Let's Not Save The World...Again

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It used to take a lot less to make us feel heroic. Guns and ships and criminals used to be good enough, as in the stories of Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and even James Bond as written by Ian Fleming, not as he's known from movies. In pulps, it was enough to defeat a gang or an unusual villain. The "science fiction" adventure of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne is surprisingly tame by contemporary standards. Now we want everything in movies to be flashy and completely unrealistic, approaching the ridiculous, as in most comic book movies and other action movies (Indiana Jones IV, anyone?).
Jaded: "tired, bored, or lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something;"
"feeling or showing a lack of interest and excitement caused by having done or experienced too much of something"

We see it in video games: "save the world (or galaxy)" is a pretty common, almost mundane, motivation. It's not enough any more to rescue the kidnapped person or prevent a dastardly deed.

"Saving the world" creates a cheap sense of grandeur. It's the Age of Inflation, everything has to be "stunning" or "awesome," everybody is "saving the world." I call that jaded.

I played in a campaign where, invariably, we faced such waves of monsters that few of us (sometimes only my character) were left standing. The GM evidently manipulated numbers so that this would happen. But it became almost tedious rather than exciting.

We lose impact when it's always "save the world", or always any particular outcome/objective. Pacing is vital both in games and on the screen, and good pacing requires alternate tension and relaxation. If every story is “epic”, epic becomes normal, not extraordinary. If we always save the world, that becomes mundane. Games (like life) benefit from variation in tension/relaxation. The contrast makes them both more intense and more enjoyable. Good pacing would mean alternating the Save the World objectives with others at a lesser scale. (For an under-3-minutes explanation of pacing see https://youtu.be/QAPkcr4b0EE.)

What can a GM do? Set expectations from the campaign beginning. Choose players (and adventures) wisely. Make "Great Objectives" the purpose of an entire campaign, not of each adventure. The threat of death, or of losing all their stuff, should be enough to thrill adventurers without resort to saving the world.

In my campaigns, stretching back more than 40 years, we've never saved the world; an entire campaign might be about saving a city or country, but that didn't happen in every adventure (nor any particular adventure, really). Saving the world calls for really experienced (high-level) characters, and few get that high.

If it isn't enough to risk death, regardless of objective, then there may not be much you can do about jaded players. Or maybe there's no risk of death in your campaign? That could lead to boredom: no extreme lows.

References:
Extra Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LScL4CWe5E
Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4032/beyond_pacing_games_arent_.php

contributed by Lewis Pulispher

 

[pemerton]

AD&D up until 1987 "promoted" build your own campaign.

WoGH had maps, history, gods (if you followed along in Dragon magazine), demographics, etc.

Dragonglance had not only all of the above, it also had an epic "save the world" plot.

These both predate 1987 quite a bit.

I'm not saying that everyone used them - I've never owned or played a DL module, for instance - but they weren't obscure little-used options either.

When I look at 5e, in the rulebooks and the published adventures, I see a more super heroic approach than a heroic approach. Level advancement, and gaining new abilities as you do, is the name of the game now. The expectation is that you'll advance in level every few sessions.

For example, in the AD&D DMG when it is talking about acquisition of spells, you are an apprentice to "a master of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!)"

That reference in the DMG is clearly tongue-in-cheek, as the exclamation mark indicates. Here is the full quote (DMG p 39):

Inform those players who have opted for the magic-user profession that they have just completed a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!).​

The "unthinkability" is in the mind of the new player of a 1st level MU - not in the mind of the referee, nor an experienced player.

Page 111 of the DMG contemplates campaigns where "the average experience level of the campaign is 5th, 6th, 7th, or even 8th", and talks about integration of new PCs into such a campaign.

Page 58 of the DMG gives advice on what to do if "your players wish to spend most of their time visiting other planes (and this could come to pass after a year or more of play)". Clearly those are going to be reasonably high level PCs.

And here are some other quotes from the AD&D books that refer to levels and levelling:

DMG p 12:

It has been called to my attention that new players will sometimes become bored and discouraged with the struggle to advance in level of experience, for they do not have any actual comprehension of what it is like to be a powerful character of high level. . . . f some problem such as this exists, it has been further suggested that allowing relatively new players to participate in a modular campaign game (assuring new players of characters of higher level) would often whet their appetites for continued play at lower level, for they can then grasp what it will be like should they actually succeed in attaining proficiency on their own by working up their original characters and gaining high levels of experience. This reasoning seems sound, and provided there is a separation of the two campaigns,
and the one isn’t begun until new players have had some number of expeditions as 1st level characters, it is not destructive to the game as a whole.​

PHB p 7:

As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. . . . [A]s time goes by . . . you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible! . . .

