Treasure and leveling comparisons: AD&D1, B/ED&D, and D&D3 - updated 11-17-08 (Q1)

[Raven Crowking]

As far as the numbers go, Q is spot on.

As far as the conclusions some draw from it, I have asked them to explain why, and thus far their responses have been entirely unconvincing.

The problem is that this is like the moon landing. I was there, and involved in playing 1e. I know what leveling was like at my table. I played 1e in several US States, with over 100 individual players and DMs. I know what leveling was like at those tables. By extension, since those players were involved with other games, I know what they said about those other games as well.

My experience is that, at least within that dataset, approximately 1/3 of all treasure in a module was missed within the areas explored and that, most frequently, some portion of a module was not explored. Even recently, running KotB using 3e Search rules, we had the same rough ratio. The group explored less than 1/6th of the caverns, and left 1/3 of the treasure unfound in the areas they did explore.

Within my own games, the highest level PCs (earned legitimately) were 16th and 14th level....and they both belonged to the same player. One of those PCs (the 14th level fighter) is now a deity in my campaign setting (Julius Invincible), while the other was his father, a magic user. Examining the back of the 1e Rogues Gallery further demonstrates the comparatively low level of the game's "Big Names". If everyone leveled in 1e as in 3e, surely Gary Gygax would have gotten at least one character to 20th level by the time that book came out.......

Now, I know a guy who thinks that the moon landing was faked. He'll bring up photographic evidence, and he'll claim that this shadow or that reflection "proves" his assertation. When I point out that there are other potential interpretations of that same data -- and ones that much better gibe with my experience -- he acccuses me of being unwilling to accept the evidence.

"Daniel has determined the answer," he says, "and shall not be moved from it."

And, when we reach that point in the discussion, he, too, starts with the insults: "Your argument gets sillier and sillier.", "One wonder why you think your argument could ever be considered convincing.", "That's just ridiculous."

But here is the thing. Maybe the moon landing was faked. It is not impossible that the moon landing was faked. However, it is irrational to believe that the moon landing was faked unless the weight of evidence -- including how that evidence is interpretted -- is greater than the evidence against. And personal experience can and does count as evidence against. Just as Neil Armstrong would be harder to convince that the moon landing was faked.

When the evidence presented is insufficient to convince someone, merely repeating "Yes it is" is unlikely to change their mind.

OTOH, if you look upthread, I have described exactly what kind of analysis would change my mind. If you wanted to convince me, you would just have to supply the (correct) numbers.


RC

 

[Storm Raven]

As far as the numbers go, Q is spot on.

As far as the conclusions some draw from it, I have asked them to explain why, and thus far their responses have been entirely unconvincing.

Which conclusions do you dispute? That levelling in 1e modules didn't comport with the expected gain one would have to have to continue along a particular linked set of adventures? Or that the rate of levelling per adventure in 1e wasn't very similar to the rate of levelling in 3e?

Your claims that 1e was much harder to advance are based on two assertions (1) lots of treasure in 1e modules was hidden or otherwise hard to get unlike 3e adventures, and (2) 1e modules assumed you would not go to every part of the adventure, but 3e adventures assume you will.

But both of these claims are pretty easy to discredit on the 3e side. For example, in The Sunless Citadel, and entire section of the adventure, leading to the transformed troll-priest and a decent chunk of treasure, is hidden behind a non-obvious secret door leading to a series of rooms. It is just as likely that the PCs will miss that entire segment of the adventure as it is the PCs will miss the hidden gems in the Village of Hommlet foray into the Moathouse. In other words, the claim that they are dissimilar because everything in 3e is expected to be found can be easily disproven by looking at the modules. So that element is a wash, and we still end up with advancement that is likely to be relatively even.

 

[rkwoodard]

just to clarify

As far as the numbers go, Q is spot on.

As far as the conclusions some draw from it, I have asked them to explain why, and thus far their responses have been entirely unconvincing.


