Everyone starts at 1st level

[Barastrondo]

In the old days, one might in my circle encounter "transplants" from Gamma World, Starships & Spacemen, Villains and Vigilantes, Gangbusters, and so on. However, 90%+ of characters were of AD&D Players Handbook types (perhaps slightly different from standard, or subject to reincarnation or other effects commonly encountered in the course of an adventuring career). Spells, magic items, etc., were of course subject to careful scrutiny and potential revision and deletion. There was rarely a barrier, though, to continued play of characters developed over years in other "worlds".

It certainly depended on the group. For example, consider the barrier of a character who has a beloved NPC — maybe a spouse, or a true love, or even just the friendly and distinctive bartender at the local watering hole — that is part of the player's concept of the character. The character isn't the same without his supporting cast. And the new GM might not care about his supporting cast at all, or handle them poorly to the player's mind.

That's a tremendous barrier for some players. I know my wife wouldn't ever consider transplanting a character between worlds, because her character's social ties are a huge part of how she defines the character. You see who the character is based on how she reacts to the members of her church, her family, the local proprietors. The in-character goals are an important part of the play experience, and they're tied to those specifics.

Add in the expansion of more options among more RPGs. It becomes easier and easier to have a large list of characters you'd like to play someday but haven't gotten around to yet. For some, a new game is an excuse to create a new character, not an excuse to revisit a character left out in the pasture. They don't even have to be mechanical options, mind. I'd like to play a Sinbad-esque corsair at some point myself; but I also want to play him in an Arabian Nights-style game that showcases what's fun about the archetype, and would pass on the opportunity of having him go into a megadungeon in a very white-European-inspired setting. I'd want the corsairing, not the traps and suspicious doors and caverns filled with monstrosities.

People have the option to do more, absolutely. But I think that also applies to the play experience they're after. You can't help but see some splintering there. For some, the dungeon is the Descent Into the Underworld, the centerpiece of what the game is about. For others, it's an adventure site among many, fun for a bit but not something you want as the majority of the game. I think it's pretty awesome that we've been figuring this out, too, as more people have the opportunity to find the game that suits them perfectly.

 

[Remathilis]

That's a tremendous barrier for some players. I know my wife wouldn't ever consider transplanting a character between worlds, because her character's social ties are a huge part of how she defines the character. You see who the character is based on how she reacts to the members of her church, her family, the local proprietors. The in-character goals are an important part of the play experience, and they're tied to those specifics.

I think that's also a symptom of the gaming moving out of the "dungeon" into more "social" encounters. Before, when all you cared about was exploring X dungeon of Y stretch of wilderness, it didn't matter much who was the DM. It was just another "stretch of unknown" to explore and conquer. But as the game became more complex (involving plots and politics, re-occurring NPCs, and PCs with more depth and backstory) such things attached themselves to the PCs and their "place" in the world. Heck, try and move a name-level PC with a dominion from one DM to another and you see the inherent problem!

As a side note, I think part of this was the fact D&D never set out to define a "world" as many RPGs do. Palladium Fantasy is an RPG, but its also a setting. Ditto with White Wolf's "World of Darkness". D&D has no one world we all assume to run, we have worlds, some unique (homebrews) some shared (pick a setting). However, I can't assume Remathilis coming from the City of Greyhawk is true for your game just because it was true in mine.

(D&D does foster the multi-verse concept, which allows planar travel from world to world, but that was much more of a patch to allow such game-to-game travel. It'd been much easier to assume the default world D&D used was Oerth (for example) and spend 30 years mapping that out in ultrafine detail, rather than have a dozen settings like Krynn, Toril, Eberron, etc. It'd also be much more boring to have only one "D&D" world. Such is the trade-off.)

 

[Technik4]

As one of the higher level characters, my first thought would be regret at sharing the looted treasure and experience with a lower level fodder who did not pull their own weight in battle.

Heh, I find this to be a telling comment. You are sharing experience with a fellow gamer and player at the table. Your regret at sharing experience despite what kind of character you play hints at your own playstyle. At the very least you could look at it as an investment in the future.

