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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haltherrion" data-source="post: 5553665" data-attributes="member: 18253">Haven't quite done it from the short story point of view (that is, an intentially short campaign) but my group frequently starts at higher level and almost always with a more themed mixed of PCs (i.e., you might be starting in a place where there's mostly elves and humans so that's what more or all the PCs are). Starting at the "interesting level" isn't so different from the ancient narrative technique of starting in the middle of things. Take the Illiad. Rather than start with Achilles setting out on his first adventure, we start with him already a respected hero. There's nothing wrong with first level starts but all things being equal, I prefer starting higher level. For one thing it avoids the all too common rush to level 10 in one year of game time (not that that can't be avoided at a level 1 start, but how often is it really avoided? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />) Focusing on short stories is a nice concept and one that would allow for more restrictions (like your all dwarf party) than players might tolerate in a standard campaign. Less commitment of time, more freedom to try out different things. Your proposal is definitely intriguing and one that would catch my fancy although if I had to be a dwarf, I'd want some idea of how many sessions you had in mind for that particular story. On a somewhat related topic, one thing my group is doing in the current campaign is out-of-game level advancement. We started level 1 partly because we hadn't done that in quite a few years and partly because we were new to 4E. At level 5 we took a game break due to real-world stuff but had always thought we'd try an out of game advance and used the opportunity to pick up again at level 12. We will probably do the same thing and skip to epic levels at some point. That way we can sample the different tiers of play without necessarily having to play a huge number of sessions or run an awkward leveling rate. It is similar to your linked short stories. I don't think there is anything magic about starting at level one. It is certainly a valid style of play and starting from a mostly blank slate can have wide appeal but crafting a more developed background has its own rewards and appeal as well. I just got back into Traveller after many years and that's a system where the entire premise is built on the fact that nearly all of your character's developmental stuff happened before the game even starts and you are expected to craft some story to explain how you got to the starting point. Characters are typically in their 30s and 40s at start. Works just fine and can work well in fantasy RPGs and D&D as well.</blockquote>

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