What I miss most

[MerricB]

Ah, but that article is about OD&D, and in the designer note articles around the development of AD&D one of the stated design goals was to slow down progression a bit, in order to increase the playable lifespan of the game. Gygax (or maybe Lawrence Schick, I don't remember which one actually wrote the specific article I'm thinking of)

Can you remember where that article was?

claimed that the most active groups were able to "exhaust" the possibilities of OD&D in about a year of play, and that it was hoped that with AD&D it would take more like 3-4 years for that to happen (which is, of course, funny when nowadays there are campaigns that have been going nonstop for 20+ years). So 6th level after a year of weekly play is probably about right for AD&D.

I feel the big difference about AD&D comes at the upper levels (7+) compared to D&D, with much better monsters, spells, magic items, etc. Once you hit 8th or so in oD&D, there wasn't really that much more to conquer, but 7-12 were fleshed out a bunch in AD&D.

For oD&D+Greyhawk, I feel the rate of XP gain is on a parity with AD&D. Of course, role-playing/narrative-heavy games will tend to be slower, but that isn't exactly how the game was expected to be played!

Of course, a lot of my assumptions about level gain are based on the campaigns I played... which were using official AD&D modules. I wonder how much my DM fiddled things?

If you assume 1 level per six sessions (I think that's a standard placed in one of the Mentzer boxed sets of the BECM game), that means after a year of play you should be about 8-9th level.

Cheers!

 

[justanobody]

So 6th level after a year of weekly play is probably about right for AD&D.

That seems about right.

How long, in real time, does it take for a character to reach 9th level?
The answer to this one depends on how often you play, with whom you play, and whether or not you are really following the rules. In some Lake Geneva campaigns, it would take you about a year to reach 9th level if you played the same character once or twice a week.

Closest I can find to any of those articles. Noting that is playing twice a week, so double that time to 2 years to 9th level if only playing once a week, and also the bolded part....could even speed up the time scale a bit because the amount of meat grinders found to offer XP.

So add another year, and you could extrapolate this to say the average players, those not the designers andgods of D&D, could probably play at a greatly decreased rate at only once per week, and biweekly would even slow the advancement pace down even more.

 

[justanobody]

nothing to see here move along.

 

[T. Foster]

Can you remember where that article was?

The Dragon #28 (Aug. 1979), pp. 5-6: The Dungeon Masters Guide Developers' Notes .... And a Few Words With the Author. A couple of key quotes:

With D&D, the DM can find that unless he or she had been extremely careful, one winds up with a campaign that lasts six weeks, or maybe even six months, but then everybody is beyond the parameters of the rules. With AD&D, growth is slower, it’s more structured, and it’s designed so that you won’t run out of game in six weeks, or six months. Perhaps in six years you will, but that’s a whole different story.

players and referees are going to say, “Thanks a lot,” when it’s all done, because all the work they put into setting up a game won’t go down the tubes in such a short time, as it would with D&D— not in all cases, but in most cases. D&D tends to allow too rapid growth of player-characters and the game gets beyond the control of the DM far too quickly. In AD&D, all of these problems have been taken care of. The character classes have more balance, and the growth rate of player-characters is kept in check far more closely. For the amount of work that a DM has to put in—probably two hours for every hour of play—you’re going to get some real returns, instead of a short-lived campaign.

Upon re-reading, this doesn't necessarily contradict the earlier claim that about a year of active (weekly or more) play should get a character up to 9th level as I thought it did. Gary may well have still had that speed of progression in mind, and was intending with AD&D not to slow it down but rather simply to discourage campaigns from exceeding it -- to decrease the likelihood of campaigns where characters could achieve 9th level or higher in a few weeks or months of play instead of a year+.

 

[S'mon]

If you assume 1 level per six sessions (I think that's a standard placed in one of the Mentzer boxed sets of the BECM game), that means after a year of play you should be about 8-9th level.

BECMI recommends 1 per 5 as I recall, certainly the RC does.

Personally, at school we played 1e daily at lunch, so around 180-200 45 minute sessions per year, I seem to recall that getting from 3rd to 10th level took several years.

 

[Lanefan]

I see this sentiment a bit, but I have to wonder at what "middling" levels are. It was pretty much expected that after a year of play, your PCs would hit 10th level, and that was high level for AD&D. After that, advancement would pretty much stop (and, to some extent, it was expected you'd retire your PCs). If you had a good DM, then you could continue playing for a while, of course.

Groups that didn't give XP for treasure were playing very much against the style of 1st edition AD&D and Basic D&D, where about 80% of XP was likely to come from treasure found.

Against the style, perhaps, but that's how everyone I've known has played it...and the advancement slows to a useful rate when it's done that way.

10th level after a year defeats the purpose of being able to play the same campaign (maybe not the same characters; they do die, after all) for 5-15 years and still have it vaguely playable at the end. That, and the DM gets to use more modules and-or ideas at each level.

Lanefan

 

[teitan]

I didn't exactly play 2E as written back during those days, but retiring the game sometime around level 10 was almost universal, and something that as a DM I was very strict about. Players generally favored retiring the game because the multiclass characters began to stop gaining levels, and as a DM, the game just worked better at lower levels.

I heard rumors of higher level AD&D games, but I'd never seen one when I was a player/DM.

In the game I played mentioned above we got to level 20. By middling levels I meant level 7-14 or thereabouts. Our DM dropped XP when we got to level 14 and just advanced us in level every few sessions and we played three to four times a week in the summers and once a week during the school year. It was awesome.

 

[Drowbane]

My most storied 2e character reached 13th level in just over 5yrs of play.

 

[Ant]

I solved this problem of missing things from older systems by starting my BECMI and OD&D games. Best gaming choice I ever made.

 

[Luce]

I miss the wonder of magic It used to be much less common. A new wand is exciting at any level. Magic weapons with special perks-unbreakable, poison testing. Things that create atmosphere or inspire creative thinking.
The sense of heroism without taking away the feeling of danger, Let me elaborate: PC can face(and potentially win against) very strong opponents, if they dare. At the same time, they better not underestimate any opponent. to give an example: Ex Keraptis Cum Amore(dungeon 77) PCs as low as 8 level will face a 25l Suel lich and his pets, but also gargoyles and gas spores. And while it is obvious which is the most dangerous encounter, the other two are also chalanging and dangerous.

About the rate of advansment: I too liked the slower climb. It took my players to raise to 13th level little more then 3 years. The DMG (2ed) states that the rate varies between 1 to 10 adventures (not sessions) per level raise. To my experience, it takes about 4-5 adventure (from dungeon) to advance while you are in the 3-11 level range. As a side note: I remember running Return to the Tomb of Horrors box with a group of 6 for 11L PCs and nobody, not even the Thief advanced a level. That supprised me, but the players did not complain TOO much.