Noting the snide comments directed at me, I’ll still try to address the questions asked.
OK, so you're not factoring difficulties but you're also not including XP for magic items.
”Difficulties”? Something other than overcoming the monsters and such? What are you meaning?
I notice that you still didn't address the issue of wasted excess XP (i.e. if a character has 1,000 XP going into the adventure, needs 1,501 XP to attain 2nd level, and gains 10,000 XP from the adventure (which, going straight by the chart, would be enough to put him at 4th level) he only gets 501 XP (enough to hit 2nd level) and stops there, and the remaining 9,499 XP are lost/wasted) which does make a difference,
First, it is my understanding that the xp would only stop one point short of the *second* level, not at the absolute bottom of the immediate next level. So, in your example, the character would go up to 3,000 (1 short of the amount [3,001] needed for 3rd level). [It was a common D&D gag to talk about killing a rat back at the inn after the adventure so you could get that 1 more xp needed to level again.]
Secondly, note that other than the initial Moathouse adventure, the PCs don’t gain more than one character level per “dungeon level”. And even more, I doubt the PCs would clear a whole dungeon level in one [~4-hour] game session, so a windfall of xp all at one time is not likely, and is not seen in the data I’ve laid out.
Thirdly, if this was an issue, how would someone taking such data work around this? Should I be figuring and mapping how far the hypothetical party might get in a game session, and then figure up the xp for that game session?
I’ve not listed the data in any game session grouping. Going from 1st level to 8th level is not accomplished in 4 game sessions (the number of posts I’ve made with the data). The Moathouse, the Last Tower and Upper Ruins, Dungeon Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 (6 “dungeon levels”, hundreds of encounter areas) could well take 40 game sessions (over 10-12 months Real Time) to get through. The PCs would be getting xp in small or moderate sized chunks (gaining a level every 5-6 game sessions), not in one big 10,000 xp wave.
but, y'know, whatever. Maybe no one you knew growing up used that rule either. It's your "study" so I guess you can apply whatever rules and assumptions you want.
Actually, my serious groups all did use the rule of no more than one level at a time (not that we ever came close to more than one level at a time, anyway). I did meet kids who claimed to gain levels in leaps and bounds, but that didn’t happen in my games.
Now maybe I’m reading these posts incorrectly, but it seems to me that there is a strong undercurrent of disbelief about the data. Instead of asking questions and pointing things out to make sure I’m taking all reasonable things into account, it reads like some are trying to poke holes in the data and/or cast aspersions on my honesty. I’m wondering why.
Is it unbelievable that AD&D1 and D&D3 characters might gain levels at about the same rate, judging from the iconic/official adventure modules? What is the resistance to the data, here? I mean, some of the points being asked about here really seem like stretches. And the subtle hints that I’m making up stuff, ignoring rules, or making unreasonable assumptions seem a little catty. Not that I’m infallible, but I’m not biased on this subject either. (I expected slower AD&D1 advancement and faster D&D3 advancement, too.)
If you stick around for a while, you’ll see that the D&D3 group does eventually pull ahead in the level advancement rate, later. (It happens at around “name level.”) But if you want to work so hard to discredit the data in the beginning, I guess the later data will be dismissed as well.
Quasqueton
