Curiosity: How often do people ACTUALLY play from 1-20?

[Drakevarg]

I'd make this a poll if that was a thing, but just had an idle musing I wanted to ask about. How many of you have actually played/run a campaign that actually ran from level 1 all the way to level 20 (or beyond)? If you haven't, what's your typical level range?

Personally despite having been playing D&D since grade school, the highest-level character I've ever actually played was 14th level, during the first campaign I ever played in back in 2e. And even that doesn't count because there was a timeskip in the middle, so that specific chunk of the campaign was functionally 10-14. The vast majority of characters I've played have been somewhere between levels 1-8 or so. I've never committed to an E6 campaign because I like the idea of someday taking on a tarrasque and winning, but for actual practical purposes anything much higher than CR 10 is just there to be scary, not actually defeated.

So that got me wondering what other players' experiences are like. Are 1-20 games actually normal, or for most people is D&D actually more like two different games in a trenchcoat, with the first or second half existing only hypothetically? Because certainly, the plane-hopping, magic-item-Christmas-tree, titan-slaying vibe of high-level gameplay feels pretty detached from the scrappy, skeletons-and-goblins-and-spiders-oh-my vibe of most low-level games I've played. And if that suspicion is correct, I'm curious how much it colors peoples' expectation of what D&D is "supposed" to be.

[Thunder999]

The last three games I was in (not counting attempts at PBP) were long 1-20 affairs.

[Soranar]

Most of my campaigns really.

But then again we usually level up at the end of most sessions. We've done a few high level games that started later but those were the exception.

[Drakevarg]

But then again we usually level up at the end of most sessions.

That would certainly make a fair bit of difference. My groups usually level at story beats. But if it takes four sessions to finish a mission and level up, that's 80 sessions from 1-20, or about a year and a half on one campaign. Three years if you meet up bi-weekly. And that's assuming consistent pacing and no cancelled sessions. That's a long game even if things are going smoothly, and things don't go smoothly in my experience.

[Crake]

Ive found most games that ive run that have spanned 1-20 years ended up having a jarring change of pace somewhere along the line, where the players were no longer playing the sort of game that they wanted to be playing.

If you’re into an underdog story, high levels is really not the place you want to be, because at high levels, there are no underdogs, only titans, and slightly bigger titans.

[Buufreak]

Put me in the never column. Don't likely think I ever will either.

[rel]

I've done the occasional 1 - 20 game, but in my experience the 3.x system really starts breaking down by that point, so it isn't the norm.

Most long campaigns I've been a part of wrap up at levels 10 to 14 , about the time you have to start putting effort into keeping things functional.

[Kurald Galain]

what's your typical level range?

My typical level range is 5 - 10. When we start lower but move rather quickly out of the low levels because we find them fairly boring. Campaigns just end at some point, or people move away, and so forth. I have a couple characters that made it to 16 but that's not typical. Level 20 is, for me, never.

[Zanos]

There's so many things that can mess up a campaign I think I can count the number of times I started at level 1 and hit double digits on one hand, and one of those times had three different DMs. DMs get burned out, groups fall apart, peoples schedules change. I certainly would like to play a game where I actually get to use half the content the game was written for, but alas. Getting to level 20 playing once a week at the standard rate takes over a year and half, which is a long time to keep a four hour time block free for 4+ people.

I did hit epic from level 1 twice in one DMs campaigns, but that's because he ran a roll20 game where he just invited anyone that applied to it and kicked anyone that didn't show up. So even if people left he just got new folks and we soldiered on, which didn't matter much plot-wise because the encounter composition was similar no matter what the party decided to do, and he would often forget important stuff the PCs did anyway. I recall a druid once dropped an entire avalanche on a city to kill an emerging army of rat men, and the DM just acted like it didn't happen. So, yeah.

In my experience, a game will usually go from 1 to about 7-11 before taking a crap for whatever reason. If you want to play at high levels, start at them I guess. Which is a shame, because a lot of really cool content is the domain of higher level characters. Other than a brief stint to the astral plane to kill all of the Githyanki which was quickly forgotten about, I've never been on a planar adventure.

[NichG]

I played in a 2 year game that was 3-34. Another game was like 6-21. I've run a year and a half game that was 1-mid 20s, and another that was like 3-19 or so.

[Remuko]

def a few back in the day. then we all grew to dislike low levels and stopped starting at level 1. we went well into epic a few times too though.

we played like a video game rpg though. numbers got bigger but mostly things didnt change. it was just save the world while fighting monsters with bigger numbers. id never experienced the thing some people talk about where the game almost switches genres at certain level breakpoints. for us fighting rats at level 1 and fighting devils and dragons at 20 wasnt much different.

we also played with fast leveling. at least i think so? we used exp and we leveled up fast. way faster than most people on here seem to describe as normal at least. idk, maybe we just were beating higher ecl things and thus getting more exp? idk but levelling was not a slow affair for us, so progressing thru the levels was never a multi-year thing.

