Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5162647" data-attributes="member: 21169">Most computer games do have a definite ending but MMOs, such as World of Warcraft, don't. Blizzard will keep producing new content for WoW, and increasing the maximum level, for as long as people keep paying.Regarding early D&D, you're right to say that there's a lot of evidence that it's intended to be open-ended - very high level modules such as Isle of the Ape, open-ended charts (+3hp/lvl etc), the fact that Gary himself had PCs in the teens and so forth. But there are a few indicators that one is supposed to stop at name level. The OD&D tables only go up to 10th level for fighting men and clerics (16 for wizards, weirdly) and there's no indication that a PC can keep going beyond that. (Hit dice relative to level are much wonkier in OD&D than in AD&D so there's no easy way to extrapolate levelling.) These limits were increased in Supplement I, Greyhawk. Also, name level is when a PC 'settles down' in his stronghold. Another factor are the level limits for demi-humans, which were increased in Unearthed Arcana.In fact the idea of where the limit is probably changed quite a bit in D&D's first ten years, as it became apparent that the hobby was going to stick around. People just wouldn't have looked that far ahead in 1974.</blockquote>