. I also restrict shapeshifting spells and abilities.

I want to be clear here - for me, and I suspect what you're saying is the same - it's about context. Since I spend a lot of time in the Forgotten Realms over the years, (but I got decades of time in Greyhawk and other settings too). The important thing is putting what I want in Magic within those settings in context. I *do* not remove spells that I want to exist. If it exists, then it's there, what I do is make the act of learning such magic like I treat non-casters learning how to use weapons/armor for combat. They gotta work for it. And the more powerful it is, the harder they gotta work. One of the things I detest about modern D&D is the videogame logic of "I level up! ding! Here's my new powers. With zero context added to what "leveling up" actually means. Now this could be a montage, or whatever - that's fine. But if I place requirements over and above you getting enough XP to learn <X> from your "level up", well guess what? That's what it's going to take if you want "Fly" or to learn how to Specialize with a "Battle Axe".

This is ESPECIALLY true of magic. It grinds me a bit when spellcasters think everything is just automatic for their skills/art, while non-casters are assumed to be grinding all the time at getting better at their abilities. I demand roleplaying justifications at all times.

As a Supers GM, powers and the powerlevel of spells does not cause any hesitation for me at all. There is literally no spell that has ever existed in D&D that compares to having to deal with MSH's array of super-powers in use. Telepathy? Teleport? Flight? That's easy stuff. Try dealing with PC's that have Matter Rearrangement... LOLOLOL or Cosmic Awareness + a few other janky-ass powers that will put most GM's on their heels in a Fantasy setting. The key here is context. This is not to say that like you, I acknowledge these spells can cause ripples in the assumptions of a setting (Hello? Teleport would *completely* change the economy of any fantasy setting) - it becomes doubly important for me, if I'm going to allow such powers in the game, that I contextualize WHY they aren't fucking up entire aspects of the pseudo-medieval world's economy and political realities I find more important.

Or yes, you could just remove them heh.

Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:03:40 PMIt isn't difficult to create creatures or opponents that have the players sweating, regardless of their level. I have always been aggressive with that as DM, especially after experience playing WFRP 1E extensively, as well as Rolemaster, for years.

I don't like *superheroes* of any genre, and certainly not in an ancient and medieval flavoured campaign world. And yes, I know there's a significant difference between a level 20 Player Character and a level 1 NPC--but the whole superhero vibe is just verboten for me. Heroes are good. Even "Mythic Heroes" to an extent. Superheroes? No.

I know WOTC has been pushing the superhero thing for awhile now, and it annoys me greatly.

Yeah - there is a difference. I also think the mechanics of the system should underpin the intent of the content. d20 does not do that well. (Mutants and Masterminds is an exception), but the notion of what we want "high-powered" to mean depends greatly on the setting. What's really funny to me is that their notion of what a "super-hero" in fantasy is, is such an outlier to their own setting conceits, I mean - okay yes, you'd need to be "fantasy super-heroes" to do the things in their AP's but those are such curated encounters that it doesn't really count to me.

Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:03:40 PMSystem wise, I just make it work for me. That's what the DM's hammer is for, and the Viking Hat. If D&D has a rule I don't like--I change it. If D&D doesn't have a rule I think is necessary, I create my own rules to cover whatever it is that I want covered. I have a vision for how my world works. I've been running my world of Thandor for decades now--so I know Thandor better than Greyhawk, better than Forgotten Realms, better than any commercial world presented out there. I always make the rules fit the world, and not the world fitting the rules. The World comes first, and the rules serve the world. You have to be absolutely ruthless about this kind of thing, or every 6 or 8 years some group of "game designers" will write a bunch of stupid shit that can absolutely fuck up everything you have spent literally decades creating.

I remain the Dungeon Master, and am always in absolute command.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Definitely true. I just look at it like this - D&D is Stone. I don't want to craft everything from Stone. I've contorted D&D in every imaginable way to do things it was never intended for. The payout for the effort was rarely worth it. But as a former tribalist, that was "My system of choice." Now? I want that option of pulling out my DM's Hammer (and Viking Hat) so I can bend, shape and work the mechanics of a given system with *maximum* efficiency. Which is why I've gravitated away from D&D (ideological reasons aside, which make no mistake is a big part of my leaving the d20 herd), because I've found other means to do what I want with better fidelity.

I'm still on a journey with Savage Worlds. My current campaign is going very well, I still consider it a test-run. What am I testing? Can I create the "DnD Experience" in a traditional "DnD setting" (1e Greybox Forgotten Realms) using Savage Worlds Pathfinder (retuned for 1e D&D - with all the Pathfinder-mechanics re-done), with the goal of organically hitting High-Level gaming with the option of going Spelljammer or Planescape and going *full* Demi-god mode if possible.

Doing this in native D&D would be very difficult without massively slowing down the XP curve, (which can be done) but I'll run into the mechanical realities LFQM and mechanical hurdles of post-13th level play which will vastly shorten the hang-time of high-level play. While with Savage Worlds, I can transition the analog 15th-level PC's directly into jaw-dropping power-scenarios by filtering in organically rules form Savage Rifts, that would allow my players to hang in God-Mode indefinitely. And I should be able to do this with **minimal** rules tweaking, since nearly everything is plug-n-play.

And thus far it's working splendidly. Plus it's forcing me to create some new sub-systems that are suitable for publication under the SW banner for my other projects (my own setting) which is another added benefit.

I think I could do this with Talislanta's system - which also has its own rules for high-level play that literally no one I know has ever actually survived long enough in Talislanta to use. But it would require more tweaking to modernize a bit.

I think WEG d6 could do this too since it has built-in scaling possibilities that could be re-worked for Fantasy play. This is definitely a lot of work, but I think the long-term payout would have more fidelity than D&D does at its own game.

I could probably name a few other systems that I think fit this bill - RQ6e/Mythras being another. My point being that system is a factor I want to adjudicate for the *lack* of high-level play as an unnecessary speedbump.

Consider how long you (and others here) have been GMing D&D and the contortions you've had to learn to do to get the mechanics to express the things you want IN your game. Vs. putting the game first and having the rules give you the heft and task-resolutions to do *anything* you want with minimal fuss, or maximum impact with a little work, but the end result is a game that give you far more hang-time at the deep end of the pool?

The REAL question is: Do people even want to play in the deep end? Or is it simple a place where people pretend they go, but campaigns die in the abyss?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 11:53:51 AM
A thing that has worked for me is asking that people have the next 3 months free in advance and also never skipping more then 1 week of game. Before long it becomes a habbit.

When I get an open spot at my table - I'm very upfront about the time-requirements. This, more than anything else usually ends the discussion. I play with a group of professional people, everyone has fairly serious day-jobs, some married with kids, in different job sectors. So we take our weekend game "serious", which I liken to a very active bowling/softball league. We play once a week, from 4pm to Midnight and we try to pack as much in there as possible.

It's a *huge* requirement, I realize, but that's my primary demand. I've had to turn away a lot of potentially good folks that couldn't make that schedule, and frankly it weirded me out for years before I realized people don't play like that very much any longer.

But yeah, I don't have a checklist of how many sessions you miss, I mean life happens, right? But if it becomes noticeable thing, the axe has to fall, and I'll cut'em loose, no hard feelings etc. The Game(tm) must go on.

Quote from: tenbones on February 03, 2022, 12:22:52 PMBut yeah, I don't have a checklist of how many sessions you miss, I mean life happens, right? But if it becomes noticeable thing, the axe has to fall, and I'll cut'em loose, no hard feelings etc. The Game(tm) must go on.

My criteria is up to 2 weeks missed without explanation. Up to 4 weeks with an explanation. Being late is OK but being absent isn't.

I have trouble grokking the idea that there is some big problem with 5e D&D at high level. It seems to run very smoothly to me.  ??? 3e/PF certainly breaks down, but that is obvious from mid level, around 7th IME. Edit: Not seen a problem with 1e AD&D or BECMI D&D either, really. BECMI has a bit of an issue with Fireball being too powerful in the teen levels - it gets very eggshells-with-hammers -but this doesn't ruin the game.

Quote from: tenbones on February 03, 2022, 12:22:52 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 11:53:51 AM
A thing that has worked for me is asking that people have the next 3 months free in advance and also never skipping more then 1 week of game. Before long it becomes a habbit.

