Slowing Advancement and Other Arbitrary Restrictions

[Ry]

Thirded...If my players need a numerical carrot, then they are at the wrong house. The thrill of gaming should be its own reward.

I used to believe this, but now I look at it like it has a second head. I mean, why shouldn't games have a reward mechanic, and why shouldn't we try to use it to encourage the kind of play that we want? I mean, what if someone said "You don't need to try to accumulate wealth to have fun playing Monopoly, the thrill of gaming should be enough." Game design - which includes providing incentives through the system (or "numerical carrots") has a place in roleplaying.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

1e style XP chart for 3e:

Level / XP needed
1 0
2 2000
3 4000
4 8000
5 16000
6 32000
7 64000
8 125000
9 250000
+1 +250000

Or keep doubling by level if you want high levels hard to reach.

CR XP Award
1 300
2 600
3 900
4 1200
5 1800
6 2400
7 3600
8 4800
9 7200
+2 x2

The thing to note here is, XP needed doubles each level, but awards double every 2 levels, roughly in line with PC power increase. This will inherently slow down progression over time.

Thank you, sir. I'm going to discuss this chart with my players.

 

[S'mon]

Thank you, sir. I'm going to discuss this chart with my players.

You're welcome.

If you want fast levelling out of level 1, and don't like the 1e style 'same XP to go 2-3 as 1-2', then you can use (eg):

Level XP needed
1 0
2 1000
3 3000
4 7000
5 15000
6 32000
7 64000
8 125000
9 250000
+1 +250000

Personally I'm not sure that levelling from 1st after 1,000 XP, or 3.333 CR1 achievements, is a good idea, it rather creates an assumption in the players' minds that advancement should be quick and easy. I think with hindsight that the pre-3e difficulty of reaching 2nd level had some beneficial effects on expectations that were overlooked in the transition to the 3e XP system.

 

[Hussar]

? What's the relevance of that comment?

Using just over 1/2 XP my current group went from 1st to 8th/9th in 3e playing Lost City of Barakus over about 22 months, Feb 2005 to early Dec 2006, about 35 playing sessions. With weekly sessions it would have been under a year.

Sorry, wasn't clear. I meant that my 1e and 2e campaigns leveled at exactly the same rate as my 3e campaigns, both as a player and a DM. 4-6 sessions/level on average, in any edition.

The whole "it usually took years to hit double digit levels" never applied in any game I ever played or saw until 3e actually.

As far as the "carrot" approach, well, why not? It is a game after all. While it's all well and good for those who prefer storyteller approaches to say that the game is its own reward, there are those of us out here that like to feel like we are winning sometimes. Xp rewards are simply another metric of performance, like loot and story rewards (like getting a castle, or becoming a noble). Very nearly all games have some measure of numerical reward. What's wrong with applying that to D&D?

 

[wildstarsreach]

Sorry, wasn't clear. I meant that my 1e and 2e campaigns leveled at exactly the same rate as my 3e campaigns, both as a player and a DM. 4-6 sessions/level on average, in any edition.

The whole "it usually took years to hit double digit levels" never applied in any game I ever played or saw until 3e actually.

As far as the "carrot" approach, well, why not? It is a game after all. While it's all well and good for those who prefer storyteller approaches to say that the game is its own reward, there are those of us out here that like to feel like we are winning sometimes. Xp rewards are simply another metric of performance, like loot and story rewards (like getting a castle, or becoming a noble). Very nearly all games have some measure of numerical reward. What's wrong with applying that to D&D?

In 1st/2nd ed it would take 6-8 months of play for the first 6 levels. It would then take 2-3 months for the next 2 levels each. Then maybe 6 months for the next level, and then 6-12 months for each level after that with wizards always being in the upper end there. To get to 20th level would be about 6-7 years or more on this time table. Most campaigns didn't go much beyond 9th or 10th though.

 

[Hussar]

In 1st/2nd ed it would take 6-8 months of play for the first 6 levels. It would then take 2-3 months for the next 2 levels each. Then maybe 6 months for the next level, and then 6-12 months for each level after that with wizards always being in the upper end there. To get to 20th level would be about 6-7 years or more on this time table. Most campaigns didn't go much beyond 9th or 10th though.

Why does everyone keep trying to convince me of this?

In MY experience, leveling happened at the speed I listed above. Yes, it took a fair bit of xp to go from 12th to 13th (and pretty much the same amount of xp each time after that), but, the modules of that level were tossing out treasure like candy. Since we thought this was how the game should be played (after all, who was I to argue with EGG?) our homebrew adventures were the same.

In YOUR experience, it could take 6-7 years to hit 20th level. In mine, it took a bit less than 2. I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm certainly not claiming any sort of generalization, but, it bothers me when people continue to make these concrete statements about the game in the past. No, it didn't have to take that long to go up levels. It could. It can in 3e as well. It doesn't have to.

 

[Harmon]

Last campaign I GMed for I pretty much just tossed out xp collection after a while, I knew where I wanted the PCs to be and when so it was simple. Only one Player complained, but once I explained he was okay with it.

Coyote6 has been running a campaign sense 3e came out and the characters are just now reaching for 13th level. No one is complaining about xps (in fact, we have a magic item that allows us to spend them quickly). For us its about having fun, not collecting little points.

As far as converting to 1e- just one question - Why?

