I’ve set my BBEG to occur on a specific date in game and I want my players to be at least level 16 before then. They are starting at level 1 and I don’t know what to expect in terms of how quickly they will progress within in game time. They are not going to be on a strict path and they don’t have to be exactly level 16 just at least that high would set them up pretty well for it. I just don’t know how far away from the doom day I should start the campaign at.
That's definitely not a choice I would make, but it could be made to work. If it works, it creates a constant state of pressure that drives the game forward.
On the other hand, it doesn't give the players room to breathe, to go on side quests, to explore things that come up in play. In particular, it's likely to suppress role-play.
The good news is that you have a lot of control over the pacing of leveling up.
Even if you're not using milestone leveling (use milestone leveling), you control the amount and danger of the encounters they face.
I think 16 levels is way too long to have the players be on a clock. Maybe 2-3 as the villains' plans start to come to fruition, and they rush to try to do the things that need do be done to stop it. With a clock that long, no matter how hard you push game time, the real-world time frame is going to mess with the players' sense of urgency.
It's also really hard to pull off. Pacing management is hard to begin with, and you're deliberately limiting the tools you have. The main quest must always be on the front burner. If you try to take it off, the players (if they're bought in) will put it back on. If there's nothing they can do until a certain point, they may get frustrated.
I'm not a "single predefined storyline" GM to begin with, but if you're going to have a clock, it should be event-based, not time-based. The enemies need to break the seven walruses (seals are passe) or something. Also, regardless of how you do it, it should not be in the foreground all along. First-level schmucks immediately being shoved onto the road to Save the World is a bad cliche. Let them achieve something, maybe see some hints of the bigger evil, then get them on the railroad.
Level 16 when starting at 1? I would say 3-5 years, if they continue. But it depends how fast you give them experience and level them up.
Let us use 2 years as mentioned. 2 years also means holiday breaks for family, it means jobs may start/stop. Basically real life does interrupt. For 6 months real life can be minimized, for 1 year not so much. What is planned for 1 year is now taking longer, so you get more interruptions. now looking at 2 years, and players and yes DMs might get tired, so throw in some alternate one off adventures etc. now 2 year years stretch to 3.
Building on the past, things change, characters "grow" and do different things then plan/intended etc. New people have joined, old people have quit.
As mentioned, make it event timed, not calendar timed.
The BBEG is not going to care about very low level characters, however, that does not mean you don't include them starting at 1 level, it is just clues and observations.
Level 16 when starting at 1? I would say 3-5 years, if they continue. But it depends how fast you give them experience and level them up.
Let us use 2 years as mentioned. 2 years also means holiday breaks for family, it means jobs may start/stop. Basically real life does interrupt. For 6 months real life can be minimized, for 1 year not so much. What is planned for 1 year is now taking longer, so you get more interruptions. now looking at 2 years, and players and yes DMs might get tired, so throw in some alternate one off adventures etc. now 2 year years stretch to 3.
Building on the past, things change, characters "grow" and do different things then plan/intended etc. New people have joined, old people have quit.
As mentioned, make it event timed, not calendar timed.
The BBEG is not going to care about very low level characters, however, that does not mean you don't include them starting at 1 level, it is just clues and observations.
They meant how long in in game time, I believe.
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The real-world time is also relevant. This is going to be a long campaign, and campaigns often flame out early.
In-game, the amount of time depends a lot on how big everything is and what travel options are available. In my spelljammer game, there's a lot of downtime (weeks and even months) as they travel from one world to another. (They're powerful enough by now that random encounters don't really make sense anymore. They're just handwaved away in the general case.) In another game I'm in, magical travel tech means virtually all the travel we do takes two weeks at most. In another game, we're staying in one place, and the adventure comes to us.
In-game time is fungible in a lot of ways. Number of sessions less so.
I'd flip the pacing consideration around... You control the pacing, so if you want a taught short story without a single moment to breathe, you could go from 1 to 16 in as many sessions... and with a bit of creative license, each one of those sessions could be an hour of in-game time. I, too, wouldn't make that choice, but it's been a hit on TV, so it can be done...
