PC Development Timespan

[luke_twigger]

A thought just occurred to me. Our characters in our current campaign are 19 years old. They've been actively adventuring for just over a year of game time so far. And yet they've already saved the kingdom from Certain Death^TM, been knighted and have many important responsibilities (to the Druids, Churches, and other important organisations). And they're demonstrably more powerful than many NPCs, the main exception being other former PCs! So it's entirely likely that they could retire and ride off into the sunset well before their 21st birthdays.

BTW not saying that the above is necessarily wrong in any way, just making an observation.

Anyway, it made me wonder whether some kind of episodic campaign might be an interesting exercise. Where each level represents a year's worth of adventuring. Or, to more accurately reflect life in a medieval style society, each level represents a summer's worth of questing. With the spring and autumn months given over to farming, and the winter spent cooped up at home. Hence giving plenty of down time to receive training, research spells, etc. So then a 20 year old PC starting at 1st level could retire as a 40 year old at 20th level. I believe Pendragon, an RPG based on the tales of King Arthur, worked along these kind of lines.

I think this style might emphasise things like building strongholds, recruiting cohorts & followers, that kind of thing. The rules for aging might actually get used. It'd be easy (but "unrealistic") to create adventures and encounters - use mainly CR1s in year1, CR10s in year10, etc.

The 1 level = 1 year might feel artificial. It wouldn't matter if a PC spent all year battling orcs or stayed in the tavern drinking, in theory they'd still receive the same reward (subject to DM approval of course).

Comments? Any other pros and cons you can think of?

 

[Wil]

A thought just occurred to me. Our characters in our current campaign are 19 years old. They've been actively adventuring for just over a year of game time so far. And yet they've already saved the kingdom from Certain Death^TM, been knighted and have many important responsibilities (to the Druids, Churches, and other important organisations). And they're demonstrably more powerful than many NPCs, the main exception being other former PCs! So it's entirely likely that they could retire and ride off into the sunset well before their 21st birthdays.

BTW not saying that the above is necessarily wrong in any way, just making an observation.

Anyway, it made me wonder whether some kind of episodic campaign might be an interesting exercise. Where each level represents a year's worth of adventuring. Or, to more accurately reflect life in a medieval style society, each level represents a summer's worth of questing. With the spring and autumn months given over to farming, and the winter spent cooped up at home. Hence giving plenty of down time to receive training, research spells, etc. So then a 20 year old PC starting at 1st level could retire as a 40 year old at 20th level. I believe Pendragon, an RPG based on the tales of King Arthur, worked along these kind of lines.

I think this style might emphasise things like building strongholds, recruiting cohorts & followers, that kind of thing. The rules for aging might actually get used. It'd be easy (but "unrealistic") to create adventures and encounters - use mainly CR1s in year1, CR10s in year10, etc.

The 1 level = 1 year might feel artificial. It wouldn't matter if a PC spent all year battling orcs or stayed in the tavern drinking, in theory they'd still receive the same reward (subject to DM approval of course).

Comments? Any other pros and cons you can think of?

EDIT: Never mind, missed the Pendragon mention. Yes, Pendragon did do that and yes it would work as long as you had players that were interested in building a legacy as opposed to getting the +50 Magicwhatsis.

 

[jester47]

Actually travel and projects can eat up a lot of time. In my Boreal sun Campaign the characters aged two years. And that was up until 7th level. The best way I have found to do ageing however is to do the adventures episodicly. Account for travel. Also tie your game to the celestial objects, like the moon, and the sun and the stars. The gate wont appear until the winter soltice, the sacrifice wont happen until the next new moon, the dungeon doors only open when te comet comes. Somtimes heroes have to travel when others would not.

I would not tie level advancement so close to the march of time.After an adventure is over determine how long it will be until the next part of the story unfolds(probably best done in months and years). Then tell them that they have that much time to have their characters to do somthing.

One way we decided to do things in my group before we shut down was to trade off DMs with each adventure. if it was of a level that there were no characters for we would make new ones. If it was for levels that we did have characters for, we would pick and choose which ones we wanted to use. All the adventures took place in the same world and one after another. It was up to the DM to determine when. Thus you get the passage of time and dont go moment to moment for the whole campaign and avoid the superboy syndrome.

 

[Chimera]

As a Player or GM, I never understand the strong aversion some players have to any sort of downtime or time between adventures.

It's a struggle in the game where I'm playing a Wizard. I just can't get enough time to do the things I need to do; spell research and item creation; let alone get some time to do some RP/Character development.

Unfortunately, in that game, the GM's SO is the one demanding that we move, move, move. Irritates the hell out of me. Ah, but I've already had other issues with her, so I'm not pushing it.

On the other end of the scale, I've seem too many GMs with their "Fiendish Plot", driving on the PCs relentlessly, with no chance to rest or enjoy their rewards. I try to avoid those games if I can.

Reasonably speaking, most Adventurers should make their pile of money and then go about living a normal life for a period of time, with weeks, months or even years between major adventures.

But too many players are raised on Diablo and other games, wanting instant rewards, ever cooler toys and ever larger piles of gold.

How else can you explain people willing to pay MONTHS (or sometimes Years!) of good living money for a potion that lasts a few minutes? Or that would take care of a wound that would heal itself in a few days?

 

[howandwhy99]

Try the training variant in the DMG 197. Two are listed. Separate week long training for every feat, skill point, spell, etc. Or just 1 day / level in general. Characters continue to earn XP, but do not progress to the next level until training is complete.