[lylsyly]

We always start at level 3 and go to 12. However, we always plan out level 20 characters because if all 7 of us are having fun we MAY go there ;-)

[Soranar]

We tried to use XP at first, but it was just not fun. I find I enjoy planning my characters a lot more knowing I'll have to play them at each level.

There's already so many rules and stats to keep track of, xp felt like a chore instead of a reward. Especially for the DM.

Once we switched to : ''you level up at the end of the session no matter what you do'' that turned out to be great. We considered switching to levelling every other game but it's so hard to find a group that can play a lot in our age range (we all have kids now) so we never tried it.

Not caring about xp changed a lot of things

-no more murderhobos
-running away from a fight that could kill you was a great idea, finding a way around a fight was always a good thing
-a CR inapropriate boss fight was genuinely scary instead of XP bait
-doing crazy things just to earn XP was no longer a thing
-we houseruled an xp craft pool for characters that need to spend xp on some actions, especially item creation, (just copied the artificer's xp pool)
-you feel accomplished by surviving encounters instead of defeating them (our DMs are intense, myself included)

I don't think I'd ever go back to xp

[RexDart]

In my experience, a game will usually go from 1 to about 7-11 before taking a crap for whatever reason. If you want to play at high levels, start at them I guess. Which is a shame, because a lot of really cool content is the domain of higher level characters. Other than a brief stint to the astral plane to kill all of the Githyanki which was quickly forgotten about, I've never been on a planar adventure.

Same here, I've been in two campaigns starting at level 1 where going to 20 was not theoretically ruled out, but both ended around 11-12. The first, the DM ended the campaign and started a new one at 1st level. IIRC that was mostly so the players, who were mostly new to 3.5, could take that campaign's "lessons learned" from characters they didn't wind up entirely happy with and apply them to the new campaign.

That second campaign also ended recently around the same level, but in this case it was more due to a combination of too many players and player unreliability (so there might be, unpredictably, anywhere from 4-8 for a particular session.) Also various other human scheduling/priority problems, like trying to do in-person/remote hybrid gaming and people who would, e.g., be available for a session that starts at 1:00 (but didn't really start til 1:30 or later) then had a "hard stop" at 4:15 or somesuch.

Are there groups that start at mid-high levels? Like going from 10-20 or something?

[Telonius]

I've had a few games break up early, but most of my gaming is 1-20. Shackled City (twice), Age of Worms, a homebrew adventure, a Ravenloft thing adapted from Magic. And now I'm planning one for 5th Ed - it'll be my daughter's first campaign.

I don't know of any actual surveys anybody's done (self-selection in responses is a huge issue, gamers who post on Giant in the Playground could just be different, etc) but it wouldn't surprise me at all if I'm very much an outlier.

[False God]

Almost all of them. But I rarely start at level 1. Usually 5-20+.

But I don't run the magic-item, christmas-tree, plane-hopping, god-killing setup. I run a more low-magic ACK setup.

[GreatDane]

I only have my own experience to go by.

I've never run a character from 1-20.

I've DMed three games from 1 to 20! One homebrew, Age of Worms, and Shackled City. Everyone went in knowing the plan, and we took our time. Each game took 15-24 months. These campaigns are some of my most treasured D&D memories.

[Wintermoot]

I had a few in my younger days pre 3.5 edition.

Recently, the only one I can remember was a delightful "play on thursday nights from 6-9/10" romper where we had four cycling DMS. Each DM ran a 3-4 game arc encapsulated story and we all leveled up after each story.

Do I DMed at 1st, 5th 9th, 13th, 17th and 20th level. The reason i did the 20th out of order was because it was the wrapup final game of the group

So it was played over two years (some thursdays were missed, some arcs ran longer than 3 episodes)

I think the combination of rotating DMS to avoid burnout and to give each one something new to riff on and the regimented order of levelling and playing were the keys to it running to fruition.

[Biggus]

As a player, the most I've done is 1-18, although some other PCs were level 20 by the time it ended.

As a DM, I'm currently running an ongoing campaign which has gone from 1-21 and is expected to go well into epic.

But those are exceptions, usually games peter out well before we get to that point.

[Frostmoon]

The furthest level I've made in a D&D campaign was 16, and we actually started at level 01. Unfortunately, this was a 4th Edition campaign, and 4e's killer math errors reallllllly begin to rear their ugly mugs at around level 10, causing the basic gameplay to become seriously unfun. Honestly, I think the campaign only made it as far as it did due to A: lots of out-of-combat fun, and B: our characters having certain system-breaking god-like abilities due to the plot.

As for 3x, I've never really played any high level peeps; most of my 3x campaigns fell apart long before even level 10. However, a few of the video game adaptations I've played do take this full path: that would be Pathfinder games and the main Neverwinter Nights modules (if played as a trilogy)*. The Pathfinder games remain surprisingly difficult even as you become exceptionally powerful, and obviously they lack a lot of the goofy strategies and exploits one can build in proper 3x, but they do capture that sheer fun of creating full characters that you can't really get at early levels (especially level 01).

Still, most of my actual campaigns tend to die due to schedule conflicts more than anything else, so...yeah. I've only been in two long-running campaigns, and one wasn't in a D&D system (it was Villains and Vigilantes).

*Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 also come together in a 01 -> 20ish journey, but they're 2e (mostly).

[icefractal]

It's happened a couple times, but it's not the norm. Some adventure paths go from 1 to 16/17, which is pretty close. Other games have reached 20th level but started at 10+, which helps avoid the "doesn't fit the original concept" problem mentioned above. There's been several that went from 3-15 or something similar.

The biggest factor has just been that most campaigns don't last long enough. But there's also the issue that going 1-20 involves large changes to the scope of the game that are harder to fit with the setting/premise.

[Troacctid]

I've only made it from 1–20 in organized play campaigns where characters could be ported between multiple tables. Other than that, never.

The D&D team at Wizards of the Coast has done surveys on this before and found that a typical campaign usually goes from 1–10 and anything that makes it past level 15 is very rare. That lines up pretty well with my experience.

[vasilidor]

Not often enough.

[Akal Saris]

In 20+ years of D&D, I have almost never played or run a game from 1-20.

In 2E, I had two players go from 1-16, but if those two players had been playing single-class characters, they would have hit 20 (Level advancement in 2E varied by class and split multi-class experience as well). My own characters never went beyond L6 (the trials of a "forever DM"!).

In 3E/Pathfinder, I ran a game from levels 6-20, and two games that went from about 1-15. My characters never advanced more than 3-4 levels in a game.

My 4E game experience was limited, but I don't think any games I ran or played went past level 8 or so.

In 5E, I've played in a game that went from 1-16.

This experience has strongly influenced my approach to character builds and optimization, so I strongly emphasize 'playable' builds that achieve their core goals by about 12 at the latest, since in my experience there's virtually no point to builds which only come together from levels 16-20.

[Mordante]

We tried to use XP at first, but it was just not fun. I find I enjoy planning my characters a lot more knowing I'll have to play them at each level.

There's already so many rules and stats to keep track of, xp felt like a chore instead of a reward. Especially for the DM.

Once we switched to : ''you level up at the end of the session no matter what you do'' that turned out to be great. We considered switching to levelling every other game but it's so hard to find a group that can play a lot in our age range (we all have kids now) so we never tried it.

Not caring about xp changed a lot of things

-no more murderhobos
-running away from a fight that could kill you was a great idea, finding a way around a fight was always a good thing
-a CR inapropriate boss fight was genuinely scary instead of XP bait
-doing crazy things just to earn XP was no longer a thing
-we houseruled an xp craft pool for characters that need to spend xp on some actions, especially item creation, (just copied the artificer's xp pool)
-you feel accomplished by surviving encounters instead of defeating them (our DMs are intense, myself included)

I don't think I'd ever go back to xp

I think every session is way way way too fast. Sound to me like leveling for leveling sake. In my party we level when we have achieved something. We don't use XP either. I think in 5 years time we went from level 14 to level 17. Our group mostly consists of people over 30. I joined the campaign at level 14. But at that time I think it was running for close to a decade already.

[Mordante]

Almost all of them. But I rarely start at level 1. Usually 5-20+.

But I don't run the magic-item, christmas-tree, plane-hopping, god-killing setup. I run a more low-magic ACK setup.

Why not start at level 1?

[Mordante]

I like this topic,

Often when I see characters concepts being discussed on this forum I see people talking that the character needs to be level 12 before the concept starts working. I always wonder what will you do for the first 12 levels? A character should be "useful" from 1 to XX.

[noob]

Why not start at level 1?

At low optimization, level 1 is extremely swingy as a single attack hitting can down a character and a critical strike might instantly kill a character.
It might not be what they wanted to play.

[Quertus]

So... I'm a trifle confused, and senile. I'm confused by the references to 2e in the 3e forum, so I'm not sure if this is a 3e question, or a D&D question.

To the best of my senile recollection, I've literally played exactly 1 1-20 game. It was under a rotating GM, in 2e.

I've played some characters from 1-20+, in 2e, by porting them from group to group. Each individual adventure might have been worth from 0-2 levels, with an emphasis on 0.

In 3e, I've played I think 2 games that were [1-3]-[14-16]. But I think I'm forgetting some, because I had 2 long-term groups that preferred long campaigns.

Huh. Senility willing, maybe I'll revisit this. And see how many of my 100+ 2e characters, and 30+ 3e character I can remember.

[Elkad]

In 1e my group was averaging something north of 30 hours of play a week.
Which still wasn't enough time to level every session.
We ran into the mid-20s multiple times anyway, with my highest character being a 27 M-U.
While also finding time to play GURPS and Traveller and Gamma World and Star Fleet Battles and Champions and Runequest and everything else....

In the 2e era my group (3 from my 1e group, plus 3 more) played maybe 8 hours a week (more like 16, but bi-weekly) - we got in the neighborhood of 20 a couple times over about 5 years.

At both of those tables perma-death was reasonably common at low levels. If your 7th level barbarian fell in the volcano, you showed up next week with a 1st level paladin (inserted into the party by one of the standard tropes - in a cell in the dungeon or something) and the rest of the party tried to keep you alive a few sessions so you could catch up with them.