When I get an open spot at my table - I'm very upfront about the time-requirements. This, more than anything else usually ends the discussion. I play with a group of professional people, everyone has fairly serious day-jobs, some married with kids, in different job sectors. So we take our weekend game "serious", which I liken to a very active bowling/softball league. We play once a week, from 4pm to Midnight and we try to pack as much in there as possible.

It's a *huge* requirement, I realize, but that's my primary demand. I've had to turn away a lot of potentially good folks that couldn't make that schedule, and frankly it weirded me out for years before I realized people don't play like that very much any longer.

But yeah, I don't have a checklist of how many sessions you miss, I mean life happens, right? But if it becomes noticeable thing, the axe has to fall, and I'll cut'em loose, no hard feelings etc. The Game(tm) must go on.

On one hand, this is a game, not a job. I'm reminded of the MUSHes I played on back in the day that required an application to play a character, and the app could almost be like a term paper.

On the other hand, an inconstant or vanishing player is a pain in the ass, especially in games if you don't have someone to pick up the slack of the missing PC. What do you DO with a character whose player has gone walkabout? NPC him? Have someone else run him? What if they're someone necessary? We had that happen in the PF campaign I played in, where our wizard just nope'd out and never came back; I took the hit, shelved my existing PC, and rolled up a sorcerer to fill the hole.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on February 03, 2022, 01:32:05 PMOn one hand, this is a game, not a job

Its like being part of a hobby sports team/ theatre play. People still depend on you.

Attendance policy works both ways.  If the game has certain thresholds that need to be met to make it work, you can't include people who won't meet them.  Conversely, if the primary goal is to play a game with these specific people, then the game needs to be setup to handle what they can reasonably do.  Making it great that we aren't limited to one game, and can vary the group and rules according to the goal.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on February 03, 2022, 01:32:05 PM

Quote from: tenbones on February 03, 2022, 12:22:52 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 11:53:51 AM
A thing that has worked for me is asking that people have the next 3 months free in advance and also never skipping more then 1 week of game. Before long it becomes a habbit.

When I get an open spot at my table - I'm very upfront about the time-requirements. This, more than anything else usually ends the discussion. I play with a group of professional people, everyone has fairly serious day-jobs, some married with kids, in different job sectors. So we take our weekend game "serious", which I liken to a very active bowling/softball league. We play once a week, from 4pm to Midnight and we try to pack as much in there as possible.

It's a *huge* requirement, I realize, but that's my primary demand. I've had to turn away a lot of potentially good folks that couldn't make that schedule, and frankly it weirded me out for years before I realized people don't play like that very much any longer.

But yeah, I don't have a checklist of how many sessions you miss, I mean life happens, right? But if it becomes noticeable thing, the axe has to fall, and I'll cut'em loose, no hard feelings etc. The Game(tm) must go on.

On one hand, this is a game, not a job. I'm reminded of the MUSHes I played on back in the day that required an application to play a character, and the app could almost be like a term paper.

On the other hand, an inconstant or vanishing player is a pain in the ass, especially in games if you don't have someone to pick up the slack of the missing PC. What do you DO with a character whose player has gone walkabout? NPC him? Have someone else run him? What if they're someone necessary? We had that happen in the PF campaign I played in, where our wizard just nope'd out and never came back; I took the hit, shelved my existing PC, and rolled up a sorcerer to fill the hole.

I remember some of those, they were ridiculous. But the dedication the players showed to something like PernMUSH was astonishing. Everyone would log in for something like the flight of a new queen.

There's a middle ground, but it can be really hard to thread that needle. I think a lot of it just falls back on relationships and those intangible social skills. Attendance can break an on-going serial campaign, so in those types of games it's important to set expectations, filter players, and have a mechanism to boot them out if it doesn't work. But the how can vary. But it's also useful to recognize when that's not achievable (often tied to changes in life stages), and just shift games.

Quote from: RebelSky on February 02, 2022, 03:14:18 PM
Yesterday I watched a video podcast called The Grand Campaign. The first episode just came out. The focus of this podcast is all about playing and managing campaigns that last year's of in game time as well as IRL time. Really good discussion. Made me realize what I've been missing in my gaming.

Can you link it? I'm interested.

Quote from: tenbones on February 03, 2022, 12:22:52 PM

When I get an open spot at my table - I'm very upfront about the time-requirements. This, more than anything else usually ends the discussion. I play with a group of professional people, everyone has fairly serious day-jobs, some married with kids, in different job sectors. So we take our weekend game "serious", which I liken to a very active bowling/softball league. We play once a week, from 4pm to Midnight and we try to pack as much in there as possible.

[/quote]

Damn!  I wish I lived in your neighborhood.  I'd love to be involved in a hardcore campaign like that.  The last "regular" group I played with was 10 years ago and that was seldom more than twice a month due to everyone's schedules.  And we rotated DMing so it was basically a series of modules or 1-2 shot home brewed adventures.  After I moved away they started a regular campaign that ran for like 8-9 years until it wrapped up last year.  Not sure what they're doing now.

I play with family mostly and they're much more casual about it than me.  So we might go months without playing, then play 3 times in a week.  But it's hard to keep momentum that way.  And they greatly prefer stripped down games.  So these days it's mostly OSE or White Box, which is totally fine by me, but I'd like to play more.  We're hoping to do more of a campaign style with The One Ring (using White Box) as they have enough sense of the world, albeit mostly from the movies, that we can keep going without them forgetting a bunch of setting specific stuff.

Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:03:40 PMSystem wise, I just make it work for me. That's what the DM's hammer is for, and the Viking Hat. If D&D has a rule I don't like--I change it. If D&D doesn't have a rule I think is necessary, I create my own rules to cover whatever it is that I want covered. I have a vision for how my world works. I've been running my world of Thandor for decades now--so I know Thandor better than Greyhawk, better than Forgotten Realms, better than any commercial world presented out there. I always make the rules fit the world, and not the world fitting the rules. The World comes first, and the rules serve the world. You have to be absolutely ruthless about this kind of thing, or every 6 or 8 years some group of "game designers" will write a bunch of stupid shit that can absolutely fuck up everything you have spent literally decades creating.

I remain the Dungeon Master, and am always in absolute command.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

What do you do if you want to make a change that your players don't want? Do you just do it anyway?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 12:57:17 PM

Quote from: tenbones on February 03, 2022, 12:22:52 PMBut yeah, I don't have a checklist of how many sessions you miss, I mean life happens, right? But if it becomes noticeable thing, the axe has to fall, and I'll cut'em loose, no hard feelings etc. The Game(tm) must go on.

My criteria is up to 2 weeks missed without explanation. Up to 4 weeks with an explanation. Being late is OK but being absent isn't.

Attendance has been a problem of mine with some groups. People showing up late, with no warning -- now everyone else who's on time is wondering -- should we go ahead and start without them? Should we wait? How long should we wait? 10 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? Should we just cancel? And when it happens over and over it starts to wear away at you mentally because you're never sure what you're doing that night in the game as a GM, or if you're even having the game that night.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 03, 2022, 05:56:14 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:03:40 PMSystem wise, I just make it work for me. That's what the DM's hammer is for, and the Viking Hat. If D&D has a rule I don't like--I change it. If D&D doesn't have a rule I think is necessary, I create my own rules to cover whatever it is that I want covered. I have a vision for how my world works. I've been running my world of Thandor for decades now--so I know Thandor better than Greyhawk, better than Forgotten Realms, better than any commercial world presented out there. I always make the rules fit the world, and not the world fitting the rules. The World comes first, and the rules serve the world. You have to be absolutely ruthless about this kind of thing, or every 6 or 8 years some group of "game designers" will write a bunch of stupid shit that can absolutely fuck up everything you have spent literally decades creating.

I remain the Dungeon Master, and am always in absolute command.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

What do you do if you want to make a change that your players don't want? Do you just do it anyway?

Greetings!

Well, yeah. I just do it anyway. *Laughing* It's my campaign, my world.

I am the person that has spent 40 years writing, organizing, and developing the game world. There are some things on occasion that I have consulted topics with them, and gain their input in on, for certain. However, the game world, and the different game rules, simply have to work for me, as a priority. If something isn't working for ME, it doesn't matter if the players love it. It gets changed or cut the fuck out. Players may love spells like Teleport, Raise Dead, Commune, and Fly--but in my campaign, they are cut out entirely or heavily restricted. Players often have a parochial, self-interested view in how things should work. Players often simply do not grasp the dozens of verisimilitude things and inner mechanics and workings that a DM must consider in how the game world runs.

