D&D 5E Followup on "Everyone Starts at First Level"

[practicalm]

YMMV, but I enjoy starting from level 1 because your character makes game choices that affect your character's behavior and your character's choices as you progress. Yes you can just create your character's story out of whole cloth at higher levels but there is something fun about having played out the story of your character's progression.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So I've got a question since I don't understand the appeal of starting at level 1 (outside of it being easier for newbies), even after reading through this thread... Why do people say it denies you the opportunity of knowing what your character did at low levels? Why can't that just be written into the backstory? If you like low-level adventures, why play at a medium or high level? Or if you like characters coming into their own or having their own arc, why not choose something appropriate or neat for that level range?

Edit: Just wondering since these are things I've tried to ask DMs in the past when I've been (in my opinion) penalized for dying by starting at a lower level. Never got adequate answers and usually stop playing then.

Here are some thoughts, take them for what you will:

I suspect it has something to do with attitude towards what "typical" people are. In a campaign where there are lots of high-level NPCs floating around (three archmages in every city, and the commander of the City Watch is a 14th level fighter) it wouldn't be a big deal to just handwave it and say "your new 14th level fighter is a recently-retired commander of the City Watch who now wants something more exciting than a desk job." However, in a campaign like mine where there basically aren't any high-level characters except the PCs and maybe a few drow matriachs or hibernating liches, it's a lot harder and less satisfying to explain your new PC: "I guess he killed a lot of criminals over the years? Or maybe there was some kind of a quest, that we never heard about, where he saved the city from vampires or something?"

Here's the thing: players are Weirdness Magnets. If there's a murder in the city, the PCs have a statistically much-better-than-average chance of being witnesses to the murder, or suspects, or victims, or something. It's implicit in the social contract for the game that the DM will set up interesting things to happen to you over the course of the campaign. As soon as a player becomes attached to a character, bam! the PC is now all set to rise out of the ranks of mundanity, see mind-blowing spectacles, go to new lands, meet new and interesting people, and then kill them (as the old Army joke goes). If you play from level 1, there is no question where that level 14 fighter came from: he was rescued from goblins by a band of hobbits, organized the hobbits into a fighting force and retook the hobbit homeland from drow, stole a magic sword from the dragon Ferrovax's hoard, bluffed the Fire Giant King into recognizing the hobbit kingdom, and fought down a vampire cult that was kidnapping and vampirizing hobbit maidens. Of course, you could try to write a backstory that said the exact same thing, but without it having happened in the spotlight during game time, 1.) it is less memorable, detailed, and interesting; and 2.) nobody cares about your character except you. Often not even the DM. By letting his "backstory" happen on stage, with the other PCs, they become equally invested in that story, and it's a shared experience and not just a background monologue.

TLDR; human psychology dictates that remarkable backstories aren't allowed to happen offstage. Ergo, high-level starting characters are effectively required to have unremarkable backstories, which rubs some people the wrong way.

 

[Eirikrautha]

So I've got a question since I don't understand the appeal of starting at level 1 (outside of it being easier for newbies), even after reading through this thread... Why do people say it denies you the opportunity of knowing what your character did at low levels? Why can't that just be written into the backstory? If you like low-level adventures, why play at a medium or high level? Or if you like characters coming into their own or having their own arc, why not choose something appropriate or neat for that level range?

Edit: Just wondering since these are things I've tried to ask DMs in the past when I've been (in my opinion) penalized for dying by starting at a lower level. Never got adequate answers and usually stop playing then.

Well, it depends on why you play the game. Are you playing to tell stories, or to make them?

I could start working a 1000-piece puzzle with only 10 pieces left to put in. I could start every possession in a football (American) game on the opponent's 10 yard line. I could start my crossword puzzle with only one word not filled in. But I don't, because it's the journey that's more important than the destination.

I can see a heavily narrative (scripted) campaign needing most of the characters around the same level, tempting the DM to start a character at a higher level. That makes sense. But most sandboxy campaigns could easily get away with starting everyone at first, because they are more frequently designed as shared story-creation campaigns. So it depends on the campaign and it's structure/organization.

The bottom line is that the character development is what is fun to me, not the result of leveling the character. And I've never played in a campaign where every character was equally "featured" in the first place. Someone is always the "hired help," just because of the nature of the events we happen to encounter (even if they are all the same level... Sometimes a player just has the perfect character for what we will face). So I'm certainly not going to chase after some illusory egalite, especially when some of the most fun you can have is when a formerly secondary character comes into his own and saves the party.

