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Avoiding High Level Play - Player or DM Preference?
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<blockquote data-quote="jsaving" data-source="post: 7798594" data-attributes="member: 16726"><p>I think very different skillsets are required for low-level and high-level play. At low levels a DM need to be able to populate dungeons with monsters and handle situations where players fight those monsters and perhaps do a bit of role-playing as they receive rewards from local authorities. Most likely he was picked for the job of DM because he was really good at handling those things and keeping the game flowing. But high-level play requires a much deeper campaign setting in which players can participate in political intrigue that alters the course of the campaign world. Most DMs aren't going to be too interested in that and many who are quickly discover they're simply out of their depth trying to track the motivations, aspirations, etc of hundreds of influential NPCs and the Game of Thrones type maneuverings high level play requires. </p><p></p><p>Likewise for players, many got into D&D because they enjoyed dungeoneering but have little interest in doing more than that. Even if their DM happens to be good at high-level play, the players may just want to keep entering dungeons and bashing randomly generated monsters, which becomes increasingly boring as characters hit high levels.</p><p></p><p>In my experience most groups that do high level play are composed of people who most enjoy the storytelling element of the game and from the very beginning were motivated mainly by role-playing rather than dungeoneering and were even at low levels trying to shape political developments in their local areas. And the kind of DM who'd be attracted to that kind of campaign would be exactly the type who'd be well-suited to handle high-level play.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jsaving, post: 7798594, member: 16726"] I think very different skillsets are required for low-level and high-level play. At low levels a DM need to be able to populate dungeons with monsters and handle situations where players fight those monsters and perhaps do a bit of role-playing as they receive rewards from local authorities. Most likely he was picked for the job of DM because he was really good at handling those things and keeping the game flowing. But high-level play requires a much deeper campaign setting in which players can participate in political intrigue that alters the course of the campaign world. Most DMs aren't going to be too interested in that and many who are quickly discover they're simply out of their depth trying to track the motivations, aspirations, etc of hundreds of influential NPCs and the Game of Thrones type maneuverings high level play requires. Likewise for players, many got into D&D because they enjoyed dungeoneering but have little interest in doing more than that. Even if their DM happens to be good at high-level play, the players may just want to keep entering dungeons and bashing randomly generated monsters, which becomes increasingly boring as characters hit high levels. In my experience most groups that do high level play are composed of people who most enjoy the storytelling element of the game and from the very beginning were motivated mainly by role-playing rather than dungeoneering and were even at low levels trying to shape political developments in their local areas. And the kind of DM who'd be attracted to that kind of campaign would be exactly the type who'd be well-suited to handle high-level play. [/QUOTE]
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