Tiers as Treasure

[I'm A Banana]

So, the L&L column this week has me thinking about ways that groups can opt into changing the tone of their game, without it being forced, and I think the title gives you the handy-dandy shorthand for my idea here.

Basically: The DM decides when and if such a change happens, by rewarding a tier-change as treasure.

What do you think?

Longwinded Diatribe
So, say everyone starts out in the "Zero" tier of the zero-to-hero-to-demigod continuum. You're a first-level street sweeper/rat slayer.

BUT WAIT! Your DM wants you to feel like a hero right out the gate, so he awards every character Heroic Tier right off the bat. That means that you come with increased reputation, increased capabilities, and better-than-average ability. You're no mere rat-slayer, now you've killed trolls! You're the best swordsman in town! Go you!

So you go on a few adventures -- maybe one, maybe 6,000. When the DM decides he's had enough of everyone being heroes, he thinks, "Well. Time to change things up," and after your next troll-murdering holiday, he awards you, say, Champion Tier.

Champion Tier comes with a keep. And followers. And land management. You're a fancy-arse lord now, and while you can still go off and slay trolls, you may have bigger concerns. Or not. Really depends on how tired you are of this or that.

After a few months of this, the DM decides to take it up a Notch, and make you Minecraft Tier. Wait.

Try that again: After a few months of this, the DM decides everyone has had enough of peasant revolts and pits the party against a great dragon. Amongst the dragon's items is a mystical artifact that can grant godhood. You've now been awarded Epic Tier. Awesome. You're the best thing this world has to offer. Orcs can no longer threaten your pies.

What This Means for Numbers
Basically, this is E6. With Speedbumps. You can spend 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or whatever levels in the Zero Tier, without ever changing the way your game is played. At a certain point (circa level 5? level 10?) you stop gaining vertical increases (your Gettin' Stuff Done +5 doesn't become +Gettin' Stuff Done +6 at your next level, it stays +5), and you instead gain breadth (your Gettin' Stuff Done +5 is joined by, say, Also Chewin' Bubblegum +3).

When your DM is genenerous and makes you a hero or a lord or a god, you cross the speedbump. Now you gain vertical increases start racking up again -- you can increase your +5 all the way up to +10. Then, you hit another speedbump (plateu, mortal threshold, whateverthehell). You can't get to +11, though you can get a lot of different +10's.

What This Means For DMs
You control your game's feel. Simply by virtue of awarding XP, your game's style never has to change. If you want to start off the game higher-powered, maybe play as gods for a while, you don't need to start at level NINE THOUSAAAAAND, you can simply be level 1, and have the Epic Tier award. If Zero doesn't appeal to you, start at level 1, and have the Heroic Tier award.

You can stay within that feel forever, if you want. You control the precise point at which the game changes.

Because of that, you can also make BIG TIME awards. Give your players a Tier, and it will feel magifnificent. You don't scrimp and save for your keep on the borderlands, purchasing it by the GP, your DM hands it to you on a silver platter and says, "Congrats. You're a king. Saucy Wenches be all up ons." It's not something a lot of players get all the time. It's not some more gems or some more GP. It's significant.

And thus, you can control directly how your game changes over time -- whenever you want, and not a moment before, you introduce a new Tier. Interestingly, you can also TAKE AWAY tiers, which is a fascinating gameplay dimension. Guess what happened when you failed to stop the orc invasion? They busted up your house. You're no longer a king. Now you know what it feels like to be a Roman, Jerkucles.

This also kind of helps beat the Quadratic Wizard vs. Linear Fighter into shape, too. The Wizard can create alternate dimensions -- when they are Epic Tier. And at that same time, the Fighter is Epic Tier too -- demigod, Hercules, Achilles-level stuff. Clearly capable of things a bit supernatural in nature.

Don't want a supernatural fighter? Okay, you can stop circa Hero or Champion tier. Your fighter still gains awesome powers, but he's not wrestling rivers. Simultaneously, the wizard isn't making demiplanes (though he's probably making the laws of physics dance around in a tutu for him on a regular basis).

The more I ponder this, the more it seems like this idea is a nice fix for the dillema.

 

[Boarstorm]

Spread experience, etc.

In a word, however: YES.

While I'm not certain how you'd do with Epic Tier slapped onto level 1 characters, I think this idea is almost exactly how Tiers should be handled.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Yes. I think this is the direction we should be heading. Interestingly, this approach will require a redesign of all spells. A spell will have a general effect, and a magnitude for each tier. A zero tier magic missile will give someone a nosebleed and an epic magic missile will punch holes through the walls of Babylon. It's not just a difference in the dice used, it behooves completely different expectations of what a spell can accomplish.

 

[Gadget]

Sounds interesting...yet I'm having a tough time seeing how the champion tier (as described) requires raising the limit on Gettin' stuff done to +10 (unless it is raising the limit on Collect da taxes). Seems to me that the champion (or Lord) tier could be applied independent of the personal power of the character without necessarily making characters more uber.

 

[LostSoul]

I like it.

I'd rather the assumption was that players would drive tier changes, but if designed well enough I guess you could do that anyway.

 

[Boarstorm]

I like it.