Thankfully, the players all enjoy the campaigns, and trust me that I know what the fuck I'm doing, and why I do what I do. Thus, it isn't really something that comes up. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: tenbones on February 03, 2022, 11:37:09 AM
.......  When others on this thread say "My campaign ran for 5+ years..." I know people at my LFGS that do *not* believe such things exist (and I'd generalize a bit and guess most of them got into the hobby in the latter-era of 3.x). 4e and 5e has only cemented this kind of attitude that high-level play only exists for a brief time you could count on a few encounters likely at the end of a Box Campaign set. At least that's the attitude I get from a lot of newer players.

For me I find it odd that people don't run multiyear campaigns, I mean that's why we are playing right?  To see how far down the rabbit hole goes? ;)

I think some people are hooked on making characters but not actually playing one character in a living & breathing fantasy world.   One of the younger players in our group is always talking about "his next character he is thinking about playing"   He seems more excited about his new character than focusing on the one he is playing. 

Quote from: SHARK on February 03, 2022, 06:14:39 PM

Greetings!

Well, yeah. I just do it anyway. *Laughing* It's my campaign, my world.

I am the person that has spent 40 years writing, organizing, and developing the game world. There are some things on occasion that I have consulted topics with them, and gain their input in on, for certain. However, the game world, and the different game rules, simply have to work for me, as a priority. If something isn't working for ME, it doesn't matter if the players love it. It gets changed or cut the fuck out. Players may love spells like Teleport, Raise Dead, Commune, and Fly--but in my campaign, they are cut out entirely or heavily restricted. Players often have a parochial, self-interested view in how things should work. Players often simply do not grasp the dozens of verisimilitude things and inner mechanics and workings that a DM must consider in how the game world runs.

Thankfully, the players all enjoy the campaigns, and trust me that I know what the fuck I'm doing, and why I do what I do. Thus, it isn't really something that comes up. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

This is the way!

I'm the PermaGM for my group and if said, ok guys all spells in the next campaign will be rare and hard to find.   Half the group would still roll up spellcasters and play without complaint.  How do I know this?  Because our current campaign is just that!   The effect was just what I've read about in some of the old fantasy novels.   Wizards mistrust each other, horde spell knowledge and will go to great lengths to keep their spell books out of the wrong hands.   So, when they do defeat an enemy spellcaster, it's like having to send in the bomb squad in to make sure that the book is not trapped and if it is how do they disarm it to keep spell knowledge from going up in smoke.   Fun times :)

Quote from: Krugus on February 03, 2022, 07:13:27 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 03, 2022, 06:14:39 PM

Greetings!

Well, yeah. I just do it anyway. *Laughing* It's my campaign, my world.

I am the person that has spent 40 years writing, organizing, and developing the game world. There are some things on occasion that I have consulted topics with them, and gain their input in on, for certain. However, the game world, and the different game rules, simply have to work for me, as a priority. If something isn't working for ME, it doesn't matter if the players love it. It gets changed or cut the fuck out. Players may love spells like Teleport, Raise Dead, Commune, and Fly--but in my campaign, they are cut out entirely or heavily restricted. Players often have a parochial, self-interested view in how things should work. Players often simply do not grasp the dozens of verisimilitude things and inner mechanics and workings that a DM must consider in how the game world runs.

Thankfully, the players all enjoy the campaigns, and trust me that I know what the fuck I'm doing, and why I do what I do. Thus, it isn't really something that comes up. ;D

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

This is the way!

I'm the PermaGM for my group and if said, ok guys all spells in the next campaign will be rare and hard to find.   Half the group would still roll up spellcasters and play without complaint.  How do I know this?  Because our current campaign is just that!   The effect was just what I've read about in some of the old fantasy novels.   Wizards mistrust each other, horde spell knowledge and will go to great lengths to keep their spell books out of the wrong hands.   So, when they do defeat an enemy spellcaster, it's like having to send in the bomb squad in to make sure that the book is not trapped and if it is how do they disarm it to keep spell knowledge from going up in smoke.   Fun times :)

If they're so rare why don't they work together to combine all their spells?

I wanted a similar dynamic and that's what my players did instead. Either way I was pleased because of the teamwork.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 03, 2022, 07:52:20 PM

If they're so rare why don't they work together to combine all their spells?

I wanted a similar dynamic and that's what my players did instead. Either way I was pleased because of the teamwork.

I have a great bunch of players in that they just follow my lead when it comes to rule changes, and it helps when the change I lay down is from something their characters in a previous campaign did to cause such change to the world at large.   You see there are consequences to your actions in my world that can kick off unforeseen events that effect the next campaign.   Most of the time it's something small and other times is world changing :)

Quote from: S'mon on February 03, 2022, 12:59:07 PM
I have trouble grokking the idea that there is some big problem with 5e D&D at high level. It seems to run very smoothly to me.  ??? 3e/PF certainly breaks down, but that is obvious from mid level, around 7th IME. Edit: Not seen a problem with 1e AD&D or BECMI D&D either, really. BECMI has a bit of an issue with Fireball being too powerful in the teen levels - it gets very eggshells-with-hammers -but this doesn't ruin the game.

I allow for anyone to become so fluid with an edition that everything just "breezes" along. 1e/2e is like that for me. 3.x was like that for me as well to a point...

MSH/CP2020/Talislanta - I could practically run these with just my dice and a notepad - to *any* scale of power/level with very little effort.

5e - I put in the same club as 3e. I could do it. I think it would run much better than 3.x does post-12th level. The problem is I don't think it's that fun. There are other issues - like HP bloat and frankly, I find the system mechanics boring. These are my personal opinions of course.

My real question is not simply about D&D, but I'm speaking about D&D as a reference point because it's ubiquitous to most TTRPG gamer's experiences. I'm more interested specifically in GM's *actual* engagement at high-level play, whether on purpose or organically the campaign just goes there. And I'm wondering about the impact of what we recognize (even you and I are in tacit agreement about some editions of D&D being *really* bad at high-level play) as systemic influences on people's opinions about high-level play.

Mines of Bloodstone runs really good in 1e/2e. It runs janky as fuck on 3e. It might run well in 5e. Post-Throne of Bloodstone as a sandbox and you'll be stretching 1e/2e to its limits but it could be done. 3e would be impossible to maintain. 5e? No idea... I suspect it would be anemic longterm.

But what if you ran it in Mythras? or d6? Then ran a full post Throne of Bloodstone sandbox, can it be maintained and obviously would such an experience change people's opinions on high-level play?

Or is sustained high-level play simply that rare that no one really knows outside the few of us that get there with any regularity?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 03:14:03 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on February 03, 2022, 01:32:05 PMOn one hand, this is a game, not a job

Its like being part of a hobby sports team/ theatre play. People still depend on you.

This is precisely how I treat it.

Quote from: Persimmon on February 03, 2022, 05:55:24 PM
Damn!  I wish I lived in your neighborhood.  I'd love to be involved in a hardcore campaign like that.  The last "regular" group I played with was 10 years ago and that was seldom more than twice a month due to everyone's schedules.  And we rotated DMing so it was basically a series of modules or 1-2 shot home brewed adventures.  After I moved away they started a regular campaign that ran for like 8-9 years until it wrapped up last year.  Not sure what they're doing now.

I play with family mostly and they're much more casual about it than me.  So we might go months without playing, then play 3 times in a week.  But it's hard to keep momentum that way.  And they greatly prefer stripped down games.  So these days it's mostly OSE or White Box, which is totally fine by me, but I'd like to play more.  We're hoping to do more of a campaign style with The One Ring (using White Box) as they have enough sense of the world, albeit mostly from the movies, that we can keep going without them forgetting a bunch of setting specific stuff.

I personally would give up the hobby entirely if I only played every other week or less. What's funny, and a little odd to me, is hear this *all* the time from people online.

And it kinda bums me out a little people play short sessions, with larger gaps between. I suspect it's also because D&D has gone so mainstream the GM's out there are, relatively, less experienced. I know people that play in multiple groups online and none of them play more than twice a month in any of their games. It makes recruiting for my games that much harder because my schedule is seen as "hardcore"... when I tell those prospective players our schedule USED to be 12-noon Saturday until whenever the sun comes up Sunday...

Even in my old age I've gone soft.

