Are xp/levels/advancement necessary?

[Remathilis]

Man, of course levels and XP are important. There are plenty of games without them. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS (of any stripe) shouldn't be one of those games. I mean, play your house game the way you want, but the default should be XP and levels.

And classes.

I think xp/levels/advancement are nessecary for D&D, but not for roleplaying in general.

I think the players need something to look forward to and advance to, though. You could make that any one of several things (treasure, feats, skill points, etc) without necessarily requiring an entire "level," however.

Its a red-letter day when I agree with both of you on the exact same subject

I see two problems with this.

1.) Treasure goes from mostly important to ALL IMPORTANT. Since Bob the fighter is never raising his attack bonus via level, the only way he can improve his "to hit" is to find the next highest plus sword. Eventually, you would have PCs with the equivalent of 20th level magical items (either in power or sheer number) but only having the hp and saves of a 5th level Pc. This would make...

2.) Encounters go out of Whack. Sure, orcs or ogres would be an appropriate challenge early, but either the Pcs would always face similar foes (never moving on to beholders, devils, giants or dragons) or die quickly against the more powerful forces. After they gathered enough magical loot, they'd easily be able to throttle 5th level encounters, but still not have the hp and saves to face higher level encounters properly.

Now, you COULD de-emphasize combat AND strictly limit treasure (when the best you can find is a +1 sword, it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100) but then what is the character adventuring for? he gains nothing from the personal experience (levels) nor is he gaining monetary reward (treasure), so he's risking his neck for no personal gain. Baring righteous paladins making the world a better place, I suspect in that kinda world Innkeeper is probably the most popular PC character class.

 

[Remathilis]

Thanks for the great replies!

I guess levels and xp strike me as more video-gamey than other aspects of the game, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice if story goals were more important (or even equal in importance). Anyway...

Please read my sig. Thank you.

 

[Capt. D]

While I agree that level advancement is fairly sacred to most gamers, XPs are not. In most of the groups I game with we advance at the DM's discretion. Everyone agrees on a set of criteria that justify level advancement, usually 3-4 things, and when they are met the PC levels up. Each group is a little different, but usually it's stuff like playing the PC properly, and a set amount time has to pass. Since everyone agreed on these previously, there is no complaining. It generally takes a little longer but everyone seems to like it better than tracking XP. Of course there has to be a lot of trust between players and DM for something like this to work without incident.
However the idea of setting the PCs at a certain level and keeping them there seems like a good idea as well. As long as you have a group that is ok with that.

 

[Ourph]

Now, you COULD de-emphasize combat AND strictly limit treasure (when the best you can find is a +1 sword, it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100) but then what is the character adventuring for? he gains nothing from the personal experience (levels) nor is he gaining monetary reward (treasure), so he's risking his neck for no personal gain. Baring righteous paladins making the world a better place, I suspect in that kinda world Innkeeper is probably the most popular PC character class.

I don't think it's necessary to deemphasize combat, but limiting treasure is obviously the solution to keeping the encounters from getting out of whack. It's really not that difficult if the DM simply never gives magic items outside the power-level he is setting the game at, never allow PCs to buy magic items outside the power-level he is using and doesn't allow item-creating PCs to create items outside the power-level he is using.

When it comes to giving the PCs reasons to continue to adventure beyond leveling up and gaining more magic items, it's not really THAT difficult, is it? I mean most people use some sort of plot-hook to introduce their adventures in-game anyway. The plot-hook, if it's compelling at all for the PCs, should be compelling with or without leveling and magic items as an additional reward. There are lots of uses for money other than buying better equipment in a limitless game world. There are lots of in-character reasons to go into dangerous places and do dangerous stuff in a limitless game world as well.

IMO the main problems are 1) finding ways to avoid re-using the same opponents over and over again (this can be done with a few new monster books and a little conversion work) and 2) coming up with interesting carrots for the PCs to follow that makes sense in-character and that the players also find compelling. Doing both of those things might require a little more work than average DMing, but it's far from impossible and I suspect that a lot of DMs here at ENworld (who are already above average) already do those things even when they continue to use levels and advancement in their games.

