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[D&D Design Discussion] Preserving the "Sweet Spot"
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<blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 2986866" data-attributes="member: 114"><p>Hi Wulf!</p><p></p><p>I'm assuming that you don't want to stray too far from baseline D&D (classes, levels etc)?</p><p></p><p>If you did, then it might be interesting to divide up the clumpy 'level' benefits over a period of time, and then stretch out that period of time - so it takes longer to go from 7th to 8th, but you have more frequent minor power bumps than you would if you were levelling up normally.</p><p></p><p>An alternative which your questions brought to mind is inspired by the 1e games that we used to play and love. In our games levels 6-9 were probably the sweetest spot. As you remember, level advancement used to take forever in those days, and the bad news part of that was that it took months and months of gameplay and hundreds of encounters to raise that level.</p><p></p><p>But it wasn't that important. Why not?</p><p></p><p>For us, it was because of all the in-game rewards. Not mechanical rewards that came from increasing class level. Instead it was making money. Getting houses and eventually castles built. Earning noble titles and ruling over the land. Leading armies, founding temples and such.</p><p></p><p>These were all activities that were intimately tied in with the campaign world, and increased our investment in the campaign world. We were less interested in gathering xps (because there wasn't any benefit immediately in sight!) and more interested in making our mark in the world by gathering and spending money and influence.</p><p></p><p>So if I wanted to start and run a campaign to try and really hit my old sweet spot, I'd probably start all PCs at 5th/6th level, slow down xp advancement by a factor of 10, and ensure that there was lots of money and social interaction.</p><p></p><p>If I wanted to write some rules to support this, I'd put a lot of thought into rules for increasing social influence in one or more groups (including how more influence with some groups might reduce your influence in others), and simple rules for running businesses, raising castles, attracting followers, leading troops and so forth.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I imagine these ideas might be a little too 'off the wall', but your original question made me consider how much fun my friends and I used to have with PCs who had essentially static levels for most of their careers.</p><p></p><p>Cheers</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Plane Sailing, post: 2986866, member: 114"] Hi Wulf! I'm assuming that you don't want to stray too far from baseline D&D (classes, levels etc)? If you did, then it might be interesting to divide up the clumpy 'level' benefits over a period of time, and then stretch out that period of time - so it takes longer to go from 7th to 8th, but you have more frequent minor power bumps than you would if you were levelling up normally. An alternative which your questions brought to mind is inspired by the 1e games that we used to play and love. In our games levels 6-9 were probably the sweetest spot. As you remember, level advancement used to take forever in those days, and the bad news part of that was that it took months and months of gameplay and hundreds of encounters to raise that level. But it wasn't that important. Why not? For us, it was because of all the in-game rewards. Not mechanical rewards that came from increasing class level. Instead it was making money. Getting houses and eventually castles built. Earning noble titles and ruling over the land. Leading armies, founding temples and such. These were all activities that were intimately tied in with the campaign world, and increased our investment in the campaign world. We were less interested in gathering xps (because there wasn't any benefit immediately in sight!) and more interested in making our mark in the world by gathering and spending money and influence. So if I wanted to start and run a campaign to try and really hit my old sweet spot, I'd probably start all PCs at 5th/6th level, slow down xp advancement by a factor of 10, and ensure that there was lots of money and social interaction. If I wanted to write some rules to support this, I'd put a lot of thought into rules for increasing social influence in one or more groups (including how more influence with some groups might reduce your influence in others), and simple rules for running businesses, raising castles, attracting followers, leading troops and so forth. I imagine these ideas might be a little too 'off the wall', but your original question made me consider how much fun my friends and I used to have with PCs who had essentially static levels for most of their careers. Cheers [/QUOTE]
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