And I think I'm pretty good at budgeting my time - I'm *super* busy all the time, between work, my pet projects, and other hobbies/volunteer-stuff I do and family (not in that order). So when I hear people say "I can't play at that schedule"... I'm rarely convinced, which is fine, I want people that really want to play and aren't looking for ways to convince themselves to not play.

Which is, I believe, part of why I can achieve and do sustained long-term campaigns that hit high-level and create some pretty wonderful memories. It's because my group is all-in and I don't take it for granted. It's funny because a lot of my players recently were discussing old campaigns - and the new guy(s) were realizing that some of my players have been with me for over 20-years... and a lot of those memories  and campaign stories are signposts of our friendship (much like I assume anyone else with long-term players has).

But you know, it says something when players stick around for the content you serve up as a GM. And my games are not for the faint-hearted. They're always challenging, and I know it can be a very big surprise to new players that have grown up in Post-3e world. Which again is why I suspect the D&D System itself has a lot to do with the reticence of high-level play (or even sandbox play).

I also think it's a mentality - most people like doing things casually. Especially in gaming. I have to put out the extra-effort to find people that want to play a *little* more hardcore than just casual. This is true of my videogame habits too - back before the Battlefield franchise ate shit, my BF4 squad was all 50-something old fucking men, and we got ranked into Division 1 (top 3% in the world) which shocked us all because we were just "casually" playing, having fun but being "serious" about it. Same goes with our TTRPG's.

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 12:25:16 PM5e - I put in the same club as 3e. I could do it. I think it would run much better than 3.x does post-12th level. The problem is I don't think it's that fun. There are other issues - like HP bloat and frankly, I find the system mechanics boring. These are my personal opinions of course.

This is pretty much sentiment about 5e. I think the system has a lot of merit, despite my criticism of it, and in many ways its easier to play than most other editions of D&D. But I find the core mechanics too bland, HP bloat probably worse than any other edition (or at least more noticeable, since its the only consistent thing you get every level), and too much tracking of minor class features that add more to bookkeeping than they do to gameplay or character depth. And also emphasizes sticking to a class over character customization, which is the opposite of what I look for in a game.

I find 5e the worst edition for lack of inspiration beyond an appeal to nostalgia. It had not fixed any past issue in the game in any way, at most lessening them through heavy cost.

But its biggest sin are its atrocious core resolution mechanics. Thats what make it unplayable to me.

Quote from: tenbones on January 31, 2022, 05:07:50 PM
I'm having several ongoing discussions with people on Discord, among my own players and in general about "High Level play" and the scaling power, alongside the expectations of a given system.

I'm currently running Savage Worlds Pathfinder (Modified to play as 1e Greybox Forgotten Realms) - current group is Veteran rank. In DnD terms this is around 7th-9th level, and the PC's are definitely hitting their stride. They're starting to put down roots, they're building a keep, and challenging powerful enemies of the Realms.

I'm seeing definitely differences in terms of PC capacities, but these were expected.

1) I run sandbox, so there is no expectation of non-stop combat "because" it's a game session. It combat happens when it happens, and that means Casters in the party are less conservative near home, and go hard. When out and about things are more fluid.
2) Magic item acquisition leans a "normal" for me - I completely eyeball it. I never put in things that I think are wildly out of the blue, unless I think I can come up with some interesting backstory for it. A quick tally of items and their respective values surprisingly was very close to the "assumed" amount of treasure from the 5e DMG (this surprised me as I thought I was going a little heavy). So the PC's are beefy.
3) Heavy Damage. Or as Rifts aficionados call it - Mega-Damage. At Veteran specialist Wizards can modify their spells to do the Heavy Weapon modifier. As such - I've modified the rules inline with Savage Rifts where such attacks cause extra effects to those without Heavy Armor (which isn't really a thing in D&D - but that will change soon enough with a few additions of True Adamantium or something like that). That said, I raised the cost of the Heavy Modifier - as well as granting it to creatures that should have it.

It's going very well thus far... but I don't consider any of this "High Level Play".

To me we're entering the sweet spot of D&D, where things start ramping up in terms of scale of quests and danger commensurate to those quests and goals. D&D starts creaking under the weight of itself at 14+ for me. At that point, regardless of edition, cracks start showing. Some editions are much more durable - for me 1e/2e 14-16 is pretty easy, 3e is a nightmare. 5e feels anemic.

But the goals of the game shift - at least for me, to players running Nations/Organizations, they have NPC delegates, allies and peers across the continent/globe or even Planes - that call upon them for crazy ass requests.

By 14+ literally every aspect of TTRPG's are on the table. Gods getting killed, Pacts and Double-dealing with Demons, crusades into the netherworlds, dethroning Liches, slaying of Kaiju-sized Dragons etc.

My observation is few people play D&D (and its derivatives) at this level. Like me they talk about it - and I confess, every single campaign I run D&D or otherwise, I'm shooting for this level of play. And my success rate at nurturing campaigns to that level of play is spotty. Because I demand detail and investment from the start, sometimes the drama and machinations take their toll and end in a TPK and it's back to the sawhorse and drawing board.

While I'm using D&D as an example, I'm not trying to shit on it, I'm using it as a reference point. There is always that slight deflation I feel at running D&D at 13+ because I don't feel in 3e or later editions there are good handholds for sandbox play that don't require a lot of effort on the GM (not that I'm unwilling - I just have better options). I always think their campaign AP's and modules  are so narrowly designed they're almost a cop-out of what I conceive high-level play to be. And I don't think the mechanics of D&D do well at this scale.

Right now, my players are skeptical about the power-level as we creep into that level of play, as if Savage Worlds isn't going to handle it. Yet, I'm feeling excited about the prospect, because the fact that Savage Rifts exists and I already know the power-level there is CRAZY insane levels of power more than Savage Pathfinder played at Legendary rank. For me - it's almost a foregone conclusion that I can feel the momentum of the game getting *better* as the PC's level up, knowing the ceiling is still radically higher than they can reach yet.

For me - I want that span of that 14+ levels to be YEARS in game-time. Not a module that takes place over weeks or months, where at "story breaks" in the adventure the PC's "Level Up" with a "DING!".

Which gets me to my main question - within the context of what you conceive of "High Level Play" - do you even engage in it? And if so what are the differences you feel about the system you're using?

I'm interested in OSR players that might engage in the CMI levels of play? I almost never see discussion threads about it. Do many of you engage in the long span of play across those levels in OSR games? What are the end-game conceits?

Do any of you that play high-powered games skip the transition of Zero, and go straight to the Hero - and play Exalted or some other system/setting where the PC's are assumed to be "High Level" in power from the start?

Every single campaign I have played in, or run, started out from Zero. They have all also started with the dream that this is gonna be the next long-term multi-year campaign. Mostly hasn't happened, most all petered out somewhere in the middling levels. But there was one I played in that reached what I consider to be high level. It had a six year run from 1978 to 1984, starting with a mashup of OD&D and the MM, and then as the PHB came out and then the DMG, morphing into full on 1e AD&D. In general, we reached name level after about 3 years and the next 3 years was what I consider to be high level. When it wound up I was 15th (fighter), and the party MU was 17th. We were all phenomenally wealthy in the later years (but spent heavily on our pet projects, so we still periodically got low on funds).

Obviously, we spent a lot of time at high level but the game never palled. Play at this level was fantastic. It was, however, completely transformed. In the later years, combat and dungeoneering were quite rare. We all had our strongholds and estates, so in a way we were playing the domain game, but in a way not, not in the bookkeeping sense.

See, the game was a total sandbox and occasionally the party would split  for a while to pursue different goals. We tended to split along roughly the same lines each time, but that was fine, we'd get back together again after a while. Until during one of these phases, the DM rather artfully sowed some suspicion and doubt in both "parties" about the intentions of the other. In time the split became permanent and both parties began working to thwart what (we imagined) were the other party's hostile plans. We never went mano a mano, in fact we stayed pretty far apart on the continent, but we would use our wealth to raise mercenary armies and buy allies to make sure their position was never secure. And they did the same to us. The plots became ever more elaborate and ever more expensive, but it was a riot. Essentially at this point it was a PvP game -of political and military warfare - using proxies, and the DM only had to mediate the mayhem.

We had gone full circle. We first came to D&D as wargamers, and at high level, that's what we returned to. We were warlords, but warlords who had spent years crawling out of the muck from Zero.

