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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 6398323" data-attributes="member: 1210">First, I appreciate your chiming in with this question- it's entirely valid. My answer here refers to my upcoming 5e game plans, since that's the game being discussed, and I freely admit that, in a game with a different style, it becomes harder to justify. However, let's keep in mind that not every professional manager/soldier/anything, really, is competent. Heck, I've gone from having a great manager who knew what he was doing to having a guy who was scared to be on the work floor or interact with customers, and who didn't know how to do anything else that his job entailed other than figuring out the numbers for labor and the like. So just because someone seems to be a high-level, experienced adventurer, that doesn't necessarily mean that he actually is. Anyhow. So about game style- the campaign will be largely urban, with lots of politicking and factions and interaction-type stuff going on. The party won't even be a party per se, but rather a loose group of pcs who occasionally meet up to adventure for one reason or another. I plan on asking each player, upon generating a pc, to designate an npc with whom she has a positive connection, an npc with whom she has a negative connection and a connection to another pc, along with the nature of those connections (subject to a veto from the other pc in question; I wouldn't let one player force another to be his character's lover or father, for instance!). So as far as the integration of the low-level pc with the rest goes, maybe the low-level pc is the one who brings the adventure hook. Maybe she comes along because the faction that she and another pc belong to sends her along. Maybe she tags along with her hero (another pc) regardless of that pc's wishes. Maybe they are at a tavern and the adventure happens right there in the tap room. There are tons and tons of ways for the party assembly to work, especially given that "the party" is going to be far less consistent, and far more loosely constructed, than most D&D parties. As I've stated a couple of times upthread, I'm anticipating a degree of 'troupe style' play, where everyone eventually has multiple pcs and picks 'the right one for the job' for each adventure. I think the style of play at work here will handle this. After all, if it's too rough on the low-level pc, the other players can bust out some of their own low-level guys. And with an amorphous party that keeps shifting composition from adventure to adventure, there's lot of room available for different pc strengths to come out and mix with different adventure needs. Also, with lots of interaction-based encounters, there's another factor at play. Higher level pcs tend to be fairly well-known. Sometimes you need the guy nobody knows to sneak into the noble house's kitchen unnoticed, or to masquerade as a servant at the ball to keep an eye on the assassin's target, or to join up with the bad guys as a new recruit or whatever. So sometimes, and I'll totally grant that this is a corner case, being low-level can actually give you an edge. As a player, I always find the game more rewarding if I start at first level. I find that I know my pc better, I feel a more organic sense of growth, I get a much stronger sense of achievement from becoming higher level, etc.As a DM, I find that it helps make high-level pcs feel special, like you've really earned your spurs. It avoids the problem of "too many high level guys running around that you've never heard of", especially in a setting that is essentially a "One Last Remaining Point of Light" kind of setup (which is basically what I am using). It also helps model the "young hunters go out with the veteran to learn from him" thing that is so common in most cultures (after all, who teaches the new hunter to hunt? --The old grizzled veteran hunter!). I put a great deal of stock in my campaign world's internal consistency. If almost everyone is low-level, but every time there is a pc death, there just happens to be the perfect high-level replacement handy, it strains my credulity. (Also, as was pointed out upthread- and I didn't even consider this until it was- at mid to high levels, 5e pcs can often treat death as little more than a speed bump. So I don't think I'll see a lot of "18th level, 18th level, 18th level and 2nd level" groups. That is orthogonal to my overall point, but it does add to my conviction that ES@1st can work pretty well.)Thank you for the courteous reply, PCat! I appreciate it. You set a great example of polite disagreement (or at least questioning).</blockquote>

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