I'd argue it almost doesn't matter. I recently finished Tyranny of Dragons after around a year of playing weekly. It's basically the Sword Coast being invaded by an army led by Tiamat so the fact the region is descending into warfare is a constant pressure and we were all aware that there was a threat we needed to get organised to fight. Cut to the end of the campaign and I thought the events took place over a few months, one of the other players thought it took just a few weeks and we were all surprised when we Googled it and it canonically takes almost a year. Time in D&D is so abstract anyway (unless you have a calendar and are ticking off each long rest) that the idea there is a time constraint works better than the actual time itself
As others said, it’s almost impossible to say how long it will take. The question there is how generous will you be with xp/milestone awards. The pacing is entirely up to you.
And you didn’t ask, but as a suggestion. When I’m planning out things that will happen in the world without PC intervention, I like to plan not by the calendar but by PC level. If they spend a lot of time dealing with problem A, but ignore B, C and D, those other problems will continue to grow as they level up. So in your case, the BBEG thing will happen when they hit level 16, whenever that turns out to be.
How fast your party reach level 16 depends on many factors such as the rate of level progression, play frequency, session lenght etc...
Considering many campaigns don't even reach that level, and in some case group stability is often hard to maintain for extended time, planning on BBEG that far off may be a gamble with certain risks.
At level 1 seems particularly a long shot but if you want that, you may want to consider possibly downsizing its power and or also adding help to perhaps facilitate it. For example, a CR 16 could be encountered by party lower than level 16, and if they have NPCs, pets, magic items 5E party can get quite powerful with some optimization, synergy, tactical play etc...
I do think it's good to have an end goal in mind and I kinda dig the idea of building up to a big bad that the party will EVENTUALLY bring down, 16 levels later. The challenge will be keeping the big bad a secret that long. Players need little wins so for levels 1-5 they take out a tyranical sherrif who's overtaxing a small hamlet. Levels 6-10 they discover a necromancer who was siphoning money off several barons and raising an army. They take her out. Levels 11-15 they discover that the necromancer was part of a mutliplanar cult to bring about the end days and disrupt one of the major portals.
Level 16 they resolve to go after the head boss.
The challenge though is that if the BBEG shows up on "this in game date" there's not a lot of great ways to introduce that power imbalance to the players at level 1. Imagine that you took yourself, at 18, and said "you need to stop the Military Industrial Complex in western civilization by this exact date next year". It's overwhelming to even consider. But at level 16+ you have god like powers so that kind of scope is absolutely on the table. Meanwhile at level 1, you're lucky to survive a fight with a couple of gnolls.
Lastly, a level 1-16 campaign, a one level per session and one session per week is going to be a 4 month commitment. That cannot be overstated as ambitious.
EDIT TO ADD:
Also, every level has something new for most classes. Going one level per session means you and your players don't have a lot of time to master their new powers before another layer of new powers is added. That is worthy thought.
It's a little easier using 5e rules because they are built on the assumption of 6-8 combat encounters per in game day. Now, with that and the XP ladder you can make some rough calculations about how frequently levelling up is likely to happen. Using XP budgets we can total this stuff up.
Level 2 - After 4 combat encounter (3 1/4CR creatures per encounter.) - One Day Level 3 - After 6 combat encounters (3 1/2CR creatures per encounter) - One Day Level 4 - After 6 combat encounters (3 1CR creatures per encounter) - One Day
Hopefully you're getting the point here. Going up the ladder if playing 5e, it takes around 1 in game day to gain enough XP for a level up. Now if using 5.5e it gets a little less clear cut, there's no meaningful guidance like the encounter budgets or adventuring day. That means it's a little more free form. It's both a strength and weakness of the new system design. I tend to feel though that falling back on the 5e adventuring day makes a level of sense.
Don't forget though that traps and social encounters can also be something for which you award XP, and so you can speed this up if needs be. Though, this tends to be why I enjoy milestones. Sometimes its just a little more fun...though it can be a weakness if you're a newer GM. It can be easy to time the milestones poorly.
Out of game time
In real time we can use the combat encounters thing to work this one out. I tend to run 4 hour sessions. At maximum I can get a max of 2 encounters in that 4 hours (more if my players are on their game and negotiating their way around combat). We're looking then at between 2 and 4 game sessions between level ups. As I say though, it can depend on what you award XP for in terms of encounters. If you award XP for social encounters and traps you can speed that up.
