What level do you like your tabletop RPGs to allow you to achieve?

innerdude

Legend

• Feb 16, 2017

• #11

10 levels. If that.

As a teenager, my answer would have been vastly different. Looking through the old softcover Masters and Companion rulebooks as a kid, the idea that you could reach LEVEL 36!!!!! was somehow this thing to aspire to. And of course, it was fuel for the imagination--- "Wouldn't it be cool if we could take over THE WORLD???? Wouldn't it be cool if we could DEFEAT ZEUS IN ONE-ON-ONE COMBAT???!!!"

The longer I've gamed, the more I've realized that I play RPGs for the compelling human elements, not the fantastical, "epic" ones. "Can you defeat THE ULTIMATE EVIL???????" is a vastly less interesting question to me than, "Can you find the spark of humanity within you that will drive you to become something meaningful?"

 

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S

S'mon

Legend

• Feb 16, 2017

• #12

Voted 20 since 10 feels a bit tight. 5e's 20 levels seems to work well. I also like B/X's 14 levels and am about to start a 4e campaign that will use a 1-15 range. 4e's official 30 levels is too many - I speak from experience - 20 would have made a tighter crisper game. Also unsure about the 36 levels in my Classic D&D game. Overall I think 20 is a nice safe number.

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2017

pogre

Legend

• Feb 16, 2017

• #13

I would really like to explore more at the epic levels, but I have only had one campaign go above 20. Most of my campaigns are about a year long and end around level 15.

 

S

Sunseeker

Guest

• Feb 16, 2017

• #14

Assuming you start at level 1, the "maximum level allowable" IMO is relative to the campaign setting. Low-magic settings should IMO cap around 8, maybe 10 max. High magic settings should provide for gonzo level caps. On average, I would say 15th is my "ideal cap", in most systems the game breaks down after that mechanically or just becomes jarring with what characters can do. I like going above that only in cases where 15th+ is more of a ACK style of play, with occasional personal combat and players taking more of a leadership role within their respective societies.

 

Blue

Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

• Feb 16, 2017

• #15

Are you asking about how powerful we want to get up to, or how fine a granularity of advancement in a level-based system we want.

Example power level: in AD&D my friend loved epic adventures and wanted us in the 20s, while I liked 4-9 for most adventuring and then ending maybe 10-teens.

Example granularity: D&D 4e had 30, D&D 5e as 20, and 13th Age have 10, but the top levels are roughly the same in terms of the threats you'll face.

(On the other hand, 13th Age has incremental advances which are partial levels, so your granularity is a lot finer than the 30 or 20.)

 

T

The Crimson Binome

Hero

• Feb 16, 2017

• #16

I almost feel like a better question would be, "How much more powerful should an end-game character be when compared to a starting character?" Depending on your definition of Level, you could make an argument that GURPS starts you out at Level 100 and has no maximum limit in place.

From a practical standpoint, if you have any game that goes from 1-99 or higher, then you'll probably be gaining multiple levels per session if you want to get through the whole progression within any reasonable period of time. That might be too much bookkeeping for some people.

 

S

Storyteller Hero

Adventurer

• Feb 17, 2017

• #17

Asking about preferred max levels is kind of pointless without giving a context as to what levels mean to you. What low level means to you, what mid level means to you, what high level means to you. How powerful? How complex? How much more powerful or complex with level advancement?

A level for one game can be very different from a level in another, in terms of both power level and feature complexity.

 

J

Jacob Marley

Adventurer

• Feb 17, 2017

• #18

I find 12 to be about right. It offers enough opportunities for characters to grow and evolve without the endgame seeming unobtainable.

 

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

• Feb 17, 2017

• #19

I voted 10 but it's more complicated than that.

I like the idea of it being open-ended; but at the same time I recognize that as levels increase at some point the wobbles in any system get bad enough to send it off the rails. With that in mind, my ideal (which, sadly, remains just that: an ideal) is to figure out the point at which the wobbling becomes too great, pick a level 3 or 4 below that, and have advancement slow to an absolute crawl once that point is reached...which means if you do manage to get any further a) you've earned it, and b) you're not going to break the game for a while yet.

In my game/system the wobble point is, I suspect, somewhere in the 11-14 range.

Lanefan

 

GMMichael

Guide of Modos

• Feb 17, 2017

• #20

Blue said:

Are you asking about how powerful we want to get up to, or how fine a granularity of advancement in a level-based system we want.

Click to expand...

Well, at least Blue is paying attention. OP doesn't address a game system, which means "level" has no common ground for anyone to discuss.

Except for granularity.

The question I read was, "how often do you like to hear the clicking sound that means a ball of cheese is available behind one of the doors (you cute little rodent)?" To which my answer is, "ten balls of cheese, please." I'd rather be playing the game than updating my character sheet.