But we also had extra-planar fortresses, body-swapping into powerful creatures was at least common-place if not required, etc.

Planning for the long term was common. We started one game and I brought a fighter. A not-very-effective fighter, as I'd "wasted" my 18 on Int. At 11th level he swapped classes to M-U, and spent a few sessions running around casting his sole magic missile and throwing darts (with a mere +2 to hit). In 1e if you change classes you keep your hitpoints, but you can't use any of your old abilities (on penalty of not gaining any XP that adventure). But once you surpass your old class (12th in this case), you can finally use your old abilities. Long-term play to make sure my wizard had 150ish hitpoints at level 15, not the usual 45.

Then I didn't play for better than a decade. Started 3.5 in 2010. Playtime is sparse. Players rotate in and out far more often, with DMs moving away, etc. In the last decade we've gotten to 14 or 15 a couple times, no higher.

[RexDart]

I like this topic,

Often when I see characters concepts being discussed on this forum I see people talking that the character needs to be level 12 before the concept starts working. I always wonder what will you do for the first 12 levels? A character should be "useful" from 1 to XX.

Same, and I've often wondered if there are groups that actually start play around 8th level or something, as so much advice seems to disregard the notion that you actually have to play the character in the low and mid levels. To take just one example, all the advice that taking Divine Metamagic is virtually mandatory for any cleric, but ignoring how there are costs to this. (E.g. you have to take a metamagic feat that's mostly or entirely useless at 9th level, DMM itself at 12th level, and the combo doesn't become really useful until a couple levels after that.)

[Biggus]

I run a more low-magic ACK setup.

What does ACK mean?

[holbita]

We always have one 1-20 campaign at a time. When that finishes we start another.
That's our recurring game, then in between we make small adventures with other characters and even some other game systems, so in number we play more "just a few levels" way more than a campaign, but in number of sessions it would be a 50-50

[Anthrowhale]

To take just one example, all the advice that taking Divine Metamagic is virtually mandatory for any cleric, but ignoring how there are costs to this. (E.g. you have to take a metamagic feat that's mostly or entirely useless at 9th level, DMM itself at 12th level, and the combo doesn't become really useful until a couple levels after that.)

DMM persist is famous because it works during level 1 and is not setting specific. For example, as a human, take the Planning Domain, Persistent Spell, and DMM[Persistent Spell]. Then you either have good charisma (16) and pick up a Reliquary Holy Symbol (+1TU, 1K) or have a meh charisma (10) and pick up the Undeath domain for the 7 TUs.

It's modestly useful at level 1 (Divine Favor), a significant party buff at level 2 (Elation), and all-day healing at level 3 (Mass Lesser Vigor).

[Eurus]

Same, and I've often wondered if there are groups that actually start play around 8th level or something, as so much advice seems to disregard the notion that you actually have to play the character in the low and mid levels. To take just one example, all the advice that taking Divine Metamagic is virtually mandatory for any cleric, but ignoring how there are costs to this. (E.g. you have to take a metamagic feat that's mostly or entirely useless at 9th level, DMM itself at 12th level, and the combo doesn't become really useful until a couple levels after that.)

Flaws help with that, to some extent. They raise the overall power level, but they let you do fun things that you normally couldn't do.

Anyway, my preferred starting point when I DM is somewhere in the 5-7 range, ideally ending at 11-12 or so. I feel like that's the best combination of giving the players fun tools to build with, but not having everything totally break down with really high level magic.

[D+1]

Way back in the days of 1E (late '70's) we had ONE campaign that lasted for a good 10 years or so and had ONE (maybe two) PC's reaching 20 and a bit beyond. For MOST of that campaign, however, the system for awarding xp being used was quite "non-standard" so I don't consider it a reliable example. For the next couple decades of games of 1E and 2E NONE of them lasted more than a year or so and only ONE of them got far into double-digit levels for PC's but nowhere near 20. By the time I was running 3E after 2000 I decided SPECIFICALLY to run a game right to at least 20th - but it would also have a specific END at that point, and that's what happened. All other 3E campaigns folded LONG before that. Never played 4E. Only played a few limited runs of 5E as a player.

So really, only two campaigns out of many dozens I've played in or run over the last nearly 50 years have reached much less exceeded 20th level. Frankly, I PREFER the way D&D has always played below double-digit levels (both as player and DM). Ryan Stoughton had it very right in E6 that it's the level of spells/magic that REALLY changes the game by that point (and IMO NOT for the better). I even have a set of 1E house rules that limits ALL PC's to an ABSOLUTE maximum of 700,001 xp because at that point the various classes are still roughly comparable, but beyond that the magic alone just starts to cause the whole game to break down.

[Drakevarg]

So far it sounds like the answers have been divided very dramatically between "yes, many times" and "no, never/MAYBE once or twice." Very little in between.


So... I'm a trifle confused, and senile. I'm confused by the references to 2e in the 3e forum, so I'm not sure if this is a 3e question, or a D&D question.

I considered posting it in RPG general since it can apply to D&D in general, but the question came to mind in regards to 3.PF and wasn't about the entire TTRPG medium as a whole.

