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Let's Not Save The World...Again
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7718720" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>WoGH had maps, history, gods (if you followed along in Dragon magazine), demographics, etc.</p><p></p><p>Dragonglance had not only all of the above, it also had an epic "save the world" plot.</p><p></p><p>These both predate 1987 quite a bit.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>That reference in the DMG is clearly tongue-in-cheek, as the exclamation mark indicates. Here is the full quote (DMG p 39):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">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!).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>And here are some other quotes from the AD&D books that refer to levels and levelling:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">DMG p 12:</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">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. . . . <em>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,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>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.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>PHB p 7:</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>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! . . .</p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></p></em></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>[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.</p><p></em></p><p><em>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.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>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.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7718720, member: 42582"] 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): [indent]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!).[/indent] 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: [indent]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. . . . [I]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.[/I][/indent][I] [indent]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.[/indent] 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] [/QUOTE]
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