D&D 5E What's the rush? Has the "here and now" been replaced by the "next level" attitude?

[Hussar]

By the same token, my AdnD games levelled up about the same rate as my 3e and 4e games. 1 year of weekly play hits around name level. For me that has never changed.

 

[oxybe]

people keep talking like "instant gratification" is a bad thing. why is it bad to want to have a nice thing now or at least get to the nice part quickly? that, like obryn said "You should stick at a level exactly as long as it's fun to do so, and not much longer".

then again, in older editions, the leveling and class system was kinda poor. you didn't get much at any given level and what you were given was often very small... after trying other games, the small increments you get (to me at least) are just not really worth the time or effort i put in IMO.

now, turning the issue on it's head, delayed gratification absolutely requires the payout to be worth the wait. remember that you're putting aside an immediate reward for the promise of a gratifying one later. that the time you're putting in, session after session, gives you a new level that is worth the wait.

in addition to the content of the next level, how long should the wait be? 3 sessions? 5? 10? then again, is it really instant, that gratification?

saying "it only takes 3-4 sessions to level... that's too quick" might be misleading. even if i level after only 3 sessions, that's still at least twelve hours of play spread across three weeks for a single level (assuming you're assured a weekly game with no single "real life" commitment causing any problems. at all.).

multiply by 20 for the whole gist of a single character's growth and think again about how "instant" we're talking about.

assuming we can get the whole D&D experience in a single 40-60$ book, rather then 3 40-60$ books, i'm still comparing D&D to not just every other TTRPG when it comes to my time/money/fun ratio, but videogames, books, movies, anime, comics, manga, boardgames, card games, etc... and my money bin is not limitless. i have a cap i put on my spending so i don't eventually choose between "games" and "rent+food".

so how do TTRPGs compare?

it's not about wanting things "now" it's wanting a satisfying experience after working hard and spending money. if D&D can't give it to me, i'll gladly look to other TTRPGs. or other mediums.

if Riot Games is willing to give me a better group experience then D&D is, i'm more then happy to give them my time. hell, i'll even buy a cheap skin if i like the experience enough because they've done more to earn my money.

it sucks, but as a consumer i go where the fun is and i see no reason to wait 3 months for "the possibility of fun gameplay" when i can download and sign up for League (for free!) with 5 of my buddies and play, right now, a full game in about 20-40 minutes. i have options and i will unabashedly take them.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Most of the points were made already, so I can just add a minor one:

Back in the old days we poured over the lists of high-level spells and monsters, but knew that we would never use them. 20% of the PHB and MM were just dead material. With accelerated levelling, we got more use out of the books.

And maybe it's just the other way round: because your fighter or thief from the old days didn't experience any eral development in terms of the rules, you made the best of it and enjoyed the game as it was.

 

[Grydan]

I wasn't really sure how to phrase the title so I apologize if it doesn't make sense. What I mean by it is I have noticed that now a days, people are less inclined to enjoy the "here and now" of games, and are now more focused on that next level. I remember back in 1st and 2nd edition our group, and other groups we played with, were more focused on enjoying the present adventure whether it was published or homemade and less worried about what our characters were going to get next level. I say it started around 3rd edition with the introduction of Prestige Classes because you were essentially granted a new ability at every level, and got really bad around 4th edition because of all the many powers and power combos. In my own experience, I have seen a lot of people see adventures as just a "grind" and they just want to hurry up, kill everything, and collect the XP so they can level up. It's like these people just can't wait to get to that sweet spot. What happened to enjoying the moment in the adventure instead of just looking forward to that next level? I have even seen mechanics and game design that tries it's best to try and speed things up. It's like the game wants you to hurry up, get through your current character and move on to the next one. I understand that some people only meet for a certain number of hours but not everyone has to worry about this. The game has even lowered the numbers for experience needed to gain levels.

All I ask is what's the rush?

How much of this is changing perceptions, rather than changing inclinations? Perhaps people were just as inclined to focus on the next level before, and you simply weren't as observant back then.

Perhaps there were just as many people who preferred a fast pace back then, and for whatever reason none of them happened to interact with your groups.

If it is in fact a change, then there could be any number of reasons, and there's probably nearly as many reasons as there are individuals.

In the end, though, this is something that's both a matter of personal preference (there's nothing wrong with preferring a slow pace to a fast pace, or vice versa, or even no levelling at all, as long as everyone at the table is happy) and something that is trivially easy for every campaign to adjust to suit.