[False God]

What does ACK mean?

Adventurer-Conqueror-King.
Basically that "adventuring" is the business of the lower levels, about 1-10, by that point "going out and killing stuff" doesn't really work as a model. The PCs are more powerful than a lot of things in the world, and many of the threats become things that a single guy with a sword just can't handle (armies, politics, famine, etc...).
At that point they transition into "conquerors"(11-15ish), leading armies to defeat the goblin hordes, claiming land that they then have to develop and defend, fending off invading nations, etc... Any "adventuring" at this point is more the final confrontation between the PC and the Goblin Generals or something. They're not targets you run into on a random encounter chart or in some abandoned dungeon.
Now they are "Kings"(16+ish), ruling over lands, ensuring the health and survival of their people. "Adventuring" at this point would look more like King Arthur setting out for the Holy Grail. If there is an army of demons, you may lead your army, but functionally it's your army who fights the other army, your job is ensuring your army has the skill and power to do so. You may have a personal duel with the Demon King as the grand finale, but these moments are rare compared to your day-to-day of ensuring your kingdom works well.

Thats not to say the actual table play does not focus on these specific moments and the "kingdom management" element is addressed more simply roleplay and a few die rolls. But from the perspective of the PC, these moments can be spaced years apart. It's not a constant run from one battle to the next.


Why not start at level 1?

Because I don't really enjoy the "LOLRANDOM" nature of the game. I'm not really interested in gameplay where your character gets one-shot by some random wolf. I've played D&D for years and I've played with plenty of DMs who never want the game to go beyond 6th or 7th level, they LOVE that kind of low-level, ultra-gritty, "you could die from an arrow to the knee" sort of game with low investment in your character and it's no biggie just go make another. I don't like the idea of disposable characters, so yeah.
That portion of the game just isn't my cup of tea.

[RNightstalker]

Most people don't have the time to do it. Like others have said, people move and schedules change and life changes. I've only made it to epic levels twice, ironically both in 3.x. It was with the same group and DM's were rotated. One campaign stopped at 20, I took over the one that went into epic levels starting at 17, and we took it 24/5. That group had a persistomancer and clericzilla that made DM'ing the group at higher levels difficult to plan...so I started adapting the encounters to go "these minions will hit the PC's on a 18-20, the BBEG will hit on a 12+" things like that.

[daremetoidareyo]

I have never once gotten past level 12

[loky1109]

It happened only once in the very beginning. We all (my group) were in school back then and had enough time.

[Elkad]

Adventurer-Conqueror-King.
Basically that "adventuring" is the business of the lower levels, about 1-10, by that point "going out and killing stuff" doesn't really work as a model. The PCs are more powerful than a lot of things in the world, and many of the threats become things that a single guy with a sword just can't handle (armies, politics, famine, etc...).
At that point they transition into "conquerors"(11-15ish), leading armies to defeat the goblin hordes, claiming land that they then have to develop and defend, fending off invading nations, etc... Any "adventuring" at this point is more the final confrontation between the PC and the Goblin Generals or something. They're not targets you run into on a random encounter chart or in some abandoned dungeon.
Now they are "Kings"(16+ish), ruling over lands, ensuring the health and survival of their people. "Adventuring" at this point would look more like King Arthur setting out for the Holy Grail. If there is an army of demons, you may lead your army, but functionally it's your army who fights the other army, your job is ensuring your army has the skill and power to do so. You may have a personal duel with the Demon King as the grand finale, but these moments are rare compared to your day-to-day of ensuring your kingdom works well.
That portion of the game just isn't my cup of tea.


We skip ACK as well in general.

Nobody who sticks around at the tables I play at wants to run a kingdom, and very few want to lead an army. There may be an army offscreen (RHoD), or a few NPCs guarding your wizard tower, but that isn't the same thing.
(and yes, I realize other tables may play completely differently - I've played at those tables and eventually left the game as not to my liking when it shifted to C or K)

But we don't do it by rerolling often, or playing low-magic. We just change the setting as the party progresses. In Barrier Peaks, Ravenloft, Underdark, AbyssLevel217, or a million other settings, you can still be an adventurer just struggling to survive at L15, or L27, because the level of the "peasants" was raised as well. Especially if you are trapped, lost, or racing a clock.

We also skip a lot of the min-max theorycrafting stuff, either via gentleman's agreement or actual houserules.
For example - nobody has ever played a persistomancer. Persist and DMM? Sure, they come up. But we don't allow the common-on-this-board interpretation that you can gain multiple turning pools. Taking Rebuke Undead or Air domain just expands your target selection, it doesn't give you another 4+cha uses separate from your pool for undead, so it's the kind of thing you do with a spell or two, not a whole library every morning. Divine Power? Sure. 12 turn attempts (and 3 feats of course) just to get Mass Lesser Vigor on the whole party at level 8 and save a few gold on wands? Highly unlikely to happen. Backpack full of Nightsticks? Never. GMW and other long-duration buffs have similar problems, just because the best way to open a fight is often with multiple Dispels.

