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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GX.Sigma" data-source="post: 6774194" data-attributes="member: 6690511">Inspired by the recent thread on classes. Do levels mean anything in your game? Do the imaginary people in your game world know the difference between a low-level character and a high-level character? Do the spellcasters really have different "levels" of spells that they unlock?Levels clearly meant something in Gary Gygax's campaign, at least some of the time. In the 1st Edition PHB, for those who don't know, every level of every class had its own title. Notably, a "druid"-class character isn't officially a Druid until they reach 12th level. Also, there can only be nine 12th-level Druids in the entire world. If you gain enough XP to get to level 12 and there are already nine Druids in the world, too bad. You stay at level 11 until you can kick one of their asses. And that may seem strange to folks who've only played new-school D&D, but it's a totally reasonable rule for that specific campaign.More subtly, Fighters start out as Veterans, then eventually become Heroes and even Superheroes. Clerics are Acolytes, then Adepts, then Priests, then Curates. Stuff like this gives an impression of what that level "means" in the world. This can be useful on the DM side (the Keep on the Borderlands refers to its cleric NPCs simply by their level titles, for example).Of course, as the editions went on, that sort of thing fell by the wayside, as D&D shifted from basically being Gary's campaign notes, to a more generic system that can be used in many different settings and styles of fantasy. Not to mention, most (all?) video games with XP and levels use them as a purely metagame (or non-diegetic) mechanic. What about in your game? Does level mean anything? Would you like to see a return to the old ways?</blockquote>

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