 

[Sunseeker]

Here are some thoughts, take them for what you will:

I suspect it has something to do with attitude towards what "typical" people are. In a campaign where there are lots of high-level NPCs floating around (three archmages in every city, and the commander of the City Watch is a 14th level fighter) it wouldn't be a big deal to just handwave it and say "your new 14th level fighter is a recently-retired commander of the City Watch who now wants something more exciting than a desk job." However, in a campaign like mine where there basically aren't any high-level characters except the PCs and maybe a few drow matriachs or hibernating liches, it's a lot harder and less satisfying to explain your new PC: "I guess he killed a lot of criminals over the years? Or maybe there was some kind of a quest, that we never heard about, where he saved the city from vampires or something?"

Here's the thing: players are Weirdness Magnets. If there's a murder in the city, the PCs have a statistically much-better-than-average chance of being witnesses to the murder, or suspects, or victims, or something. It's implicit in the social contract for the game that the DM will set up interesting things to happen to you over the course of the campaign. As soon as a player becomes attached to a character, bam! the PC is now all set to rise out of the ranks of mundanity, see mind-blowing spectacles, go to new lands, meet new and interesting people, and then kill them (as the old Army joke goes). If you play from level 1, there is no question where that level 14 fighter came from: he was rescued from goblins by a band of hobbits, organized the hobbits into a fighting force and retook the hobbit homeland from drow, stole a magic sword from the dragon Ferrovax's hoard, bluffed the Fire Giant King into recognizing the hobbit kingdom, and fought down a vampire cult that was kidnapping and vampirizing hobbit maidens. Of course, you could try to write a backstory that said the exact same thing, but without it having happened in the spotlight during game time, 1.) it is less memorable, detailed, and interesting; and 2.) nobody cares about your character except you. Often not even the DM. By letting his "backstory" happen on stage, with the other PCs, they become equally invested in that story, and it's a shared experience and not just a background monologue.

TLDR; human psychology dictates that remarkable backstories aren't allowed to happen offstage. Ergo, high-level starting characters are effectively required to have unremarkable backstories, which rubs some people the wrong way.

I disagree even without having, lets just call it a "high level" world, it is on the players to face the weirdness, not the weirdness to face the players. Basically, I see things as the complete reverse of the way you present them. Weird things happen, they do not usually happen because of the players or even to the players, but they happen to the town of Townsville because the Townsvillians cut down too many trees and pissed off some dryads, or because the King of Lordsdom decided he really deserves a dragon for a hat.

Even if the backstory is mundane, that's not to mean it's boring. Lets say I make the now retired ex-Knight Captain Reginald (level 14 Paladin). Well Knight Captain Reginald was only a mere Private when the evil Lord Smashstuff attacked his city, Reginald fought in the first infantry, which actually didn't see much fighting in the battle. Later around level 5, now Seargant Reginald commanded the siege division in the sacking of Lord Smashstuff's castle, he didn't do much other than stand behind the lines and command others, but still it wasn't boring. Later, around 10th level, Lieutenant Commander Reginald fought a hand-to-hand duel with Gill Finn, the Merfolk Lord bent on sinking the dry-land-world.

At each of these encounters the "party" could be well and involved in all of these events. Perhaps they are the reason Lord Smashstuffs army failed to conquer Lordsdale because they fought off his warlocks attempting to summon a demon-god to this plane. Maybe they were fighting the super-mutant fish-forces of Gill Finn, or slaying the blue dragon who was aiding him.

Human psychology dictates NOTHING. Cool stuff can, does and to make a believable world, should happen offscreen.

 

[Ahrimon]

So I've got a question since I don't understand the appeal of starting at level 1 (outside of it being easier for newbies), even after reading through this thread... Why do people say it denies you the opportunity of knowing what your character did at low levels? Why can't that just be written into the backstory? If you like low-level adventures, why play at a medium or high level? Or if you like characters coming into their own or having their own arc, why not choose something appropriate or neat for that level range?

Edit: Just wondering since these are things I've tried to ask DMs in the past when I've been (in my opinion) penalized for dying by starting at a lower level. Never got adequate answers and usually stop playing then.

