Dragonlance "You walk down the road, party is now level 2."

[MerricB]

That kind of reminds me of old school Doctor Who. If there isn't enough plot, just add more running up and down corridors.

Terry Nation was the king of padding out stories!

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

I was running XP straight by the book. Awarding combat encounters as written and giving story awards equal to the party CR for meaningful roleplay encounters and achievements.

Sounds awesome!

The real trick - and it's the same regardless of reward strategy - is to make the encounters meaningful and the rewards meaningful, whatever they are. Can't say I always get it right!

Group and story dynamics vary from campaign to campaign. I'm currently 63 sessions into running a fortnightly campaign, with sessions generally being 2.5-3 hours. The characters are just about to hit level 17. There are experienced players (some have been with me for 25 years!) but we started at level 1, and it wasn't more than a session or two. From there, you can probably see we're averaging 3-4 sessions per level.

I'm much faster at awarding levels when running published adventures, because they have a steeper trajectory of level gain.

There isn't one correct solution. I just get annoyed when the new player sits down and they don't get a chance to learn how the character works because they level (almost) immediately!

 

[mamba]

Why is the game adventurers going into dungeons to kill monsters and take their stuff? Why aren’t the PCs playing farmers, or blacksmiths, or reigning monarchs? Why is it considered bad form in the hobby to make a character that doesn’t want to adventure and resists every quest?

if that is what your players want, knock yourself out. Not really what D&D is intended for, but go right ahead

 

[ad&d wilderness encounter]

the 5e progression is soooooooooooo fast for my taste. you get to lvl.3 without having done anything interesting for it.

 

[pemerton]

To be frank D&D hasn't matured in some areas, and this thread highlights a very old problem. which is the stark difference of power between levels.

The solution should be that Levels should expand versatility while the increase in real power should be represented by Tiers.

Then it wouldn't matter that a 20 year old was level 5 or level 8, because they'd still be Tier 1.
Then you could also do some interesting things with age and skills, you could use Tiers to define Low or High Magic campaigns...etc I mean the ideas just write themselves.

One day WotC will catch-up, I'm sure of it!

I'm not sure what the problem is, with the difference of power between levels. Isn't this part of the point of D&D PC build rules, and D&D play?

I'm not saying that other approaches aren't completely viable. Just wondering why the D&D approach is a problem.

 

[pemerton]

I am not a character in a game focused around adventuring. D&D characters aren’t born, they’re created to fill a very specific role. If the adventuring party isn’t inherently “special” in some way and the camera could focus on anyone in the setting, why doesn’t it focus on employed workers, nobles, priests, or beggars?

But why are the players controlling them? Why are adventurers/heroes the ones that are focused on? Why is the game adventurers going into dungeons to kill monsters and take their stuff? Why aren’t the PCs playing farmers, or blacksmiths, or reigning monarchs? Why is it considered bad form in the hobby to make a character that doesn’t want to adventure and resists every quest?

The characters in the party can’t just be anyone. They specifically need a reason for adventuring. If the camera was focused on just any random person in the D&D world, it wouldn’t work as a D&D game.

A PC could have formerly been a laborer, or an acolyte/priest, or an urchin, or the scion of a noble house, but they’re not anymore. Somewhere in their background they must cross the threshold and stop being a “standard background NPC” and become an “interesting main character.”

Just to add to this: there are FRPGs which don't require the PCs to be adventurers, and that can focus on the vicissitudes of beggars, or nobles, or blacksmiths, or reigning monarchs. But I agree with you that 5e D&D isn't one of them. There are various rules elements - the centrality of combat ability to PC build; the lack of resolution mechanics to make (say) smithing or begging the sustained focus of play; the reliance on party play to really make the game work - that get in the way of those sorts of possibilities.

That is one valid way to interpret RPGs, but far from the only one.

But it does seem to be the way that 5e D&D is designed.

The game happens because we focus on this particular party. My default (and, I think, the game's default assumption) is that they're not the only adventurers in the setting; there's other adventurers out there doing things and gaining levels, and people can gain levels more slowly without adventuring (thus explaining levelled NPCs).

Where does 5e D&D present this as the default?

Even if we go back to AD&D, Gygax has NPC adventuring parties on his encounter tables, and those NPC parties are a GM-controlled analogue of a rival group of player-controlled characters - but, while the rival group of player-controlled characters can be expected to have "earned" their levels via play (given that they are PCs), nothing in the rules dictates that NPC adventurers have "earned" their levels by any particular means. They just have the levels that they happen to have, as dictated by the encounter rules in combination with GM decision-making.