I'd rather the assumption was that players would drive tier changes, but if designed well enough I guess you could do that anyway.

To an extent, I think this system IS player-driven -- at least, it is in the way I would use it as a DM.

What I mean by that is I wouldn't award a "tier level" unless the players either a) requested it and then attempted to earn it in-game; or b) it was an organic consequence of the PCs in-game actions, wanted or not.

 

[FireLance]

I'm not convinced that the style and type of gameplay engaged in necessarily needs to be tied to levels, though. Domain management does not need to come in only at 10th (or whatever) level - look at the 2e Birthright setting. In the same vein, I should mention another 2e setting that turned another D&D assumption - that planar travel is the province of high-level characters - on its head: the Planescape setting.

On the other hand, some things probably should be tied to level, or at least to personal power, which is usually the same thing. It might be amusing to think of 1st-level demigods who might die from a lucky hit from an orc (and it might actually work for some people), but it's not the type of campaign that would appeal to me much. Then again, what sort of gameplay changes would a transition to the demigod tier bring about? If it's just a matter of taking on bigger and badder monsters, there is no real change in gameplay. If it's divine politics and growing churches, it's just another version of domain management. If it's about promoting philosophies, it can be done at any level.

I think I would prefer the idea of these gameplay styles as separate rules modules which the DM and players could choose to adopt, or not, as they wish. So, in addition to playing Dungeons and Dragons, each gaming group could decide whether they also want to play Fame and Fortune, Aristocrats and Armies, or Philosophies and Proselytization.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sounds interesting...yet I'm having a tough time seeing how the champion tier (as described) requires raising the limit on Gettin' stuff done to +10 (unless it is raising the limit on Collect da taxes). Seems to me that the champion (or Lord) tier could be applied independent of the personal power of the character without necessarily making characters more uber.

It's a good point. Linking possible bonuses to tier like I proposed only makes sense if the tiers are explicitly kind of supernatural (even if it's a vague sort of supernatural spirit of heroism or whatever). In that light, you might think of the Champion Tier as sort of a "divine kingship" -- you're not just a handy leader, you represent some sort of supernatural leadership quality, pulling on people's souls the way only a true scion of the Rightful Throne ever could. You're no longer just someone that they look up to (> Heroic), you're not really challenging Thor to a wrestling match (< Epic), but you're not just some mundane noble, either -- you're an inspiration, a scion, a force of nature, a representative of the land itself, or the divine spirits that rule it.

Or just ditch it as its own tier. But yeah, it's only a naked idea.

I'm not convinced that the style and type of gameplay engaged in necessarily needs to be tied to levels, though.

I think a Tier Award could happen at any level. You'd just start with the bonuses -- if you start gameplay as a god, and start at Epic Tier, you are mechanically as potent as, let's say, a 20th-level character vertically (+20 to Doin' Stuff!), but maybe not horizontally (No other skills), even if you're only a Level 1 Fighter. You're a GOD, so even if there's some mortal down there who knows a few more tricks than you, you can smack him around easily with your one trick. Zeus don't need to know the whole Spell Compendium, he just needs a magic javelin, and PEW PEW PEW, everyone listens.

So, for Birthright, maybe you start with the Champion Tier.

Or not. Planescape features easy planar travel, but I'd say most of the PS characters I've interfaced with wouldn't rank above Heroic. The setting's pretty gritty for all the gods and stuff floating around (You're a powerful githzerai from the plane of Limbo! Aaaaand, you're a ratcatcher.) Or, if you wanted to play a PS game more about becoming a god and stomping around Ysgard, you can get an Epic Tier award pretty quick!

One of the advantages to this system, I think, is that it's not tightly tied to level, even if it's tied to power. After about 5 or 10 levels, you just stop getting +1's to things (and instead learn new things) until you hit a new Tier. The "baseline" could be anywhere, since, presumably, your enemies have the same baseline. You shouldn't be fighting orcs at Epic tier, you should be fighting the Orc Pantheon. At Zero Tier, you won't be fighting the Orc Pantheon no matter how many levels you gain -- best you can do is hope to fight an orc or two, maybe with three other folks backing you up.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Alternately, for 1st level characters with god-like ability from the appropriate tiers--they are gods, but they aren't much in the god department. An orc can't kill them. Heck, a thousand orcs can't kill them unless the character is pinned in place by another, stronger diety. OTOH, such a character can't accomplish much more than a normal 1st level character. Basically, the god-like powers at 1st level are immortality (to most things), a few minor but snazzy defenses and information-gathering abilities--and that's about it. If you want to go smite a legion of orcs, you have to go do it one at a time.

Other suggestions:

• There is no express need for all such "tiers" to stack on on top of the other. It's possible that the gutter rat/heroic/champion/epic tier is totally independent of the penniless wanderer/adventurer of fortune/mechants and land owners/rules and shakers tiers.
• But you can go more exotic than that. It's possible that there is a set of "crafting" tiers that range from "we don't do that" all the way to building artifacts, or other tiers that are binary instead of a set (e.g. you've got the mark of the dragon or you don't).

 

[Argyle King]

As a player, if I didn't want to start going vertical again yet, could I choose to remain at a lower tier for longer?