I think it comes from a preference to have a character organically grown. One big sticking point of that argument is the build vs leveling. If you build a high level character you didn't have to go through the levels where you're build didn't work to get to the point where it does. But not everyone does a "build" so that argument doesn't always apply. I really think it comes down to whether people think that a story background character can be as interesting as a gamed background character. Or was the background played out or written down.

Everyone has different preferences. Unfortunately some people can't understand that others would prefer something different and some think that not playing their way is badwrongfun. /shrug.

 

[Kalshane]

I think it comes from a preference to have a character organically grown. One big sticking point of that argument is the build vs leveling. If you build a high level character you didn't have to go through the levels where you're build didn't work to get to the point where it does. But not everyone does a "build" so that argument doesn't always apply. I really think it comes down to whether people think that a story background character can be as interesting as a gamed background character. Or was the background played out or written down.

Everyone has different preferences. Unfortunately some people can't understand that others would prefer something different and some think that not playing their way is badwrongfun. /shrug.

I personally don't understand how a character shooting up from level 1 to level 6 in a couple sessions is so much more "organic" than them starting at a higher level to begin with.

 

[Ahrimon]

I personally don't understand how a character shooting up from level 1 to level 6 in a couple sessions is so much more "organic" than them starting at a higher level to begin with.

That's an entirely different factor to the campaign. In a slower leveling game 1 to 6 could be several months of play time. I wouldn't be shocked to see a good amount of overlap between the organic character camp and the slow leveling camp though.

 

[Sunseeker]

That's an entirely different factor to the campaign. In a slower leveling game 1 to 6 could be several months of play time. I wouldn't be shocked to see a good amount of overlap between the organic character camp and the slow leveling camp though.

Mathematically, it wouldn't matter if your game was slow or fast, unless the DM gave the 1st level character a smaller share of the XP, or used some other DM-based method of limiting player progression, then the first time a 1st-level player was involved in say, a 5th-level fight, he'd shoot up 2 levels by almost any experience table. Slow leveling or not.

EX: in 5th edition, 1st to 2nd level is 300 xp. at 5th to 6th level is 14000 xp, even if you gave out 10% xp (1400) that would be enough to get the 1st level player through both 1st and 2nd level. with 200 xp left over, If you were to throw a 1st level into a 10th-level party, even 10% of the XP to get from 10 to 11 would be 8500. Almost enough to get the player to 6th.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Mathematically, it wouldn't matter if your game was slow or fast, unless the DM gave the 1st level character a smaller share of the XP, or used some other DM-based method of limiting player progression, then the first time a 1st-level player was involved in say, a 5th-level fight, he'd shoot up 2 levels by almost any experience table. Slow leveling or not.

EX: in 5th edition, 1st to 2nd level is 300 xp. at 5th to 6th level is 14000 xp, even if you gave out 10% xp (1400) that would be enough to get the 1st level player through both 1st and 2nd level. with 200 xp left over, If you were to throw a 1st level into a 10th-level party, even 10% of the XP to get from 10 to 11 would be 8500. Almost enough to get the player to 6th.

...at which point the new guy has helped take down two beholders, six unber hulks, a vampire, and a hundred gnolls. He's still the "new guy" but he's no longer a rookie. He's seen some things.

That's pretty different from a brand-new 10th level character showing up out of nowhere.

 

[Cernor]

Mathematically, it wouldn't matter if your game was slow or fast, unless the DM gave the 1st level character a smaller share of the XP, or used some other DM-based method of limiting player progression, then the first time a 1st-level player was involved in say, a 5th-level fight, he'd shoot up 2 levels by almost any experience table. Slow leveling or not.

EX: in 5th edition, 1st to 2nd level is 300 xp. at 5th to 6th level is 14000 xp, even if you gave out 10% xp (1400) that would be enough to get the 1st level player through both 1st and 2nd level. with 200 xp left over, If you were to throw a 1st level into a 10th-level party, even 10% of the XP to get from 10 to 11 would be 8500. Almost enough to get the player to 6th.

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but isn't XP gain continuous? That is, the values in the table for how much XP to level are set values (you're level 6 when you've earned 14000 XP, and having hit level 5 you're already at 6500 XP) rather than an addition on top of the previous value (you need to earn 14000XP after hitting level 5 before hitting level 6)?