[E]ach character begins at the bottom of his or her chosen class (or profession). By successfully meeting the challenges posed, they gain experience and move upwards in power, just as actual playing experience really increases playing skill.​

In other words, level advancement was a central part of the game as presented in the AD&D rulebooks. What has changed, as I see it, is not the centrality of level advancement but the means to it. In earlier versions of D&D, XP were earned through skilled play - mostly in extracting treasure from the dungeon - and so it was possible to play the game but earn little or no XP if one played "badly" ie if one was not a good dungeon-crawler.

Changes in the bases on which XP are earned, and in ways that the PCs (and thereby the players) are framed into the challenges posed by the game, have meant that XP in modern D&D tend not to be "earned" in the same way but, rather, become more like a pacing device. This is why "story"-based level progression makes sense in contemporary D&D in a way that it just wouldn't in Gygaxian D&D.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

WoGH had maps, history, gods (if you followed along in Dragon magazine), demographics, etc.

Dragonglance had not only all of the above, it also had an epic "save the world" plot.

These both predate 1987 quite a bit.

I'm not saying that everyone used them - I've never owned or played a DL module, for instance - but they weren't obscure little-used options either.

That reference in the DMG is clearly tongue-in-cheek, as the exclamation mark indicates. Here is the full quote (DMG p 39):

Inform those players who have opted for the magic-user profession that they have just completed a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!).​

The "unthinkability" is in the mind of the new player of a 1st level MU - not in the mind of the referee, nor an experienced player.

Page 111 of the DMG contemplates campaigns where "the average experience level of the campaign is 5th, 6th, 7th, or even 8th", and talks about integration of new PCs into such a campaign.

Page 58 of the DMG gives advice on what to do if "your players wish to spend most of their time visiting other planes (and this could come to pass after a year or more of play)". Clearly those are going to be reasonably high level PCs.

And here are some other quotes from the AD&D books that refer to levels and levelling:

DMG p 12:

It has been called to my attention that new players will sometimes become bored and discouraged with the struggle to advance in level of experience, for they do not have any actual comprehension of what it is like to be a powerful character of high level. . . . f some problem such as this exists, it has been further suggested that allowing relatively new players to participate in a modular campaign game (assuring new players of characters of higher level) would often whet their appetites for continued play at lower level, for they can then grasp what it will be like should they actually succeed in attaining proficiency on their own by working up their original characters and gaining high levels of experience. This reasoning seems sound, and provided there is a separation of the two campaigns,
and the one isn’t begun until new players have had some number of expeditions as 1st level characters, it is not destructive to the game as a whole.​

PHB p 7:

As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. . . . [A]s time goes by . . . you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible! . . .

[E]ach character begins at the bottom of his or her chosen class (or profession). By successfully meeting the challenges posed, they gain experience and move upwards in power, just as actual playing experience really increases playing skill.​

In other words, level advancement was a central part of the game as presented in the AD&D rulebooks. What has changed, as I see it, is not the centrality of level advancement but the means to it. In earlier versions of D&D, XP were earned through skilled play - mostly in extracting treasure from the dungeon - and so it was possible to play the game but earn little or no XP if one played "badly" ie if one was not a good dungeon-crawler.

Changes in the bases on which XP are earned, and in ways that the PCs (and thereby the players) are framed into the challenges posed by the game, have meant that XP in modern D&D tend not to be "earned" in the same way but, rather, become more like a pacing device. This is why "story"-based level progression makes sense in contemporary D&D in a way that it just wouldn't in Gygaxian D&D.

WoGH had maps, history, gods (if you followed along in Dragon magazine), demographics, etc.

Dragonglance had not only all of the above, it also had an epic "save the world" plot.

These both predate 1987 quite a bit.

I'm not saying that everyone used them - I've never owned or played a DL module, for instance - but they weren't obscure little-used options either.