[rel]

So far it sounds like the answers have been divided very dramatically between "yes, many times" and "no, never/MAYBE once or twice." Very little in between.


It kind of makes sense. Leveling all the way from 1 to 20, especially in 3.x leads to a very specific type of game; The huge difference in the games tone and the nature of challenges across that level range mean that unless you stray pretty far from the typical D&D setting, you can't tell many types of stories beyond 'plucky nobodies gain the power of the gods themselves and end up saving the world'.

Add to that the Mechanical difficulties associated with running games at high levels, and the sheer amount of time it takes to play through 20 levels of content using the normal rules and the only groups actually doing it regularly are those who really like that style of game or those who's house rules and base assumptions just make that type of game an easy and natural fit.

For everyone else, a 1 - 20 D&D campaign, especially 3.x is hard enough to pull off that it isn't going to happen often.

[DigoDragon]

The current 3.5 campaign I'm in is the longest-running one I've ever gotten to experience in the entirety of this edition's existence. My character started at 1st and we recently reached 9th level.

Before this one, I've never experienced a campaign getting farther than 5-6th level.

Now as a DM, it seems like the opposite happened. My 3.5 campaigns start at 1st and go to at least 12th level. My record is 23rd level. While I'm proud to have run long-lasting campaigns that players enjoyed, I do hope things last in this game I get to be a player in.

[Fyxur]

Been playing for over 20 years and I dm d a game where we hit 20 only once. As well as seen the first prestige class.

[PhoenixPhyre]

5e, but...

I've done 2 1-20s, a 1-17[0], another 3-17[1], and working on what will probably go into the later levels. Possibly 2 if real life doesn't intervene. But then I've also done a lot of 1-6 or 1-8[2] games.

Generally I've found that real life is the killer way before game breaking is. I tend to do arc-based games without (or only with a weak) overarching structure/BBEG. I also level up based on sessions, not XP or story beats--you level up after a number of sessions equal to MIN(your level, 4).

[0] real life intervened and I moved across the country. Back before online was a big thing.
[1] story gave out, so we wrapped things up there.
[2] ok, most of those were inherently time-boxed by being after-school club games. You got about 10-12 good sessions in a school year. And those were short sessions (1.5 hours max).

[vasilidor]

I would also have to say that life interferes with the ability to continue a game more than any other thing. It is not that we don't try to get to level 20, it is that we start with characters at level 1 for a new campaign and get stopped before we can get to level 20. I would like to continue some characters in other campaigns at some point rather than just make new ones all the time. I also don't mind starting out at higher levels.

[Lilapop]

TLDR: Never.

I played in one weekly campaign that ran for ~2.5 years, with the DM eyeballing XP rewards. We made it to level 13 (I think), before I finished my apprenticeship and moved back home.
My current campaign is running every other week in theory, though we have to cancel a good third of sessions because somebody comes down with a case of the adultness. I've been giving out XP based on DMG tables, plus some extras for quests and completing dungeons, usually equal to a monster of the arc's average CR. They are level 12 now, and I don't think they'll get to 13 before I have finished telling my story.

That last bit is important, methinks. You don't set out, as a writer/DM or as a group, to "play from 1-20". First you come up with a story. Then you either identify the level of certain story beats and feed them sidequests until they are tall enough to ride, or you just churn through it and the XP that gives decides what level they reach. If this is a big AP like can of worms, it takes you to 20. If it is just a quick idea, it probably doesn't. And once the story is finished, somebody else takes over and gets to do all the DM work.

[False God]

We skip ACK as well in general.

Nobody who sticks around at the tables I play at wants to run a kingdom, and very few want to lead an army. There may be an army offscreen (RHoD), or a few NPCs guarding your wizard tower, but that isn't the same thing.
(and yes, I realize other tables may play completely differently - I've played at those tables and eventually left the game as not to my liking when it shifted to C or K)

But we don't do it by rerolling often, or playing low-magic. We just change the setting as the party progresses. In Barrier Peaks, Ravenloft, Underdark, AbyssLevel217, or a million other settings, you can still be an adventurer just struggling to survive at L15, or L27, because the level of the "peasants" was raised as well. Especially if you are trapped, lost, or racing a clock.
And, like you leave the games I describe, I leave the games you describe because fundamentally, I skip 1-5 because I explicitly dislike the bolded presentation. Where no matter how good you get, no matter how much money you make, you're fundamentally in the same position. I and too many people I know IRL live this experience. I've no desire to repeat it in game. It's why I don't play low levels, it's why I don't play E6, it's why I don't play meat grinders. It's just horrifyingly disheartening to play IMO.

[RNightstalker]

That last bit is important, methinks. You don't set out, as a writer/DM or as a group, to "play from 1-20".

Of course we do. Who the heck wants to come up with a build to not even get halfway through? Someone might need to swap out DM's or switch to different campaigns so DM can refresh and adjust.


And, like you leave the games I describe, I leave the games you describe because fundamentally, I skip 1-5 because I explicitly dislike the bolded presentation. Where no matter how good you get, no matter how much money you make, you're fundamentally in the same position. I and too many people I know IRL live this experience. I've no desire to repeat it in game. It's why I don't play low levels, it's why I don't play E6, it's why I don't play meat grinders. It's just horrifyingly disheartening to play IMO.

