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Well, so far, all PF2 adventure paths have gone to 20th level, and we only have two announced that don't go from 1 to 20 (and both of them are half the normal length, and if you somehow combined them they would).
I personally can't imagine my current homebrew campaign finishing before level 20. Like, to the point where I was considering homebrewing some mythic levels stuff because I wasn't sure if so could fit it all. And with how the math scales, I can't imagine it being that much harder to run at those levels.
We'll be getting to level 7 tonight, so we still have a ways to go, but this group is consistent enough that I believe the only thing that would stop us is a TPK.
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I think games that are shorter are always going to be more common simply because the further you go the longer you have to hold the group, and everyone's interest together.
But it should be more likely because the game now functions at high level, so the complete "high level build considerations are a joke" attitude should die off.
Imo the solution to this is starting characters at higher level, or formatting your games such that characters from old games who didn't go all the way up can make a return for a high level story arc.
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Unlike previous iterations, PF2 combat does not become significantly more complex with each round taking longer in terms of real time to conclude.
I feel like at whatever point your campaign stops, you should at least give the party time to play with the fun toys they just got in their ultimate level up.
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Age of Ashes worked all the way up to level 20 in a way I haven't seen before - in a way that makes me confident 2E games are way less likely to go sideways than my experience tells me PF1E and DnD 5E games do.
And when we got to the end of Age of Ashes, no one was feeling like it had really overstayed its welcome, or they hadn't gotten a chance to play their character much at the top end.
2e feels great thus far for both having all levels be meaningful, and for having a sense of progression throughout - and avoiding that "critical mass" pitfall where partys and monsters develop to the point that the only roll that matters is initiative.
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In my experience, campaigns end before then has absolutely nothing to do with the rules of the game and all to do with the fact that getting there takes a long time.
Campaigns end before then because the GM wrote his own story and writing content for 20 levels is way more time and work then he was able to invest. Campaigns end before then because the GM is tired and someone else wants to take a turn running. Campaigns end before then because 2 years is a long time to get a group of people to commit to playing the same game every week and sometimes things just fall apart. Campaigns end before then because a worldwide pandemic breaks out.
I've played through a lot of different campaigns (in a lot of different rpg rule systems) some short others that spanned years. They either ended because of real life issues, or because the story wrapped up. None of them ended because the rules didn't work well.
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Longest campaign I ever ran was a D&D 3.5 game that lasted 3 and a half years. My players were level 17 or 18 when it ended. We were young and loved how borked the rules were. I would make the most ridiculous bs npcs to challenge my ridiculously op players. I was that killer gm who ran the super hard game. We played at a local game store. Three of the players were the same the whole way through, a lot of others came and went over the years, and we always had a list of other people wanting to join. Good memories. That game ended because I moved away to go to college.
I have two different groups of friends I game with now. One group with whom I've played several APs, and it's been taking us around 2 years to finish an entire AP. The other group we play mostly homebrew. The homebrew campaigns usually end by level 6-12, but I think that has more to do with the fact that it's a lot of work to run a homebrew and so we write shorter campaigns then APs are. Both groups we play weekly 4-6 hour sessions.
I don't really expect pf2 to change anything. The only way to have games go to level 20 for me would be to have the players level faster, which I don't think would be appreciated. These days we're more about the story and less about the fighting than we used to be, and we like to take our time getting there.
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I don't think I've ever held that as an article of faith, nor do I know anyone who has, so I'm not sure whether anything's really changed. I've never actually played in a 1-20 campaign as either player or GM, but I have every intention of doing so in Age of Ashes (about to end book 3) and Agents of Edgewatch (the next one after we finish AoA), and I've played in two 1st ed APs that went the distance (level 16-17, as is normal for 1E APs) with another one already at level 12 in book 5. I've had several others not make it that far as well, of course, but that just means it's not easy, not that it doesn't happen.
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I mean, purely statistically, someone is going to have a life situation and drop out the longer a campaign runs.