That reference in the DMG is clearly tongue-in-cheek, as the exclamation mark indicates. Here is the full quote (DMG p 39):

Inform those players who have opted for the magic-user profession that they have just completed a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!).​

The "unthinkability" is in the mind of the new player of a 1st level MU - not in the mind of the referee, nor an experienced player.

Page 111 of the DMG contemplates campaigns where "the average experience level of the campaign is 5th, 6th, 7th, or even 8th", and talks about integration of new PCs into such a campaign.

Page 58 of the DMG gives advice on what to do if "your players wish to spend most of their time visiting other planes (and this could come to pass after a year or more of play)". Clearly those are going to be reasonably high level PCs.

And here are some other quotes from the AD&D books that refer to levels and levelling:

DMG p 12:

It has been called to my attention that new players will sometimes become bored and discouraged with the struggle to advance in level of experience, for they do not have any actual comprehension of what it is like to be a powerful character of high level. . . . f some problem such as this exists, it has been further suggested that allowing relatively new players to participate in a modular campaign game (assuring new players of characters of higher level) would often whet their appetites for continued play at lower level, for they can then grasp what it will be like should they actually succeed in attaining proficiency on their own by working up their original characters and gaining high levels of experience. This reasoning seems sound, and provided there is a separation of the two campaigns,
and the one isn’t begun until new players have had some number of expeditions as 1st level characters, it is not destructive to the game as a whole.​

PHB p 7:

As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. . . . [A]s time goes by . . . you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible! . . .

[E]ach character begins at the bottom of his or her chosen class (or profession). By successfully meeting the challenges posed, they gain experience and move upwards in power, just as actual playing experience really increases playing skill.​

In other words, level advancement was a central part of the game as presented in the AD&D rulebooks. What has changed, as I see it, is not the centrality of level advancement but the means to it. In earlier versions of D&D, XP were earned through skilled play - mostly in extracting treasure from the dungeon - and so it was possible to play the game but earn little or no XP if one played "badly" ie if one was not a good dungeon-crawler.

Changes in the bases on which XP are earned, and in ways that the PCs (and thereby the players) are framed into the challenges posed by the game, have meant that XP in modern D&D tend not to be "earned" in the same way but, rather, become more like a pacing device. This is why "story"-based level progression makes sense in contemporary D&D in a way that it just wouldn't in Gygaxian D&D.

I forgot Dragonlance predated the Realms. The original WoG was designed specifically to be a rough framework for the DM to flesh out, but yes, it was expanded upon in Dragon magazine.

Yes, level advancement was an integral part of the game, but it was much slower (especially if you didn't award XP for treasure), and you didn't gain as much when you did go up levels. Furthermore, you even stopped gaining hit points (other than Constitution bonuses) after about 10th level.

I was kind of interested, and posted this in another thread, but comparing level advancement and the number of ogres it takes to get there:

20th level in 5e is 355,000 XP, and assuming a party of 4, amounts to 3,156 ogres. In 1e to gain the same amount of XP was 6,762 ogres and you would be:

8th level monk
9th level cleric, fighter, paladin
10th level ranger, magic user, illusionist, assassin (25,000 XP short of an 11th level magic user)
11th level thief
12th level druid

The tables in 1e didn't go to 20th level. I can't remember if they provided updated tables before or after 2e. But it was quite different. Do the math using the tables in the 5e DMG. If you have the recommended number of daily encounters, with the recommended XP per day earned, then you're talking about reaching 20th level in less than 35 days.

Adventuring Day XP (pg 84) - a character is expected to earn:

At 1st level - 300 XP - so you're 2nd level after adventuring day #1.

Let's look higher up the list - If you're 10th level, you should be earning 9000 XP per adventuring day. You start 10th level at 64,000 XP, and need 21,000 XP to get to 11th. That's less than 3 days then.

Compare that to AD&D.

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (not including the wilderness encounters getting to the dungeon), has treasure with a monetary value of roughly 250,000 gp. We'll ignore the fact that getting it out all out of the dungeon would be nearly impossible. The monster XP is about 150,000. So a total potential XP of 400,000 if you get all the treasure and kill all the monsters. Now there's a note that says you can allow them to gain a level without training if they are playing well. Otherwise, you couldn't gain a level until you returned to town to train. And you weren't allowed to jump levels, so if you gained too many XP, you'd still usually gain at most only 1 level after an entire adventure. There are 40 rooms in this one.

