Advancement even faster?

[Hussar]

There's a bigger question here: at what point during the 30+-year evolution of the game did level-bumping become the most significant reward for play? And, if it's slowed down (which I think it should be, drastically) what other "rewards" could replace it? Or, does there always need to *be* a reward other than enjoyment of playing the game itself?

Lanefan

As has been mentioned, probably about two days after the first book got opened by a group.

Level bumping has ALWAYS been a significant reward for play. Getting followers for example was directly tied to level. You HAD to be level X to gain followers. For any caster, the only way you get to try out new toys was level bumping. The fighter may not have changed a whole lot throughout his career, but, I'll bet the wizard was pretty happy to get out of levels 1-4. Considering the casters were pretty much useless for the first half of the campaign, level bumping was significant from the get go.

Sure, it's fun to play the game. I played in a 2 year 3e campaign that ended at level 4. Almost entirely role play. Y'know what? When the DM started a new campaign, despite really liking the DM, I opted out. I was just incredibly bored of never getting to use all that cool stuff that's in the upper levels.

If we're going to have a game that assumes that all levels are viable for play, and we know that the average campaign has a half life of about 1-1.5 years, then, well, the math's pretty clear. You need to advance pretty quickly in order to actually make the whole book useful.

 

[SteveC]

I think that the differences of opinion on leveling just reflect a different kind of campaign style.

Gaming is about rewards, and those rewards can be social (e.g., everyone has a good time around the table), story based (e.g., your character develops, learns and grows) and physical (where you level up).

There are a lot of campaigns out there that are essentially based around rewards one and three out there, and for them, fast leveling is important. For me, a campaign based around dungeon crawling is like this. In that kind of a situation, I want my character to level up quickly, because that's largely my reward for playing the game, other than enjoying the company of my fellows.

In a case where the game is based around character and story, leveling is a lot less important, if it's important at all. If my character is able to find out the mysteries of his background, unravel what's happening in the campaign, and sees and does some amazing things along the way, I don't care at all about leveling.

I think my personal nightmare D&D game would be exploring dungeon after dungeon, combat after combat, and not leveling, where that was the only thing that the campaign was about. After a certain point, what is the point of such a campaign?

--Steve

 

[SSquirrel]

I've not seen anything that directly said that Epic would become core. I've seen them classify the style of gaming calling levels 20-30 epic gaming, but I did not get the impression they meant that to mean the 3.5 Epic rules would be the base for those levels.

I would hope not, the 3E Epic handbook was atrociously bad.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I would hope not, the 3E Epic handbook was atrociously bad.

Except I've seen 2 or 3 quotes from designers now saying exactly that. Epic is core. Levels 21-30 aren't renamed levels from the original power scale but actually EPIC levels. The reason they said they were adding it because they thought the reason that Epic rules turned out bad is that they were tacked on rather than considered from the beginning. They wanted to make sure that they worked well with the normal rules.

 

[SSquirrel]

Except I've seen 2 or 3 quotes from designers now saying exactly that. Epic is core. Levels 21-30 aren't renamed levels from the original power scale but actually EPIC levels. The reason they said they were adding it because they thought the reason that Epic rules turned out bad is that they were tacked on rather than considered from the beginning. They wanted to make sure that they worked well with the normal rules.

See but I never disagreed with that at all. I'm just hoping they aren't basing those levels on that book is all I'm saying

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

While I do have reservations about the idea of faster levelling, since I think 3E levelling is fast enough, it does mean that I might be able to take a campaign into high-level play (new and improved high-level play, no less) before everyone develops scheduling difficulties and the game breaks apart, which is what usually happens somewhere around level 10-12 or so for me. It's hard to hold a group of people together for two years. Stuff happens, people get new responsibilities, babies are born, etc. A little bit of fast-tracking would help me to play at higher levels more often, which is something I don't usually get to do, because I prefer to start new campaigns at level 1...I often run adventure paths.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think what we're seeing is reflective of the aging demographics of the core group of people who play D&D. Let's face it, D&D is not attracting new players in anywhere near the numbers that it did in the 80's. As usual, D&D is very dependent on its existing, long-time fan base to sustain it.

And what's changed with the fan base? It's getting older. When you're in school, you can afford to spend hour and hours (let alone weeks and months) playing D&D and leveling up. Once you get a full time job and family, other responsibilities serious cut into game time and that means it takes a lot longer (in real time) to level up.

Thus the speed up of leveling.

(I also think that games like World of Warcraft are influencing this decision. Players can level up with 4-5 hours of dedicated game play and that degree of instant gratification can be appealing when combined with months of grinding in D&D)

 

[Reynard]

I think what we're seeing is reflective of the aging demographics of the core group of people who play D&D. Let's face it, D&D is not attracting new players in anywhere near the numbers that it did in the 80's. As usual, D&D is very dependent on its existing, long-time fan base to sustain it.

And what's changed with the fan base? It's getting older. When you're in school, you can afford to spend hour and hours (let alone weeks and months) playing D&D and leveling up. Once you get a full time job and family, other responsibilities serious cut into game time and that means it takes a lot longer (in real time) to level up.

Thus the speed up of leveling.

(I also think that games like World of Warcraft are influencing this decision. Players can level up with 4-5 hours of dedicated game play and that degree of instant gratification can be appealing when combined with months of grinding in D&D)

While I agree with all this, it does still suggest that levelling is more important than other aspects/rewards of play. Sure, we all have less time to play as we get older and collect responsibilities, and it is harder to play on a regular schedule, but at the same time we are hardly the first generation of D&D players to hit our 30s. I think the levelling issue has more to do with the new players, the potential players, than the existing players.

 

[Banshee16]

From the news on the frontpage:



So, they are going for even faster level advancement? I assume this is because levelling is considered the primary reward for sitting down at the table for 4 to 8 hours. This irritates me. I thought that playing was the primary reward for sitting down at the table for 4 to 8 hours.

back when there was the "Dead Levels" article on Wizards' site, I realized that something was happening to the game that i didn't like -- namely, that it was catering to a sense of entitlement rather than a sense of fun. This most recent snippet reagrding 4e has suggested to me that such is true for the new edition, and reaffirms my decision to just go back to running 1E and play the D&D that I want to play.

I agree. I'd actually prefer that they *slow* advancement down...I found it was much too quick in 3E.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Except I've seen 2 or 3 quotes from designers now saying exactly that. Epic is core. Levels 21-30 aren't renamed levels from the original power scale but actually EPIC levels. The reason they said they were adding it because they thought the reason that Epic rules turned out bad is that they were tacked on rather than considered from the beginning. They wanted to make sure that they worked well with the normal rules.

But what happens when you want to take your lvl 30 archmage to lvl 31? Are they going to consider some type of expansion of levels past those in the PHB? If they do, then won't the same problem repeat? Or will it not be an issue *because* the math is different?

Banshee