Would you play a D&D campaign without leveling?

[pogre]

D&D would not be my choice in such a game. D&D is about zero to hero.

 

[Reynard]

D&D would not be my choice in such a game. D&D is about zero to hero.

What is the difference between choosing a campaign character level in D&D, and choosing a power level in, say, Mutants and Masterminds?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Ever since 3E or so, it seems like they've been accelerating the rate of level gain with each edition, in order to fit the whole progression into the length of a typical campaign. It really makes the levels seem like something that's just expected, as a byproduct of playing, rather than the rare reward for accepting moderate levels of risk over an extended period of time.

Back in AD&D, we could go months at a time without gaining a level, and that's still the recommendation when playing Palladium. Never gaining a level is closer to that tradition, than the current rate of advancement is.

I would certainly play in a D&D game that only allowed leveling between adventures, where every adventure took six months, and there was no guarantee that the next adventure would ever come. I think it would rightly shift the focus back onto who the characters are right now, instead of making it all about what they will be able to do soon.

 

[TwoSix]

What is the difference between choosing a campaign character level in D&D, and choosing a power level in, say, Mutants and Masterminds?

To my mind, very little difference, but I agree with you that the "no-leveling" campaign idea has a lot of merit. Probably need to hear from someone opposed to the idea.

 

[Xetheral]

I would absolutely play in a game without leveling.

Advantages:

1. It's easier to tightly weave the mechanical abilities and the fluff of your character when you only have a specific level to consider. For example, if as a Sorcerer you're picking your spells based on a theme, you can pick a theme that's well-represented on the Sorcerer spell list at the static level of the campaign. You don't need to worry about continued progression as a Sorcerer diluting your theme due to a dearth of relevant spells.
2. You have time to learn from experience how best to employ the abilities you have in a wide variety of circumstances. With normal leveling, you get a few dozen encounters at most before your accumulated practice with your character becomes outdated by the arrival of new abilities. This also applies to learning how to operate effectively as a team with the other PCs.
3. Following up from the previous point: as the players' skill at using their characters' abilities increases, they can challenge more powerful opponents (albiet at a slower rate than with leveling). I personally find it particularly satisfying to defeat powerful opponents through clever use of abilities, and this campaign format would emphasize that. (Note that this point has more salience in a Combat-as-War game, where there is more opportunity for creatively using abilities to tilt the odds in your favor before the battle begins. In a Combat-as-Sport game, where the difficulty of an encounter is primarily determined by the relative stats of the combatants, there is less room for defeating opponents significantly more powerful than you are.)
4. In-world resources become much more important when they're the only available method to increase power. This increases PC interaction with the setting, which I consider a good thing. For example, in a game with leveling, knowing that you'll have to ultimately defeat a Big Bad 10 levels higher than you isn't as big a deal, because you can count on gaining more levels before the confrontation. In a fixed-level game, to have any hope of success you're going to need to interact with the world to accumulate as many advantages as you can: political alliances, magic items, armies, intel, favors, spies, etc. Similarly, level-appropriate consumable resources become much more relevant because they won't quickly be overshadowed by higher-level permanent abilities.
5. For sandbox games, the players' choice of direction to take the campaign becomes much more relevant to whether/how they can achieve their goals. With leveling, any direction the characters pick is likely to lead to accumulating experience, which makes their goals easier to obtain even if they didn't make meaningful progress towards those goals. By contrast, without leveling, in-game decisions are the primary driver of whether the characters make progress towards their goals. The risk of losing ground is also much more acute when there isn't the general trend of steadily-rising levels to compensate for any in-world setbacks.

 

[Satyrn]

Put me at level 5 and I don't need to level.

Like you said, and like I would of thought, my character would develop through story growth. So for example if I acquired a kingdom and became a king, I would gain considerable power there.

Hey! Look over there!

*steals this answer*

Put me at level 5 and I don't need to level.

Like you said, and like I would have thought, my character would develop through story growth so, for example, if I acquired a kingdom and became a king I would gain considerable power there.

 

[Mercule]

D&D would not be my choice in such a game. D&D is about zero to hero.

Eh... I don't think I agree. It might be fair to say "D&D has become about zero to hero," but that wasn't always the case and is not baked into it.

When I was playing AD&D, in college, one game ran from 1st level to 4th or 5th level over the course of the school year. The next fall, I ran a "sequel" campaign that took those characters to maybe 8th (depending on class XP table). We gamed pretty much every Saturday from noon to midnight, so each of those blocks would have been akin to roughly two and a half years of weekly, four hour games. That's slightly slower than one level every third month. 5E players would be looking for pitchforks and 3.5E players would get creatively morbid. But, it was fun. No one complained. Honestly, I still don't like playing past 10th level or so. Really, the high level spells make the game less fun, for me.

I also get annoyed that it seems like players get new toys faster than they can become proficient in what they have. AD&D had a lot of creative uses for low level spells. Later editions have pretty well purged any side effects from things, though. 5E loosen up a bit from where 3.5 and 4E were, but there's definitely still some restraint, there. The topic could be a whole rant thread/edition war on its own, though, so I'll leave it as a simple statement.

Still, I'm not sure I'd be thrilled with zero advancement. I do like to see characters grow and change over time. But... if I boil it down to the original context -- the length of SKT -- then I think I'd be fine with no advancement. The "sweet spot", for me, is probably one or two levels over that span, but only advancing through items and learning tricks with what you've got would be at least as fun as doing 1-11 over a few months.

 

[OB1]

Actually did this with PotA. Myself and one other player took out characters from RoT (at 15th) and played through without leveling.

Had an absolute blast handling challenges easily early on and having to get creative late in the module. Made for an interesting story of two grizzled veterans having to save the world one last time.

Magic item and wealth acquisition and further boosting our reputation all gave a nice sense of progression even without leveling and we were never bored with our characters or the story.

 

[Umbran]

So, in short, would you play long form D&D without gaining levels?

Meh? I wouldn't be excited by it.

There are systems that are *so much better* for that sort of thing. Gumshoe, Cortex+, and FATE games are generally miles ahead of D&D for doing longer runs without notable character advancement. D&D's the wrong tool for the job, IMHO.

 

[Reynard]

Meh? I wouldn't be excited by it.

There are systems that are *so much better* for that sort of thing. Gumshoe, Cortex+, and FATE games are generally miles ahead of D&D for doing longer runs without notable character advancement. D&D's the wrong tool for the job, IMHO.

I am curious why you (and some other folks) think this. If you you work with a static power level in other games, why not D&D? Is it specifically that the games you mentioned are somewhat more narrative focused and such a campaign would require a narrative focus? If not, what then?