D&D 5E What's the rush? Has the "here and now" been replaced by the "next level" attitude?

[The Crimson Binome]

Who is so paralyzed by choosing a feat that can't fight orcs or loot tombs or save the world?

It's a question of focus. Sure, they fight orcs, but they're not in it for the fight or even for the loot - they're just in it for the experience points, so they can get to the next decision point and "finish building the character".

This thread is about the attitude of players, and the myriad of decisions in the meta-game is directly responsible for that shift in attitude.

Personally, I don't like this shift, because I don't care one whit about the meta-game and I just want to play the game. I'm glad that Next is working against system mastery, so I won't be forced to spend hours on end poring through countless tomes, working at the meta-game, just so I won't be completely trivialized once we finally get back to playing the actual game. I'd be fine if I never gained a level, so long as the character was minimally complex enough to permit interesting gameplay (similar to the E6 attitude).

 

[Celebrim]

You can't be that scary fire mage who a lord called to solve his goblin problem until you gain the fireballs by level or treasure.

What I'm trying to say is that this isn't an inherent feature of D&D, but a design choice you are making. If you don't like it, don't choose to play that way. It's quite possible to look at D&D and go:

Level 1 = Gritty
Level 3 = Heroic
Level 5 = Paragon
Level 7 = Epic

You don't need fireballs to kill goblins. By the time fireballs show up, old school CR 1/3rd goblins in a straight up fight are no longer a problem. Your party can slaughter them scores at a time. A 3rd level wizard with burning hands, scorching rays, flaming sphere, and a wand of 'flame dart' (ray of frost, only firey) is a hugely scary fire wizard that can leave a trail of scorched goblin bodies in his wake.

The relationship of your character to authority, the Lord in your example, is also something you make as a choice. If the lord is a 1st level expert, with a handful of 1st level warriors with 11,11,11,10,10,10 stat blocks, and a valley full of 1st level commoners, then even the 1st level Wizard with elite stats is a valueable resource that can be called on to face those dastardly and dangerous goblins.

Early on in the D&D inspired Magician: Apprentice, the hero casts a fireball, and everyone is astounded, "That's amazing. What you just did is impossible. Surely this is the most powerful wizard in the whole world!" Everything is a matter of perspective. If the most powerful wizards in your world are legendary 5th level characters, there is no expectation of needing fireball to be important. It's only when 5th level characters are pathetic or baseline, that you feel pathetic without fireball.

Nor can you be the master of your forest until to can kill all the orcs and their leader.

Sure, but it doesn't take enormously powerful characters before a party of them can slaughter CR 1/2 orcs, especially if a little care is taken.

D&D is not a game where you start with everything you need and just get better with levels.

I guess that depends on what you think you need. In early 1e, 1st level characters were so fragile that you needed 1-2 more hit die to have any sort of immunity to bad luck at all. Then everyone started using the rule that you didnt' die until -10 and things got a bit better. By 3e, starting with max hit points, good con, the possibility of a toughness feat, and not dying until -10 hit points, you've got lots of protection from luck and everything you need to have fun.

 

[JamesonCourage]

This is kind of a weird question to me, but I guess it resonates with a lot more people than I thought it would.

I've never really had this problem to any large extent. What I've found is that the more the players are interested in what's happening in-game, the more they focus on what's happening in-game. Yes, even when we're not playing.

Sure, between the sessions, I've helped build prestige classes with my players (years ago), or talked to the Sorcerer about what spell he'd take next, or whatever. And they looked forward to getting those things, obviously. At the same time, my players would spend more time talking about their plans for dealing with the invasion from the north, or wondering what was going on with many different NPCs, or focusing on a new potential threat and the implications of it, etc.

I've gone about getting them interested in what's going on in-game in a few ways over my decade as a GM. There are two that stand out to me:

• For my main group of players (mostly 3.X or my own RPG), I focused on building a setting that I thought was interesting, and I let them play in it. It was almost always sandbox-style, but I made sure to start them at a point in the timeline where the action was rising, and where they could get involved. The players being able to explore the setting, make relationships, change the world, learn new things, etc. are all very important to this type of play.
• My current method with my 4e group (which has one of my long term players in it) is more about finding hooks in their character concepts, and then pushing them based on those hooks. Because we have a Warpriest of The Raven Queen, that means we'll likely see Vecna, Orcus, and The Raven Queen stuff in the campaign. Because we have a wilden Scout, I'll be throwing in more aberrants for the party to interact with. In this method, bringing focus to player hooks, mechanical abilities, and the like are very important.

All of this matters in-game, though. None of the players are waiting around for stuff to get interesting in-game either way, and so their focus is very much on what is happening in-game. Do they think about leveling up? Yep, but it's more of an off-hand "it'll be cool when I get this" as compared to a more focused "I need to get this; I don't care about anything else until I get this."

Just my experience, of course. And, I admit, different players will handle things differently. All the same, I think that if they're interested and involved, that problem will basically die out for most players. Just my thoughts on it.

 

[am181d]

It is absolutely true that 3e and 4e encourage (but does not require) a greater emphasis on long-term, level-by-level character construction.

The conclusion that "therefore players today don't care about anything but leveling up" is ridiculous.

 

[howandwhy99]

What games are you playing where "here and now" is the traditional norm?