Other ways to tip the balance
I'm including these because they are ways in which you as a GM can shake up the balance and affect the level up pace. Quest Based - If you design the campaign like Dragon of Icespire Peak, you can deliver milestones. In that game I think starting quests gain you a level until you hit level 3. Then it's two quests per level up. That adventure is roughly designed though around one quest per game session though. You can throw in some hexcrawl and exploration in between but as designed they don't reward milestones or levels. So you could have an entire hexcrawl session and so no level ups. Likewise some quests could take more than a single session, so again pacing can deviate from a level up a session pattern.
Goals Based - Again this is milestone based. It's a little contentious when delivered wrong, but basically you set a series of in game objectives. Milestone one for example might be uncovering the bandit operation in the town. Milestone three might be uncovering the evil plot of the big bad. Milestone 8 might be revealing the big bad's identity. It's high-risk, high reward though. As I say it's contentious because when delivered wrong it often doesn't account for player agency. A GM using this type of system needs to be willing and capable of altering the milestones and the adventure in response to the player character actions and motivations.
Other XP Options - I love the fact that Pathfinder 2e rewards XP for exploration, hazards, adversaries, and accomplishments. It's something that I've tried to bring to D&D games too. I also run a whole load of one-shots in other game systems and bring in good ideas from elsewhere. So, I am a big advocate of award XP for things that seem worthy of them. This tends to minimise the reward loop of player characters killing all the enemies in order to get that XP and the level up. Likewise, I've even had some bad guys hand over some valuable items in exchange for being able to walk away from combat. Using these other options can speed up the level up process though.
In my home game, the characters are reaching level 20 after about 5 years of real time. In game, this has likely taken less than a year and if the narrative breaks are removed, the actual in game time required to achieve various goals/milestones related to earning experience and leveling up is probably a couple of months at most, likely less (say 30 days of adventuring with significant encounters).
In my home game, the characters are reaching level 20 after about 5 years of real time. In game, this has likely taken less than a year and if the narrative breaks are removed, the actual in game time required to achieve various goals/milestones related to earning experience and leveling up is probably a couple of months at most, likely less (say 30 days of adventuring with significant encounters).
Five years? How often are your play sessions? I feel like that's the part of the puzzle most of us left out.
These are some of my games as run. Some are complete, others still run, but all based off real world games. A mix of online and in person here too.
Milestone Groups Group One - Every Week 3.5-4.5 hours - Level 7 after 23 sessions (35 weeks) - Very Diplomacy & RP heavy - Loads of side-tracks and downtime.
Group Two - Every Two Weeks 3.5-4.5 Hours - Level 7 after 16 sessions (32 weeks) - Light on diplomacy, and a focus on 'getting the job done'.
Group Three - Every Month - 4.5-5.5 Hours - Level 5 after 4 sessions (22 weeks) - Functions like a one-shot, a mission then done for level up. Will soon be moving to two-quests per level up until level 10, then three quests per level-up.
XP Groups Group One - Every Two Weeks 3.5-4.5 hours - Level 10 after 80 sessions (50 weeks) - Quite focussed on combat, less keen on roleplay.
Group Two - Every Month 6 hours - Level 20 after 40 sessions (Just short of four years) - Mixed bag of style
Group Three - Every week 4 hours - Level 18 after 55 sessions (63 weeks) - Liked roleplay, were rewarded for traps, exploration, social encounters, in addition to the usual combat encounter XP.
I feel like these durations are exceptionally long 3-5 sessions a level assumes a more story based experience.
Most of my groups are more of a combat MMORPG style player base - still social but much more progression oriented - they want to kill the thing - to get the level - to kill the thing - to get the shinny - to get the level - to kill the next thing. For the most part they have all been in progression groups in online games (GW/RIFT/DAOC/EVE etc) with all that entails. (Fast paced gaming - schedules - raids etc)
Every DM runs their games in the style most comfortable to them and therefore attracts those kinds of players - so I guess there is no right or wrong way to do it - as long as you are consistent and lay it out to the group when it is forming or at the latest session zero.
