Legends and Lore April 2, 2012

[kevtar]

I agree that there is a lot of "fan sentiment" associated with these surveys, and I'm not suggesting that they are using these polls as the sole source of their data collection, but I do believe they are suggesting that the data collected from these polls are informing their decisions on future designs. In fact, I believe Mike M. has mentioned this in a couple of his articles, "Based on 'X' from the last poll, I now have this question...".

I just would like to know how seriously they treat these data, and if the surveys are a method of data collection that is important to the overall decisions regarding 5e, I'd like them to demonstrate more rigor and concerns for validity in their design.

 

[howandwhy99]

Should the typical campaign change at high levels to take on a different tone?

Tone is something I really don't see as relevant to level - unless one sees increasing prowess in class abilities as tone defining.

For me, tone is completely directed by the players engagement with the game. It is in part created by the adventure, but I see my role with mood and tone as a DM as largely mirroring the players' emotions. If they're scared, I don't detract from that in my presentation. If they are taking the game comically, I present it as such too. The material remains the same, but the mood I present changes. (Interacting with NPCs is different though as they have their moods built in)

I think the question really is, "Should the underlying theme of the game evolve according to a character's or the group's level?"

My game distinguishes between material one engages in at low level and at high level. It also allows 1st level PCs to adventure with high, say 10th level, ones. Ultimately however, it all gets mashed together by the players.

For me, class level determines different class challenges. Each level of each class has its own basic competencies to be mastered by a player. But there is a lot more to a character than their class, which is the only part that does gain levels for me.

Wealth is not tied to class or level. Neither is one's standing in the monster communities of the game world (you can play a prince or pauper). Knowledge or information is its own reward as well.

The tricky part is, all of these are in part tied to classes. Some classes are restricted in wealth and standing specifically as a hindrance. Others gain these as a bonus at different levels, primarily the high level strongholds, but followers count every bit as much.

What I do is enable each player to determine his or her objectives and let not gaining XP, and therefore class levels, be one of those. If they want treasure, they can focus on that. If they want combat, ditto. They can buy a peasant's home at game start, if that's the stronghold they want to build and defend thereafter. Ditto on gathering henchmen and hiring hirelings. If they go in for heavy trade, they can corner the market game. If they engage in intrigue, they and use diplomacy to gain political power and authority. If they build on that starting hovel, they are playing the civilization game.

Gaining levels is only part of the game as I see it, but it is the part the characters are best equipped to do too. Combat, magic, clericism, and thievery are not small parts. Keeping them intertwined in an adventure module is probably the more difficult part, but that design happens prior to play. If theme really changes according to class level, than its the scope of complexity rather than the variety for my game.

 

[Ratskinner]

My current group meets for about 3 hours of play/week. Sometimes we go a little longer, but usually life gets us adults itching to get to sleep after about 10pm. I actually am in favor of the "fast adventure" or "1 hour dungeon" idea they've been exploring. If the game works that fast, just tack 2 or 3 adventures into a session, or work it so they can work beside each other.

I really didn't see very much in this article that was objectionable or inflammatory. Especially since its all something that can be "modulated" in your campaigns. I suppose that if the base game "locked in" a certain feel for higher level, some might find it objectionable, but I rarely get to play at higher levels, so meh. Nonetheless, I'm glad they're actually concerning themselves with high-level play at this stage of design. Perhaps this edition, playing higher-level characters and running higher-level adventures won't be such a arduous task.

 

[Ratskinner]

Why the obsession of hard coding in the rules the campaign's plot and fluff? Shouldn't the individual DM and his group decide if they want to play politics when they reach 10th level or continue crawling dungeons, this time killing giants instead of kobolds?

Hopefully, its to make sure that such modules get playtested.

Hopefully.

 

[Andor]

Well that was complete garbage from one end to the other.

First "What level do you end a campaign at?" is a moving target since both the meaning of a level and the rate of advancement changes both from edition to edition and from table to table within an edition. Besides which few campaign I've ever heard of end at a particular level, unless it's because the GM felt the game disintegrating under the demands of high level play.

