Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 6702812">Partly because I find that starting low adds character investment.&nbsp; Also, until my players requested otherwise, I always award levels at the end of a session, so go home and do your leveling.&nbsp; Also, starting at 20 leads to a lot of &quot;builds&quot; and even when players have pre-planned ideas, I find that getting them to start at 1 can change their mind.&nbsp; I mostly pre-plan my world layouts, I have a general &quot;world map&quot; with major locations and some local maps for relevant details, and the small stuff is often theater-of-the-mind.&nbsp; I've given up actually drawing out mazes and tunnels and instead rely on skill checks to &quot;not get lost&quot; while being descriptive with the results of successes and failures.The players aren't aware of where the &quot;endgame&quot; starts.&nbsp; So starting at 1 allows them to invest in the world they're going to save, conquer, or destroy or plain ignore.&nbsp; I include &quot;epic stuff&quot; all along, because otherwise players would be reading a novel on the various events leading up to the endgame.&nbsp; As it is, instead of reading the story, they get to play it.&nbsp; Which is fun for me and them.&nbsp; The only &quot;grind&quot; in my game is how I slow down exploration with daily checks (fortunately most travel never lasts more than a week), which runs the risk of a variety of random encounters in the world.&nbsp; Otherwise, everything they're doing that isn't a random encounter is relevant to the endgame, and will be taken into account for the final reckoning.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 6702812"] Partly because I find that starting low adds character investment. Also, until my players requested otherwise, I always award levels at the end of a session, so go home and do your leveling. Also, starting at 20 leads to a lot of "builds" and even when players have pre-planned ideas, I find that getting them to start at 1 can change their mind. I mostly pre-plan my world layouts, I have a general "world map" with major locations and some local maps for relevant details, and the small stuff is often theater-of-the-mind. I've given up actually drawing out mazes and tunnels and instead rely on skill checks to "not get lost" while being descriptive with the results of successes and failures. The players aren't aware of where the "endgame" starts. So starting at 1 allows them to invest in the world they're going to save, conquer, or destroy or plain ignore. I include "epic stuff" all along, because otherwise players would be reading a novel on the various events leading up to the endgame. As it is, instead of reading the story, they get to play it. Which is fun for me and them. The only "grind" in my game is how I slow down exploration with daily checks (fortunately most travel never lasts more than a week), which runs the risk of a variety of random encounters in the world. Otherwise, [I]everything[/I] they're doing that isn't a random encounter is relevant to the endgame, and will be taken into account for the final reckoning. [/QUOTE]

Verification