 

[Katowice]

Interesting Read: A Theory About Peasants

Sean K. Reynolds, "A Theory About Peasants (and other non-adventurer NPCs)":

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/theoryaboutpeasants.html

 

[brehobit]

In 3.5, with these "adventure path" things (and it's fairly fast advancement compared to previous editions) the problem of being 10 levels higher in 3 months is, to me, very real.

Next time I run something, I'm going to probably do Hero, shadowrun, deadlands, or Gurps. Much slower-paced advancement.

I've run a VERY slow advancing D&D game. That worked fairly well...

Mark

 

[Ozmar]

Is it possible to imagine D&D without advancement? What would happen if your group simply decided on the level at which they wanted to play, and just started playing, without tracking xp?

Is it possible to imagine D&D without levels... or more to the point, without large disparities in skill between anyone and anyone else? Would this still be considered a heroic game or would you classify this as gritty/realistic?

Is it possible to link advancement with age? What would happen if it were impossible for someone to have more class levels than twice their age? I picked that ratio at random, but it could be any formula you like... What effect would this have on running a campaign?

Obviously people can always learn new things, but is there a point at which personal improvement is maxed out until you are simply becoming more specialized in one (or more) professions at the cost of neglecting everything else?

Perhaps more to the point, is it possible to replace the current advancement rules with something that better emulates diminishing returns on finite resources... that is, if a fighter all of a sudden starts spending his time studying magic, wouldn't his fighting skills deteriorate while his magic skills correspondingly improve?

Thoughts and opinions anyone?

No advancement? No way! A big part of the appeal of playing the game is reward. Go up a level, get cool new toys to play with. Its hard to imagine any gamer who doesn't find that to be one of the major draws of the game.

That being said, there are many ways you can model advancement and provide rewards for your players. In terms of modeling "reality", you just need to decide how much paperwork are you willing to do? Rolemaster (one game I with which I am very familiar) had several rules options that reflected some of these dynamics: anyone could learn any skills (even magic), but it would cost more in terms of effort. There were diminishing returns in terms of spreading yourself too thinly, or in focusing too keenly on any one area. In some optional rules, there were even systems for "retaining" or "forgetting" known skills like you're talking about.

But it was a pain to keep track of all that. Personally, I've become too busy to bother with such details, and prefer the relative simplicity of D&D.

Ozmar the Convert

 

[brainstorm]

The path of the gods

In my campaign, I treat levels and advancement as an act of the gods instead of a progression of experience. Mortals get on an "advancement path" when the gods deem them worthy and it fits in their multi-versal plan. They cease to advance when the gods decide they have fulfilled their destinies. So, some characters may advance quickly, others more slowly or not at all. Who is to question who the gods choose and why? Who is to say why one mortal becomes a powerful warrior within a year's time and others spend a lifetime training but achieve little? The gods work in mysterious ways and it is not for mortals to know why, but to accept and deal with it.

In metagame terms, characters advance at the pace I want them to because it suits my game. It's impossible to try to apply logic or realism to advancement, so why bother. If they go from 1st - 20th level in a month, it is because it is the "will of the gods", and that should be good enough reason for my players. Not that I have ever advanced them that quickly, but you never know...

 

[Numion]

This has been a pet peeve of mine for many years; not that the skills don't deteriorate, but that I can't come up with a workable system to define *how* they deteriorate. Still processing...

Lanefan

Why's it important how the skill goes? when the PCs meet the barkeeper, he's already in a deteriorated state. Just think "Gee, he's now level X, but back in the day he was level X+3. I'm a genius!" How's it matter how he went from X+3 to X .. just decide how good he was back then, and how good he's now.

 

[Quartz]

You could always try and get the PCs to ask you to slow things down. PC spellcasters with item creation feats are good here. Don't allow them a ready supply of purchaseable magic items - make them create their own. You can encourage this by giving them extra bonus feats, but only Item Creation feats.