Playtest (A5E) Level Up Playtest Document #1: Origins

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Welcome to the first Level Up playtest document. This playtest contains a candidate for the game’s Origins system—the initial building blocks of your character.

Are you ready to level up your 5E game? Welcome to Level Up, the standalone 'advanced 5E' backwards compatible tabletop RPG coming in 2021!

A crunchier, more flexible version of the 5E ruleset which you know and love. If you love 5E but would like a little more depth to the ruleset, Level Up is the game for you!

Level Up is a standalone hardcover roleplaying game brought to you by EN Publishing, the company which brought you EN5ider Magazine and Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters!

Download the playtest document

What this is
This is a playtest document. We’d love you to try out the rules presented here, and then answer the follow-up survey in a few days.

What this is not
This is NOT the final game. It’s OK if you don’t like elements of these rules; that’s the purpose of a playtest document. Be sure to participate in the follow-up survey in a few days. All data, positive or negative is useful.

What we use this for
Your survey responses help form the direction of the game as it goes through the development process.

Don’t forget!
Sign up for the mailing list for notifications of playtests, surveys, and news. And make sure you get notified on Kickstarter when the project launches in 2021.
 

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I've only skimmed it so far, but I like the split.

Just from a layout point, I'd second that perhaps all cultures are split into their own section, away from heritage. Whether they want to be put as generic, such as "warhorde" without mentioning orcs, or otherwise I think this would make it clearer.

I know you mentioned that any heritahe can pick any culture in the document, but it's one of those things that can be easy to miss on a casual read and might be a cause for misinderstanding.
See, I'd be concerned that would make it difficult for new players to choose traditional options. I love that we can mix and match, but no everyone wants to play an orc art major or a halfling barbarian.
 

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I’ll say this, though I fear it may be controversial.

The human section reads like someone has an axe to grind. In a game attempting to be a real world analogy of the 18th and 19th C then this might be interesting but in D&D it feels very jarring. In fact it reads like the human section has been written based on white western society rather than humanity as a whole.

It claims colonization is an unfortunate legacy of human culture due to birth rate leading to expansion and migration. Every society has expanded over time unless it stayed exactly where it was formed. Colonialization has unavoidable associations with colonialism where people and resources are funnelled back to a remote metropole causing huge socio-economic Problems (this association is cemented by the profiteer and sheltered citizen cultures). Societies on the other hand have expanded and tested borders for thousands of years. We’re all the product of migration. In fantasy settings it often isn’t at the expense of others as seems to be heavily suggested.

These descriptions of humans bear little relationship to how humans are used in current d&d settings. Let’s take the Forgotten Realms - the majority of human lands do not behave this way - the Sword Coast, the North, the Dales, Damara, Waterdeep These are not empires. In fact any empires in the Realms are generally long in the past. With the exception of maybe Baldurs Gate (which has expressly walked back from that idea in products).

The cultures associated with humans are overwhelmingly perjorative. Profiteer means someone who makes a profit unfairly or illegally - it is not synonymous with capitalist. The culture is appears modeled on the colonial East India company. Sheltered Citizen suggests naïveté and little c conservatism. Pioneering is linked with colonization at the expense of others rather than expansion/exploration (neutral and common to most civilizations) which again is not the same thing. These could easily have been neutral... or gasp... may be even positive. Trader is just as relevant as ‘Profiteer’. The word citizen can be used without the ‘Sheltered’ adjective.

The villager Culture at least is neutral but I see absolutely no reason why humans are more likely to live a village life than any of the other heritages. That rural life is common to all heritages as far as I can see. However I wouldn’t expect other ancestries villages to look like the one described in this culture.

Go back and read the text of the human section and then compare it to the balance of overwhelmingly positive or at least neutral descriptions in the other entries. It reads as if someone is trying to make a political statement about the last 350 years of human existence not describe fantasy humans in D&D.

If I make one piece of feedback stronger than any other, please if the language isn’t substantially revised then separate culture from ancestry completely. Otherwise you are being just as stereotypical as the existing rules - more so in fact - as the PHB rarely makes such sweeping and perjoritive statements about cultures. From reading the document the ability to take any culture is not clear and strongly associates some heritages with the cultures that follow.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the "humans are bastards" trope. It feels self-loathing, like the game is trying encourage stories of peaceful elves, orc, etc fighting against evil human oppressors.
 

The human section feels like it could do with a little less self loathing.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the "humans are bastards" trope. It feels self-loathing,

I'm going to remind you both that the designers are actual people, and to find some way of expressing yourselves without the armchair psychology, please. Thank you. :)
 

Wouldn't that be forcing the narrative to focus on the minority of peaceful, artistic orcs, while still saying that violence is a major part of their lives? If you want different kinds of orcs, don't focus on one type; give equal narrative weight to all of them.
No I don't believe so. Look at their heritages (?). Only one is really anything about being involved in war & and those same mechanics are the kinds of things nearly every well organized professional army trains their soldiers in to varying degrees since the mongol, & roman armies proved how effective it was.

The warholding mechanics fit better under elf where it fits faerun's elves, eberron elves, & dark sun elves. where all three are known to be skilled in combat similar to how the English were known for their skill with the longbow because they paid their common citizens to practice so their rulers could levy a peasant militia even while maintaining elite troops of their own. The warholding mechanics work fine for an organized military training/education. Big difference between elf armies & orc armies is that one is presented in a positive light that focuses on skill & training rather than playing off scary minority tropes.
 

Having the paragon at Level 10 makes it a mini-capstone, but also runs a bit counter to the Tiers system that is part of 5e. I've waffled on where I prefer that boost. Both are valid decisions.
 

I’m not sure why Nobles have +1 Str and Folk Hero’s have +1 Con. It feels like these scores needed to be ascribed to some backgrounds but can’t see much logic to that. Feels very artificial to me.
 


Nobles historically had access to more protein and nutrition take a knight and a farmer and you'd see a difference with the farmer usually being a bit more wiry and shorter while the knight would be pretty darn filled out.
 

Nobles historically had access to more protein and nutrition take a knight and a farmer and you'd see a difference with the farmer usually being a bit more wiry and shorter while the knight would be pretty darn filled out.
Lol, yes because farmers are always described as lean and nobles always described as burly... Oh wait.

Nobles and knight are not synonymous.

Of course in that instance Acolytes would be the strongest... everyone knows the bishops table was the best.
 
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While I understand the observation that nobles and Str are an odd match, I think only a cursory glance at the playtest document will reveal that it is not an accurate historical lifestyle simulator and that what proteins historical nobles may or may not have had access to (really?) has no bearing on this game.
 

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