RC

The point of the thread is to show the treasure available in the 1st edition adventures and show that by comparison to 3rd edition, leveling would be the same or could be faster ?

The contention seems to be that just because the treasure is there you can not assume that the group gets it so therefore the leveling comparison's are not valid.

Is that correct?

RK

 

[Bullgrit]

As far as the numbers go, Q is spot on.

As far as the conclusions some draw from it, I have asked them to explain why, and thus far their responses have been entirely unconvincing.

What specific conclusions are you questioning? I can explain my conclusions, but it may not be my own you are asking about.

Bullgrit

 

[Raven Crowking]

The contention seems to be that just because the treasure is there you can not assume that the group gets it so therefore the leveling comparison's are not valid.

Is that correct?

RK

Pretty much correct.

I suggest that there are factors other than the presence or absence of treasure that are equally important in determining whether or not treasure is found: Area avaible for exploration, the size of the area that can be avoided while still accomplishing a main goal, factors that cause one to speed exploration (wandering monsters, limited light supply, poison gas, the Ghost Tower disappearing in the morning, etc., etc.).

In addition, rules can make a difference as to how you level. For example, in AD&D 1e, characters who gain enough XP to level cannot gain any more until they have trained. Nor can they gain enough XP in a single session to gain more than one level. Placement of treasure in such a setup can easily create cases where the PCs gain the treasure, but do not gain full XP value for it. This is especially true where time constraints exist that prevent the PCs from spending one or more weeks on training and then returning.

To make this last bit clearer, imagine you needed 10 XP to gain a level, and could only gain up to 19 XP at a time. Once you have gained 10 or more XP, you cannot gain more from further sessions until you level. Leveling requires a minimum of 1 week.

In such a setup, I can include 10,000,000 XP available in a single encounter, and you can still only gain one level.

Conversely, in a system where you automatically level whenever you have the XP to do so, you would be 1,000,000th level after that encounter.

Factors like this are as important to rates of leveling as the raw XP available are. Leaving them out of your calculations leaves a big hole in your conclusions.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

What specific conclusions are you questioning? I can explain my conclusions, but it may not be my own you are asking about.

Bullgrit

Bullgrit,

Please see the above post.

In addition:

(1) Characters are expected to follow linked series of TSR 1e modules sequentially without any additional adventures between them. Note that when these modules were originally presented, many (if not all) were published seperately with a space of time between their publication.

(2) Hidden treasure in 3e modules has the same impact on XP as in 1e modules.

As stated upthread, I very much agree that earlier 3e adventures were closer to 1e adventures in terms of layout and structure......certainly moreso than many 2e adventures. But I am not convinced that this has the same impact on leveling in 3e as it does in 1e.

Another way to look at it might be: In 3e, how many encounters do you need to "defeat" before leveling? In 1e, how many? If a module like KotB is a mini-campaign, meant to be played over many sessions, how does that compare to some of the later 3e modules? Is a "module" even the right unit of comparison?


RC

 

[Storm Raven]

(1) Characters are expected to follow linked series of TSR 1e modules sequentially without any additional adventures between them. Note that when these modules were originally presented, many (if not all) were published seperately with a space of time between their publication.

Oh, I think characters were supposed to follow a linked series in order, without additional material between them. What you are citing is merely a practical issue concerning the nature of publication. Some of the adventures, such as G1-G2-G3 and A3-A4 are clearly intended to follow directly one after another.

(2) Hidden treasure in 3e modules has the same impact on XP as in 1e modules.

3e has entire hidden areas in many modules that include encounters. That should have much the same effect as hidden treasure in a 1e module.

Another way to look at it might be: In 3e, how many encounters do you need to "defeat" before leveling? In 1e, how many? If a module like KotB is a mini-campaign, meant to be played over many sessions, how does that compare to some of the later 3e modules? Is a "module" even the right unit of comparison?

In 3e, the ratio suggested is 13 encounters per level.