The 5e Rules are meh if the encounters are harder then you can do less of them and leave time for exploration/rp etc and ofc some of the best rp happens during combat so it all works out in the end, as long as the DM and group are in sync relative to expectations.
Going from level 1 to 16 in a single game is possible but there's also the issue of scope and timing. If you figure a level every 3-5 days of hard adventuring, then you're looking at a party that goes from "oh crap a giant rat" to "phenomenal cosmic powers; the gods fear where we tread!" in the matter of 2 months.
That's not exactly a long period of time.... Plus the game play stakes are just so radically different. It sounds great on paper but is it worth it?
In my home game, the characters are reaching level 20 after about 5 years of real time. In game, this has likely taken less than a year and if the narrative breaks are removed, the actual in game time required to achieve various goals/milestones related to earning experience and leveling up is probably a couple of months at most, likely less (say 30 days of adventuring with significant encounters).
Five years? How often are your play sessions? I feel like that's the part of the puzzle most of us left out.
These are some of my games as run. Some are complete, others still run, but all based off real world games. A mix of online and in person here too.
Milestone Groups Group One - Every Week 3.5-4.5 hours - Level 7 after 23 sessions (35 weeks) - Very Diplomacy & RP heavy - Loads of side-tracks and downtime.
Group Two - Every Two Weeks 3.5-4.5 Hours - Level 7 after 16 sessions (32 weeks) - Light on diplomacy, and a focus on 'getting the job done'.
Group Three - Every Month - 4.5-5.5 Hours - Level 5 after 4 sessions (22 weeks) - Functions like a one-shot, a mission then done for level up. Will soon be moving to two-quests per level up until level 10, then three quests per level-up.
XP Groups Group One - Every Two Weeks 3.5-4.5 hours - Level 10 after 80 sessions (50 weeks) - Quite focussed on combat, less keen on roleplay.
Group Two - Every Month 6 hours - Level 20 after 40 sessions (Just short of four years) - Mixed bag of style
Group Three - Every week 4 hours - Level 18 after 55 sessions (63 weeks) - Liked roleplay, were rewarded for traps, exploration, social encounters, in addition to the usual combat encounter XP.
For my home game, we've been playing pretty consistently every week with a 3 hour session since March 2020. Which is likely over 220 sessions and 650 hours of game time.
However, at times the leveling up actually felt fast in game terms for a couple of reasons. Although it might take a few sessions to get through a dungeon or deal with one location - it is still one location representing only a few days of in game time at most and often just one day. In addition, everyone in this group started with AD&D where leveling was extremely slow in many games so 5e has actually felt like faster leveling for this reason as well.
On the other hand, the hard covers I have run over the same period of time for a another group (Adventurer's League - so leveling every session is possible but we typically follow the hard cover guidance) have progressed more quickly.
All sessions are weekly - 3 hours long - miss less than 10% of the sessions.
Dragon of Ice Spire Peak - 8 sessions - level 7 at the end.
Curse of Strahd - 33 sessions - level 12 at the end
Out of the Abyss - 77 sessions - level 16 at the end
I’ve set my BBEG to occur on a specific date in game and I want my players to be at least level 16 before then. They are starting at level 1 and I don’t know what to expect in terms of how quickly they will progress within in game time. They are not going to be on a strict path and they don’t have to be exactly level 16 just at least that high would set them up pretty well for it. I just don’t know how far away from the doom day I should start the campaign at.
1-2 years in game time. (not including downtime)
Homebrew spell: dominance
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That's definitely not a choice I would make, but it could be made to work. If it works, it creates a constant state of pressure that drives the game forward.
On the other hand, it doesn't give the players room to breathe, to go on side quests, to explore things that come up in play. In particular, it's likely to suppress role-play.
The good news is that you have a lot of control over the pacing of leveling up.
Even if you're not using milestone leveling (use milestone leveling), you control the amount and danger of the encounters they face.
I think 16 levels is way too long to have the players be on a clock. Maybe 2-3 as the villains' plans start to come to fruition, and they rush to try to do the things that need do be done to stop it. With a clock that long, no matter how hard you push game time, the real-world time frame is going to mess with the players' sense of urgency.