My second thought would be that since the lower level fodder was wealthy, that I was looking forward to splitting its stuff when it died.

I specifically designed some of those options to not relinquish an undue amount of treasure to the existing group. A noble start with a large credit won't bequeath the party with his gold, he has family it will go to. If anything, it may leave the party in debt. The artifact will have far more ramifications and are notoriously fickle things at any rate, that comes down to DM fiat.

D&D is a game, and all players should be treated equally.

Sometimes when you are really good at a game, it's fun to play with a handicap.

 

[Nifft]

Here's some tables of starting points for 1st level characters that are joining higher level parties:

In the Guardians of Order version of Game of Thrones RPG, social standing (nobility & wealth) were implemented as a level adjustment. Being King, for example, put you at LA +5 (IIRC).

Cheers, -- N

 

[Prisoner6]

My wargaming experience is limited to Risk and a few games of Axis and Allies (does chess count??).

I'm not even sure Risk and Axis and Allies count as war games, so much as games about war.

 

[Hereticus]

As one of the higher level characters, my first thought would be regret at sharing the looted treasure and experience with a lower level fodder who did not pull their own weight in battle.

Heh, I find this to be a telling comment. You are sharing experience with a fellow gamer and player at the table. Your regret at sharing experience despite what kind of character you play hints at your own playstyle. At the very least you could look at it as an investment in the future.

Every game is different, and upthread I stated (correctly) that another player was of a minority view. And now I saw this as someone who is likely of a minority view. We played an extremely challenging game with a certain DM who would not hesitate to kill a party member who made poor choices, or was just unable to keep up. A weakling character would not have survived, and I'm glad new characters were brough in equal to the weakest member of the group. That style may not be for most, but I enjoyed it at the time. I probably would not want to play it now, but I learned alot about how to make a character survive, even in my recent fourth edition game.

.

My second thought would be that since the lower level fodder was wealthy, that I was looking forward to splitting its stuff when it died.

I specifically designed some of those options to not relinquish an undue amount of treasure to the existing group. A noble start with a large credit won't bequeath the party with his gold, he has family it will go to. If anything, it may leave the party in debt. The artifact will have far more ramifications and are notoriously fickle things at any rate, that comes down to DM fiat.

I remember one game where we were around 12th level, and were in desperate need of a bit more gold. The players tricked the DM into allowing us to hire some mercenaries who had their own equipment, so we could steal from a noble. But instead of continuing the operation, we killed the mercenaries for their stuff and sold it for the money we were short. From that point on, all mercenaries hired in with no money or magic items.

I remember my evil cleric being in debt a few hundred K gold. After accepting the money from a noble with promises of interest, I told him to [can't be said here].

.

D&D is a game, and all players should be treated equally.

Sometimes when you are really good at a game, it's fun to play with a handicap.

To be honest, we had a room full of very good and very competitive players.

 

[Technik4]

Every game is different, and upthread I stated (correctly) that another player was of a minority view. And now I saw this as someone who is likely of a minority view. We played an extremely challenging game with a certain DM who would not hesitate to kill a party member who made poor choices, or was just unable to keep up. A weakling character would not have survived, and I'm glad new characters were brough in equal to the weakest member of the group. That style may not be for most, but I enjoyed it at the time. I probably would not want to play it now, but I learned alot about how to make a character survive, even in my recent fourth edition game.

In a game where everyone begins play at 1st level, new players start at 1st level, and characters that die must be raised or you begin a new one at 1st level, death is a very real element of the game and I'd wager you'd need a specific group of people (including a skilled DM) to play that game. While it's true mechanically you can contribute very little to a 12th level party at 1st level, there are still many ways a character can impact a story (even a combat) that are not level-based.

I remember one game where we were around 12th level, and were in desperate need of a bit more gold. The players tricked the DM into allowing us to hire some mercenaries who had their own equipment, so we could steal from a noble. But instead of continuing the operation, we killed the mercenaries for their stuff and sold it for the money we were short. From that point on, all mercenaries hired in with no money or magic items.