Fantastic campaign,  great DM. The play became high level but avoided Godlike combat and avoided the potential tedium of the classic domain game.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 03, 2022, 05:54:30 PM

Quote from: RebelSky on February 02, 2022, 03:14:18 PM
Yesterday I watched a video podcast called The Grand Campaign. The first episode just came out. The focus of this podcast is all about playing and managing campaigns that last year's of in game time as well as IRL time. Really good discussion. Made me realize what I've been missing in my gaming.

Can you link it? I'm interested.

Yeah, totally can. Here it is.

https://youtu.be/ZuARcAg83rQ

Quote from: RebelSky on February 02, 2022, 03:14:18 PM
Yesterday I watched a video podcast called The Grand Campaign. The first episode just came out.

Just like most "Grand Campaigns"!

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 12:56:00 PM

Quote from: Persimmon on February 03, 2022, 05:55:24 PM
Damn!  I wish I lived in your neighborhood.  I'd love to be involved in a hardcore campaign like that.  The last "regular" group I played with was 10 years ago and that was seldom more than twice a month due to everyone's schedules.  And we rotated DMing so it was basically a series of modules or 1-2 shot home brewed adventures.  After I moved away they started a regular campaign that ran for like 8-9 years until it wrapped up last year.  Not sure what they're doing now.

I play with family mostly and they're much more casual about it than me.  So we might go months without playing, then play 3 times in a week.  But it's hard to keep momentum that way.  And they greatly prefer stripped down games.  So these days it's mostly OSE or White Box, which is totally fine by me, but I'd like to play more.  We're hoping to do more of a campaign style with The One Ring (using White Box) as they have enough sense of the world, albeit mostly from the movies, that we can keep going without them forgetting a bunch of setting specific stuff.

I personally would give up the hobby entirely if I only played every other week or less. What's funny, and a little odd to me, is hear this *all* the time from people online.

And it kinda bums me out a little people play short sessions, with larger gaps between. I suspect it's also because D&D has gone so mainstream the GM's out there are, relatively, less experienced. I know people that play in multiple groups online and none of them play more than twice a month in any of their games. It makes recruiting for my games that much harder because my schedule is seen as "hardcore"... when I tell those prospective players our schedule USED to be 12-noon Saturday until whenever the sun comes up Sunday...

Even in my old age I've gone soft.

And I think I'm pretty good at budgeting my time - I'm *super* busy all the time, between work, my pet projects, and other hobbies/volunteer-stuff I do and family (not in that order). So when I hear people say "I can't play at that schedule"... I'm rarely convinced, which is fine, I want people that really want to play and aren't looking for ways to convince themselves to not play.

Which is, I believe, part of why I can achieve and do sustained long-term campaigns that hit high-level and create some pretty wonderful memories. It's because my group is all-in and I don't take it for granted. It's funny because a lot of my players recently were discussing old campaigns - and the new guy(s) were realizing that some of my players have been with me for over 20-years... and a lot of those memories  and campaign stories are signposts of our friendship (much like I assume anyone else with long-term players has).

But you know, it says something when players stick around for the content you serve up as a GM. And my games are not for the faint-hearted. They're always challenging, and I know it can be a very big surprise to new players that have grown up in Post-3e world. Which again is why I suspect the D&D System itself has a lot to do with the reticence of high-level play (or even sandbox play).

I also think it's a mentality - most people like doing things casually. Especially in gaming. I have to put out the extra-effort to find people that want to play a *little* more hardcore than just casual. This is true of my videogame habits too - back before the Battlefield franchise ate shit, my BF4 squad was all 50-something old fucking men, and we got ranked into Division 1 (top 3% in the world) which shocked us all because we were just "casually" playing, having fun but being "serious" about it. Same goes with our TTRPG's.

How do you manage 12 hour sessions every week? It sounds crazy and super grueling but also fascinating. Like I would get exhausted after 8. Is it just 12 solid hours of play, or more like, 3 hours of catching up, 2 hours of eating food, and a 1 hour break and then actual play?

Do you have kids? I have friends who had to scale back all their playing because growing up and getting a wife/children basically ended that phase of their lives.

I don't know if this applies to every gaming group, but my own experience of high level play (which I admit didn't happen more than once) suggests that players struggle with the concept of moving up a gear or several. They get used t a style of play and enjoy the rise in capability that goes with levelling up, yet seem utterly obsessed with trying to retain the sort of activities they're used to.

One group had risen high enough to be edging into the fantasy version of international celebs yet expected to be anonymous, despite being fairly notorious troublemakers. They had made powerful allies with a few NPC's (entirely a prep for their future) but expected instant assistance each and every time they got into trouble. It seems, as an aside, that empathising with a pseudo-medieval fantasy world really isn't that easy. They were outraged when having camped in the woods they fell foul of the landowner who thought they were bandits or poachers. The point is, they were becoming known to the political world, yet could not understand that the risks expected of them had gone up a notch. Instead of setting a kingdom to rights - they'd already met the villains and the potential allies, they went far away and got involved in tribal struggle. When that rubbed against one of the evil realms, they left. Not because of fear - they simply did not understand what being powerful meant.

Now as critical as I am, I do understand that most people aren't potential politicians, never mind dictators or conquerors. I did try to help, but they couldn't grasp the nettle so I wound the campaign up, because otherwise there would be a bunch of powerful characters strutting around with little purpose.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 05, 2022, 02:52:34 PM
How do you manage 12 hour sessions every week? It sounds crazy and super grueling but also fascinating. Like I would get exhausted after 8. Is it just 12 solid hours of play, or more like, 3 hours of catching up, 2 hours of eating food, and a 1 hour break and then actual play?

TL/DR Focus, time management, prioritization, doing everything with complete dedicated intent. <--- that's how I do it.

These days - it's 8hrs minimum. But of course we always do an "after-hours" discussion (and lots of drinking/plotting/planning) that can literally go on until 5am - which these days is getting pretty regular.

Most of the time we pick up food, and eat while I'm setting up. But we always have something cooking in the background while we play, or we have a platter of chips dip, whatever (you're never hungry at our games) plus we keep a fully stocked bar, so there's always drinks. This is the benefit of being grown-ass men, with disposable income. Our stopping time is supposed to be midnight, but that's a soft cut-off.

As for the sessions - I'm a sandbox GM, so my preparation is less about knowing what specifically the "adventure" is, as opposed to knowing what the PC's are doing in what part of my sandbox, knowing what my NPC's are doing that are relevant to the current events of the game, and having any particular maps of the current session handy. Everything else is done in-game with improv and regular task-resolution of whatever it is the players are doing. They have complete freedom and choice to do what they want - all I do is provide the context of what's going on in the world while they do it.

This, generally, is a high-level overview of what I do. When it comes down to the ground level, my NPC's have *definite* goals they're trying to achieve both for and against the PC's. I engage the PC's with as much natural interaction with the NPC's as possibile. I'm constantly gauging the ebb and flow of the game and dynamics of the PC's in different ways in order to push the game forward. So I spin a whole lotta plates. Plus I'm always considering interesting emergent things that are contextual to PC's actions in every scene they or I initiate, which can make the games extremely dynamic, creating possibilities that literally were not foreseeable only an hour ago. It's "dangerous gaming" - a state I like keep the game in, where *I* don't know what going to happen moment by moment, and the PC's and events of the game are unfolding of their own accord.

This allows me to run things virtually non-stop without having to break. Because *no one* wants to leave. The only times I get "tired" is when I've been working the entire night before and through most of the day and have had no sleep. I don't give a fuck, I'm still running my game, but physical fatigue becomes the issue, not the mental drive to GM. That's solidly intact.

Yes, it's not easy, and nor do I recommend it for new GM's. But it's probably pretty normal and recognizable to any veteran sandbox GM.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 05, 2022, 02:52:34 PMDo you have kids? I have friends who had to scale back all their playing because growing up and getting a wife/children basically ended that phase of their lives.

I have kids, they're grown up now, but even when they were infants I ran my weekly games. I did take a hiatus for a few months after each was born, but my wife and I are were very active in raising them. Including homeschooling on top of regular school and activities.

The real crux of it is this: I do things with great intention. I don't half-step anything I do. Neither does my wife. This doesn't mean we don't have fun, quite the opposite, we tend to gamify and compete with everything *because* it's fun. It makes the mundane interesting. We like challenge. There's probably a lot of stuff that other people do, that I simply have no interest in. My interests consume my time because I focus on them and I try to always extract the maximum value of that time. Especially where my interests cross-pollinate.