It's also really hard to pull off. Pacing management is hard to begin with, and you're deliberately limiting the tools you have. The main quest must always be on the front burner. If you try to take it off, the players (if they're bought in) will put it back on. If there's nothing they can do until a certain point, they may get frustrated.
I'm not a "single predefined storyline" GM to begin with, but if you're going to have a clock, it should be event-based, not time-based. The enemies need to break the seven walruses (seals are passe) or something. Also, regardless of how you do it, it should not be in the foreground all along. First-level schmucks immediately being shoved onto the road to Save the World is a bad cliche. Let them achieve something, maybe see some hints of the bigger evil, then get them on the railroad.
Level 16 when starting at 1? I would say 3-5 years, if they continue. But it depends how fast you give them experience and level them up.
Let us use 2 years as mentioned. 2 years also means holiday breaks for family, it means jobs may start/stop. Basically real life does interrupt. For 6 months real life can be minimized, for 1 year not so much. What is planned for 1 year is now taking longer, so you get more interruptions. now looking at 2 years, and players and yes DMs might get tired, so throw in some alternate one off adventures etc. now 2 year years stretch to 3.
Building on the past, things change, characters "grow" and do different things then plan/intended etc. New people have joined, old people have quit.
As mentioned, make it event timed, not calendar timed.
The BBEG is not going to care about very low level characters, however, that does not mean you don't include them starting at 1 level, it is just clues and observations.
They meant how long in in game time, I believe.
Homebrew spell: dominance
Extended signature
The real-world time is also relevant. This is going to be a long campaign, and campaigns often flame out early.
In-game, the amount of time depends a lot on how big everything is and what travel options are available. In my spelljammer game, there's a lot of downtime (weeks and even months) as they travel from one world to another. (They're powerful enough by now that random encounters don't really make sense anymore. They're just handwaved away in the general case.) In another game I'm in, magical travel tech means virtually all the travel we do takes two weeks at most. In another game, we're staying in one place, and the adventure comes to us.
In-game time is fungible in a lot of ways. Number of sessions less so.
I'd flip the pacing consideration around... You control the pacing, so if you want a taught short story without a single moment to breathe, you could go from 1 to 16 in as many sessions... and with a bit of creative license, each one of those sessions could be an hour of in-game time. I, too, wouldn't make that choice, but it's been a hit on TV, so it can be done...
I'd argue it almost doesn't matter. I recently finished Tyranny of Dragons after around a year of playing weekly. It's basically the Sword Coast being invaded by an army led by Tiamat so the fact the region is descending into warfare is a constant pressure and we were all aware that there was a threat we needed to get organised to fight. Cut to the end of the campaign and I thought the events took place over a few months, one of the other players thought it took just a few weeks and we were all surprised when we Googled it and it canonically takes almost a year. Time in D&D is so abstract anyway (unless you have a calendar and are ticking off each long rest) that the idea there is a time constraint works better than the actual time itself
As others said, it’s almost impossible to say how long it will take. The question there is how generous will you be with xp/milestone awards. The pacing is entirely up to you.
And you didn’t ask, but as a suggestion. When I’m planning out things that will happen in the world without PC intervention, I like to plan not by the calendar but by PC level. If they spend a lot of time dealing with problem A, but ignore B, C and D, those other problems will continue to grow as they level up. So in your case, the BBEG thing will happen when they hit level 16, whenever that turns out to be.
How fast your party reach level 16 depends on many factors such as the rate of level progression, play frequency, session lenght etc...
Considering many campaigns don't even reach that level, and in some case group stability is often hard to maintain for extended time, planning on BBEG that far off may be a gamble with certain risks.
At level 1 seems particularly a long shot but if you want that, you may want to consider possibly downsizing its power and or also adding help to perhaps facilitate it. For example, a CR 16 could be encountered by party lower than level 16, and if they have NPCs, pets, magic items 5E party can get quite powerful with some optimization, synergy, tactical play etc...
I do think it's good to have an end goal in mind and I kinda dig the idea of building up to a big bad that the party will EVENTUALLY bring down, 16 levels later. The challenge will be keeping the big bad a secret that long. Players need little wins so for levels 1-5 they take out a tyranical sherrif who's overtaxing a small hamlet. Levels 6-10 they discover a necromancer who was siphoning money off several barons and raising an army. They take her out. Levels 11-15 they discover that the necromancer was part of a mutliplanar cult to bring about the end days and disrupt one of the major portals.
