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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kabouter Games" data-source="post: 7143704" data-attributes="member: 6788812">I think you ran headlong into a naive, misleading assumption yourself - that the heads of associations comprised of adventurers, and the leaders of polities, must of necessity be adventurers with levels higher than the adventurers under their control or influence.Except perhaps in a barbarian tribe, where tradition dictates that only the strongest may lead, or the Red Wizards of Thay, that assumption does not hold. In order to lead an organization, you don't have to be higher level than everyone else in the organization who has adventuring levels. You have to be better at running organizations than everyone else in the organization. You have to be a better politician, a better leader.There's no reason why the Pope has to be a level 20 adventuring cleric. In fact, being an adventuring cleric ill suits a priest to be Pope. It's far more useful to be skilled in the internal politics of the church. It's infinitely more useful to remain close to the seat of power, where you get to know people, manipulating favor and patronage. Bimbling all over the countryside smiting heathens does precisely zero to improve either skill set.Same thing with politicians and nobles. Your job isn't to be the best [insert character class here]. Your job is to run [insert political entity here]. You might go off for a bit as a youth to do something carefully calculated to gain you some street cred when it comes time to assume the throne/run for president - in the Real World, that's been military service of some stripe - but you don't specialize in that, necessarily, not to the point you're one of the world's best. You do your bit, wave the flag, show the people you put on your trousers the same way, and then marry someone else almost as important but not quite, pop out some sprogs, and wait for your chance to rule. That's true if your last name is Kennedy, Bush, Saxe-Coburg, or Windsor.You don't have to be a 20th level Rogue to run a large city's Thieves Guild. Hell, you don't even have to have any adventuring levels at all! *koffkoffXanatharkoffkoff* You just have to be smarter, better at manipulation, better at long-term and short-term planning, a bunch of skills that adventuring levels not only don't guarantee, but all too often lead you away from. You have to be so scary that other members of your gang are terrified of betraying or trying to supplant you - think El Chapo or Don Corleone.Now, back to the OP.In my world-building, lots of people "have" levels in adventuring classes. But that doesn't mean they identify as [class]. It's merely a convenient shorthand for explaining some of their skills and giving those skills in-game mechanics for those times the PCs interact with those NPCs within the game engine. True adventurers - people who make their living by seeking out danger, loot, and glory - are pretty rare. Mercenaries - people who are prepared to visit violence on other people for money - are common as muck. Thieves and spies are common. Glamorous, famous cat burglars like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Mason_(jewel_thief)" target="_blank">Bill Mason</a> are rare.I say that to show that the lines are blurry. The mercenaries have fighter levels, sure, because it explains and gives mechanics to what they've learned through a life trying to stick sharp things into other people. The thieves and spies have levels, sure, because it explains and gives mechanics to what they do. But they're not really adventurers. Anyway, that's how I do it. YMMV.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Cheers,Bob<a href="http://www.r-p-davis.com" target="_blank">www.r-p-davis.com</a></blockquote>

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