I don't think there's a plan for that, but I think personally that PoTM should abandon trying to spread people out over a period of years, and instead embrace the leveling curve of other PWs and make being between levels 15-20 the general expectation, rather than the exception. We're already playing characters that outpower the PnP Dark Lords by a mile at that point, and the DMs buff the Dark Lords and permit aMPCs/MPCs with like, 8+ECL to be level 20 characters even though non-Monstrous races are prevented from achieving max level in order to outpower characters of a same level.
When we played the Civil War plotline in Dementlieu, pretty much every single soldier in the Convenant's military was competent enough to kill level 20 characters with Wizards and Sorcerers in their ranks that were casting 7th-9th level spells. Falkovnian Hexenmeisters drop Time Stop with relative regularity in the the Falkovnian events in my experience, that sense of power scale is already tilted in the direction that being level 20 here doesn't mean what it means in PnP.
Reducing the time-to-grind to level 20 would encourage more character turnover (a massive part of the sunken cost fallacy that keeps people from closuring characters, is spending over a year to get to level 20), and get rid of the constant dialogue about the disharmony of year-old level 15+ characters breathing the same air as their low-level counterparts who still have a long ways to go.
I would like to state my opinion on playing a single character for a span of multiple years with the preface of the Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Most of it is applicable to the situation, not all, but it is so beautifully worded that omitting the irrelevant pieces to the situation is unflattering to the memory of the author.
Preface
I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary. One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s heroes still may strut, Dickens’s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated.
His career has been a long one—though it is possible to exaggerate it; decrepit gentlemen who approach me and declare that his adventures formed the reading of their boyhood do not meet the response from me which they seem to expect. One is not anxious to have one’s personal dates handled so unkindly. As a matter of cold fact, Holmes made his debut in A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of Four, two small booklets which appeared between 1887 and 1889. It was in 1891 that “A Scandal in Bohemia,” the first of the long series of short stories, appeared in The Strand Magazine. The public seemed appreciative and desirous of more, so that from that date, thirty-nine years ago, they have been produced in a broken series which now contains no fewer than fifty-six stories, republished in The Adventures, The Memoirs, The Return, and His Last Bow. And there remain these twelve published during the last few years which are here produced under the title of The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. He began his adventures in the very heart of the later Victorian era, carried it through the all-too-short reign of Edward, and has managed to hold his own little niche even in these feverish days. Thus it would be true to say that those who first read of him, as young men, have lived to see their own grown-up children following the same adventures in the same magazine. It is a striking example of the patience and loyalty of the British public.
I had fully determined at the conclusion of The Memoirs to bring Holmes to an end, as I felt that my literary energies should not be directed too much into one channel. That pale, clear-cut face and loose-limbed figure were taking up an undue share of my imagination. I did the deed, but fortunately no coroner had pronounced upon the remains, and so, after a long interval, it was not difficult for me to respond to the flattering demand and to explain my rash act away. I have never regretted it, for I have not in actual practice found that these lighter sketches have prevented me from exploring and finding my limitations in such varied branches of literature as history, poetry, historical novels, psychic research, and the drama. Had Holmes never existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work.
And so, reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes! I thank you for your past constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of romance.
Arthur Conan Doyle