One of our games uses a general approach. 2 weeks of self-training per level x the level the PC is leaving. (so 2wks to leave 1st, 4wks when 2nd, 6wks etc.) This time can be cut in half with a trainer, but they normally want pay. At higher levels finding a PC level+1 trainer can be almost as time consuming as self-training. Our group tries to pre-train whenever events allow, so levelling during adventures can happen. (tho we can never pretrain beyond our next level)

I agree with travel times too. And allow for events in campaign where the world changes. At higher levels PCs normally own land, are in charge of towns, etc. Ruling, judging, Status duties, converting followers, etc. cannot be accomplished quickly. So some actions may take a week, a month, or longer. Simply progress world events along and if something happens to stop the PCs long-term actions, then switch to adventuring.

EDIT: thought of some more things PCs do that takes time.
Paladin quests often take awhile. Wizards need to research spells, acquire materials, and copy them. Magic item creation requires research time and collection of the materials to create an item. Then crafting times (which you could lengthen). Those not directly involved in other PCs' endeavors can take up jobs to earn money. Perhaps secondary skills, or profession/craft journeymen. Even hiring yourself out as a trainer can get a PC dough. Just remember to include cost of living into the downtime. This should eat into the Character Wealth/ level guidelines (which are based on 10% going to living costs)

 

[WayneLigon]

Anyway, it made me wonder whether some kind of episodic campaign might be an interesting exercise. ... I believe Pendragon, an RPG based on the tales of King Arthur, worked along these kind of lines.

If they wanted to pursue a campaign like that, sure. It would make for a nice change of pace. Me, I wouldn't want to play a 40-year-old save as a change of pace.

 

[EdL]

Travel times certainly need to be taken into account. (Unless you're playing the Gilded Hole style of: You travel a few miles out of town to the dungeon...) And if you are playing in a 'normal' 40 degree latitude middle ages setting they had better be taking the winter off. (Snow, lots of it, and no snowplows!)

On the other hand, if you didn't have a rep by the time you were 20 in the middle ages, chances were you never would. (Life expectancy was 40 or so! The characters ought to be starting at 14-16, not the morden day 18+.)

 

[Zappo]

Here are the time sinks that I can think of for an adventuring party:

• Travel, and travelling obstacles (winter, storm season, rockfalls obstructing the highway, whatever). These may work in Pendragon, but in D&D they are pretty much eliminated once the party has Teleport, Wind Walk and/or Shadow Walk.
• Resource replenishment (healing, regaining spells, etc). These are time sinks in other systems, but not in D&D.
• Resource gathering (recruiting, crafting, etc). These are time sinks, but they are under the players' control. They don't have to do this, except in special circumstances.
• Training. Not a time sink in D&D by default.
• Organizational delays (bureaucracy, etc). Adventuring parties are far too small for this to be an issue internally. They don't need much organization externally either, except in special circumstances.
• Psychological factors. Entirely under the players' control.
• Lack of things to do. This is a good time sink, but it is partially under the players' control. Even if the world doesn't need to be saved right now, there is always a wilderness area with some monsters to hunt.

Basically, if the players are set on doing as many adventures as they can, there's not much you can reasonably do to stop them after they have mid-level spells.

 

[iwatt]

I hate the "Jack Bauer" syndrome in RPGs. :\

It's hard to avoid it sometimes though (either as a Player or DM).

It's easy to get carried away as a DM, because it's extremely fun to develop complex intertwining plots, and it's only human to want to showcase your efforts as soon as possible.

It's easy to get carried away as a Player, because it's only natural to want some spotlight, and with 4+ players, there usually is someone pushing forward.


Actually, one factor that hasn't been mentioned that I believe compounsd this problem are the Timelines in most published Campaign settings. A lot of people have at one time or another played in a published campaign setting, and the timelines usually have the las 2-3 years jam packed with events that are just beginning to unfold. The momentum this applies to the campign can sometimes lead (IMO) to DMs pushing the pace to avoid getting splattered by Metaplot (am I using this term correctly?) changes.

 

[Li Shenron]

I have had the same thoughts on my mind for years. If players don't like downtime, you can just "fast forward" to the next adventure, but that does not mean that in-game time isn't passing.

You can make the fantasy world not so full of tombs and evil wizards, like a new one springing up every week. If adventurers go around and actively look for adventures without a day of pause, they end up travelling far for a very long time (and teleport wouldn't help much, as you'd still have to spend time searching for something to do), or they end up fighting wolves and giant spiders all the time - which after a while isn't worth any xp and can be "fast forwarded" as well.

The 1 level = 1 year might feel artificial. It wouldn't matter if a PC spent all year battling orcs or stayed in the tavern drinking, in theory they'd still receive the same reward (subject to DM approval of course).

Comments? Any other pros and cons you can think of?

I read something like this in the HR forum a few weeks ago. It's not a bad idea, but you really need to use this limit as a maximum, not as a fixed number. I mean, you can say that 1 level is the MAX level-up that any character can achieve in a year of life, but don't make it automatic... keep it so that the xp must still be earned.

This will mean that if you over-adventure, the excess xp is not gained. The treasure is still gained (but you can control the amount and make it less), but it becomes not so convenient to adventure every day, and PCs will probably start looking for other ways to spend their time: studying/training, building their homes or base, work and make themselves known in the community, etc... Things which don't need to be described fully if the players don't like it anyway.

If your players insist that their PC must be 20th level at 19yrs old, as a consolation think that they are going to die young