Second "I don't think most people want to play the same character for months on end." Really? I'd kill to be able to play the same character for months on end. My gaming groups are almost never that stable. What that sounds like to me is an excuse to build advancment rules that encourage ending a game at the same time frame as their planned new splat book release schedule.

Third, who the hell plays 2 hour games? That's my usual round trip commute time to get to and from a game. I do not want to spend equal amounts of time rolling dice and tires thank you. 4 to 6 is my preferred time frame.

Poll questions are uniformly terrible, I won't even bother.

Every single thing in this article and the polls is a campaign style question which, if they are going to do what they said they will do, will each be listed as modules/guidelines in the DMG. So there is no need for a poll since they are going to include all of them so as not to alienate half the desired player base, right? Right?!?

For the first time I'm actually worried they might botch this...

 

[Mercule]

I reject some of the underlying assumptions. There isn't one kind of group. When I was in high school and college, we started at 1st level and played to name level or higher in about eight months. Why? Because we had a stupid amount of time and could generally fit in at least one 10-12 hour session each week, if not a few additional 4-6 hour sessions.

As a young adult (25-30), we could generally manage one of those 4-6 hour sessions each week, reliably. A campaign probably lasted 18-24 months and had slightly more level advancement, over the run. We could even include spouses, as they came along.

Then, folks started having kids. At first, it was just me, and I GMed and hosted, anyway. We'd pause after the first hour and put the tykes to bed. Our games shorted to 3-4 hours, but they were still regular. I ran a five year campaign this way. I'd planned on a two year game, but 3e combat time and prep time were both too high.

Now, everyone has kids. The wives don't play anymore -- they let the guys get together without needing to hire sitters. We still only game 3-4 hours, but it's once every 2-3 weeks. The PCs have gained (almost) two levels since November. *sigh*

The point being, there are a lot of different circumstances. There are a lot of different goals/styles, too. Sometimes, people want the "whole experience" of a D&D campaign, which involves starting at 1st level and seeing where you go. Other times, the GM (or the group as a whole) has a vision or premise for the game. That may only involve levels 8-10 and then be done. The game needs to handle that.

It isn't a matter of how many months should it take to reach 10th level. It's how well the game plays if you need to start and stop, as well as if it's fluid. Can you put together an 8th level character in a reasonable amount of time, and without making the casual-gamer spouse cry at the complexity? Does combat play fast enough that you can have a fight or two and do something plot-advancing in a three hour session? Is prep quick enough that the working parent GM can prep in an acceptable amount of time?

Stop asking the wrong questions. If you want to lure back the grognards, you're going to have to accept that many of them have other commitments 60-80 hours every week and the game will have to play accordingly. Otherwise, have fun with all the high school and college students, the young adults w/o kids, and the other folks w/o disposable income.

 

[Hussar]

Well, my gaming group consists of busy working adults. Some are parents and some have other family commitments. Due to conflicting schedules, we are sometimes only able to meet once per month. However, we do try to ensure that our sessions are at least four hours long each (kinda pointless to meet otherwise).

So who plays for two hours per week? On average, we do.

We schedule for 3 hours a week, but, honestly, between interruptions and whatnot, 2 isn't probably that far off.

I don't understand why a particular rate of advancement or level range of play has to be assumed by the rules.

Now this, otoh, I do think that game advancement should be assumed by the rules. For one thing, you have to presume some rate of advancement when talking about rewards. If the party is advancing 1 level every 30 encounters, you are going to want to give a LOT fewer rewards per encounter than if they advance every 10 encounters.

Additionally, if the game is presuming 30 encounters/level and each encounter is presumed to take X time to resolve, you get a range of levels that the game will likely support. If you had 4e length encounters, then the game really only supports about 5 levels per year of real time play at that rate of advancement.

 

[kevtar]

Mearls: “Instead of hitting one topic this week, I want to discuss two smaller topics, due to some feedback we've received.”

And

“I recently did an informal poll on Twitter, where I asked people what level they'd want to hit before ending a campaign. Most people pegged that end point to be around 12th level.”