Many of us no longer pay any attention to the written rules regarding levelling pace, as covered in various topics about XP over the years. Some people level based on hours of play, or number of sessions, or (like myself) when they feel the events of the campaign justify it. There's any number of approaches that can work. If you insist on using hard numbers, you can easily multiply the base values by whatever factor you want to slow the pace, or do the opposite to speed things up. Or add more XP-granting opportunities, or take them away. Whatever suits your needs best.

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As a player ... I like having mechanical options. D&D tends to parcel these out over several levels. If I'm playing a class that starts with a low number of mechanical options, then sure, I'd prefer a fairly fast pace to get to the point where I have a sufficient number of viable options to suit my tastes. Once we've reached that point, though, I'm in no particular hurry at all.

Which leads me to the conclusion that were a campaign to start at a level where I had sufficient mechanical options to suit my tastes (or if the system itself were to provide such from the first level), then I'd probably not really care if we never levelled at all, absent other reasons for levelling.

 

[Derren]

people keep talking like "instant gratification" is a bad thing. why is it bad to want to have a nice thing now or at least get to the nice part quickly?

Because instant gratification design tends to devalue the whole product as rewards must be tossed out for pretty much everything to keep the player interested and failure is not tolerated at all. That limits the type of stories you can play somewhat, usually a shallow black & white (doesn't require too much thinking) combat heavy (many fights mean many rewards) railroads (to control the pacing so constant gratification is ensured).

 

[Hussar]

Or to put Derrens point more plainly- because badwrongfun.

 

[Derren]

Or to put Derrens point more plainly- because badwrongfun.

I guess we now know what types of games you run.

 

[oxybe]

Because instant gratification design tends to devalue the whole product as rewards must be tossed out for pretty much everything to keep the player interested and failure is not tolerated at all. That limits the type of stories you can play somewhat, usually a shallow black & white (doesn't require too much thinking) combat heavy (many fights mean many rewards) railroads (to control the pacing so constant gratification is ensured).

yes it limits the stories you can tell, but is that really a bad thing? i would much rather pay for a system that allows me to tell great stories of a certain type then one that would allow me to tell any story in a mediocre or lackluster manner.

as for "doesn't require too much thinking" can mean a lot. do you mean system depth or complexity? i don't care for complexity as a be-all end all but i do want depth, meat, to my system.

and instant gratification can very easily reward that if, like all things, done right. how many games nowadays give players bennies/tokens/points of sorts for doing certain actions? even if you're not just doling them out every other minute, this tends to give the players mechanical reasons to be invested in the game.

combat heavy is simply one possible focus of the game and an easy one to go towards since it's a very obvious conflict that can be used to move the session forwards. if your system focused on rewarding players for avoiding combat and setting up trade routes between towns, guess what they would be doing?

instant gratification is a great way to help shape the kind of game your building. while long-term goals have a place (like say prestige classes, paragon paths, epic destinies) and give players things to look forwards at a later date, giving them something for good play shouldn't be seen as a bad thing... you catch more flies with honey then vinegar / carrot over stick.

railroading is simply bad adventure design or a bad implementation of how rewards are given and nothing to do with the frequency. i long threw out XP in D&D and simply leveled the players after the adventure was over. they still kept looking forwards to the next level, but stopped treating every obstacle as a means of quicker leveling and started looking at obstacles as exactly that: obstacles in the way of their goal.

while i don't like assuming things, you do seem like you've had problems with instant gratification in games in the past. i'm not going to say that all my experiences were rainbows and unicorn farts, but i see the benefit of using it and how, as a consumer, it helps guide my decisions.

 

[Yora]

In AD&D, low level characters are simply weaker versions of high level characters, who have lower chances of defeating powerful enemies, but otherwise could do the same things.

In d20 games like 3rd Edition, a large number of abilities only unlock at higher levels. So if you have a cool concept that requires a couple of feats and prestige classes, you have to wait for mid- or high-levels until you actually get to play the character you planned.

 

[Li Shenron]

people keep talking like "instant gratification" is a bad thing. why is it bad to want to have a nice thing now or at least get to the nice part quickly? that, like obryn said "You should stick at a level exactly as long as it's fun to do so, and not much longer".

But I think the point of the thread is about people never having fun at any level per se, but only getting gratification from the levelling up process itself.

I have seen a lot of players not using most of their PC's abilities, because they are so focused on "what's next", and then play their PC in a very repetitive way at every level.

In a sense, it's weird that players care more about levelling up quickly in recent editions, where they have a lot to do or try out at each level, while in older editions you might in fact had many "dead levels" with not many new tactical options to try out.