To me, these people should be slowly gaining levels as they go along - a street thief who's been at it for 20 years is highly likely to be more adept at it than someone just starting out and could immediately apply at least some of that learning as an adventurer if so desired. Thus, if a party of PCs wants to recruit a Thief the 6th-level Thief they pick up might have earned all those levels as a street thief and never have done any field adventuring at all.

But why would a street thief be able to read mysterious languages? Or even be able to find and remove traps, if all they've ever actually done is pick pockets and lift merchants' wares?

PC classes, in AD&D and in 5e D&D, are not "models" or "templates" of various life paths. They are bundles of abilities and ability-selection parameters designed to support game play.

What you point out here is nothing more than a design flaw in 5e that, while getting play to the "sweet spot" faster, really does mess with believable worldbuilding in the process. It's kind of a carry-over from 4e which (in a different form of poor-for-worldbuilding design) had its PCs start with nearly-3rd-level abilities right from the hop and left a huge gap between commoner and 1st-level PC.

There's no "design flaw" in 5e D&D. PC levels are a game-play device, not a world-building device. In this respect, 5e is similar to 4e and to Gygax's AD&D.

The GM (and other game participants) can build the world however they like, and populate it with whatever sort of powerful beings, or non-entities, that they like. The rate of PC levelling has no bearing on this.

I don't think it is, though, I think it's one of those things that's a very much intentionally designed feature that just doesn't work for some people because they want to use the product in a manner different to what is intended.

Right. It's not a flaw in a RPG that some RPGers prefer a different approach to the way PC build, NPC build and world-build rules interact. For those who want something different from 5e D&D, Rolemaster and HARP are both still in print, I think RuneQuest is still in print, and 3E D&D and derivatives are hardly difficult to get hold of.

It's a flaw from our perspective, but to be fair it does seem pretty clear to be the intended design. If it hurts worldbuilding, well, maybe that's just not that high a priority for the modern WotC.

This notion of "flawed from our perspective" is, in my view, misleading. It is projecting a preference out of the person who's preference it is, and onto the object which is perfectly suitable for a completely standard sort of RPG play. If what you mean to say is that you prefer something different, then just say that.

As far as hurting worldbuilding, it doesn't hurt it at all. Worldbuilding need not have anything to do with PC build rules. If what you mean is it precludes a particular sort of approach to worldbuilding, that uses/incorporates the PC build rules as general principles for all characters in the world, well that is true. But that approach to worldbuilding is just one of many possible approaches. And that is true even with the history of D&D.

Proverb or not, it's reasonable for the words on a books cover to reflect what's in the book. Thinking otherwise is to me excusing poor design, or at least poor advertising.

But by all accounts the book does what it says - it contains material for characters from Level 1 to Level <whatever>.

 

[Lanefan]

Where does 5e D&D present this as the default?

Directly, nowhere. Indirectly, all over the place:

--- levelled NPCs (those levels had to come from somewhere)
--- the allowed ability for players to retire one character (or if it dies) and bring in another at the same or similar level (again, where did those levels come from before this character became a PC?)
--- encounters with other adventurers or adventuring parties as a feature of "official" published adventures
--- etc.

Even if we go back to AD&D, Gygax has NPC adventuring parties on his encounter tables, and those NPC parties are a GM-controlled analogue of a rival group of player-controlled characters - but, while the rival group of player-controlled characters can be expected to have "earned" their levels via play (given that they are PCs), nothing in the rules dictates that NPC adventurers have "earned" their levels by any particular means. They just have the levels that they happen to have, as dictated by the encounter rules in combination with GM decision-making.

The rules might not dictate it but worldbuilding logic does.

But why would a street thief be able to read mysterious languages? Or even be able to find and remove traps, if all they've ever actually done is pick pockets and lift merchants' wares?

Training.

PC classes, in AD&D and in 5e D&D, are not "models" or "templates" of various life paths. They are bundles of abilities and ability-selection parameters designed to support game play.

Levels as a concept either do or don't fit organically into a D&D setting. That all PCs and quite a few NPCs have levels forces the "do" option as the default, and as we're not told how to make this work it's left to us to make something up. In other words, we're expected to take these game-play conceits and try to shoehorn them in to a viable believable world-build - and it's quite easily doable provided one first defaults to PCs and NPCs using the same mechanics.

As far as hurting worldbuilding, it doesn't hurt it at all. Worldbuilding need not have anything to do with PC build rules. If what you mean is it precludes a particular sort of approach to worldbuilding, that uses/incorporates the PC build rules as general principles for all characters in the world, well that is true. But that approach to worldbuilding is just one of many possible approaches. And that is true even with the history of D&D.

