Wombat
First Post
Okay, let me start off by saying the is personal opinion only and those of you who do not agree with this are welcome to disagree and I also hope that whatever game you are in is as satisfactory for you as mine is for me.
There, qualifier
I must admit that, for the most part, I am as bored by high level games as I am by most sequels, most first-person-shooters, and most game/rpg/series novels -- there is generally More, but not generally Better.
I have run three campaigns (the third is in the wind-down phase) since D&D3e came out. Of these all three have started at 3rd level characters (keeping 1st level characters alive in D&D is often more trouble than it is worth) and the highest level characters we have achieved have been 11th level. Everyone in the group seems quite happy, except for one guy who bought the ELH and would really like the game to start at 18th level... Oh well
There are a lot of things in D&D that I enjoy; there are also a lot of things I find annoying. Most of the annoying things are at the high levels -- plane-hopping, easy resurrection, equipment more important than skills, powerful spells that by their very nature would warp society from its pseudo-medieval roots, and far, far too many powerful, predatory, intelligent monsters.
My desire in games is to come up with something heroic, where characters can really make a difference, but still somehow rooted in a form of reality. No, I don't think magic, at least in D&D terms, is real, but that is beside the point. In Arthurian literature, in Greek mythology, in Tolkein and in many other "roots" of gaming there is a core reality, a human level you can still measure everything against. In Greek mythology the heroes may all be the children of gods, but they are mortal (with the exception of Herakles, after the fact); equally, there are not hydras, but rather The Hydra, not pegasi, but Pegasus, not minotaurs, but The Minotaur -- individual monsters that provide individual heroes with individual challanges. On top of this for every hero who defeats such a monster, there are dozens if not hundreds who failed before.
Conversely, in D&D you have dozens of sentient races living side by side and enough spell-power to alter the very shape of the world on a regular basis, but none of this comes into play until the characters are ready to face it. Consider what a single wizard who lives, say, 10 years at the appropriate level could do if he had a single Wish spell every single day; given the XP cost on that one, let us instead just look at Time Stop, Refuge, Energy Drain, Weird and Shades -- if this isn't the recipe for World Domination, nothing is. But even beyond all this, there is the More Factor -- a high-level character has More magic items, More followers, More money, and so much More power that, barring a countervailing character, nothing stands between the high-level character and utter domination of the world. Then again at the time such a character becomes the opponent, the characters are ready to face it and all we can say for 1st level characters in such a world is, "Sorry, you are now listmeat/cannon fodder".
As at least a couple of people have suggested before, D&D does not scale well. It starts out with characters who can die at the drop of a hat and ends up with characters who are all but unkillable, due to a combination of items, spells, and physical powers. The tone of the game moves from mere survival to world-spanning, even plane-spanning superheroic quests.
Of the two extremes, I'll take the survivalist angle. It remains human and, therefore, makes a more understandable tale. In other words, I'll not be running a high-level campaign any time real soon, but if someone else wants to run one and I am in that group, I shall not tell the GM to not go there.
As I said, personal tastes only.
There, qualifier
I must admit that, for the most part, I am as bored by high level games as I am by most sequels, most first-person-shooters, and most game/rpg/series novels -- there is generally More, but not generally Better.
I have run three campaigns (the third is in the wind-down phase) since D&D3e came out. Of these all three have started at 3rd level characters (keeping 1st level characters alive in D&D is often more trouble than it is worth) and the highest level characters we have achieved have been 11th level. Everyone in the group seems quite happy, except for one guy who bought the ELH and would really like the game to start at 18th level... Oh well
There are a lot of things in D&D that I enjoy; there are also a lot of things I find annoying. Most of the annoying things are at the high levels -- plane-hopping, easy resurrection, equipment more important than skills, powerful spells that by their very nature would warp society from its pseudo-medieval roots, and far, far too many powerful, predatory, intelligent monsters.
My desire in games is to come up with something heroic, where characters can really make a difference, but still somehow rooted in a form of reality. No, I don't think magic, at least in D&D terms, is real, but that is beside the point. In Arthurian literature, in Greek mythology, in Tolkein and in many other "roots" of gaming there is a core reality, a human level you can still measure everything against. In Greek mythology the heroes may all be the children of gods, but they are mortal (with the exception of Herakles, after the fact); equally, there are not hydras, but rather The Hydra, not pegasi, but Pegasus, not minotaurs, but The Minotaur -- individual monsters that provide individual heroes with individual challanges. On top of this for every hero who defeats such a monster, there are dozens if not hundreds who failed before.
Conversely, in D&D you have dozens of sentient races living side by side and enough spell-power to alter the very shape of the world on a regular basis, but none of this comes into play until the characters are ready to face it. Consider what a single wizard who lives, say, 10 years at the appropriate level could do if he had a single Wish spell every single day; given the XP cost on that one, let us instead just look at Time Stop, Refuge, Energy Drain, Weird and Shades -- if this isn't the recipe for World Domination, nothing is. But even beyond all this, there is the More Factor -- a high-level character has More magic items, More followers, More money, and so much More power that, barring a countervailing character, nothing stands between the high-level character and utter domination of the world. Then again at the time such a character becomes the opponent, the characters are ready to face it and all we can say for 1st level characters in such a world is, "Sorry, you are now listmeat/cannon fodder".
As at least a couple of people have suggested before, D&D does not scale well. It starts out with characters who can die at the drop of a hat and ends up with characters who are all but unkillable, due to a combination of items, spells, and physical powers. The tone of the game moves from mere survival to world-spanning, even plane-spanning superheroic quests.
Of the two extremes, I'll take the survivalist angle. It remains human and, therefore, makes a more understandable tale. In other words, I'll not be running a high-level campaign any time real soon, but if someone else wants to run one and I am in that group, I shall not tell the GM to not go there.
As I said, personal tastes only.