This is my new favorite post.

[vasilidor]

Do I set out to play levels 1 through 20?
Yes.
Success Rate?
about 0%

[Mordante]

And, like you leave the games I describe, I leave the games you describe because fundamentally, I skip 1-5 because I explicitly dislike the bolded presentation. Where no matter how good you get, no matter how much money you make, you're fundamentally in the same position. I and too many people I know IRL live this experience. I've no desire to repeat it in game. It's why I don't play low levels, it's why I don't play E6, it's why I don't play meat grinders. It's just horrifyingly disheartening to play IMO.

What is the attraction of playing high level to you. One of my issues with high level is mainly practical. A high level caster has so many spells, magic items it is too much book keeping for me.

[Zanos]

And, like you leave the games I describe, I leave the games you describe because fundamentally, I skip 1-5 because I explicitly dislike the bolded presentation. Where no matter how good you get, no matter how much money you make, you're fundamentally in the same position. I and too many people I know IRL live this experience. I've no desire to repeat it in game. It's why I don't play low levels, it's why I don't play E6, it's why I don't play meat grinders. It's just horrifyingly disheartening to play IMO.
I don't think my real life is quite that bad, but yeah, I don't play a level 15 wizard to kill the level 15 goblins instead of the level 1 goblins, accomplishing nothing other than running up the numbers treadmill. If going up in level doesn't come with some corresponding ability to have narrative impact on the setting, I'm not interested in playing, period. "Always a bigger fish" is fine, but I better be a bigger fish to someone in the mid-high levels. Hell, in my current game I already own and staff a fortified keep at level 4, and in the previous one I was the lord of a town of over a thousand civilians by level 6. Bit low leveled to be running the show IMO, but it gets me invested in the game to build something up to care about. Some people like to protect their favorite NPCs, I like to protect society(which we live in).

[False God]

What is the attraction of playing high level to you. One of my issues with high level is mainly practical. A high level caster has so many spells, magic items it is too much book keeping for me.

So play a high level fighter.

I personally cut way back on WBL(at least in raw coinage), I run few magic item shops, so, "too many items" isn't really an issue. People at higher levels will tend to have a keep, a sizable plot of land, and some notable NPCs but the level of detail is only as deep as the table wants it to be.

What I like about high level games is world investment, a general "you won't get killed by any passing random encounter" and more variety and options, particularly with more options towards conflict resolution that doesn't rely on combat, and enemies for whom combat is not the first resort. And of course being able to run a character who actually has enough skill in any given skill to make a dent when rolling a d20.

[Endless Rain]

I've DMed a 3-20 game, and took over another game that went from 5-20. As a DM, I prefer high-level play since I can throw a lot more at my party without worrying as much. However, I do usually skip Level 1 and 2, since I find low levels difficult to DM for since PCs are too fragile, and I'd like to give PCs more room for their starting builds to match their character concepts.

[Elkad]

And, like you leave the games I describe, I leave the games you describe because fundamentally, I skip 1-5 because I explicitly dislike the bolded presentation. Where no matter how good you get, no matter how much money you make, you're fundamentally in the same position. I and too many people I know IRL live this experience. I've no desire to repeat it in game. It's why I don't play low levels, it's why I don't play E6, it's why I don't play meat grinders. It's just horrifyingly disheartening to play IMO.

Getting locked into Temple of Elemental Evil for weeks or months, through a dozen levels, scrounging for everything along the way, is a playstyle I find enjoyable. I also like occasional massive combats that take 2d6 hours to play out. Or fights you clearly can't win, where the only question is if you can escape. Or mysteries to solve. Or the nearly-forbidden-here character-vs-character conflict that comes to violence.

I'm not expecting L14 bandits to be attacking along the road, but I don't want to spend a single minute figuring out how much taxes I collect from my peasants, or which one of the heirs I should support for the throne after the queen dies. I want to go figure out why gates keep opening around the countryside and spitting demons out. Or take my gold and retire (and play a new character).

There is an adventure path I read (for PF maybe?) where hours of play will be consumed trying to get information from a bunch of people at some party for the upper class. Whole sessions would be consumed figuring out how to get in and what to wear, followed by political intrigue and huge amounts of skill checks where you try to collect information from a bunch of different NPCs.
That's not even the least bit interesting to me, at any level of play.

[Mordante]

So play a high level fighter.

I personally cut way back on WBL(at least in raw coinage), I run few magic item shops, so, "too many items" isn't really an issue. People at higher levels will tend to have a keep, a sizable plot of land, and some notable NPCs but the level of detail is only as deep as the table wants it to be.

What I like about high level games is world investment, a general "you won't get killed by any passing random encounter" and more variety and options, particularly with more options towards conflict resolution that doesn't rely on combat, and enemies for whom combat is not the first resort. And of course being able to run a character who actually has enough skill in any given skill to make a dent when rolling a d20.

