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General Tabletop Discussion
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What proportion of the population are adventurers?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7952074" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Late to the party, but just to touch a couple of points raised earlier:</p><p></p><p>There's two questions in one being asked in the title of this thread, and the answer depends which of the two you read it as. (oh, and for these purposes I'm only looking at the able-enough-bodied non-child population)</p><p></p><p>One is "what proportion of the population spend (or have spent) time in the field adventuring like the PCs do?".</p><p></p><p>The other is "what proportion of the population are capable of gaining levels in a class, whether they ever actually do so or not?".</p><p></p><p>My answer to the second is "most, close to all". Non-adventuring people can still gain levels in a class, only much more slowly than field adventurers do. Anyone in an army who survives a battle is going to get some xp for it; do this long enough and you'll start rising in level. Any street thief is slowly going to gain xp and levels as a Rogue or Thief as time goes by. And so on; and not everyone will ever gain any xp at all even though they in theory can.</p><p></p><p>My answer to the first is probably somewhat higher than many here, in that I see field adventuring as something quite a few people would do - or try - when young, in hopes of getting rich quick. I've never given much thought to actual numbers, but 1 in 500 overall being currently active adventurers (or trying to be) and at least the same again being retired isn't a big stretch. The majority of these adventurers would be attached to armies as scouts, mercenaries, elite soldiers, field medics, and so forth.</p><p></p><p>PCs and NPCs are the same in any game I run; if an NPC Priest can cast 3rd level spells it's because he's at least a 5th-level Cleric, end of story.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7952074, member: 29398"] Late to the party, but just to touch a couple of points raised earlier: There's two questions in one being asked in the title of this thread, and the answer depends which of the two you read it as. (oh, and for these purposes I'm only looking at the able-enough-bodied non-child population) One is "what proportion of the population spend (or have spent) time in the field adventuring like the PCs do?". The other is "what proportion of the population are capable of gaining levels in a class, whether they ever actually do so or not?". My answer to the second is "most, close to all". Non-adventuring people can still gain levels in a class, only much more slowly than field adventurers do. Anyone in an army who survives a battle is going to get some xp for it; do this long enough and you'll start rising in level. Any street thief is slowly going to gain xp and levels as a Rogue or Thief as time goes by. And so on; and not everyone will ever gain any xp at all even though they in theory can. My answer to the first is probably somewhat higher than many here, in that I see field adventuring as something quite a few people would do - or try - when young, in hopes of getting rich quick. I've never given much thought to actual numbers, but 1 in 500 overall being currently active adventurers (or trying to be) and at least the same again being retired isn't a big stretch. The majority of these adventurers would be attached to armies as scouts, mercenaries, elite soldiers, field medics, and so forth. PCs and NPCs are the same in any game I run; if an NPC Priest can cast 3rd level spells it's because he's at least a 5th-level Cleric, end of story. [/QUOTE]
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