This allows me to pursue a handful of things deeply without losing cohesion on priority basics - Family and work first. Everything else later. Plus I don't sleep as much as I should... heh I average about 4-5hrs a night, but I do meditate almost an hour a day, usually before I go to bed. It helps settle my mind after a day of doing "everything".

Corollary - I've discovered my renewed interest in mini-painting is very meditative for me. I literally look forward with joy, to sitting down and painting. It is a great way to focus - I get the same gratification when I'm roasting coffee (another interest of mine).

Quote from: caldrail on February 05, 2022, 03:29:08 PM
Now as critical as I am, I do understand that most people aren't potential politicians, never mind dictators or conquerors. I did try to help, but they couldn't grasp the nettle so I wound the campaign up, because otherwise there would be a bunch of powerful characters strutting around with little purpose.

This is a HUGELY important point, and worth deeper discussion.

Finding purpose for high-level characters that aren't "leaders" of the world... Some players just aren't that type. But that means serving someone or an organization. Which is a tricky thing when players feel their PC has hit "escape velocity".

I know this can be a difficult thing to wrestle with in Fantasy. But I learned, inadvertently, I was training my players by running them through long-term Supers games to mentally engage with that idea of power.

Think about it - in Fantasy you're going to build up to being a near-superhero relative to the common man, but the odds are you're not going to be on the same power-level as an actual Superhero. So what is that difference? It means as a GM you have to cultivate in the minds of the players the importance of the context of the setting they're playing in at a High-Level. They need to want to be caretakers *at minimum* within the institutions you've introduced to the world - if the game is to be played at that level.

This is easier to do with players that aren't into leading things, as long as you've laid the groundwork for them.

Anyone here got stories about running high-level campaigns with the PC's not running everything?

Quote from: tenbones on February 07, 2022, 01:55:41 PM
Anyone here got stories about running high-level campaigns with the PC's not running everything?

In my 4e Loudwater campaign the Epic Tier (level 21+) PCs were running Northwood Manor http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2013/06/north-manor-travys-manor.html (http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2013/06/north-manor-travys-manor.html), a small domain on the northern edge of Loudwater, in beween questing to save the world from Orcus http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2016/08/session-102-941485-dragotha.html http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2016/08/session-103-941485-orcus.html. It was very minimalist, the local politics being far below their power level, and felt very Fantasy Superheroes. Being 'at home' was almost like a secret identity.

Here was a good session where the two worlds intersected, Orcus' demons using the PCs' protective instincts to lay a trap for them - http://frloudwater.blogspot.com/2015/08/session-89-2781484-glyphimors-trap.html

Quote from: tenbones on February 07, 2022, 01:55:41 PM

Anyone here got stories about running high-level campaigns with the PC's not running everything?

Well, I've given you one. Maybe it's not a story you wanted to hear. Probably outside most groups comfort zone. I do realize " don't split the party" and "don't allow PvP" have been mantras since the year dot, but I can tell you from experience,  if you break both rules at the same time, and at the right time, and with some skill,  you can arrive at a pretty magical solution to high level play.

Does that solution mean the PCs are "running everything?" Maybe it's telling that you would frame the question that way.

Yes, in a way. Because they have significant agency, they determine the direction(s) of the campaign. And yet no, because they are constrained by the setting, which includes opponents who aren't just NPCs, but PCs who are playing to win. Two PC groups are vying for control. If you go this way then yes, the PCs *drive* everything (as they should if this is truly a sandbox) but they don't *run* everything. Neither group can do that. The DM runs the setting as a whole and controls resolution of the conflicting goals

Yes the DM gives up significant control, especially over the actions of the PCs, and if he is running two opposing PC groups, he will find he gives up a little control over the outcomes too. But if that degree of player agency is problematic then maybe the DM isn't quite as committed to "sandbox" play as he pretends he is.

Quote from: tenbones on February 07, 2022, 01:41:53 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 05, 2022, 02:52:34 PM
How do you manage 12 hour sessions every week? It sounds crazy and super grueling but also fascinating. Like I would get exhausted after 8. Is it just 12 solid hours of play, or more like, 3 hours of catching up, 2 hours of eating food, and a 1 hour break and then actual play?

TL/DR Focus, time management, prioritization, doing everything with complete dedicated intent. <--- that's how I do it.

These days - it's 8hrs minimum. But of course we always do an "after-hours" discussion (and lots of drinking/plotting/planning) that can literally go on until 5am - which these days is getting pretty regular.

Most of the time we pick up food, and eat while I'm setting up. But we always have something cooking in the background while we play, or we have a platter of chips dip, whatever (you're never hungry at our games) plus we keep a fully stocked bar, so there's always drinks. This is the benefit of being grown-ass men, with disposable income. Our stopping time is supposed to be midnight, but that's a soft cut-off.

As for the sessions - I'm a sandbox GM, so my preparation is less about knowing what specifically the "adventure" is, as opposed to knowing what the PC's are doing in what part of my sandbox, knowing what my NPC's are doing that are relevant to the current events of the game, and having any particular maps of the current session handy. Everything else is done in-game with improv and regular task-resolution of whatever it is the players are doing. They have complete freedom and choice to do what they want - all I do is provide the context of what's going on in the world while they do it.

This, generally, is a high-level overview of what I do. When it comes down to the ground level, my NPC's have *definite* goals they're trying to achieve both for and against the PC's. I engage the PC's with as much natural interaction with the NPC's as possibile. I'm constantly gauging the ebb and flow of the game and dynamics of the PC's in different ways in order to push the game forward. So I spin a whole lotta plates. Plus I'm always considering interesting emergent things that are contextual to PC's actions in every scene they or I initiate, which can make the games extremely dynamic, creating possibilities that literally were not foreseeable only an hour ago. It's "dangerous gaming" - a state I like keep the game in, where *I* don't know what going to happen moment by moment, and the PC's and events of the game are unfolding of their own accord.

This allows me to run things virtually non-stop without having to break. Because *no one* wants to leave. The only times I get "tired" is when I've been working the entire night before and through most of the day and have had no sleep. I don't give a fuck, I'm still running my game, but physical fatigue becomes the issue, not the mental drive to GM. That's solidly intact.

Yes, it's not easy, and nor do I recommend it for new GM's. But it's probably pretty normal and recognizable to any veteran sandbox GM.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 05, 2022, 02:52:34 PMDo you have kids? I have friends who had to scale back all their playing because growing up and getting a wife/children basically ended that phase of their lives.

I have kids, they're grown up now, but even when they were infants I ran my weekly games. I did take a hiatus for a few months after each was born, but my wife and I are were very active in raising them. Including homeschooling on top of regular school and activities.

The real crux of it is this: I do things with great intention. I don't half-step anything I do. Neither does my wife. This doesn't mean we don't have fun, quite the opposite, we tend to gamify and compete with everything *because* it's fun. It makes the mundane interesting. We like challenge. There's probably a lot of stuff that other people do, that I simply have no interest in. My interests consume my time because I focus on them and I try to always extract the maximum value of that time. Especially where my interests cross-pollinate.

This allows me to pursue a handful of things deeply without losing cohesion on priority basics - Family and work first. Everything else later. Plus I don't sleep as much as I should... heh I average about 4-5hrs a night, but I do meditate almost an hour a day, usually before I go to bed. It helps settle my mind after a day of doing "everything".

Corollary - I've discovered my renewed interest in mini-painting is very meditative for me. I literally look forward with joy, to sitting down and painting. It is a great way to focus - I get the same gratification when I'm roasting coffee (another interest of mine).

That's impressive man. I mean it. Cool stuff. I am playing once every couple of weeks, and I'd like to play more often but I can't seem to find the time.

I dunno, maybe I don't feel in my players the same interest I ahve in the game, so I get tired and avoid long campaigns. I had soem great campaigns back in the day - both as a player and as DM - but maybe we became a bit jaded.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 07, 2022, 07:23:39 PM
That's impressive man. I mean it. Cool stuff. I am playing once every couple of weeks, and I'd like to play more often but I can't seem to find the time.

I hear this a lot from others, including those in my direct orbit. I think it's a "me-thing". I really don't get a lot of sleep - I'll sneak naps in here and there, but when I'm awake, I'm doing shit. And if I get a deadline? Mike Mearls asked me to help him on a book for Goodman Games, I had three weeks to go ham, and I think I produced 90k words of content (I went way overboard). I wish I had more time to develop and polish it, but... deadlines. I was "that guy" when we worked for Dragon - I'd send them a list of stuff I was interested in developing, but I ended up becoming the go-to guy for features they wanted done on tight deadline, because I could produce good copy very quickly and it was clean (helps that my wife would do my editing before I handed it in LOL), but that's because I never slept, so I always found the time.

