D&D 5E Why Do Higher Levels Get Less Play?

[Zardnaar]

I do tend to use them in greater numbers - since I know how vulnerable lone monsters are to those sorts of spells.

Cheers!

They had support from around a dozen CR2-5 creatures. Hunger of Hadar and world tree barbarian.

 

[Reynard]

[Note: I did not read the whole thread, so this has probably already been said multiple times, but here I am anyway]

You forgot "Because WotC won't make good high level content."

 

[Zardnaar]

[Note: I did not read the whole thread, so this has probably already been said multiple times, but here I am anyway]

You forgot "Because WotC won't make good high level content."

High level content doesn't sell.

They made it for previous editions.

BE part of BECMI sold well. CMI part not so much. They're less complex than say 3E and 4E which had high level play. BE has individual products selling more than modern editions phb.

High level adventures were made they don't make top 30 type lists or big sales numbers.

Paizo also commented on it.

 

[tetrasodium]

See notes about Superman and Wonder Woman - when what you can do becomes more central to play than why you choose to do it, there are media other than RPGs that are apt to handle it better.



Responsibilities aren't character. Adding more tactical concerns does not counter my point.



I submit that those would be better served with their own entire games, rather than something bolted on the side of a small-group tactics and action-adventure game like D&D. Especially when the story that personal power of violence naturally leads to power over the people of a nation is... fraught.



Nobody said is was impossible.
The thread asks a question - Why do higher levels get less play? Among the answers may be that writing compelling content that calls for an RPG at that power level is hard. That it isn't impossible doesn't change that it is hard, and doing much of the same thing is pretty easy at lower levels.



As has been noted by many a viewer of long-running programs, while one might assume that even greater risk makes a story more emotionally resonant, it often doesn't. The game of having to one-up your own stakes to hold interest is where "jumping the shark" comes from, after all.



But you have probably already told that story several times over at lower levels - Lois or the innocent bystander? Lois or the innocent bystander orphan child? Lois or the entire Daily Planet building? Lois or the city? Lois or the country? Lois or the world? Lois or the Universe?

It is... kind of repetitive, and after a couple of iterations doesn't reveal anything new about Superman, as it isn't a fundamentally new question, especially when Superman never seems to fail to save both anyway.

That's what I mean by it reducing to a tactical exercise. We already know what Superman will choose - the only question is how he manages it this time.

Responsibilities are the difference between world of cardboard and injustice . I don't agree with everything upper krust wrote, but it's critical for high level PCs to need their player to care about the world once the game reaches high levels and it causes problems for high level play when they stop before even reaching high levels.

Imo you can kinda see some room for that being carved out in the new mm with all the formerly humanoid elementals to populate those planes with something that could be considered a functional society that may on average be much more powerful than the average commoner. That carve out is largely on a lore/fluff level though so "the xxx from $otherplane could become a problem for THIS plane where everyone you know lives" and similar don't really matter any more than the NPCs that PCs might know.

 

[Zardnaar]

Hypothetically how would you plan for and advertise a level 1-20 campaign?

Realistically for me I would have to use an older AP or a Paizo adventure and tweak it.

Tyranny of dragons into labyrinth of madness?

Pay the DM to do it? Free to level 13 $20 a session after that!!!!

 

[J-H]

Eh? The point we run into is that higher level play speaks to greater power, but it doesn't speak to greater character development.

Once you have sufficiently explored who a character is at lower levels, the upper levels are at risk of narrowing down to become mostly a tactical exercise. And while I think there's some market for that, I would be unsurprised if broadly the draw of RPGs drops off as character exploration narrows to mostly be in tactical concerns.

We can actually look at fiction for the point here: There are some powerful characters (like Superman and Wonder Woman) who are notoriously difficult to write well in large part because handling what they can do tends to overwhelm the story, and the character's personality ceases to play a large part in the turns of events.

