Time between level-ups: always the same or increasing?

[kitsune9]

I prefer a steady rate because I want my campaigns to go from 1st to 20th level in about 2 - 3 years based on our game habits.

 

[howandwhy99]

Advancement really isn't a matter of time for me. It sort of is as every new level is evenly advancing in difficulty from the last, but it is the players who are asked to overcome the difficulty at the pace they can perform or work up to.

At 1st level some players may advance out of 1st level difficulty very quickly. Others may take longer. Higher levels are more difficult and liable to take longer to progress through for everyone. But the increase in difficulty is steady across each increase in level.

 

[fba827]

More or less my group doesn't track xp any more and levels up as a narrative thing rather than quantitative thing.

Having said that, if i *DID* track xp for level up progressions, between the choices presented here, i'd prefer a steady progression. Why? slowing-down might make sense in its own way, i know from past experiences of that type of progression that i'd just get really bored at a certain point saying to myself "i'm just using these same old spells yet again... " and probably get bored of the character (if the next level takes "too long" by my own subjective standards) by the time i got to the next level.

 

[trancejeremy]

I don't even track XP anymore. I level them when I am done using all the monsters and NPC's I want to for their current level. So I advance them to allow me to use new sets of level appropriate opponents involved in my over arching story lines.

I've always found that very unsatisfying, because you're not being rewarded or judged on what you've done, but simply by DM Fiat.

 

[Li Shenron]

Other?

Leveling should linger in the games 'sweet spot'. The game should end at some point after the sweet spot is hit.

(...)

All your examples sound solidly in the "slowing-down" category to me

 

[Li Shenron]

More or less my group doesn't track xp any more and levels up as a narrative thing rather than quantitative thing.

Having said that, if i *DID* track xp for level up progressions, between the choices presented here, i'd prefer a steady progression.

Even if you don't use XP at all, your game still has a level progression!

 

[S'mon]

Re number sessions to level - my old school sandbox games (Labyrinth Lord, Pathfinder Beginner Box) have all PCs start at 1st level, there is no 'campaign advancement' as such and the average party level varies a lot from session to session depending on who is present, eg in my PBB game we went from 1 2nd & 2 3rd level PCs a few sessions ago, to 2 1st and 2 2nd last night, with a 4th level PC absent - 1 1st & 1 2nd level PC survived the session. But usually a PC who survives ca 2-5 sessions should level up, fewer at 1st level, more at higher level.

My 4e game is a typical new school 'progress quest' type game with a single Party Level that progresses fairly regularly, the exact rate depending on the rate of PC accomplishments. Again the advancement rate is 2-5 sessions per level, and has averaged just over 3 sessions per level so far (just hit 9th after 25 sessions). We tend to average a bit over 2.5 hours actual gaming per 7pm-10pm fortnightly session, so average is about 8 hours per level. To get that rate in 4e I use half hp/full XP monsters and plenty of Quest XP, DMG 2 Roleplay XP, etc. 4e is supposed to give 1 level per 10 hours play, but when I've used by the book XP it was more like 1 level per 16-20 hours, too slow for my taste given the more gradualist nature of 4e power-ups; you roughly double in power per +4 levels rather than 3e/PF's x2 per +2 levels. The gradualist progression does make 4e well suited to steady-state advancement and long-term play, I have no worry about PCs 'out levelling' the campaign, whereas my Pathfinder BB setup is only really designed for PCs in the 1-5 range.

 

[Lanefan]

You changed metrics in midstream here. Can you clarify? 1 level/3 sessions is using Session as a unit of measure. 1 level/4-6 months is using Months.

How many sessions do you have per month or year to give your former statement some context with the latter statement?

Fair point - I always assume weekly evening sessions, or as close to that as life allows.

Guess that depends how you define "long campaign". For me, anything that hits a double-digit number of sessions is a "long campaign".

Long to me is double-digit number of years...see my .sig... Also note there's many tricks to slowing a game's advancement down - multiple parties, character turnover and cycling, etc. - to make it last longer.

10 sessions is, give or take, about the average length of a single decent-size adventure for us.
[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] makes a great point about finding the sweet spot and staying there as long as possible. Said sweet spot is different for each edition, and to a lesser extent for each group.

Lanefan

 

[Starfox]

prefer a slowing progression; feels more natural to me. But if I have a limited arc of scenarios to sun, such as an adventure path, I tend to use stable progression anyway - its simplest. Also, in a level system, progression feels really slow and chunky if you make it too slow. As you only develop when you gain levels, it feels you have to gain levels now and then or feel like your progress has been entirely arrested.

 

[Storminator]

I don't even track XP anymore. I level them when I am done using all the monsters and NPC's I want to for their current level. So I advance them to allow me to use new sets of level appropriate opponents involved in my over arching story lines.

I use a similar technique. My players decide when they want to level up. Then I say "ok." Very complicated . . .

PS