It kind of snuck up on me but our current campaign started a year ago this month. We had a Session Zero and then our first two warm-up sessions in July of last year, heading into Hommlet with the full group at the beginning of August. We have had 36 sessions at this point and should hit 37 before the month ends. That's pretty good, especially considering we took a month+ off in Nov-Dec last year. That's with a base plan of "weekly" subject to various schedule interruptions now and then.
(And yes, I know I need to catch up on the session recaps)
Looking back my old Scarred Lands campaign ran for 3 years on a biweekly schedule from 2005-2007 and managed 54 sessions with 6+ PCs.
More recently my Deadlands game managed 33 sessions from 2021-2023 with a six-month gap in the campaign while I packed up and moved so figure a year and a half there. That one started on a bi-weekly schedule and then ended up pretty much weekly.
So pacing-wise we are getting more done more consistently. It's good to have a group of committed players and having 6-8 of them is pretty amazing. I had thought with the kids out of the house that scheduling would be even easier on my part and it is to some degree but maybe not quite to the degree I had imagined. The fact that one of them is still playing in the campaign does make me feel good though.
The party is 7th now with a few of them hitting 8th last session. I do like this method of tracking individual XP as it rewards regular attendance and it feels more like the old days with mixed party levels. This campaign is giving us a chance to explore a wide range of the ToV system from 1st level on up and thus far everyone is very happy with it.
As the DM though I have to say these characters are very powerful and I am typically dealing with 6 of them at once so keeping things at some level of challenge is a real ... challenge. I am swapping out monsters regularly and increasing numbers as well and this is in an old school adventure not recalibrated to the 5E encounter standards. If I had left it as-written they would be blowing through things with very little effort. I am running it as-is regarding treasure and if you are under the impression that old adventures were magic-light I can assure again that they were not. Also with gold as XP in those days these things were not gold-light either. My party is ridiculously wealthy and festooned with magic items. It's not an insurmountable obstacle but it does add a little to the challenge and it's a good refresher that yes, our AD&D characters were absolutely loaded after running a few published adventures in the old days.
Looking ahead I suspect we will finish this one by the end of the year. Based on where they are I'd guess another 10-15 sessions and that puts us into November-December territory. Assuming we do this will be the first time, running or playing over the last 40 years, that I have run this adventure start to finish all the way through and that's going to be a pretty good feeling. I have some fun stuff planned for them as they approach some of the big milestones of the Greater Temple and the Nodes and I figure they will finish up 10th or 11th. Right now they are running about a level ahead of where I projected they would be, mainly due to wilderness and wandering monster encounters. Assuming they go scorched earth the rest of the way and definitely if they find and defeat the big bad of the place I suspect 11th is in sight.
What's next after that? Could go several ways. The base plan is to roll into Against the Giants which I suspect will need to be beefed up as this party at 11th level is going to be doing some ridiculous things by then. Beyond that my dream would be to go ahead and finish out the D-series and enter the Demonweb Pits for the finale - though Lolth may need to bring Iuz or Orcus or someone else along to help by that point.
We might also take a short break from Greyhawk. There is at least one vote for "finish Time of Crisis", there has been some chatter about the GI Joe/Power Rangers/Transformers campaign, and I am missing the Savage Worlds stuff a little bit, so who knows? I'm not going to go nuts planning it just yet, just sketching out what I would need to pick one
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