Should PCs Be Exceptional?

[Lanefan]

For the vast majority of my games where this question is relevant, exceptional feels too strong of a word for where I want them to start. However, I do want them to be interesting, competent, capable. They're not uniquely special, I just want them to be Level 1, not Level 0.

Fair enough.

The question then becomes one of how big of a gap there is between levels 0 and 1, and-or whether level 0 is itself a step above 'typical commoner'.

In 4e D&D, for example, that gap is huge. In 0e or even 1e D&D, the gap - while present - isn't nearly as wide.

 

[Lanefan]

I think advancement is overvalued, especially outside of D&D and its ilk. Most characters in fiction do not get "better" all the time. They start out competent and "improve" by learning more about whatever dangerous and weird circumstances they encounter. There are characters focused on learning, like young superheroes, but usually they don't actually get "more powerful" just better and doing whatever it is they do.

The "getting better at doing what they do" is the same as getting more powerful, isn't it?

For D&D and the like, I would rather have characters start at 5th and go to 9th over the course of the campaign (or 14th to 20th, or whatever range band you are interested in) than start at 1st. Especially in modern D&D, those first few level are so fast and artificial it is barely worth it anyway.

The answer there is to stretch out those lower levels to make them more relevant.

I mean, I could be quite happy with a D&D game where they start at 0th and capstone at 6th or 7th.

 

[Reynard]

The "getting better at doing what they do" is the same as getting more powerful, isn't it?

Not usually in the context of young superheroes.

The answer there is to stretch out those lower levels to make them more relevant.

Only if you like playing in that space. I generally don't.

I mean, I could be quite happy with a D&D game where they start at 0th and capstone at 6th or 7th.

Sure.

 

[Campbell]

Rand al'Thor and Luke Skywalker are just about the worst zero to hero examples one could come up with. They are good at just about everything they try, have special magic juju, come from great lineages even if they do not know them and are pretty much the embodiment of chosen by destiny tropes.

 

[TiQuinn]

It…

…wait for it…

…depends.

Like, if the game is supposed to be a gritty dungeon crawl full of traps and monsters where the location is more important in name than any single character or NPC, I think that speaks to a game where the PC has to earn their hero status if they get it at all.

5e adventures, in general, are geared towards being more heroic in nature. As soon as you have above average ability scores by default, and feats and class skills that let you do amazing things, it’s incongruent to me that they wouldn’t be exceptional.

 

[Celebrim]

Why would their generic stats be as low as 8-10 when the bell-curve average is 10.5?

A character with 9s in five stats would need an 18 in the sixth stat just to reach the bell-curve average. As 18s are in theory supposed to be pretty rare, this makes no sense.

I mean, 9-10-10-11-11-12 is a bland enough array for typical villagers and yet still matches the bell-curve.

Well, one answer might be that ability scores don't obey a bell curve in the general population. If there were a general lack of ability scores below 8 in the general population, then it would stand to reason that there would need to be a super abundance of characters with scores only slightly below average. That is to say the mean might be 10.5 but the mode might only be a 9.

How many NPCs have you created with an 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5 array? Or lower. Yet surely if there is a bell curve such arrays must be common.

I'm not really trying to quarrel so much as I noticed for myself that I didn't create a lot of characters with arrays lower than 12, 11,11,10,10,9. I wonder how many of them are actually out there. Children certainly. Perhaps the aged, though they tend to be more jagged, like 12,12,12,4,4,4. Perhaps the destitute, beggars, town drunks, town fools, etc. We can presume that there are a lot of "Mr. Not Appearing in this Story" that are below average, but the risk of that is that we end up creating the Village of Hommlet , where we are claiming that average and typical is one thing but the reality of what we actually present to players is very different.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's like, if you want to play a superhero, play a superhero game. I've no interest in running a game for murderhobos with the power to level whole villages.

Though you've got to decide what counts as "a superhero game" there; there are things like Part Time Gods, Scion, Godbound or even Exalted that operate in superhuman power ranges but aren't doing "superheroes" in the sense that people who play superhero games would think of it. There isn't a really good generic term for those, though, and they aren't dipping in the murderhobo ground for the most part.

Here's the thing about Conan, Elric, Imaro, Kane, Jirel, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and Morgaine - they all fail in the course of their adventures. Repeatedly. Conan is crucified, loses his kingdom, Imaro fails to gain the acceptance of the tribe that raised him, Jirel realizes only too late what her quest for vengeance has cost her. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser get cocky and fall victim to hubris on multiple occasions (ah, do I love "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar").

They are powerful, but not so powerful that the dangers of the world become inconsequential. I'll warrant that Kane comes close to that, which is why the best Kane stories are the ones that aren't "and Kane was stronger and smarter than everyone else and won, the end."

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I'd suggest that's less a question about how powerful the PCs are, and more a question how their power matches up with their opponents.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, mundanely exceptional due to their journeys in life. Not because they are inherently exceptional.

I'd argue at least Aragorn is, and as to the Shadow--well, Batman isn't theoretically inherently exceptional. He was forged by his life.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've run the numbers for our games, and with a fair bit of data to go on I found that starting stat average has a rounding-error effect on projected career length (measured by adventures, I could do it by sessions but never have). I'm no statistician but I think the difference falls well within the "not statistically significant" boundary; which means that your starting stats have basically no effect on the odds of your being a one-hit wonder.

What makes a much bigger difference is reaching your third adventure. Get there, and your projected career length skyrockets.

The fact D&D hit points, especially in older versions of the game, are the biggest part of your defensive capability almost ensures this; even if using Con modifiers to hit points, its only going to have a very limited impact on your hit points over the first couple levels.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Pretty much same here.

My question is, if you start at the end of the journey to exceptional, where do you go from there?

Or is it a "this character goes to 11" situation?

Yeah, I don't see "exceptional" as translating to "topped out".