Level 16 they resolve to go after the head boss.
The challenge though is that if the BBEG shows up on "this in game date" there's not a lot of great ways to introduce that power imbalance to the players at level 1. Imagine that you took yourself, at 18, and said "you need to stop the Military Industrial Complex in western civilization by this exact date next year". It's overwhelming to even consider. But at level 16+ you have god like powers so that kind of scope is absolutely on the table. Meanwhile at level 1, you're lucky to survive a fight with a couple of gnolls.
Lastly, a level 1-16 campaign, a one level per session and one session per week is going to be a 4 month commitment. That cannot be overstated as ambitious.
EDIT TO ADD:
Also, every level has something new for most classes. Going one level per session means you and your players don't have a lot of time to master their new powers before another layer of new powers is added. That is worthy thought.
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My rule of thumb, Now for context at least 3/4 of the players in my games are intermediate - very experienced.
Level 1-10 - 1 Level per session
Level 11-20 - 1 Level every 2nd session
Level 20-30 - 1 Level every 4th session (Only a few of my games go this high most end at 20)
I find seasoned players often get bored in the early game - o yay I am sticking the bad thing with the pointy end of the 1d6 thing again YAY!
In seriousness though even with that rule of thumb session frequency plays a major role is it every week - bi weekly - ad hoc ?
So there is no real answer to your question I think setting a hard date is a mistake tie the BBEG to a level not a date.
I'm going to make some distinctions here:
In game time
It's a little easier using 5e rules because they are built on the assumption of 6-8 combat encounters per in game day. Now, with that and the XP ladder you can make some rough calculations about how frequently levelling up is likely to happen. Using XP budgets we can total this stuff up.
Level 2 - After 4 combat encounter (3 1/4CR creatures per encounter.) - One Day
Level 3 - After 6 combat encounters (3 1/2CR creatures per encounter) - One Day
Level 4 - After 6 combat encounters (3 1CR creatures per encounter) - One Day
Hopefully you're getting the point here. Going up the ladder if playing 5e, it takes around 1 in game day to gain enough XP for a level up. Now if using 5.5e it gets a little less clear cut, there's no meaningful guidance like the encounter budgets or adventuring day. That means it's a little more free form. It's both a strength and weakness of the new system design. I tend to feel though that falling back on the 5e adventuring day makes a level of sense.
Don't forget though that traps and social encounters can also be something for which you award XP, and so you can speed this up if needs be. Though, this tends to be why I enjoy milestones. Sometimes its just a little more fun...though it can be a weakness if you're a newer GM. It can be easy to time the milestones poorly.
Out of game time
In real time we can use the combat encounters thing to work this one out. I tend to run 4 hour sessions. At maximum I can get a max of 2 encounters in that 4 hours (more if my players are on their game and negotiating their way around combat). We're looking then at between 2 and 4 game sessions between level ups. As I say though, it can depend on what you award XP for in terms of encounters. If you award XP for social encounters and traps you can speed that up.
Other ways to tip the balance
I'm including these because they are ways in which you as a GM can shake up the balance and affect the level up pace.
Quest Based - If you design the campaign like Dragon of Icespire Peak, you can deliver milestones. In that game I think starting quests gain you a level until you hit level 3. Then it's two quests per level up. That adventure is roughly designed though around one quest per game session though. You can throw in some hexcrawl and exploration in between but as designed they don't reward milestones or levels. So you could have an entire hexcrawl session and so no level ups. Likewise some quests could take more than a single session, so again pacing can deviate from a level up a session pattern.
Goals Based - Again this is milestone based. It's a little contentious when delivered wrong, but basically you set a series of in game objectives. Milestone one for example might be uncovering the bandit operation in the town. Milestone three might be uncovering the evil plot of the big bad. Milestone 8 might be revealing the big bad's identity. It's high-risk, high reward though. As I say it's contentious because when delivered wrong it often doesn't account for player agency. A GM using this type of system needs to be willing and capable of altering the milestones and the adventure in response to the player character actions and motivations.
