Celebrim
Legend
1) Deemphasizing story, exploration, and puzzle solving player skill relative to character abilities and tactical play has made leveling more satisfying relative to the whole experience. This isn't entirely new, as hack-n-slash has been around a while, but it does seem to be becoming the more assumed style of play.
2) There has been a move away from open ended adventuring and toward closed ended adventuring as is typified by the adventure path concept. The way people experience stories now is very much focused on the linear narrative coupled to regular increases in character ability. In particular that there is an expectation of reaching 20th level and that most of what is satisfying about play is obtained at those upper levels - story conclusions, epiphany, accomplishment, recognition, etc. Again, this isn't entirely new - GDQ and DL were adventure paths long before anyone had a term for it - but WotC's initial module releases and Paizo's greater success with the concept has made that default. I never played a 1e character up above about 13th level, and that took years playing 6 hours every week - because for me adventure path wasn't default. Now people expect to rush up to 20th level in the course of 20-30 sessions of play.
3) Leveling up is just more satisfying than it used to be. More stuff happens. Hand in hand with that is that people plan out their characters ahead of time to a much greater degree than usual. Many players will know exactly what they want to achieve mechanically at every level. They want to complete a concept, and in general the fullness of the concept is usually only realized at quite high levels. When I created a character in 1e I never paid any attention to who he might be in the future. It was enough to figure out who he was. Now I see so many players that have no clue who their character is, only what they want him to be able to do in the future. You ask what their concept is and they start spouting mechanics, feats, and classes they want to take.
4) There is an increased perception that high level is normal. There is an e6 crowd out there and people like me who though they aren't e6 still demographically have expectations informed by the same sort of concepts. When I was younger, if someone would have asked me where 'high level play' begins I would have said 9th level. I associated playing at or above 15th level with junior high kids that didn't know better, who were being power leveled by their DMs because XP and loot were the only rewards of value they could offer. Now, 15th level is normal. Everyone expects to reach and exceed it.
5) Everybody plays cRPGs now and cRPGs skinner box players really well by doling out leveling opportunities like crack laced candy. In many cases the whole point of playing a cRPG is to level up to high and higher levels. Diablo may have been inspired by Nethack and D&D, but now the tables are turned - Diablo now influences D&D more than D&D influences it. People used to play cRPGs to try to emulate their experiences in a PnP game. Now they play PnP games trying to emulate their experiences in cRPGs. cRPGs have matured and gotten better, but the quality of RPG adventure writing has at best stalled.
2) There has been a move away from open ended adventuring and toward closed ended adventuring as is typified by the adventure path concept. The way people experience stories now is very much focused on the linear narrative coupled to regular increases in character ability. In particular that there is an expectation of reaching 20th level and that most of what is satisfying about play is obtained at those upper levels - story conclusions, epiphany, accomplishment, recognition, etc. Again, this isn't entirely new - GDQ and DL were adventure paths long before anyone had a term for it - but WotC's initial module releases and Paizo's greater success with the concept has made that default. I never played a 1e character up above about 13th level, and that took years playing 6 hours every week - because for me adventure path wasn't default. Now people expect to rush up to 20th level in the course of 20-30 sessions of play.
3) Leveling up is just more satisfying than it used to be. More stuff happens. Hand in hand with that is that people plan out their characters ahead of time to a much greater degree than usual. Many players will know exactly what they want to achieve mechanically at every level. They want to complete a concept, and in general the fullness of the concept is usually only realized at quite high levels. When I created a character in 1e I never paid any attention to who he might be in the future. It was enough to figure out who he was. Now I see so many players that have no clue who their character is, only what they want him to be able to do in the future. You ask what their concept is and they start spouting mechanics, feats, and classes they want to take.
4) There is an increased perception that high level is normal. There is an e6 crowd out there and people like me who though they aren't e6 still demographically have expectations informed by the same sort of concepts. When I was younger, if someone would have asked me where 'high level play' begins I would have said 9th level. I associated playing at or above 15th level with junior high kids that didn't know better, who were being power leveled by their DMs because XP and loot were the only rewards of value they could offer. Now, 15th level is normal. Everyone expects to reach and exceed it.
5) Everybody plays cRPGs now and cRPGs skinner box players really well by doling out leveling opportunities like crack laced candy. In many cases the whole point of playing a cRPG is to level up to high and higher levels. Diablo may have been inspired by Nethack and D&D, but now the tables are turned - Diablo now influences D&D more than D&D influences it. People used to play cRPGs to try to emulate their experiences in a PnP game. Now they play PnP games trying to emulate their experiences in cRPGs. cRPGs have matured and gotten better, but the quality of RPG adventure writing has at best stalled.
