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<blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 1458243" data-attributes="member: 10201">I disagree. In the context of RPG design, a &quot;level&quot; is a very specific beast--it is a unit of advancement that increments &quot;all&quot; of your abilities at once, regardless of usage or preference. 'All' is in quotes because some of yoru abilities may increment by 0, and because there may be some discretion in how they increment (such as skill point spending in D&amp;D3E). Nonetheless, it is distinct from a non-leveled system, where you increase abilities individually, as chosen. Now, it's true that almost every rpg has character advancement rules (there're at least a few that don't however--some because they don't expect your character to advance, others because they leave it to ad hoc group rulings), but whether or not they use &quot;levels&quot; is a defining characterization, often used for categorization, and the term &quot;level&quot; has a long-established meaning, with no need to blur it. [That is, there are already terms--such as &quot;advancement&quot;--for what you're describing.] Even if no game on the market displays the platonic ideal of &quot;levels&quot; (even the current version of D&amp;D allows some discretion, frex), it's still useful to continue to reserve the term for the ideal, and simply acknowledge that a game is &quot;almost purely level-based&quot;, or somesuch.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="woodelf, post: 1458243, member: 10201"] I disagree. In the context of RPG design, a "level" is a very specific beast--it is a unit of advancement that increments "all" of your abilities at once, regardless of usage or preference. 'All' is in quotes because some of yoru abilities may increment by 0, and because there may be some discretion in how they increment (such as skill point spending in D&D3E). Nonetheless, it is distinct from a non-leveled system, where you increase abilities individually, as chosen. Now, it's true that almost every rpg has character advancement rules (there're at least a few that don't however--some because they don't expect your character to advance, others because they leave it to ad hoc group rulings), but whether or not they use "levels" is a defining characterization, often used for categorization, and the term "level" has a long-established meaning, with no need to blur it. [That is, there are already terms--such as "advancement"--for what you're describing.] Even if no game on the market displays the platonic ideal of "levels" (even the current version of D&D allows some discretion, frex), it's still useful to continue to reserve the term for the ideal, and simply acknowledge that a game is "almost purely level-based", or somesuch. [/QUOTE]

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