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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Master of the Game" data-source="post: 512405" data-attributes="member: 9220">First, a little flavor text.  For those who are not interested in commentary, please give me a chance and move on to the next post.  This may get a little long-winded and verbose.Those of us who have been playing and GMing for a while know that all games have their flaws.  Many people choose to ignore them, others just find the system that works well enough for them and stick with it, and a great many alter the existing rules to fit their needs.But what if you could make changes that address many issues that you have without altering the rules or basic premisis of the game.You see, I have a problem.  I can't seem to find a game that suits my players and I just right.  For more than 20 years I have bounced from game to game, fixating on this game or that for a couple of years before finding "the next best thing" and moving on.  Or worse, I've house-ruled good games until they were barely recognizable.Skill based systems seem flawed to me in that you can get too much, too early.  In GURPS it's possible to create a 100-point beginning character that can gain 18s (all but impossible to fail since you need only roll your skill or lower on 3d6 to succeed) in his chosen spells or skills for just 1 point.  In Shadowrun you can begin with more money and skill points than you are ever likely to gain through adventuring.  My players hate the Basic system because bad rolls during character upgrades can easily completely unbalance the party.All in all though, the skill based systems to me all seem to have the same basic flaw.  Characters who specialize (as many players are want to do) start off so good at their chosen profession that gaining power and experience means gaining outside abilities, not really increasing the skills they want.  There isn't much to look foreward to, and they're nearly as good as they're going to get.Class/level based systems address this issue by increasing your level.  No matter how min/maxed your character starts (assuming, of course we follow the rules as written), you're going to be even better when you go up in level.  With the advent of the Epic Level Handbook this means there is always something to look foreward to.The problem I have with this, however, is that you leave the rest of the world behind.  After a few adventures you'll hit 5th level, and it would take hordes of 1st level city guards to scratch you.  You many still be a fledgeling adventurer to the world at large, but to the common man you are untouchable.  By the time you hit 12th level or so this is even worse.  How many cities are large enough to have a good number of high level characters to be the payers' peers, that's not even counting the encounters that you must have to be worth your time.I don't know how many of you deal with this, but I usually just end campaigns around 12th level.  This of course ruins the fun for players who want to try out those high level spells or that have a cetain class combination they want to try.  Also, what about the players who don't want to play snot-nose kids out adventuring for the first time?  Start them higher level?  Already better than anyone else in town?You see, for me it's not the levels or classes that bother me, it's the scale.  The vast majority of the world is 1st or 2nd level, so anyone even a little higher vastly outshines them.  Starting characters are generally no match for even the most basic fantasy character for movies or literature, but they are far better than all but experienced adventurers and high ranking NPCs.I don't really see the need for a house rule to solve the issue, however, just a little playing with the assumed scale.On to the next post for those who interested in my solution or those who got tired of my rambling....<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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