Other XP Options - I love the fact that Pathfinder 2e rewards XP for exploration, hazards, adversaries, and accomplishments. It's something that I've tried to bring to D&D games too. I also run a whole load of one-shots in other game systems and bring in good ideas from elsewhere. So, I am a big advocate of award XP for things that seem worthy of them. This tends to minimise the reward loop of player characters killing all the enemies in order to get that XP and the level up. Likewise, I've even had some bad guys hand over some valuable items in exchange for being able to walk away from combat. Using these other options can speed up the level up process though.
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In my home game, the characters are reaching level 20 after about 5 years of real time. In game, this has likely taken less than a year and if the narrative breaks are removed, the actual in game time required to achieve various goals/milestones related to earning experience and leveling up is probably a couple of months at most, likely less (say 30 days of adventuring with significant encounters).
Five years? How often are your play sessions? I feel like that's the part of the puzzle most of us left out.
These are some of my games as run. Some are complete, others still run, but all based off real world games. A mix of online and in person here too.
Milestone Groups
Group One - Every Week 3.5-4.5 hours - Level 7 after 23 sessions (35 weeks) - Very Diplomacy & RP heavy - Loads of side-tracks and downtime.
Group Two - Every Two Weeks 3.5-4.5 Hours - Level 7 after 16 sessions (32 weeks) - Light on diplomacy, and a focus on 'getting the job done'.
Group Three - Every Month - 4.5-5.5 Hours - Level 5 after 4 sessions (22 weeks) - Functions like a one-shot, a mission then done for level up. Will soon be moving to two-quests per level up until level 10, then three quests per level-up.
XP Groups
Group One - Every Two Weeks 3.5-4.5 hours - Level 10 after 80 sessions (50 weeks) - Quite focussed on combat, less keen on roleplay.
Group Two - Every Month 6 hours - Level 20 after 40 sessions (Just short of four years) - Mixed bag of style
Group Three - Every week 4 hours - Level 18 after 55 sessions (63 weeks) - Liked roleplay, were rewarded for traps, exploration, social encounters, in addition to the usual combat encounter XP.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
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I feel like these durations are exceptionally long 3-5 sessions a level assumes a more story based experience.
Most of my groups are more of a combat MMORPG style player base - still social but much more progression oriented - they want to kill the thing - to get the level - to kill the thing - to get the shinny - to get the level - to kill the next thing. For the most part they have all been in progression groups in online games (GW/RIFT/DAOC/EVE etc) with all that entails. (Fast paced gaming - schedules - raids etc)
Every DM runs their games in the style most comfortable to them and therefore attracts those kinds of players - so I guess there is no right or wrong way to do it - as long as you are consistent and lay it out to the group when it is forming or at the latest session zero.
The 5e Rules are meh if the encounters are harder then you can do less of them and leave time for exploration/rp etc and ofc some of the best rp happens during combat so it all works out in the end, as long as the DM and group are in sync relative to expectations.
Random thought:
Going from level 1 to 16 in a single game is possible but there's also the issue of scope and timing. If you figure a level every 3-5 days of hard adventuring, then you're looking at a party that goes from "oh crap a giant rat" to "phenomenal cosmic powers; the gods fear where we tread!" in the matter of 2 months.
That's not exactly a long period of time.... Plus the game play stakes are just so radically different. It sounds great on paper but is it worth it?
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For my home game, we've been playing pretty consistently every week with a 3 hour session since March 2020. Which is likely over 220 sessions and 650 hours of game time.
However, at times the leveling up actually felt fast in game terms for a couple of reasons. Although it might take a few sessions to get through a dungeon or deal with one location - it is still one location representing only a few days of in game time at most and often just one day. In addition, everyone in this group started with AD&D where leveling was extremely slow in many games so 5e has actually felt like faster leveling for this reason as well.
On the other hand, the hard covers I have run over the same period of time for a another group (Adventurer's League - so leveling every session is possible but we typically follow the hard cover guidance) have progressed more quickly.
All sessions are weekly - 3 hours long - miss less than 10% of the sessions.
Dragon of Ice Spire Peak - 8 sessions - level 7 at the end.
Curse of Strahd - 33 sessions - level 12 at the end
Out of the Abyss - 77 sessions - level 16 at the end