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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9117069" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Even epic fantasy doesn't always do "level up" type narratives. Beowulf? He begins being able to do things like swim for multiple days straight in armor. The oldest epic we have, the Epic of Gilgamesh? The man is literally 2/3 god from birth, and starts out a king so overwhelmingly powerful, the gods themselves must craft an opponent for him to make him change his ways. Herakles, Perseus, Theseus, Aeneas? Almost all of them start as royalty or nobility of some kind, most of them are children or grandchildren of gods, and several of them can perform feats of strength from their youth that even well-trained soldiers can't match. Even Odysseus, the Greek hero most closely linked to trickery and cunning rather than strength, is stronger than most men, the grandson of Hermes, and king of Ithaca.Of the Hobbits, it's also pretty clear that their journey hurts them almost as much as it steels them. Frodo is left a broken man for the rest of his days. Bilbo is wrung dry due to leaving the ring behind. Of the actual ring-bearers, only Samwise comes out unequivocally stronger than he was before, and he also (a) held the ring for the shortest amount of time, and (b) showed by far the greatest resilience against its temptations, with the Ring seemingly unable to tempt him. Merry and Pippin do grow rather a lot, but they also have by far the less arduous adventure--very literally getting "less experience" than Frodo and Sam.Frankly, I would argue the place we find the most "level up" narratives is actually fairy tales. Which is rather fitting, since that was the actual inspiration for C.S. Lewis. Not the Greek epics (which are, you may note, mostly relegated to setting and background), not the Norse sagas, but the whimsical and often dangerous world of classic fairy tales. And fairy tales are where Campbell's thesis comes closest to being kinda-sorta mostly right-ish, if you ignore his demand that it be universal, hegemonic, and that every part of his Journey be present.I think there's room here to say there are different kinds of advancement. And, believe it or not, MMORPGs have a great way of describing the two that most clearly come to mind (there may be other kinds as well, of course.)In an MMO, gaining levels is a key feature. Partially, this is because Big Number Go Up feels good. You can also argue that getting superior gear, once you're at max level, is effectively just a continuation of the levelling proces--you have to put in work to get rare items or currency to buy new items, which increase your amount-of-power so you can do more things. Same idea, just the source of the numbers has changed.But there's another, completely distinct form of advancement in MMOs: Achievements. Sometimes you get them for doing a lot of something. Sometimes, for completing a very difficult task. Sometimes, for completing a long and complicated quest, e.g. crafting a legendary item or piecing together a deep mystery. Sometimes for exploring every corner of the realm. Etc., etc. These cannot be mapped to the "level up" process, because they aren't about advancement along a track; they're about reaching some kind of destination intended to be meaningful. The difference between marking a journey by the number of miles travelled vs the set of scenic places visited. Both are ways of communicating how much a journey affected someone; different people will get more out of one or the other (or, for those lucky few, draw near-equal bounty from both.)That's where a story-focused game's advancement lies, and in part why folks interested in story advancement don't get that much joy out of level-type advancement. Who cares what level you are, if you save the Kingdom of Placitia, or recover the Lost Scrolls of Incognita the Diviner, or build the first Power-Wrought weapon in a thousand years, or go back in time and prevent the fall of Arkhosia, or assembling the Sword of Seven Towers by resurrecting your dead wife, or whatever else? While they can't be universally compared the way levels and gold pieces can, they have far greater personal meaning, the moments of triumph (and tragedy, those too can be achievements of a darker sort!) that filled a story with weight and worth.Well, uh...believe it or not, that's kind of where my game is at. Like there will eventually be a point where we've wrapped up all the major stuff that has mattered to the characters, but we're nowhere near it yet. At this point, we're still at absolute least a year away from resolving all of the open questions, and that's a very optimistic estimate. By the time we get to that point, we'll have been playing six to seven years of the same campaign. I think my players, if they even wish to keep playing Dungeon World, would value and appreciate the change of pace at that point!</blockquote>

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