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

[el-remmen]

make the encounters meaningful

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “meaningful?”

 

[Deadstop]

I can never accept the, "PCs are somehow in the setting different from NPCs of the same circumstances". To me they will always just be the folks the camera is pointed at.

Aren’t you an older-editions guy? My initial Moldvay Basic Set from the early 80s had a monster entry for Normal Men with 1-4 hp, compared to which even a first-level character is mildly extraordinary.

Just because PCs level up fairly fast at first doesn’t mean most people “level up” at all. (Or get into that many fights/recover that many treasures, for that matter.) If they do, absolutely treat them as classed NPCs … but the XP rules don’t have to mean that 2nd-level spells (or spellcasters at all) are common, for example. Some worlds do act as though low-level healing magic is available at every temple, sure, but in others actual wonder-working clerics are living saints that come along a few times a generation, and most clergy are Normal Men (or Experts in 3e terms). That’s a setting /group/DM discussion. Treating the mechanics as the physics of the world is a choice, and not one embraced by most editions of D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Aren’t you an older-editions guy? My initial Moldvay Basic Set from the early 80s had a monster entry for Normal Men with 1-4 hp, compared to which even a first-level character is mildly extraordinary.

Just because PCs level up fairly fast at first doesn’t mean most people “level up” at all. (Or get into that many fights/recover that many treasures, for that matter.) If they do, absolutely treat them as classed NPCs … but the XP rules don’t have to mean that 2nd-level spells (or spellcasters at all) are common, for example. Some worlds do act as though low-level healing magic is available at every temple, sure, but in others actual wonder-working clerics are living saints that come along a few times a generation, and most clergy are Normal Men (or Experts in 3e terms). That’s a setting /group/DM discussion. Treating the mechanics as the physics of the world is a choice, and not one embraced by most editions of D&D.

It's a choice I always prefer to make, because otherwise PCs are a different order of being from everyone else, including their own communities and families. That makes zero sense to me, and I will never accept it in any D&D-style game I run, no matter what the designers say. And the more the game pushes for the kind of specialness you're talking about, the less that game appeals to me. 5.5 pushes that idea harder than 2014 5e, so that is one reason I dislike it.

Look, stats vary, so the idea that the PC you choose to play might be smarter or stronger than average for their people, making them as you say "mildly exceptional" is fine, because that falls within standard variation and an equivalent NPC could easily do the same. But IMO they simply are not more special than that in any objective way.

 

[MerricB]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “meaningful?”

It's an odd little concept - and one I struggle with. It's to have an encounter that the players (and DM) feel isn't a waste of time.

Are the old school random encounters meaningful? For a certain value of meaningful - yes. They reduce the players' resources. (Back in AD&D, very little XP from wandering monsters, and no treasure, but they can happen when the party spend too much time).

But then you transplant that sort of encounter into a game where there is no XP, and the party resources aren't impacted, and they might have meaning due to the flavour they bring, but not anything else - so you'd better hope that flavour is making up for the time you spend on them.

Cheers!

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's an odd little concept - and one I struggle with. It's to have an encounter that the players (and DM) feel isn't a waste of time.

Are the old school random encounters meaningful? For a certain value of meaningful - yes. They reduce the players' resources. (Back in AD&D, very little XP from wandering monsters, and no treasure, but they can happen when the party spend too much time).

But then you transplant that sort of encounter into a game where there is no XP, and the party resources aren't impacted, and they might have meaning due to the flavour they bring, but not anything else - so you'd better hope that flavour is making up for the time you spend on them.

Cheers!

Which is why XP is important, and so is using up resources.

 

[Lanefan]

Aren’t you an older-editions guy? My initial Moldvay Basic Set from the early 80s had a monster entry for Normal Men with 1-4 hp, compared to which even a first-level character is mildly extraordinary.

Indeed. AD&D 1e inserted a de-facto 0th level between these two, as "militia, men-at-arms, etc.", and then somewhat codified it in the module [I forget the name or number; the one where you start out without any class abilities and spend the adventure working your way up to 1st level in a class based on your actions during the adventure], then further codified as a true 0th level in Unearthed Arcana with the Cavalier class.

The insertion of a 0th level nicely bridges the jump from commoner to 1st level in 1e I think, and would do so in Basic as well.

In 4e and (to a lesser extent) 5e, that gap between commoner and 1st level became large enough to insert several intermediary "levels".

 

[MerricB]

Indeed. AD&D 1e inserted a de-facto 0th level between these two, as "militia, men-at-arms, etc.", and then somewhat codified it in the module [I forget the name or number; the one where you start out without any class abilities and spend the adventure working your way up to 1st level in a class based on your actions during the adventure], then further codified as a true 0th level in Unearthed Arcana with the Cavalier class.

From what I can see...

Unearthed Arcana (1985) had the lower-class Cavaliers starting at "level 0".
N4 Treasure Hunt (1986) is levels 0-4.
N5 Under Ilefarn (1987) is levels 0-3
Greyhawk Adventures (1988) had the full "level 0" rules.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Which is why XP is important, and so is using up resources.

Not necessarily. It depends utterly on the type of game you want to run.

 

[el-remmen]

It's an odd little concept - and one I struggle with. It's to have an encounter that the players (and DM) feel isn't a waste of time.

Thanks for explaining. I have to admit I have a hard time with this concept too. I tend to think we are not “wasting time” as long as we are having fun and feeling immersed in the world and campaign events.

 

[MerricB]

Thanks for explaining. I have to admit I have a hard time with this concept too. I tend to think we are not “wasting time” as long as we are having fun and feeling immersed in the world and campaign events.

Yeah, which is sort of what I mean by "meaningful". It's when you have encounters that feel like a chore - and I've definitely seen them in my years of the game - that things go south.

Within the story structure of an adventure path series, the requirement to give out "this much XP" can lead to additional encounters that are just there for the XP. The players and DM are very ready to get onto the next story point, but if they need enough XP first and so have to just grind for it, the focus and intensity is lost.

The amount of time you spend in each level is tremendously varied depending on group and story dynamics. (While I could craft a D&D 5E campaign that was 30 sessions long and the players never gain a level, I think my group would rebel at that!)

For the purpose of brand new players to the game, I'd like their experiences as levels 1 & 2 to be extensive enough so that they gain a handle on how to play the game. But not so long that they don't feel like they're not progressing!

Cheers!