Reverse Expectations

[Dannager]

It sounds irrelevant unless the character is being railroaded so that they can only face opponents who are of the same level.

Careful. Level scaling and railroading are two very different things.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Careful. Level scaling and railroading are two very different things.

If you're taking away the player's ability to choose the danger level of the challenges they're facing, then you're removing their meaningful choices. If you're removing their meaningful choices, you're railroading them. QED.

 

[DragoonLance]

Strangely the first thing this makes me think of is Harry Potter. Most of the challenges he faces (not all, but most) in his first year result in demerits, by the final book his friends are dying left and right. Perhaps a game where the characters start as children and the situations and challenges are therefore less grim; for example a world where an adult thief that is caught is executed, while a child might just be given a spanking and sent on their way. As the characters get older and "gain power" by becoming adults they realize the world isn't as nice as they remember...

 

[chaochou]

Yes, I have - it's called Call of Cthulhu, and it's brilliant.

Yes, Call of Cthulhu did it very well.

To take that on a step though, CoC created a death spiral with the sanity rules - you lost SAN quicker than you gained it and nothing trumped SAN for importance. Low SAN meant huge trouble, whatever your skill with a shotgun.

I'm not aware of a fantasy game with that same sort of mechanic and it might be really interesting to experiment with.

Such as: New stat for the party - Renown (REN). Starts at Level 1 (unknown nobodies). Goes up when they achieve something. Goes down when they fail at something. Doesn't need to scale to party level (wiping out those cultists might see the party at LVL 3 but REN 5)

Base the CR of encounters on party renown instead of level. Balance that against social advantages from high renown (free aid, authority, audiences with the duke, etc). I can see potential there.

 

[Dannager]

If you're taking away the player's ability to choose the danger level of the challenges they're facing, then you're removing their meaningful choices. If you're removing their meaningful choices, you're railroading them. QED.

Removing a meaningful choice that the players have (the choice to attack something comically less or more powerful than they are) is not the same as removing all meaningful choice the players have.

Not allowing a player to start play as an epic-level wizard is removing a meaningful choice as well, but I hardly think you'd call that railroading. Are you sure you don't just find the idea of level scaling unpalatable for reasons largely unrelated to railroading?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I tend to prefer games where the power levels are more contained and you start out cool but don't get superpowerful over time. However I also mostly do modern games. There are plenty of games out there that play this way (and people have already mentioned them).

One advantage to having minimal advancement in power is the world can be more consistent (the world doesn't throw more or less difficult things at the PCs based on their power level).

A game where you didn't advance at all I would play. I can see it working well for an action movie game or similar style where the characters have pretty much already reached their peak power level at creation.

 

[Umbran]

If you're taking away the player's ability to choose the danger level of the challenges they're facing, then you're removing their meaningful choices.

Which is okay, as scaling the power up as the players advance doesn't take away their ability to choose.

Scaling power does not mean "all encounters are scaled to be an easy win". As has been said umpteen times in these discussions - the DMG advises a range of encounters, from "pretty easy" to "you ought to run away". But what you have to use in your encounters to do those things will change as the party grows in power.

Scaling power isn't generally about player choice, it is about making encounters be tactically interesting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which is okay, as scaling the power up as the players advance doesn't take away their ability to choose.

Scaling power does not mean "all encounters are scaled to be an easy win". As has been said umpteen times in these discussions - the DMG advises a range of encounters, from "pretty easy" to "you ought to run away". But what you have to use in your encounters to do those things will change as the party grows in power.

Scaling power isn't generally about player choice, it is about making encounters be tactically interesting.

I think the trick is to make sure the Players and GM have aligned their expectations. When I run a D&D game (usually 2e or 3e), I let my players know in advance that running away is a perfectly acceptable option at times. And I tell them that some encounters will vary in power level.

You nail it on the head with the key thing being making it interesting. A low level power can still have a blast trying to get around or flee a monster way out of their league powerwise. By the same token, an encounter with weak monsters can still be fun for a high level party if done well. Interesting can mean a lot of different things.

 

[the Jester]

At least in D&D, your character at level 1 is a nobody who decided to go adventuring. At level 1, you have a great chance of dying early. If you can survive long enough to gain levels, your chance of death is reduced. Now, what if we reversed this? What if it was really easy to be a 1st level adventurer (or the equivalent in games without levels), but as you leveled up, enemies of your level grew stronger than you faster than you, and your chance of dying increased. What would you think of such a game design? Have you played a game like that?

Interesting approach.

My homebrewed system has fairly fragile low-level pcs who don't get tremendously more powerful over time. Tough monsters are TOUGH. I haven't played it above 1st level yet, so it's hard to see how the comparison works between higher level monsters and higher level pcs, but I'm guessing that higher level pcs will NEVER lose their fear of, say, dragons and beholders.

We shall see over time- I just started a playtest campaign on Saturday.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Removing a meaningful choice that the players have (the choice to attack something comically less or more powerful than they are) is not the same as removing all meaningful choice the players have.

Not really interested in dealing with ridiculous slippery slope fallacies.

Which is okay, as scaling the power up as the players advance doesn't take away their ability to choose.

Scaling the power up doesn't. Forcing the PCs to face opponents of a given power level no matter what choice they make, however, DOES. By definition.

And like I said before: Unless you're forcing PCs to face opponents who are the same level as them even if they would prefer to seek out weaker or stronger opponents (i.e., railroading them), the OP's suggestion is completely irrelevant. It won't actually shift the power balance of the game; it will just shuffle around the arbitrary numbers that you're categorizing the threats with.

I'm not really sure why you guys are having such a difficult time grasping such a simple concept.