At some point in a life, maybe someone can run a 36 hour marathon every weekend from Saturday morning to Sunday night and knock off an AP in a month.
But at other points, even at the point where someone can (and wants to) put in 4 hours a week - which is a lot for some people - it's going to be a year where the same 5 people need to be free on the same days.
It's 240 hours from level 1 to 20 - a multi-year commitment for the median player.
This isn't even considering in-game reasons that people may want to quit, like the GM wanting to play, or people losing interest if their favorite character dies.
I think it's great that Paizo makes adventures from 1-20, not because I think the median player is actually going to play from 1 to 20, but that if they want, they can pick a block of 4 consecutive levels to play for a few months.
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It's 240 hours from level 1 to 20Is it?
PFS scenarios are explicitly meant to be 4 hours long, and explicitly 3 per level. That's 12 hours/level, 20 levels (yes, technically 19, but people will want to play out level 20, right?).
That's probably just one of those things where looking at the number in that way makes it seem way higher than it actually would feel in practice... since that's about 60 sessions and that seems like a reasonable number when in put in those terms. Is a year and two months worth of sessions really a "multi-year" thing for most people?
It's only 60 sessions if you can actually have 4 hour sessions, and only a year and two months if you meet every week.
Don't get me wrong, there are times in my life where a 4 hour session would have been short, and getting together twice a week wouldn't have been a problem.
Right now? I'm happy to get a 4-hour session once a month. I mostly play by PbP because I can afford a few scattered 5-10 minute posts throughout the day, but I can't often arrange my family schedule so I have 4 very specific hours off. If I can get a freebie night, it's often short notice (like, I don't know I can play on Thursday until Wednesday or Thursday). It's where the utility of PFS comes in, because I don't have to commit to anything outside of those 4 hours (and honestly I'm hoping it's more like 3.5 hours because I'm pretty tired in the last hour).
If your campaigns are going from level 1 to level 20 with no logistical problems, big round of applause. I hope you cherish those times, because they're really special. I'm rather jealous, to be honest. But I'm pretty sure you're in the very small minority of groups.
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In my experience, campaigns end before then has absolutely nothing to do with the rules of the game and all to do with the fact that getting there takes a long time.
Campaigns end before then because the GM wrote his own story and writing content for 20 levels is way more time and work then he was able to invest. Campaigns end before then because the GM is tired and someone else wants to take a turn running. Campaigns end before then because 2 years is a long time to get a group of people to commit to playing the same game every week and sometimes things just fall apart. Campaigns end before then because a worldwide pandemic breaks out.
I've played through a lot of different campaigns (in a lot of different rpg rule systems) some short others that spanned years. They either ended because of real life issues, or because the story wrapped up. None of them ended because the rules didn't work well.
A couple of the listed reasons here do definitely tie into the rules not working well - how quickly the GM gets tired is definitely linked to how much prep is required per session, how likely that prep is to be minimally effective because of unlucky dice rolling, how much will need to be changed from published content if they're running that, etc. Similarly, writing your own story + content for 20 levels is going to be wildly variable in the amount of work required depending on the rules of the system. Even players losing interest can have a strong connection to the mechanics of the game. All that to essentially say that 'rules didn't work well' doesn't often explicitly cause a campaign to fall apart, but it can very easily stress and exacerbate situations which flare up, and the campaign then falls apart.
I'm assuming we're not talking weekly sessions with that three and a half years, since that'd put the average number of sessions per time the characters leveled up at like 11-ish. But still, if you aren't talking about only having roughly 60 sessions in that time (an average of 1 every 3 weeks) I'm lost on how the players only made it to 17th- or 18th-level instead of something more like 40th-level.
I've run quite a lot of PF1, and I have to say, my experiences don't line up with yours here. The fastest campaign I've been involved in only has 2 players, and so we go through content quite a bit quicker, and even then we're going to finish the AP at level 16 in ~70 sessions, if we keep our pace for the last two books. I've got one campaign I've been running for a little over 4 years at this point (really 3, as there was a year it couldn't run due to irl issues) where we can only fit in ~2-3 hour sessions and we roleplay heavily, and so we're over that 70 session mark and we're only partway through book 4 - we're level 10. I've also had one campaign that I ran from level 1 to level 20/mythic tier 5 that did run over the course of just under 3 years, but in sporadic and very long sessions. That entire campaign would've been about 50 sessions, but the average session length would've been close to 12 hour.