Anyway, the adventure was designed for 6-8 characters of 6-8th level. It provides 6 pregens. So divide the 400,000 by 6, or 66,667 XP each. Here's a few of them:

6th level dwarven fighter start: 35,001-70,000 XP; 7th level: 70,001-125,000 XP - gained 1 level
7th level human cleric start: 55,001-110,000 XP; 8th level: 110,001-225,000 - gained 1 level
8th level human fighter start: 125,001-250,000; 9th level: 250,001-500,000 - gained 1 level.

In one entire adventure, you gained 1 level. That's it. There were 56 magic items in the dungeon, btw. Including one each of the manuals/tomes so it granted each character a +1 ASI.

So what about their 'APs' - if you were playing GDQ1-7, that's seven separate adventures, then you'd gain seven levels over the course of them. Or about half of what you get in a modern AP.

I also remembered why I switched to a more story based XP approach very early one. To start, you pretty much only gained one level per adventure. We didn't even do that most of the time. I don't think I ever realized that anyway. But what a pain calculating the XP for every monster in the adventure. They didn't do that. So you'd have: 20 stirges: XP 36 + 2/hp. So not only did you have to look them up (they weren't in the adventure), but you had to calculate based on hp.

 

[Hussar]

But, let's not forget the different power curve here. 10th level in AD&D is equal to about 15th or so in 5e. The game more or less tops out at 10th level in AD&D for the most part. You're Name Level, for one, you're expected to be running a kingdom at this point (or some sort of fief anyway), and virtually nothing in the Monster Manual outside of unique monsters could come close to challenging you.

And, as you say, you ejected money for XP. Fair enough, but, that WAS part of the game in 1e. As you said, we have to talk about what was published, not what we personally played. If you go with XP for gold, suddenly you advance pretty quickly. It takes about a year of play to hit name level if you play with xp for gold. It takes about a year of play to hit very high levels in 5e.

It's not really any different.

 

[pemerton]

level advancement was an integral part of the game, but it was much slower (especially if you didn't award XP for treasure), and you didn't gain as much when you did go up levels. Furthermore, you even stopped gaining hit points (other than Constitution bonuses) after about 10th level.

<snip>

20th level in 5e is 355,000 XP, and assuming a party of 4, amounts to 3,156 ogres. In 1e to gain the same amount of XP was 6,762 ogres

<snip>

The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (not including the wilderness encounters getting to the dungeon), has treasure with a monetary value of roughly 250,000 gp. We'll ignore the fact that getting it out all out of the dungeon would be nearly impossible. The monster XP is about 150,000. So a total potential XP of 400,000 if you get all the treasure and kill all the monsters. Now there's a note that says you can allow them to gain a level without training if they are playing well. Otherwise, you couldn't gain a level until you returned to town to train. And you weren't allowed to jump levels, so if you gained too many XP, you'd still usually gain at most only 1 level after an entire adventure. There are 40 rooms in this one.

Anyway, the adventure was designed for 6-8 characters of 6-8th level. It provides 6 pregens. So divide the 400,000 by 6, or 66,667 XP each. Here's a few of them:

6th level dwarven fighter start: 35,001-70,000 XP; 7th level: 70,001-125,000 XP - gained 1 level
7th level human cleric start: 55,001-110,000 XP; 8th level: 110,001-225,000 - gained 1 level
8th level human fighter start: 125,001-250,000; 9th level: 250,001-500,000 - gained 1 level.

In one entire adventure, you gained 1 level. That's it. There were 56 magic items in the dungeon, btw. Including one each of the manuals/tomes so it granted each character a +1 ASI.

So what about their 'APs' - if you were playing GDQ1-7, that's seven separate adventures, then you'd gain seven levels over the course of them. Or about half of what you get in a modern AP.

Whether level gain in AD&D gives benefits other than hp depends on class eg MUs and clerics get new spell levels fairly regularly.

On the relativities between AD&D and 5e levels, I defer to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s remarks above this one.

But the point remains: AD&D focused on level gain as much as 5e does. And also that playing AD&D without XP-for-treasure is a very significant departure from the game as published. (Hence looking at XP-per-dead-ogre makes no sense for AD&D, because AD&D experience is awarded primarily for treasure gained.)I

 

[S'mon]

And, as you say, you ejected money for XP. Fair enough, but, that WAS part of the game in 1e. As you said, we have to talk about what was published, not what we personally played. If you go with XP for gold, suddenly you advance pretty quickly. It takes about a year of play to hit name level if you play with xp for gold. It takes about a year of play to hit very high levels in 5e.

