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Message: <blockquote data-quote="molonel" data-source="post: 3342383" data-attributes="member: 10412">Well, by framing the question in the manner you have, while all that is well and good, you have circumscribed the discussion to a level-based game. Presumably, but not explicitly, you mean D&D.In either sort of game you describe, using the ends of your dichotomy, the survival and enjoyment of the game of a 1st level character amongst people who are 9th, 10th 15th or even higher level is going to be severely curtailed. Yes, yes - I know. Someone can "roleplay" a low-level character to great effect. But in a level-based game, your ability to participate in the game itself - as opposed to merely social interactions, and even those are curtailed to some degree if you use the RAW mechanics for Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidation - is limited EXTREMELY by cutting you back down to 1st level.I'm not just talking about combat, either, although your very existence in any mid- or high-level combat is going to be an unrealistic series of backflips by the DM to keep you out of harm's way if you're going to ever see 2nd level.Encounters in D&D scale to the party. If you present an encounter that is designed to challenge the 1st level character - social interactions, a lock that needs to be picked, a trap that needs to be detected, an animal that needs to be befriended, something needs to be tracked, whatever - the higher level party members will be bored or deal with it before the 1st level party member can do anything.At this point, people nearly always point to the presence of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin in LOTR.There are several problems with that:1. Most of the LOTR would be extremely boring in a tabletop roleplaying game. "You spend a week sneaking through the swamps toward Mordor. Next session: You spend another week sneaking through Mordor, avoiding all combat. Next session: You spend a week sneaking through Mordor. You run away. You hide. You beg for your life. Isn't this fun?"2. Nobody wants to be an observer of heroic action in a fantasy game. They want to participate. The hobbits were often observers of heroic action, and comic relief. I don't want to WATCH Boromir fight off the orcs. I don't want to WATCH Legolas shooting his bow. I don't want to WATCH Aragorn drive off the Nine. I want to DO those things, eventually.3. Knocking someone back to 1st level rewards cowardice, and discourages heroism in a fantasy game."Yes! You heroically fight off the demon, and send him back to hell! The city is saved, but ... you're dead. Welcome to 1st level. The neutral evil rogue who always avoids combat is meanwhile 13th level, and gains the treasure from the encounter."In my games, the players themselves have an XP total. This XP follows them from character to character. If they spend XP, it's gone. If they die, Raise Dead and Resurrection and True Resurrection all cost 350 XP x character level at time of death. If they decided to stop playing a character, and come back as someone else, then they pay the same XP penalty as if they had died.I do this because the feats and skills you choose when you play a character up through many levels are different than the choices when you make a character from scratch, and this discourages dumping a character simply to optimize. I will also assign less than standard wealth to new characters when one is retired, because I like to encourage longterm play.</blockquote>

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