D&D General Starting PC age? [poll]

[BookBarbarian]

Unrelated, but I love your user title

Yes!!!

I was so proud of myself for coming up with it.

Thank you for your validation!

 

[TwoSix]

True.

I like that in Adventures in MIddle-earth it's assumed that there is significant downtime between Adventures. The Mirkwood campaign spans 30+ years. Enough that Human character could long have since retired before reaching the end. Also Enough that I can really justify 19 level increases.

Yea, it's difficult to run the usually "1-20 in a year or two" pace of modern D&D without assuming the PCs have some sort of special ta'veren type destiny, which just naturally lends itself to characters just starting adulthood.

 

[Haffrung]

Yea, it's difficult to run the usually "1-20 in a year or two" pace of modern D&D without assuming the PCs have some sort of special ta'veren type destiny, which just naturally lends itself to characters just starting adulthood.

It is interesting how that change in the game came about. The 1-20 campaign was never the default back in the day. In almost 20 years of playing AD&D, I think we had a party reach 12th level twice.

Then there's the pace. Why do modern campaigns take 6 months to maybe a year tops in game-world time? Because of the save-the-world format. Hard to play out a campaign over 5 or 6 years of game-world time when there's a ticking clock before the evil wizard opens the gates to the Abyss.

I've mulled over returning to some sort of training requirements, where a PC needs to train for 1 week x new level before gaining a level. That would make for a more natural game-world pace. Of course, it would also limit the type of campaign you could run.

 

[rgoodbb]

My befuddled and forgetful human wizard started a Strahd campaign at level 1 in his mid-eighties

My very low intelligence Goblin Druid started at 5th level in his late fifties.

Soon a daily d20 roll will see a 1 signify that they naturally don't wake up the next morning

I think it is a nice thing to explore

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Had to go with Lemonade. Ever since I could remember, I played characters that kinda "popped into my head" during character creation. Sometimes I'd roll on Age, sometimes not (for the record, I'm mostly a 1e AD&D guy but started with B/X in '80/'81. It all depended on what I "felt" the character was and how I pictured them in my head (both physically and emotionally/mentally).

I've played PC's as young as 15 I think, and as old as "around 70" (iirc). Most of the time they tend to fall into the 25 to 35 range. I myself will hit the big five-oh in about two months, but even when I was in my teens and early 20's, my PC's (when I got to play) tended towards that range. Younger than 25 and it gets harder to keep them alive as well as "feel" like they have some vested interest in staying alive for the future. Older than about 35 and they almost always end up with much more reasonable and mundane goals in mind (re: "Well, guys, after that last dungeon, I've got slightly more than 10k in gold. I'm finally going to get that grape farm I always wanted and start making my own wine. It's been nice, but only idiots keep adventuring when they don't have to. C'ya!". ).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Shiroiken]

It depends on the campaign and character idea. Starting at lower levels, I tend to player younger characters. I have played quite a few middle aged characters, and even a few old characters, so long as their was a logical reason behind it that worked with the campaign. I played an old elf archiologist who was seeking out lost elven high magic, which fit with the party's exploration locations.