It's not really any different.

I basically agree. 5e has significantly faster advancement levels 1-3 and 11+, but in 5-10 plays very similar to 1e in the 3-8 range I think. And in terms of raw power, 20th level 5e feels like about 12-14 in 1e. Time to reach similar power level can be quite similar, depending on treasure etc.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Whether level gain in AD&D gives benefits other than hp depends on class eg MUs and clerics get new spell levels fairly regularly.

On the relativities between AD&D and 5e levels, I defer to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s remarks above this one.

But the point remains: AD&D focused on level gain as much as 5e does. And also that playing AD&D without XP-for-treasure is a very significant departure from the game as published. (Hence looking at XP-per-dead-ogre makes no sense for AD&D, because AD&D experience is awarded primarily for treasure gained.)I

That Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth included the XP for treasure. Actually, it was very generous with the XP for treasure. You still only gained enough to go up one level in the adventure. In addition, AD&D had rules to actually limit you to 1 level per adventure. Where the rules for 5e indicate that you should be gaining a new level every 1 to 3 adventuring days (6-8 encounters, so say, 24 encounters on the outside). Sure, there may be smaller encounters between them, but at the very least I'd say 5e advancement is twice as fast as 1e, at least. Perhaps not as much as I thought, but that's because of how we played the game.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

But, let's not forget the different power curve here. 10th level in AD&D is equal to about 15th or so in 5e. The game more or less tops out at 10th level in AD&D for the most part. You're Name Level, for one, you're expected to be running a kingdom at this point (or some sort of fief anyway), and virtually nothing in the Monster Manual outside of unique monsters could come close to challenging you.

And, as you say, you ejected money for XP. Fair enough, but, that WAS part of the game in 1e. As you said, we have to talk about what was published, not what we personally played. If you go with XP for gold, suddenly you advance pretty quickly. It takes about a year of play to hit name level if you play with xp for gold. It takes about a year of play to hit very high levels in 5e.

It's not really any different.

The example I gave with The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth included the XP for treasure, and it still resulted in a gain of only 1 level. Which was a hard limit for a single adventure anyway.

AD&D 2e eliminated the XP for treasure and bumped up the XP for the monsters (to about half what 5e has, when looking through it). In addition, 5e XP requirements per level are a lot lower.

I don't agree about the power curve. Fighters had a lower to-hit number, but a 10th level fighter in 5e has a lot more abilities and potential attacks per round. A magic-user in AD&D had one more 2nd level spell, 1 less 4th level spell at 10th level. Again, with more special abilities in 5e. Overall 10th level seems to be roughly the same for both editions.

But monsters have about twice the amount of XP in 5e (although that varies quite a bit), and you need 64,000 XP to reach 10th level in 5e, and roughly 250,000 to reach 10th level in 1e/2e. In the Lost Caverns... example, monsters were about 1/3 of the XP. So even if we triple the XP for monsters in 2e (making them worth more than 5e) the much higher XP requirements still indicate a much slower level of advancement.

Add in the limitations - only 1 level per adventure, and in AD&D you didn't level up until you returned home to "train." 2e advancement got a lot more complicated (only experience for encounters of the appropriate level, RP XP, survival XP, story XP), but it was still limited to 1 level whenever you awarded XP, and the recommendation was to award XP at the end of the adventure.

However, they explained the complexity as intentional, to allow each group to determine how slowly or quickly advancement works in their campaign. Overall, I can (and will) change whatever I'd like. But like so many of the optional rules presented in the 5e DMG, they could have presented a slower advancement option, with XP requirements equal to double or triple the standard. You can't mess with the XP values (although you could halve the amount awarded) since the system uses the XP value as an encounter building tool for difficulty.

 

[pemerton]

5e has significantly faster advancement levels 1-3 and 11+, but in 5-10 plays very similar to 1e in the 3-8 range I think. And in terms of raw power, 20th level 5e feels like about 12-14 in 1e. Time to reach similar power level can be quite similar, depending on treasure etc.