Metagaming is fun for some, not so much fun for others. You clearly play with a mercenary group of PCs.

I remember my evil cleric being in debt a few hundred K gold. After accepting the money from a noble with promises of interest, I told him to [can't be said here].

Would you consider campaigns with evil clerics as PCs to be the minority?

To be honest, we had a room full of very good and very competitive players.

The second part sounds very true. D&D can be played many ways, collaboratively or competitively. For the player that enjoys the challenge of playing a video game at the highest difficulty level, a fighting game with less starting health than his opponent, a card game with worse cards, or a D&D game at a lower level there is still much opportunity to excel. You just have to play smarter and have some luck (and in D&D the willing cooperation of the party). As I said above, I would hardly try and institute such a system in the average D&D game, but that isn't really what this thread is about. This thread is asking "If you did want to do this, can it be done (and how)?" not "Would you do this, why or why not?".

 

[Asha'man]

I personally think the best way to do this, from a mechanical fairness PoV, is to run 4e with all the +1/2 level bonuses dropped. High-level PCs will have more, and stronger, powers, and more HP, but they won't have much higher defenses or attacks than their lower-level compatriots. High-level monsters will similarly have more dangerous attacks, and be much tougher, than lower level ones, but they won't be untouchable by weaker PCs, who will just have to play cautiously.

If the mechanical fairness isn't of central importance (and it probably isn't), anecdotally 1e and 2e are decent for this as well, because of generally lower numbers and greater importance of player skill over character power. But I've never played 2e, and only a little 1e, so I don't know.

I have, however, played some very mixed-level 3e games, and actually, they worked very well. Admittedly that was more a case of a wildly exotic rag-tag bunch of entities as PCs than one weak guy trying to hang with a high-level party, but it was very fun. The key was that the party was large, challenges were complex, often requiring the PCs to split up or do many things at once. This also includes combats, swarms of lower-level monsters with a few burly "centerpieces" was the norm, so everyone had something to fight on an even footing. Also, situations were often set up to let the lower-level characters strut their stuff. (For example, one adventure took place on the Positive Energy plane, allowing the Barbarian PC to tank with almost unlimited HP so long as he didn't lose it all in one fight. In another, the 3rd-level gnome druid had to guide the barbarian (who didn't have survival) and an 18th level sorcerer(who could teleport, but didn't know the destination, and didn't have Etherealness or similar easy-travel spells) through a cavern complex)

 

[Mallus]

I'm not even sure Risk and Axis and Allies count as war games...

Risk certainly doesn't. Axis probably does. Anyway, I said that jokingly to indicate how limited my wargame experience was.

(I know that Avalon Hill used to publish them, hex maps were all the rage, and Advanced Squad Leader was really, really complicated).

 

[Mallus]

I don't always succeed...

True.

But what I said was that in the style of play I favor, exploration and intellectual challenge are the point of the game (challenge the player vs. challenge the character, etc.).

That's all well and good. For the record, I favor that approach to the game too.

There is no permutation of logic I'm aware of where that implies that other styles "lack" intellectual challenge; my point was conerning the "point" or focus of play.

Recall you also wrote "(a focus on exploration and intellectual challenge) are now so removed from what people think of D&D that they doubt it ever existed".

Unless the phrase "so removed from" has a new meaning I'm unaware of, this says contemporary D&D play no longer focuses on exploration and intellectual challenge. This goes slightly beyond a statement of what you, yourself, like. Or did you intend the last part of that sentence to mean something else?

See, in [(p -> q)] and if you've got (p), (q) is implied. Also, (~q) implies (~p). But (~p) doesn't imply anything in that equation.

Using logical notation is the last refuge of those trying to backpedal. Unless, of course, you're using logical notation in an ironic manner, say like the late David Foster Wallace might have, as a means of poking fun at yourself. It which case it is pretty funny.

Anyway, that's how you parse the word "implication".

I parse like Infocom, yo (and apparently I rap like a white man).

So don't get insulted...

No worries. I wasn't insulted.