Let's look at the Moathouse, where the Pcs are likely to go from 1st to 3rd level in 1e (so they can be even remotely ready for the Temple). The encounters listed (more or less in order) are:

1. Giant Frogs
2. Giant Spider
3. Bandits
4. Giant Snake
5. Giant Tick
6. Giant Lizard
7. Green Slime
8. Zombies
9. Ogre
10. Bugbears
11. Gnolls
12. Ghouls
13. Giant Crayfish
14. Lareth's Guards
15. Lareth

Doing the comparison "by encounter" makes it look like it may have been easier to level in 1e than 3e, since it only took 15 total encounters to potentially go from 1st to 3rd (and it is only 15 because I split Lareth from his guards, assuming he would stay holed up in his room until the PCs burst in on him, otherwise it would be 14 encounters).

Somehow I doubt this is what you expected.

 

[Obryn]

OK, I'm really confused by the shifting arguments here.

First off, I am going to guess that there's an argument about some imaginary Platonic Ideal of 1e that probably never existed. I mean, if 30% of groups (a made-up number) used the rules about training and only advancing one level per adventure, is it really a rule of AD&D 1e? I mean, I know it's a rule, but is it a rule that mattered? (Ditto, the ABCD grading...)

Were they not really playing AD&D if they ignored that rule? I think they were; it's a tradition of the game to house-rule, the DMG's admonitions against house-ruling notwithstanding. Of everything you could do, it's rather minor, IMO.

So honestly, is it a surprise that plenty of groups had fast levelling and found a lot of treasure, while other groups have slow levelling, use the training rules, and left half the loot in the dungeon? And other groups were somewhere in-between? And others never gave gold for XP so ended up advancing at a snail's pace?

I guess I'm confused because I don't even know if anyone is actually discussing the same game as anyone else in this thread.

I know that in my 1e game I'm running right now, my group pretty easily got to levels 3 or 4, depending, after finishing up the Moathouse. Of course, I'm not strict on the training rules because I'm running a ToEE campaign, not a full-scale AD&D sandbox. If I were strict on it, things would probably be different. But I don't think the fact that I'm not using the training rules means that I'm not playing AD&D. What's more, I'd hazard a guess that the training rules were some of the most-frequently-disregarded ones in the game.

So yeah. I think the data is very interesting, but I don't know that all of this matters, and I think it's completely plausible that 10 groups would have played in 10 different ways.

-O

 

[Raven Crowking]

So honestly, is it a surprise that plenty of groups had fast levelling and found a lot of treasure, while other groups have slow levelling, use the training rules, and left half the loot in the dungeon? And other groups were somewhere in-between? And others never gave gold for XP so ended up advancing at a snail's pace?

I guess I'm confused because I don't even know if anyone is actually discussing the same game as anyone else in this thread.

I gave you XP too recently to do so again, but you deserve XP for this post.

(Now we can discuss EN World leveling.....)


RC

 

[Bullgrit]

What specific conclusions are you questioning? I can explain my conclusions, but it may not be my own you are asking about.

Characters are expected to follow linked series of TSR 1e modules sequentially without any additional adventures between them.

This isn’t a conclusion. It’s a base assumption.

The PCs in this study followed the linked series of modules because it was:

1- A logical progression of play – T1-4 is one adventure, GDQ is a linked series, all written by the same author, and the levels follow appropriately.

2- The apparent assumption/expectation of the adventures, themselves – T1-4 is one adventure, GDQ is a linked series, all written by the same author, and the levels follow appropriately.

I don’t see how this could provoke an argument from anyone.

Hidden treasure in 3e modules has the same impact on XP as in 1e modules.

This isn’t a conclusion, either. I don’t know that anyone has even argued this idea.

Please see the above post.

The other post doesn’t list any conclusions, either. It only has statements of your own views.

I’m willing to explain my conclusions, but you have to actually identify, directly, the conclusions you take issue with.

Bullgrit