That depends on your type of table I think. I normally play very combat light. Maybe one battle every two to three sessions. Non of the high level players (LvL 17) have a keep or any land. Not everything in DnD needs to be challenge.


I've DMed a 3-20 game, and took over another game that went from 5-20. As a DM, I prefer high-level play since I can throw a lot more at my party without worrying as much. However, I do usually skip Level 1 and 2, since I find low levels difficult to DM for since PCs are too fragile, and I'd like to give PCs more room for their starting builds to match their character concepts.

There is an easy way to prevent PC death, don't do combat for the first levels. It can take years to level from 1 to 10.

[Waazraath]

I think I did it once, and it was a campaign specifically designed for it (20 adventures, all lasting 1 evening of playing, leveling up at the end of each one of them). Starting at level 1 is very common, but normally the group falls apart of loses interest before level 15, so I never got to 20 in a normal way.

[False God]

Getting locked into Temple of Elemental Evil for weeks or months, through a dozen levels, scrounging for everything along the way, is a playstyle I find enjoyable. I also like occasional massive combats that take 2d6 hours to play out. Or fights you clearly can't win, where the only question is if you can escape. Or mysteries to solve. Or the nearly-forbidden-here character-vs-character conflict that comes to violence.

I'm not expecting L14 bandits to be attacking along the road, but I don't want to spend a single minute figuring out how much taxes I collect from my peasants, or which one of the heirs I should support for the throne after the queen dies. I want to go figure out why gates keep opening around the countryside and spitting demons out. Or take my gold and retire (and play a new character).

There is an adventure path I read (for PF maybe?) where hours of play will be consumed trying to get information from a bunch of people at some party for the upper class. Whole sessions would be consumed figuring out how to get in and what to wear, followed by political intrigue and huge amounts of skill checks where you try to collect information from a bunch of different NPCs.
That's not even the least bit interesting to me, at any level of play.

Sure I get it. Different strokes for different folks. D&D has a lot of room. I'm not saying one way is right or wrong, just that I don't personally enjoy the premise you do.

[rel]

An interesting related question;
How often do people reach 20 without starting from 1?

While I've planned the occasional game starting at higher levels, (I've been idly threatening to run a level 7 to 12 campaign as a sort of high powered e6 for years) all my long running campaigns started at levels 1 - 4 with 1 being the default.

[Mordante]

An interesting related question;
How often do people reach 20 without starting from 1?

While I've planned the occasional game starting at higher levels, (I've been idly threatening to run a level 7 to 12 campaign as a sort of high powered e6 for years) all my long running campaigns started at levels 1 - 4 with 1 being the default.

I normally always start at 1 but my characters tend to last for years.

[Biggus]

An interesting related question;
How often do people reach 20 without starting from 1?

While I've planned the occasional game starting at higher levels, (I've been idly threatening to run a level 7 to 12 campaign as a sort of high powered e6 for years) all my long running campaigns started at levels 1 - 4 with 1 being the default.

I DM'd a couple of mini-adventures starting at level 25 and ending at level 27, partly just to find out how epic actually plays in practice. I've never played a full-length campaign starting at high levels though.

[Seward]

First edition as a preteen - from 1-16 AD&D.

In 90s ran a party through Temple of Elemental Evil - about 1-12.

3.0, played a character to level 12 before the campaign died. (edit - 13. Limited wish made an appearance in final scenes...)

Organized play (Living Greyhawk 3.5 and Pathfinder Society PF1e) got some characters to level 16 in both, the former because level cap was 16 and I played long enough before the campaign died, the latter in spite of a level cap of 12 because there were a few post-12 play opportunities stacked on a couple "retired" characters enough to get both to L15.

I've run and played a few adventures in various editions designed for party level 16 with slightly lower average party levels or just equal to 16 but didn't ever do anything in the 17-20 or epic range outside of CRPGs (which often went to level 25-30 if you played all the games in a series). So for really high level play, the answer is "not with fellow humans".

For some reason, barring the occasional tournament module with pregenerated characters, all of my D&D in any version has started at level 1, including CRPGs. I have played many other game systems where a starting character is much much more competent/powerful than a L1 D&D character in any edition, but such games usually have much more gradual advancement. The closest thing to an Epic game I've played for real is a Nobilis game, where you play a literal incarnation of reality as a starting character.

[Barbarian Horde]

Once I hit around level 15, I noticed that the power creep became so ridiculous that it was like trying to squeeze into armor three sizes too small after a feast at the tavern. Let's just say it wasn't a pretty sight. Level 20 seems far less appealing. I just wouldn't want to host it.

[ericgrau]

I think many people try, but it's hard to pull off. For one thing it could take years depending on how often you play. I've done a lot of 1-12ish, 3-15ish, 8-14ish, and epic. A lot of people do quit in the low teens ya and not just because the campaign is over. Because it can get out of hand. Oddly enough also when a lot of common power tricks come online and they tend to be mostly theoretical. While other things work better earlier on. There probably could be more discussion about the mid and low levels.

I'm in a 5e campaign that has gone from 1-17 and it may turn into my first 1-20. That's not as difficult to manage at high level though.