I tried out a free online MMO (no download necessary) the other day. There was a short conversation to start. A person on the stairs who died after I clicked "Fight". And my guy leveled.

Personally I prefer slow advancement. Very slow advancement, but still the option to improve if I want - me at the game and my character. Self improvement is pretty common motivator. Not something games are about to ditch. But smelling the roses is every bit as important too. Maybe games could provide both?

 

[Minigiant]

What I'm trying to say is that this isn't an inherent feature of D&D, but a design choice you are making. If you don't like it, don't choose to play that way. It's quite possible to look at D&D and go:

Level 1 = Gritty
Level 3 = Heroic
Level 5 = Paragon
Level 7 = Epic

You don't need fireballs to kill goblins. By the time fireballs show up, old school CR 1/3rd goblins in a straight up fight are no longer a problem. Your party can slaughter them scores at a time. A 3rd level wizard with burning hands, scorching rays, flaming sphere, and a wand of 'flame dart' (ray of frost, only firey) is a hugely scary fire wizard that can leave a trail of scorched goblin bodies in his wake.

The relationship of your character to authority, the Lord in your example, is also something you make as a choice. If the lord is a 1st level expert, with a handful of 1st level warriors with 11,11,11,10,10,10 stat blocks, and a valley full of 1st level commoners, then even the 1st level Wizard with elite stats is a valueable resource that can be called on to face those dastardly and dangerous goblins.

Early on in the D&D inspired Magician: Apprentice, the hero casts a fireball, and everyone is astounded, "That's amazing. What you just did is impossible. Surely this is the most powerful wizard in the whole world!" Everything is a matter of perspective. If the most powerful wizards in your world are legendary 5th level characters, there is no expectation of needing fireball to be important. It's only when 5th level characters are pathetic or baseline, that you feel pathetic without fireball.



Sure, but it doesn't take enormously powerful characters before a party of them can slaughter CR 1/2 orcs, especially if a little care is taken.



I guess that depends on what you think you need. In early 1e, 1st level characters were so fragile that you needed 1-2 more hit die to have any sort of immunity to bad luck at all. Then everyone started using the rule that you didnt' die until -10 and things got a bit better. By 3e, starting with max hit points, good con, the possibility of a toughness feat, and not dying until -10 hit points, you've got lots of protection from luck and everything you need to have fun.

I think you are missing my point.

My point is if you level lock iconic features of the game, then a player who cares deeply about those iconic features will only care about getting to the level of that feature.

It is then up to the DM to unlock the desired feature to get the player looking back at the current.
A "Lesser Fireball"
A Lesser whirlwind attack
A PrC like feat available at level 1

 

[fjw70]

I see nothing wrong with instant gratification with RPGs. I never know when other parts of my life will encroach on my game time and any delayed gratification may not come.

 

[pemerton]

It's quite possible to look at D&D and go:

Level 1 = Gritty
Level 3 = Heroic
Level 5 = Paragon
Level 7 = Epic

<snip>

The relationship of your character to authority, the Lord in your example, is also something you make as a choice.

WotC took this approach in the Neverwinter campaign book: the scope of a heroic through paragon campaign is compressed, in mechanical terms, into the heroic tier. As part of that we are given versions of aboleths, mind flayers, etc that (mechanically, if not in story terms) are heroic rather than mid-to-high paragon.

There are features of 4e - like the simplicty of monster/NPC relevelling, and the relative flexibility of the understood corellation between numbers and story (eg level-scaling rather than "objective" DCs) - that make this easier than it would be for 3E. (Eg if the rules tell me, as the d20SRD does, that an "amazing lock" is DC 40, and I look at my PC and see that I have no chance of successfully picking such a lock, then I know that my PC is not a master burglar.)

It is easier in AD&D than in 3E, too, because (i) AD&D uses stat-checks, which are character-relative, rather than DCs, and (ii) AD&D combat is much closer to a "bouned accuracy" model, so you don't need to rebuild iconic paragon creatures to make them mechanically viable (if still tough) foes for less-than-name-level PCs.

 

[pemerton]

More easy and faster leveling, "special abilities, etc." at every level, wealth by level guidelines/treasure parcels, etc. All this entices the player more and more to "get to the next level", so much that playing what you have became boring as you do not get your next reward.

Because you are not telling me what you think "levelling" is really about, you're not giving me any indication of why "faster levelling" is a good or bad thing.

Here is one question: what is objectionable about periodically, even frequently, changing the mechanical resources available to the players in engaging the in-game situation via their PCs? AD&D did this, via magic items. 4e does this, via levelling. What is wrong with it? And in what way does it undermine "story" (whatever exactly that is - in one of your posts you decry railroading, and in another you talk about players taking their PCs in "the wrong direction" - if there's a wrong direction then it sounds like a railroad to me!)?

More generally, what is your conception of the purpose of play such that (say) very slow levelling AD&D is better for that than (say) 1-level-per-12-hours-of-play 4e?

 

[Umbran]

It is absolutely true that 3e and 4e encourage (but does not require) a greater emphasis on long-term, level-by-level character construction.

The conclusion that "therefore players today don't care about anything but leveling up" is ridiculous.

Quite. Having an eye on leveling up is not mutually exclusive with being in-the-moment. Players can love their level-ups, *and* they can love their in-game events as they happen.