Anyhow, I think it's just my personal nature to do things intensely otherwise I feel it's not worth my time. That plays very much into my gaming - and GMing, where the palette and canvas are totally wide open for me. It works against me because my players are scared to GM me, even though I tell them all I'd be happy to simply run modules or whatever, and if they want GM-coaching, I'm totally down.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 07, 2022, 07:23:39 PMI dunno, maybe I don't feel in my players the same interest I ahve in the game, so I get tired and avoid long campaigns. I had soem great campaigns back in the day - both as a player and as DM - but maybe we became a bit jaded.

I think this is a thing too. I'm *always* trying to keep things "fresh". Since my campaigns do not have set lengths, they end when they end, when it comes time to spin-up a new campaign - I'm always there to pitch thematic ideas to them to see what sticks, and I develop from there.

Of course there is give and take - I'm subject to my own personal interests which can change, but I'll always collect folders of information for future possible campaigns. And this is to prevent my players from becoming jaded with *my* games. I believe a healthy group should have more than one GM, but my group? It's pretty much me, I'd LOVE to have another in the group... but this forces me to always be trying to do new things, new innovations, also because it forces ME from getting stale and sniffing my own design-farts for too long.

Again, it's my personality. Since I don't plan out my campaigns per se, I create a setting sandbox and think "What can give me maximum mileage? How far am I willing to go with this sandbox? How wide and how vertical?" What I pitch to my group is a TINY slice of that. I never tell them the whole thing, because that's part of the discovery of play.

But I have a TON of stuff I've never run, simply because in the negotiation of "What's next" - the players will often tell me what they're in the mood for, and it's often fairly straight and narrow, so I never get to the 'other stuff'. For example - my players will say something like "we wanna do a Pirate-themed game."  I might go to my Campaign Design folder, and look at stuff there and pitch them -

"What about a Post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior game where you guys are Pirates?"
"What about you guys are part of a Pirate Fleet in the Old Republic of Star Wars?"
"What about you guys privateers on the Spanish Main... fighting Pirates, but turn to piracy?"

So I'll try to flip things around for both of us so we all get what we want with our expectations not being *exactly* what either of us expected. That let's me approach my sandboxes from different angles that I may not have originally concepted. What's better, it means that any of the material I've collected doesn't go to waste if thematically it didn't fit with the mainline idea. But it'll allow me to continually add to that idea folder...

For instance - if I'm personally interested in running a Post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior style game it means I'm tossing into that folder anything I think is useful for running a straight up Mad Max game: vehicle combat rules, pics, scavenging/trade/kit-bashing gear rules etc.

But if the players provide a "theme" for what they wanna play - I might take that theme and apply it to my folder. Pirates? Can I leverage my scavenging/trade/kit-bashing rules for aquatic Waterworld type play? Can I merge the two? Where Road-Warrior meets the Sea? and it'll send me off down rabbit-holes of making content for those ideas and I see if it sticks mentally for me.

Same goes with any other kinda theme - and I can apply them to any concept that interests me - whether it's running "Star Wars", or whatever. The next big thing is figuring out how far can I actually take it? Is my Post-Apocalyptic Pirate game local-only? Is there something *beyond* that concept that the sandbox can open up to?

This is a thing in my D&D games where in the backs of all my players minds are the possibilities of Spelljammer - they're always wondering if it's in play LOL. I love to tease them about it... especially these days since I'm running Savage Forgotten Realms. But I need to know my own constraints (or at least pretend to - I almost *ALWAYS* stretch past my original concepts, because the games will often take us "there")

Then I just start building the sandbox, and it's pretty rote for me from there. Locations, setpieces, NPC's and their motivations, blah blah blah, non-stop winding up, cranking and tightening down, then I drop the PC's in there, contextualize them, then let the whole thing just unwind on its own steam.

A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

I am similarly as intense as you when it comes to throwing myself into things 100%. The part I can't match is finding other people that are as into it -- usually they want to keep things casual and get upset if I try to push for more, leaving me without much to go from there unless I want to try strangers instead of friends.

That and I have multiple interests of my own that I like to pursue, but still -- if i could do something like yours, I probably would.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 08, 2022, 02:33:47 PM
A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

Well. In my own experience, cited above, which may not be typical, XP ceased to matter at t that level, no one cared. That's a bit of an exaggeration, it mattered to the MU in each party, but for the rest, XP no longer mattered. We did keep accumulating XP, but that is only because we continued to accumulate gold. It was the GP we sought and truly needed. We spent it as soon as we got it, but it was the GP that mattered. GP kept the battle going, XP was just something meh on the side. Except for the MU we had transcended XP as a useful metric or reward.

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

Multiclassing is probably the main reason I haven't tried a D&D game in a while, since I always like to think longterm and hope my players do as well. Anyone have any experience with this at all?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 08, 2022, 02:33:47 PM
A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

In my sandbox games I give XP per RAW for monsters plus some quest/achievement XP. Here's one version of my 5e D&D non-combat XP awards scheme:

Non-Combat XP Awards, per PC.
Tier 1 (lvl 1-4), 2 (lvl 5-10), 3 (lvl 11-16), 4 (lvl 17-20)
Minor: 100/200/300/500 - overcome a moderate non-combat challenge
Moderate: 200/400/600/1000 - typical session award, minor quest completion
Major: 500/1000/2000/3000 - substantial quest completion
Mighty: 1000/2000/3000/5000 - major quest completion

The main difference between sandbox & linear is that the players are free to set their own goals, and I award XP often for player-directed goals. Usually every PC present gets the XP if they all helped one PC achieve that PC's particular goal. Eg one PC wants to kill slavers, every one who took part got XP for knocking off the chief slaver.

In pre-3e/OSR for a level-appropriate quest award I'm typically giving out 5% of what a Fighter of that level would need to level up.  This comes originally from the RC and BECMI Masters Set I think.

Quote from: PsyXypher on February 08, 2022, 11:42:27 PM
Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

The setup should preferably encourage multiple PCs across a variety of levels if you want really long term play. This requires individual XP. In my Faerun Adventures sandbox players get one primary PC who can start at half the level of the highest level PC - currently 8th, so new PCs start at 4th. Players can create many secondary PCs too, who typically start at 1/4 the level of the highest level PC.

Quote from: S'mon on February 09, 2022, 03:17:33 AM

Quote from: PsyXypher on February 08, 2022, 11:42:27 PM
Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

The setup should preferably encourage multiple PCs across a variety of levels if you want really long term play. This requires individual XP. In my Faerun Adventures sandbox players get one primary PC who can start at half the level of the highest level PC - currently 8th, so new PCs start at 4th. Players can create many secondary PCs too, who typically start at 1/4 the level of the highest level PC.

And that's precisely what happened with my decade-long 1E group.  Each player had a stable of characters of various levels, and they'd pull out the ones they though fit best for any particular adventure.  ("Ones" because almost everyone played two characters at a time.)

Quote from: Mishihari on February 09, 2022, 05:51:40 AM

Quote from: S'mon on February 09, 2022, 03:17:33 AM

Quote from: PsyXypher on February 08, 2022, 11:42:27 PM
Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

The setup should preferably encourage multiple PCs across a variety of levels if you want really long term play. This requires individual XP. In my Faerun Adventures sandbox players get one primary PC who can start at half the level of the highest level PC - currently 8th, so new PCs start at 4th. Players can create many secondary PCs too, who typically start at 1/4 the level of the highest level PC.

And that's precisely what happened with my decade-long 1E group.  Each player had a stable of characters of various levels, and they'd pull out the ones they though fit best for any particular adventure.  ("Ones" because almost everyone played two characters at a time.)

We have also often used the stable approach or created adventuring companies wherein there are lots of PCs of varying levels.  Therefore, if someone bites it, you have a replacement PC with a pre-explained rationale for their involvement.  And most players are running multiple PCs due to the fact that we seldom have more than four players, usually just three.

I might try that at some point in a future campaign. Just to see how it works.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 08, 2022, 02:33:47 PM
A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

Funny that you mention this... as I'm currently running SWADE Forgotten Realms. There is no XP. This is the first time I've ever run a non-Supers game like this. And in my Supers games it's a bit of a hybrid, where I give XP (Karma in MSH) but when there is downtime, I will give free advancement depending on what the PC's are doing during downtime.