After about three decades of hard biting work, the makers have set forth a better system. If you are looking for flavor, you can make flavor in your campaign by altering your GMing style. I suppose this falls back to the ya ol' question of- "what is so great about 1e?" but no one has been able to explain it to me.

Personally I would try a 1e game once then more then likes skip out after a session- cause I remember looking at it again just recent and thinking- "God, I use to play this, this is lame. Boy am I glad they improved this."

 

[wildstarsreach]

Why does everyone keep trying to convince me of this?

In MY experience, leveling happened at the speed I listed above. Yes, it took a fair bit of xp to go from 12th to 13th (and pretty much the same amount of xp each time after that), but, the modules of that level were tossing out treasure like candy. Since we thought this was how the game should be played (after all, who was I to argue with EGG?) our homebrew adventures were the same.

In YOUR experience, it could take 6-7 years to hit 20th level. In mine, it took a bit less than 2. I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm certainly not claiming any sort of generalization, but, it bothers me when people continue to make these concrete statements about the game in the past. No, it didn't have to take that long to go up levels. It could. It can in 3e as well. It doesn't have to.

What you are saying is as anecdotal as what I'm saying. In over 30 years of gaming this has been mine and probably between 500-1000 gamers that I've gamed with, this has been the case. I will admit that modules gave treasure out much easier than XP. When 2nd ed came out with a way for most players to track their own xp, it made it easier and see that we only needed to cast X spells if wizard to advance. Of course you couldn't cast spells unless there was risk or pick the lock of your own home.

Yes, XP for a wizard was 375000 but an adventure might give you 25000xp plus treasure and this usually took anywhere from 3-6 sessions to complete for most modules.

The temple of elemental Evil which took you from 1-8 took between 9-12 months playing once a week for at least 6 hours on each of the 3 times I had played it.

Still 60 sessions in out AoW campaign from 1-20 is incredibly fast. With you example, it would take about a hundred sessions. What I would like to see is 125-150 sessions to do this in. At the fast rate you are still getting to know your character by the time you level. You miss some of the more siblime and rarely used abilities that can add to flavor and fun.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Last campaign I GMed for I pretty much just tossed out xp collection after a while, I knew where I wanted the PCs to be and when so it was simple. Only one Player complained, but once I explained he was okay with it.

Coyote6 has been running a campaign sense 3e came out and the characters are just now reaching for 13th level. No one is complaining about xps (in fact, we have a magic item that allows us to spend them quickly). For us its about having fun, not collecting little points.

As far as converting to 1e- just one question - Why?

After about three decades of hard biting work, the makers have set forth a better system. If you are looking for flavor, you can make flavor in your campaign by altering your GMing style. I suppose this falls back to the ya ol' question of- "what is so great about 1e?" but no one has been able to explain it to me.

Personally I would try a 1e game once then more then likes skip out after a session- cause I remember looking at it again just recent and thinking- "God, I use to play this, this is lame. Boy am I glad they improved this."

I agree with this poster. I really wouldn't go back to 1/2 ed unless we were all going to commit to no less than a year of play. It's too much after finally converting to really want to go back.

 

[Hussar]

What you are saying is as anecdotal as what I'm saying. In over 30 years of gaming this has been mine and probably between 500-1000 gamers that I've gamed with, this has been the case. I will admit that modules gave treasure out much easier than XP. When 2nd ed came out with a way for most players to track their own xp, it made it easier and see that we only needed to cast X spells if wizard to advance. Of course you couldn't cast spells unless there was risk or pick the lock of your own home.

Yes, XP for a wizard was 375000 but an adventure might give you 25000xp plus treasure and this usually took anywhere from 3-6 sessions to complete for most modules.

The temple of elemental Evil which took you from 1-8 took between 9-12 months playing once a week for at least 6 hours on each of the 3 times I had played it.

Oh, I heartily agree. It is ENTIRELY anecdotal. That's my point. People talk about how long it took to level in 1e and take it as written that everyone played that way. My point is, it doesn't have to be that slow. Groups that are good at ferreting out the hidden easter eggs in modules for example will gain xp far more quickly since they will get considerably more treasure. Groups that did away with xp for gold will go up much more slowly. The point I'm trying to make here is that the speed of advancement in any edition varies greatly with group. Because there is such a huge variance, I tend to be careful in making broad sweeping generalizations. When I do so about 1e, people smack me down for it. But, simply making blanket statements about the speed of leveling isn't true. It is true for you, but, not for the game.

Still 60 sessions in out AoW campaign from 1-20 is incredibly fast. With you example, it would take about a hundred sessions. What I would like to see is 125-150 sessions to do this in. At the fast rate you are still getting to know your character by the time you level. You miss some of the more siblime and rarely used abilities that can add to flavor and fun.

That is very fast. In my World's Largest Dungeon game, we finished 80 sessions at an APL of 15. And, the last 7 or 8 sessions, I was giving xp out like candy because I knew we were ending the game. By session 70, the party was about 12th, maybe 13th. Again, 4-6 sessions to level.

Also note that I kill PC's fairly regularly. That tends to slow down advancement drastically as well. When someone gets raised 5 times over the course of a campaign, that's quite a bit of lost xp.

IMHO, 100 sessions to hit level 20 isn't a bad thing. That's a 2 year campaign. Not many people keep a game going that long and one year tends to be the norm. That puts most campaigns nicely in the sweet spot and the majority of DM's don't really have to fuss about the high level stuff all that much.