AD&D had rules to actually limit you to 1 level per adventure. Where the rules for 5e indicate that you should be gaining a new level every 1 to 3 adventuring days (6-8 encounters, so say, 24 encounters on the outside). Sure, there may be smaller encounters between them, but at the very least I'd say 5e advancement is twice as fast as 1e, at least. Perhaps not as much as I thought, but that's because of how we played the game.

I think the rules about "one level per adventure" are a bit of a red herring, because "adventure" there means something like "expedition into the dungeon". The purpose of that rule is to limit massive level gain from making a single huge lucky haul on a given expedition; it's not there to stop players getting the full benefit of the XP from cleaning out the Lost Caverns or the Steading or some similar dungeon.

But if the end game (eg ancient red dragons, demon lords, etc) is around about 10th level rather than around about 20th level, then levelling at about half the rate takes you to the end game in about the same time. Based on S'mon's experience, it seems that 5e powers up a little bit more quickly at the end (in AD&D the time to get from 10th to 14th or 15th might be comparable to the time taken to get from 1st to 10th) but then in AD&D only casters notice any real development going from 10th to 14th anyway!

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I think the rules about "one level per adventure" are a bit of a red herring, because "adventure" there means something like "expedition into the dungeon". The purpose of that rule is to limit massive level gain from making a single huge lucky haul on a given expedition; it's not there to stop players getting the full benefit of the XP from cleaning out the Lost Caverns or the Steading or some similar dungeon.

But if the end game (eg ancient red dragons, demon lords, etc) is around about 10th level rather than around about 20th level, then levelling at about half the rate takes you to the end game in about the same time. Based on S'mon's experience, it seems that 5e powers up a little bit more quickly at the end (in AD&D the time to get from 10th to 14th or 15th might be comparable to the time taken to get from 1st to 10th) but then in AD&D only casters notice any real development going from 10th to 14th anyway!

When I say 1 level per adventure, it's because I'm looking at the XP value for an actual adventure, which confirms the rules.

The RAW for 5e give a specific number of XP expected for a character at a specific level for an adventuring day. An adventuring day is defined as 3-6 encounters. No matter what level you are in 5e, if you follow their numbers, you will advance a level in no more than 3 adventuring days, or 18 encounters (that doesn't mean you won't have non-combat encounters, but due to the choice of words the expectation is that it will happen in the course of a "day").

I added up all of the XP and treasure for Lost Caverns... and it totaled about 66,000 XP per character. Any character of 6th level or higher will gain 1 level. That's it. They won't have enough to get a second level. Even if they get every XP and every gp of treasure in the dungeon. In addition to that, you could potentially gain 32 magic items in that dungeon.

That is very, very different. It's not a red herring. It's math.

 

[Hussar]

I was going to mention the XP per expedition point but I was ninja'd by Pemerton.

But, ok, fair enough, we'll go with [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] rate of advancement.

You realize that if we stick with that, then it's 10 adventures to Name Level in AD&D. That's it. Considering adventure modules back then were about 25 pages long and didn't take that long to play through, I'm a little baffled why you think it's so slow.

Let's stick with AD&D modules. My path goes:

N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God - more than enough xp to bump a level
L1 Secret of Bone Hill - now we're 3rd.
N2 The Forest Oracle - just to experience the worst module ever written.
A1-A4 The Slavers series (not the compilation, just the actual modules) takes us from 4-7th level
G1-G3 Against the giants takes us to 10th level. There's over a MILLION xp in gold in those three modules not even counting selling any magic items.

For a 4-5 hour/week group, that's easily completable in a year of play.

So, why is this so unbelievable that 1 year of play hits name level in AD&D? I'm frankly baffled why people seem to think this is impossible to achieve. To me, this is pretty much par for the course. We repeated this trajectory multiple times across multiple groups, so, I know it's certainly possible. And well within the rules.

I think people internalize their own house rules to the extent that they think that this is the primary way of playing and forget what the actual rules say. Yes, 2e got rid of xp for gold. True. But, they added in individual xp awards, which amounted to a fair chunk of xp, and then bumped the kill xp awards considerably without actually changing most of the creatures. Sure, your 2e monster is worth less xp than your 3e monster, but, you're killing two or three times as many at a time since the 2e monsters were about 1/3 as powerful - far lower attack bonuses, dealt about half the damage of their 3e counterparts and had half as many HP.