If one wants the PCs to be representative of their setting (i.e. to have been ordinary inhabitants of said setting up till now and remain so through their played careers) then that symmetry is essential.

If, on the other hand, one doesn't care if the PCs are mechanically different (and, in the metagame, is willing to put up with endless squawks of "Why can't my character do that?" when that symmetry falls in the PCs' disfavour), then go to town on this.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I'm not sure what the problem is, with the difference of power between levels. Isn't this part of the point of D&D PC build rules, and D&D play?

I'm not saying that other approaches aren't completely viable. Just wondering why the D&D approach is a problem.

Well I see this conversation has progressed with other posters but nevertheless.

The OP described the PCs walking down the street and essentially levelling up as they overcame an encounter...then went fishing and levelled up etc
The main idea being that levelling in D&D is fast and furious.

Now from a world building perspective (and whether you wish to differentiate between design and world building I don't think holds much water), the above is rather silly.
There are many threads here which deal with worldbuilding, specifically how posters look at the D&D economy, races and their ages, age and skill proficiency, age and abilities, impact of spells such as create water, cure wounds, resurrection, plant growth etc, clerics and their services, magical item creation, downtime activities, healing rates etc. One of the things that is also looked at are levels.

So world building is an important aspect for many players. The impact of their character's abilities on the world is measured and thus the rate at which they can perform these abilities (refresh/recovery rules) as we as obtain these abilities is also discussed. It's why on the main variant recovery rules, slower advancement, level capping (E6 and E8), tiered playing are common place topics. It's all worldbuilding related.

Given this is important for a large part of the playerbase to make sense of their D&D world, IMO it would have been smart for D&D to address this.
One way I think this can be done is by flattening the power level. Power level expands horizontally and let vertical power come through tiered play.
This idea I believe has the possibility of helping with worldbuilding including low-high magic settings, mundane and supers play, age relation to skills and power etc.

To ignore the desires of a large part of the playerbase for an issue that's been around since day 1 is not helpful.

EDIT: I think the inventions e6 and e8 during the 3e era, the 4e ritual system and its deeper look at tiered play, the gritty rest rules of 5e are some of the better strides towards addressing this concern.

 

[pemerton]

To ignore the desires of a large part of the playerbase for an issue that's been around since day 1 is not helpful.

My feeling is that these are probably concerns for only a minority of D&D players. Eg, as I understand it, the new DMG doesn't include gritty rest variants and the like.

The main idea being that levelling in D&D is fast and furious.

Now from a world building perspective (and whether you wish to differentiate between design and world building I don't think holds much water), the above is rather silly.

I don't think I agree with this. The rapid levelling is a thing about how the players gain access to PC capabilities. I don't think it has to have implications for the setting more generally. A young farmhand manifests prodigious talent with a sword; or a young priest is miraculously empowered by the gods - this doesn't tell us anything about the world more broadly, other than that heroic prodigies are possible.

Power level expands horizontally and let vertical power come through tiered play.

If I've understood you properly, this would be a pretty radical change to D&D rules. Given there are already other RPGs that do this, I doubt that D&D will change from its approach to be more like them.

 

[pemerton]

Directly, nowhere. Indirectly, all over the place:

--- levelled NPCs (those levels had to come from somewhere)
--- the allowed ability for players to retire one character (or if it dies) and bring in another at the same or similar level (again, where did those levels come from before this character became a PC?)
--- encounters with other adventurers or adventuring parties as a feature of "official" published adventures
--- etc.

<snip>

Levels as a concept either do or don't fit organically into a D&D setting. That all PCs and quite a few NPCs have levels forces the "do" option as the default, and as we're not told how to make this work it's left to us to make something up. In other words, we're expected to take these game-play conceits and try to shoehorn them in to a viable believable world-build - and it's quite easily doable provided one first defaults to PCs and NPCs using the same mechanics.

But in 5e D&D PCs and NPCs are not built using the same rules; so what you describe as "quite easily doable" is not apt to be done at all.

Where do the levels come from? In the fiction, the character is lucky, or talented, or whatever. In the game system, this is modelled by levels, or CR, or whatever device is appropriate for the game element in question.

If one wants the PCs to be representative of their setting (i.e. to have been ordinary inhabitants of said setting up till now and remain so through their played careers) then that symmetry is essential.

It's not - being representative of ones setting is about fiction, not build and resolution mechanics - but, in any event and as @Levistus's_Leviathan posted upthread, 5e D&D PCs are not typical of their setting. They are exceptional.