u/Uncles_Big_Pickle

Just wrapped up our sixth session in a homebrew 5.5 game. It's been an amazing game, centered around a small farming village. Five players and the DM. The DM has very professional quality materials, and the sessions are more like anime episodes, where each session introduces a conflict, and it is resolved in the 3-5 hour time frame. Episodes build on each other, and the huge cast of NPCs all have memorable personalities and backstories.

Thing is, we're still using the same character sheets we started with. We've solved mysteries, did some minor combat, explored places, avoided traps, and have been doing adventurer stuff. We do have classes and abilities and spells, and we have gotten treasures and improved our place in the village - but the DM hasn't had us upgrade our levels or hit points.

No one has asked or even seems to care. We are having an absolute blast and honestly, nothing we have encountered would require more firepower or skills.

Does this seem super weird? I want to think the DM is just being sneaky and doing some behind-the-curtain improvements to our modifiers and whatnot, and he'll eventually just be like "okay here is your new level 5 sheets," but I afraid to ask and maybe spoil a surprise.

What do yall think?

Relic Quest used to be a huge event. We did some fantastic single-day gatherings back in The Day.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND. 200 players and 70+ characters in full costumes including Lion and Unicorn, Walrus and Carpenter, a deck of Card Guards, King and Queen of Hearts, two Alice's (one traditional Disney, one American Magee style), Jabberwocky, living chess board, Cheshire cat, hookah smoking Caterpillar, White Rabbit, talking flowers, the Caucus Race ... 16 encounter areas running simultaneously. Epic.

INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. The avatars of Time, Death, Fate, Nature, Good, and Evil (and others) all died and their Objects of Power are scattered across the land, guarded by creatures, traps, and puzzles intended to weed out the unworthy. The rules evolve as new incarnations are created or destroyed, leading to new strategies and gameplay as the day progressed.

ORCS VS HUMANS. Zug zug! Pre-WOW days when we set up mines for mining, marked trees for harvesting, and collected tokens that let teams upgrade from single sword peons to elven archers to ogre warriors to powerful mages. Spread out across 50 acres, two teams battled for hours to overcome the enemy.

These were full day events, with drinks and snacks, unique garb and rules, sometimes with weeks of role-playing leading up to it. Hundreds of folks would turn up, even other kingdoms would turn out in droves.

Then when it was over we'd invade Cici's Pizza or a cheap Chinese buffet en masse, still in our garb.

Man those were some great times.