Superman and WW are not great examples for this, because they start basically fully powered. As I mentioned upthread, I'm running a Baldur's Gate II campaign.
At level 1, they were hungry, exhausted, and trapped in a dungeon.
At level 7, they were well-fed and well-equipped, and decided that working with vampires was a cheaper and better option than working with thieves. They slaughtered their way through the thieves guild for the benefit of their tormenter's sister and a 5,000gp discount, and then were upset when the guildmaster's vengeance included letting the paladins and the Harpers know what they'd done.

Around level 9 or 10, one of them got his soul sucked out (spoiler for a 20+ year old computer game!) and another one "found out" that he was also a child of the god of murder (4 weeks before, post-game, the player had commented that they kept ended up solving problems with violence... he walked into that).

Now they're level 13 and they just chose to take risks to spare the lives of some deep gnomes who were polite to them and a drow who didn't really deserve to die.

Soon, they're going to have to choose how to prioritize their time between (1) clearing their name, (2) carrying out a player's desire to wreck the government of Athkatla, (3) chasing down a powerful artifact, and (4) killing a vampire so one of them can get his soul back and they can go save an elven city. Despite already having gone from "team neutral" to "team mostly evil," they are still making character choices that matter and have nuance.

After that, the Throne of Bhaal storyline has quite a bit of combat (giants, dragons, drow), but also some opportunities to go "Do I want to solve this by talking to someone, or at least try to do so?" "Am I someone who solves things with Fireball or with some kind words?" and at the capstone "Is my character someone who wants power, even if becoming a god changes his nature or involves betraying a friend?"

There are still plenty of stories to tell on the high-powered end of the spectrum. None of them involve endangering more than a single city, and there's actually not a lot of planar travel involved.

I've been running this for a while and BG2 is an EXCELLENT "D&D" game in terms of most of what it sets up and how the dungeons the party has chosen to engage with are built. The exploration/combat/social balance has been something I've been happy with despite taking a CRPG and making it a TTRPG again.

 

[Minigiant]

High level content doesn't sell.

They made it for previous editions.

It's not that

Really it's that D&D for 40 of it's 50 years has been designed by fans who heavily glamorous low level play and had no, little, or passing interest in play above level 10.

It's hard to sell products for parts of the game the designers actively don't care about.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's not that

Really it's that D&D for 40 of it's 50 years has been designed by fans who heavily glamorous low level play and had no, little, or passing interest in play above level 10.

It's hard to sell products for parts of the game the designers actively don't care about.

Designers have said exactly that. Product was made.

The big selling older items they're generally all level 1-8. Exception was demon web module.

Paizo APs used to go to level 20. I'm not sure if they stopped doing that.

 

[Umbran]

Responsibilities are the difference between world of cardboard and injustice .

I'd say that morality is the difference. That morality does not necessarily manifest as Supes taking on benevolent administrative management duties for the nation, though.

"Yes, Superman, you saved us from Darkseid. Now, can you help us balance the budget?"

I don't agree with everything upper krust wrote, but it's critical for high level PCs to need their player to care about the world once the game reaches high levels and it causes problems for high level play when they stop before even reaching high levels.

Sure, but that's orthogonal to my point.

I have an action-adventure hero. I can do a whole lot of discovery of who this person is in the lower tiers of play. Adding more power does not add a whole lot of more options for discovery. As I said - "Lois or the Daily Planet?" and "Lois or the World?" are fundamentally the same question.

Thus, most of the essential character exploration can be done without the complications and distractions of very high power play. This is apt to be a notable part of why high level play doesn't get much attention - because it isn't asking fundamentally new questions.

Adding domain administration does add some questions we can explore, but they are mostly ones that aren't action-adventure oriented, making for a drastic shift in the game focus and theme - essentially playing a different game. You'd expect to lose a bunch of players at that game-shift, thus, looking back to the OP, contributing to the drop in high level play.

It turns up to be a bit of a conundrum, threading that needle.

 

[NN]

tbf superman is a boring dork