My now 19th+ level campaign has always been a bit of a glorious trainwreck, with me barely getting by on limited experience with the rules and a helpful dose of low GM cunning.  But sometimes you need to step back and examine your place in the hobby from another perspective.  Today it occured to me that right now I am experiencing one of my personal RPG goals: to run a high level campaign full of exciting epic adventure.  Sure, my game has numerous flaws, but the PCs now walk as gods among men and save the world as part of their normal adventuring routine.   For the first time ever I am running a D&D campaign outside the bounds of the Expert Barrier of 14th level.  I may struggle with the rules, but everyone seems to be having a good time playing with all the toys in the store and kicking evil's ass like there's no tomorrow.  

A large part of my gaming career has been false starts, broken rules, bad ideas, and prematurely dead campaigns.  But here I am over two decades after I started and things are absolutely rocking.  Tonight my guys face the Five Serene Magma Buddhas and some Lava Golems and at least one critter from the Epic Level Handbook.  And those foes are just the lead-in to taking on a Son of Tiamat, whose evil presence has poisoned the Pomarj Peninsula since before the dawn of human history.

I don't know if this post can sustain anything more than blatant self-congratulation.  If there's a moral to the story, I guess it would be "Keep on trucking, good buddy.  There's good gaming 'round the next bend if you stick to it." or maybe "Don't forget to stop and smell the ashes of the roses you fireballed."  I like new threads that start with a chatty open-ended question, so I guess I can come up with one of those:  Hey, how's your game going?

Quote from: jrientsHey, how's your game going?

Awesome ... They're just about to find the old vault Grandma August built to stash her glove in.

Tough glove.

Quote from: jrientsHey, how's your game going?

Twistilicious.  We just barely survived the GM's double-slam "your enemies are your friends, no wait, they're really horrible enemies, and your friends are your enemies, too," and are now off to get the Big Pie which seems to be on the other continent where humans are mindfucked slaves.

Sweet.

Awesome fun.

The secretly evil priest PC was horribly burned in a magical accient a few adventures ago, and now wears an iron mask to conceal his face. He has just recently succeeded in corrupting the gnome rogue PC. The ranger has gone from an innocent woodsman into being sort of a cold blooded killer.

The group sort of took over a secret temple after they cleared it out, and freed a fallen angel (a very bad girl). They've utfitted it as their secret lair, and animated the corpses of the former inhabitants as their servants. Now theyre off trying to hunt down an old friend who they suspect ripped them off. Just recently they snuck into an enemy encampment, poisoned the well, and diseased the livestock.  

It's kind of an evil campaign.

Super excellent, my players have just hatched a plan to "Pearl Harbor" a Shadowland. They plan on loading a Warstrider with a Giant Orchalcum Atomic Grenade and Kamikaze Launching it at the shadowland city from 3 days journey away.

And that's just the beginning of their desperate Blitzkreig.

Now, how are they gonna get their Warstrider back...?

Good on you! I've been lucky enough to have a few campaigns over my varied career that have gotten to that high-level point (as opposed to just starting out there).  There's nothing quite like it.  At the same time, there is some point where the whole thing becomes a very huge challenge to maintain momentum and not "Jump the shark".  Be sure you have a good exit strategy, that's my only advice. You do not want a glorious and successful campaign to end up being remembered for going out with a whimper.

Thank the grand architect that my D&D classic campaign ended up going out with a huge bang; its been months now since it ended, and the players still talk about it. The other night, one of them mentioned that it was one of the best campaign endings he ever played in.

RPGPundit

Sounds like a great game, jrients.

My game is still prepping, and it won't be held around the table once it starts, but via online chat.  However, the folks I've got lined up for the game are all old friends who've moved away (or who I've moved away from), so it'll be like a great reunion once it takes off.

I'm furiously typing up my campaign packet (22 pages so far) and fleshing the bones of the first adventure.

Like the original poster, most of my games have ended up crashing and burning before they can really come into their own.  I'm hoping that this one will buck that trend.

Right now, I get to play an elf barbarian in the kind of DnD world I dig playing in. All of the conflicts are life and death. We get to fight gods occasionally. Oh, and everyone is very funny.
-Zam