This is much easier in skill-based games. In D&D I've never really done this. I award XP exactly as its earned by the group and individuals. In 1e/2e is was *very* common for PC's to be different levels over time because of the different XP requirements between classes as well as individual rewards, which in 2e were much more granular.

As I'm running SWADE, right now I'm running it RAW, no XP (although I'm considering going back to XP or hybridizing) In Savage Worlds pre-SWADE you rewarded PC's xp per session depending on how well they did. Usually 1-3 XP. On average if you're getting regular goals met, you should be getting an Advance (a "level" in D&D terms) around every 4 sessions. The reality is this is for more "adventure" based play, since I run sandbox things are a little more in-depth and requires more focus since a session can run slower than in typical module-style play. I'm thinking I may hybridize and reward PC's XP for specific individual accomplishments in-game, and still give goal-based Advances for the party normally. When the PC gets 5 XP they get an advance regardless of the normal progression.

At least that's my current thoughts. I haven't pulled the trigger on it.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on February 08, 2022, 02:33:47 PMI am similarly as intense as you when it comes to throwing myself into things 100%. The part I can't match is finding other people that are as into it -- usually they want to keep things casual and get upset if I try to push for more, leaving me without much to go from there unless I want to try strangers instead of friends.

That and I have multiple interests of my own that I like to pursue, but still -- if i could do something like yours, I probably would.

I'm not saying our intensity factor doesn't produce its own issues. GENERALLY speaking finding people that want to play with my group is not the real issue. The fact is no matter how much interviewing I do, it never seems to quite convey what we're doing until the prospect actually sits down and plays with us. Without fail, it has never quite taken the new players aback. Not in a bad way, but it always surprises them how different our games are from what they're generally used to. It's important for me to extract from my players their own input on everything I can think of about their character in how they go about doing things - often stuff most newer players simply don't consider.

That part is usually pleasant. The unpleasant part is when they're put into invariable moral dilemmas that emerge from their preconceptions of my game - like since I don't play with Alignment, they assume "anything goes!" and they start going wild, not really considering what it means for their particular PC. This can often produce very intense situations that can cause new (and even veteran) players to my games some unease.

I've had players leave because it caused them stress - "I just wanna hang out and roll dice." Well I point out that I'm not running those kinds of games. It's not that we don't do that - we do. But our goal isn't to JUST sit around and socialize and throw dice at things. I want my players to play their characters in the game and do "stuff". I recognize that not everyone is pro-active, and go-getters, my job is to entice those players into the world with engagement by any means necessary.

Passive players tend to have very difficult times in games - because they just wanna hang around, while my more active players tend to move the ball. Passive players will invariably be "forced" to go along because their lack of ownership and engagement puts them in circumstances that they may have not otherwise chosen. I'm not expecting each of my players to found their own kingdom/religion/guild or whatever, I'm only asking for PC engagement on *whatever* is before them. So if a passive player has no interest in "building" something in-game for their PC - and wants to be the ultimate party-support PC, GREAT! Do that. But they have to understand that comes with its own baggage because other PC's *are* doing stuff and it will impact them commensurate to the actions of the rest of the party.

This means *no one* is an island in my games. You can try all you want, but all stones in the stream will get washed downriver or be eroded away. One of the things that I always stress to new players is that they will get whatever they put into my campaigns. And often they will get far more than they expect because I tend to have high-bandwidth for detail. Anything that a player suggests that contextually *might* work, I'll try to see how I can make it happen especially if it's not something I even considered. Even if that means I have to build an entire new sub-system to support it. That's my job and part of the social contract for me as a GM.

It's definitely cost me a few players over the years - and that's fine. I want high-intensity gaming with depth. So high-level play is always a goal for me, and the reality is that has this hobby has grown (especially in the last 20-years), the level of casual-play has grown. This is good and bad, as it has groomed a lot of new folks in this hobby with shallow expectations of what a good deep TTRP group can really do. Sifting through those players is a chore, as you are fully aware - finding them isn't really enough. Mainly because they can't know what you're really offering until they hit the ground running.

The real key is getting them to grow and step up to playing with deeper engagement. We have to grow that generation of gamer that will one day be us.

Quote from: PsyXypher on February 08, 2022, 11:42:27 PM
Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

Multiclassing is probably the main reason I haven't tried a D&D game in a while, since I always like to think longterm and hope my players do as well. Anyone have any experience with this at all?

Oh yes, this has always been an "issue". I say in quotes because back in the day - we didn't really have any other options. We played D&D, and the Dual-Class/Multi-class rules were literally the only option in the book, so that's what we did. It wasn't until I started playing non-D&D TTRPG's that it even entered my mind that "class" itself is just some arbitrary package of abilities and it led me down the trail of actual game-design.

It's also why I really like Savage Worlds - which the current Pathfinder edition *has* "classes" but you can build your PC as you go. A Fighter *can* learn magic and cast spells, and even do the Gish thing with far better clarity than D&D itself. The real question you're asking is "does the system interfere with the conceits of the campaign"? High-level play can *really* muddy those waters if you have ambitious players.

So my short answer is yes - system can and does impact high-level play. I mean "high-level" for most classes in D&D is breaking exceptions of what mere-mortals could otherwise do early on in the game. You can say they're "extrapolations" but let's be real, classes are narrow channels of play for "normal" people just starting to show themselves as being 'exceptional'. The problem is the assumption that a character wants to always stay in that channel.

The proverbial "Mounted" character that suddenly is faced with dungeon-diving where all their nifty abilities on horseback are meaningless now that the party is going into the Underdark. Earlier editions of D&D were more forgiving than later editions imo. Although 5e still suffers from this, especially with Feats, the pre-Feat era of D&D was more manageable although that focused progression was still a thing.

Which is weird given that even back then, most powerhouse NPC's were multi/dual-classed. Which sets that standard of expectation right? Elminster was a 3rd level fighter. Drizzt started as a Fighter. etc. But the narrative of these NPC's changed as their fictional narratives grew - well I say PC's are no different over the course of a campaign. That *demands* a system that can handle that reality with mechanical rigor, rather than forcing a GM to do the Handwavium Manuever "Yes, Drizzt, I'll let you translate your Fighter levels to Ranger." UGH.

I certainly don't mind roles for starting PC's. I think that once you're out of the starting gate, the mechanics of a game should allow for maximal flexibility as long as its contextually justified in the game. This is extremely important for high-level play.

Quote from: PsyXypher on February 08, 2022, 11:42:27 PM
Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

Multiclassing is probably the main reason I haven't tried a D&D game in a while, since I always like to think longterm and hope my players do as well. Anyone have any experience with this at all?

I have plenty of experience with it. And my experience is, there is no dead end. Level is not the proper measure. Understand, I run core 1E BtB. There are a lot of constraints that a lot of people ignore that really flip a lot of conclusions on their heads. Upthread I laid out some of those constraints that reign in high level play. But there are constraints that affect play at all levels. And the escape valve for that is in magic items. Magic-item accumulation. And I'm not talking about getting +5 everything. It's more the limited use items that add a tremendous amount of firepower.

The other thing I'd ask is, how long of a term is long-term? After a couple of hundred years of game time elapsed, the original party members that were human are dead and being level 20 isn't doing much for them. Meanwhile, the elfs and dwarfs are still living. I've been talking about this style of campaign for 20 years. But now there's a link upthread about some people who seem to be doing something similar. Recently, I saw a Facebook post from Frank Mentzer where he's talking about skipping large amounts of time to be able to play a character's whole life.

I always found it weird, people who would worry about these level limits. They always seemed to assume the campaign would last long enough for those level limits to matter but at the same time not long enough for age to matter. Like you have to hit a sweet spot of dysfunction for the cited issue to even manifest. I buy into that old adage that if you're not having fun, you're playing wrong. It would seem to follow from there, if you have to run things in a very specific way in order to get to a place that's not fun, you're doing it wrong.

So just don't do that. Don't ignore the reasonable constraints that keep high level play grounded. Don't run a campaign specifically aimed at the dysfunctional timeframe. Don't interpret things in ways that reinforce the primacy of level. Instead understand the game was originally included specific strengths and weaknesses so that it wouldn't just be a bigger badder level hierarchy, but rather for everything to be checks and balances against everything else.


That's what's worked for me for a long, long time.