Is this the feedback he received? If so, it suggests that they are using all sorts of data collection for analysis including the polls included in this article.

Mearls: “Why did I ask that particular question? First of all, I think that most people don't want to play the same character for months at a time… So, finding out that 12th level is the end point that many folk want to hit confirmed my suspicion.”

While that is your suspicion, I think your claim that the data collected from your “informal poll” confirmed your suspicion is spurious at best.

Mearls: “Second, I wonder how much time people can commit to a campaign.“

This is dependent on more detailed factors than commitment to game time and level advancement. How long will combat take? What about people who are very RP heavy with few combats, how do they advance and how long does it take? What is the ratio between action and awards? Are there penalties to advancement? (level drain, XP loss to item creation, etc…) My suggestion: develop a baseline, create some context, and then distribute it to your audience and get feedback.

Mearls: So all this brings us back to the question of how long a player feels invested in a character. Is it how often you level, how much power you gain with a level, hitting a satisfying end point for a character, or are all of these factors? Keeping in mind your own play habits, here are a few questions for you:

Assuming you start at level 1, at what level do you feel that you're ready to leave behind your character and start a new one?
5th level or lower
6th to 9th level
10th level
11th to 12th level
13th to 15th level
16th to 20th level
Over 20th level

So, you ask really great questions in the paragraph: leveling, power with each level, and a satisfying end – and then you only ask about one dimension in your poll that isn’t about player investment, but instead, character abandonment. Oh boy… lol.

Mearls: “What Does High Level Mean?”

High level means whatever the DM and players decide it means and the assumption of the core rules should not supplant that decision, it should support it. Make the core assumption basic with options if possible. If options aren't possible, keep it simple and we’ll develop our own approach.

 

[Tortoise]

I like slow level gain combined with good adventuring. For me it makes the levels more enjoyable because each one has a story or more to tell and I've gotten time to play with what my character's capabilities are during that time.

The survey mentioned 2 hours of play per week and reaching level ten as guidelines. If that is the case then the first option (3 months from 1-10) would have characters leveling at just over every 2 hours if my math is right. Wow, that's fast.

The last choice was over 24 months from 1-10 which would be about 28 hours per level. Some might feel that is slow, but I would be comfortable with that depending on the campaign.

The game I am running right now is a lot longer for levels currently (somewhere between 36 and 48, let's call it 42 hours). It is a sandbox so character choices have a lot to do with it. Now that they have been in their first actual dungeon ruin and come away with a nice haul of treasure they are anxious for more so leveling speed should go up along with level of risk they are choosing to undertake. Meanwhile they are learning about the world and exploring their capabilities, getting more inventive as they go.

 

[Stormonu]

It really feels like these polls are self-fulfilling; as if they are trying to prompt you for the answers they want to hear.

Back in grade school and college, I devoted a lot of time to D&D. If we weren't getting in a good 12 hours a week, it was because there were finals or some project for school due.

However, as "real life" has slowly crept in to overtake my schedule and kids & spouse have sucked up the rest of my time, I'm down to one four hour session every two weeks, which works out to about 2 hours per week average.

However, I think the approach they are taking toward leveling and campaign length is all wrong. The games I've run we run either until the story completes or the group somehow implodes - TPK or life changes for the players, mostly - never "I'm bored of this character - lets start a new campaign". For my group, the game lasts between 12 - 18 months before we switch to a new campaign for whatever reason. I've even revisited playing with old characters on occasion as I'm able to stir interest. I'd not like to see a cap or rush put on character advancement to hit some "magic level". I'd like to see options kept open so that the "average" campaign can hit enough levels to feel complete, but if the game goes onward from there that it doesn't feel like your striding into uncharted, unsupported territory.


Likewise, as others have said, I'd like for options to change the tone of the game when the characters gain a castle, raise an army, go plane-conquering or whatnot - but that those game-changing pieces aren't hard-coded to a specific level; they happen when the DM and players are ready for it to occur. And the game could be returned back to plundering dungeons if the group wants to go back to that sort of adventuring.