I guess my point here is that there's a huge amount of variety in how people play, and that definitely effects the playtime in a campaign. I've got some tables where players simply like to take things slowly, have a few almost slice-of-life type of sessions here and there, and then get really tactical in their combat, so it runs very slowly. I've been in tables where we have 2 players and so distractions are minimal, and that's way faster - though even that is only at the same pace as some of the slow baselines people are establishing here.
Playing for a lot of years I managed to become a level 30 Bard in AD&D 2nd, when I was still in school or studying, in a Forgotten Realms but mostly homebrew setting. Later on I managed a level 21 Bard in the same setting using D&D 3.5 rules, while still studying or starting to work (we literally played the sons and daughters of our former heroes who by that time had simply retired).
Within Pathfinder I managed to field a Level 17 Cleric after completing the Kingmaker campaign, the one and only campaign I truely finshed.
Later on I GM'ed RotRL until the end of book 2 until the party and campaign fell apart. After that we managed to play the first volume of Skulls & Shackles.
We are currently playing Age of Ashes since October 2019, are somewhere in the midst of the 2nd volume and our GM already announced that he will need a break due to exhaustion. I do not expect that we will ever live to see volume 3 after the break.
Note that from this timeline alone you can already guess that all our players and GM's are in the end of their thirties or early fourties and mostly have to balance family and kids, work and hobbys. So yes, all of us are not at all planning for level 20 but more likely for levels 1 to 10 (or 15 if you are an optimist), i.e. one to three volumes of any given adventure path.
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PF2 has eliminated one of the reasons for campaigns ending before 20th level -- the fact that the balance and complexity issues with earlier editions make running and playing the game more difficult at higher levels. All of the other out of game issues remain and have no in game solutions.
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In my experience, campaigns end before then has absolutely nothing to do with the rules of the game and all to do with the fact that getting there takes a long time.
This has been my experience too. PF1 was kind of a mess at high levels, but in practice I never really saw that as the reason for campaigns ending early.
I agree that it's not inevitable per se, but it is common from my experience.
High-level campaigns are probably still limited by schedules and adult life. However, I am confident that the rules won't be the reason most people drop a campaign. The game plays solidly at all levels, which is a major accomplishment, IMO.
For "it's just hard to schedule something that will go this long without significant interruption" the solution of course is that nothing is stopping you from starting the campaign at 10th level or whatever.
If you had the time to go from levels 1-10, you have the time to go from levels 11-20 instead. This is not a thing that was previously true, as the latter would have taken significantly longer in the previous system.
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A big part of the traditional high fantasy story is someone making a name for themselves, becoming stronger and developing into a hero.
Don't think we need to scruitinize someone psychologically or belittle them for not being as interested in stories that already start with established/powerful characters. It's not that bizarre.
there's a fairly strong cultural resistance in people in the D&D end of the RPG hobby to starting at higher levels
I agree it's better to start at level 1. It's really hard to jump in at high level and merge in seamlessly - it's easy to not be very effective (because of unfamiliarity) and easy to be powergamey (and make some ridiculous build that would have been unfun for multiple lower levels).
That being said, you just have the choose the least of multiple evils - stop having real-life responsibilities, make multiyear commitments to a single game, advance more quickly than you're supposed to, stop at a middle level, or start at a middle level. You may even have to choose 2-3 of those evils.
Starting at 1st level is better if anybody at the table is still learning the game, but I've found that if the same group stays together long enough people actually prefer to start at a higher level.
I strongly prefer to start at first. The experience of getting to develop the character both in personality and ability is one of the big draws of the rpg for me. Starting at high levels just isn't the same, it's like skipping the formative years of your life.
Sometimes though you just want to tell a story about a character who has a considerable background that just doesn't make sense as a level 1 person. Like the "how are you only level 1 if you've already done all that stuff" style character.
I've played in a lot of games that start at 2 or 3 or 5. Among some of the gaming groups I played with it was considered conventional wisdom that actually starting at level 1 was generally just a miserable experience in PF1.
But I'd categorize starting at level 3 pretty differently than I would starting at level 11 conceptually.
I feel so much better spending my money on an AP I know will run to 20. Makes the whole AP seem worthwhile. Finally people get to play with high level toys against challenging encounters.
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I strongly prefer to start at first. The experience of getting to develop the character both in personality and ability is one of the big draws of the rpg for me. Starting at high levels just isn't the same, it's like skipping the formative years of your life.Sometimes though you just want to tell a story about a character who has a considerable background that just doesn't make sense as a level 1 person. Like the "how are you only level 1 if you've already done all that stuff" style character.
I think starting at higher levels is fine for a short game. If it's going to be a long running campaign, I want to start at 1 and "do all that stuff" over the course of the game. Living through that background by playing it out is a lot more satisfying to me.
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This is why I'm really excited for the ruby phoenix ap. Getting a three book ap that starts at lvl 10 sounds like an excellent way for both gms and players to experience lvl 20. I hope they do a couple of them. I can't wait
In DnD at least I never liked the idea of high level characters. Idk when exactly but the characters just become too powerful.
Like I hate Wish I never want to get to a level were spells like are appropriate for single characters to cast instead of being some group ritual.
Same for dice galore it gets to a point it's no fun for me anymore.
Idk for me ideally it'd stop between lvl 14 and 16 and maybe the levels afterwards would be some sort of group leveling where you unlock communal skills that require preparation and execution.
Or levels that offer sidegrades or assist skills.
I've not played long running D&D campaigns. I've just played living campaigns, and got one character up to level 15, one to 14, one to 12. So, very high level play is outside my reach (even if level 15 is very close to it).
About starting a character above level 10, I also dislike the idea.
First, you have a complex character that you don't know well. For a Barbarian it's ok, but for a caster, you start immediately with a big bunch of spells you have to learn and use properly. The learning curve is steep. You can expect at least a few levels to get to know your character well with a few retraining in the middle.
Second, there is not much progression at high level. I mean, there's great excitment in getting your first Fireball out. But high level options are not that exciting to me, mostly because they are often just the same but a bit stronger.
The only case where I'd be ok in playing at higher levels right away is if I can continue to play a character I've already built, leveled and that I know well above his previous levels. So, that's something I'd do only after having lived through the low level experience.
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I hate playing in or running high level PF1e/3.x games. Combat tends to be so static for non full casters past a certain point, as early as 8-12 ime, so not even high level play.
And then there is that feeling thst either the GM counters builds or the players hobble themselves knowingly or are hobbled with house rules. Just not my jam anymore, too much time trying to fix something that doesn't fit my personal style ( even if I am playing in a pf1e game currently)
I have only run into the mid levels of PF2e so far (took ~5 months worth of fortnightly to get to 10, to give an idea of pacing) and haven't noticed any system issues so far. Just as easy to prep for as it was to start with, and while the game has gotten a bit easier for the players as we progressed I would need to run another game to see just how much was them being new to the game vs how much was the system being harder at lower levels and dice variance hitting harder.
This said, I don't tend to have issues keeping groups playing in my groups so system burnout or dissatisfaction is something I am more keenly aware of.
In the D&D stable I find the following levels the most comfortable ending points for me:
- B/X 1-10 (vs using BECMI or 10+ rules)
- AD&D 10-14
- 3.5 8-10
- 4e 4 (not joking, it is as long as I am happy playing / running usually. It can be an alright system for short adventures)
- 5e 10-14 (it is generally playable at higher levels. It loses a bit too much of its main strengths by then imo)
Reminds me, I need to run some B/X again. Old school essentials is such an awesome book.