Why did early editions of D&D rely on Treasure for experience points?

[billd91]

So when did the default expectation become, "Your character is going to reach 20th level", so that we create AP's for it? Back in the day, even the claim would have seemed a bit munchkin and proof of Monte Haulism. I can remember when the default expectation was, "Your character probably won't survive more than 4 levels from the time you start play, and if your character does that character is going to be one you'll really remember and be hugely invested in." The more usual thing was to boast (as I am here) of just how much of a RB your DM was (see Weird Pete for this behavior as a stereotype). I always assumed most of the upper levels of the charts were purely theoretical and they ended where they did because in practice you'd never hit the implied caps. I basically still assume that. In the unlikely event I'm still running the same campaign 5-6 years from now, I still wouldn't expect to have 20th level PC's roaming around.

I don't think there was ever an assumption that a 1-20 AP was a norm. In fact, I'd bet their survey data suggested that it was extremely rare and that most campaigns petered out long before. 3e's design with its XP table and XP awards was designed to make a 1-20 campaign possible with a reasonable amount of time and effort. In other words, it was a deliberate attempt to improve the game by making a wider range of its play experiences accessible to its players.

 

[Celebrim]

In other words, it was a deliberate attempt to improve the game by making a wider range of its play experiences accessible to its players.

Well, presumably all the 3e rules were designed to improve the game. The question for me is did they succeed, even by the stated goal you provide.

Q: Did they provide for a wider range of play experiences?
A: Not really. End game material had been published for earlier editions of D&D that suggested play at 20th or higher wasn't really necessary to encompass the full range of possible play. For example, all early adventure path end games - Queen of the Demonweb Pits, Dragons of Triumph, and Lost Tomb of Martek - end well before 20th level, and yet there is basically no feature of high level play not demonstrated in these modules. Mass combat, fights against deities, planar travel, epic scale, and large impact on the campaign world are all featured even though play is basically expected to top out at around 15th level at most. What exactly did we gain stretching play out for 5 more levels except for more grinding and filler added to a story line to ensure leveling took play?

Q: Did they make high level play more accessible?
A: No, not really. Arguably, older stand alone modules for high level characters provided much more accessibility if you wanted a high level fix. Simply play the module stand alone with constructed characters. Grinding down an adventure path still takes a considerable amount of commitment.

And consider the circular reasoning that is going on here. In 3e you need to be around 20th level to face epic foes like balrogs, pit fiends or ancient dragons. But in 3e epic foes enjoyed massive amounts of power bloat to ensure that 3e PC would have something to face at high level. So in making high level play accessible, they've pushed further away the tropes of high level foes and actually made that style of play less accessible. A very good example of rolling back that insanity is the 3e module, Lost City of Barakus where the designers carefully deflate the numbers on everything while still retaining a full and arguably epic campaign story complete with classic villains like lich kings. That made high level play more accessible. All 1-20 did was inflate the numbers without providing for more possibilities.

Q: Did they make high level play more enjoyable, more balanced, and more interesting.
A: Not at all! In fact, they made things much worse. All fortune mechanic systems tend to break down as the upper range of modifiers begins to meet or exceed the range of possibilities in the fortune mechanic. For D20, when the modifiers get to be around 20, the logic of the fortune mechanic tends to start failing. Things that are trivial for one character are nearly impossible for another. Spotlight sharing becomes more difficult and balanced challenges become harder to create. Plus, large numbers are always just more unwieldy to work with than smaller numbers (if you aren't on a computer), and the number of dice clattering that must be tabulated increases and slows down play. And when large numbers become required, they tend to be composed in practice of a bunch of fiddly small numbers that must be tracked and accumulated to be effective. Plus as the numbers on the character sheets get bigger, you increasingly risk a similar inflation in the number of actors in an encounter. So by making the levels higher, all your book keeping is getting more complicated, all your balance is getting harder, and the effort required to play is increased relative to the enjoyment received.

Q: Did they address what happened beyond the highest level of expected play well?
A: No, far from it. In 1e if you can assume that the normal highest level of expected play is roughly 10th-15th level based on the level by XP charts, the fullness of the game once you reach 10th level, and the level of published modules, then the published rules set is clearly sufficient in that if your cleric is 16th level you haven't hit a hard cap in the rules beyond which we can't peer, but merely a soft cap based on what is practical. But in 3e the rules break down completely after 20th level, with no satisfactory rules for what things are like after that ever published. Indeed, if we judge high level in 1e as 10th-15th, and look at the corresponding level of play in 3e as say 14th-20th, we find that in many ways they've actually narrowed the possibilities of play unless you are such an iron DM that you can dare deal with the problematic 'Epic' rules and all that implies. If you had played 1e up until 18th or 20th, you would have been doing the things you have to wait until 25th or 30th to do in 3e, and by that point "Good luck" because the math starts breaking down completely all over the place.

So regardless of what they were attempting, it had the appearance of not being particularly thought through.

 

[billd91]

Well, presumably all the 3e rules were designed to improve the game. The question for me is did they succeed, even by the stated goal you provide.

I think you're failing to make a break from your experiences in earlier editions and it undermines your analysis. The effort it takes to go from 1st to 20th level is greatly reduced compared to 1e, so the length of time it takes to face those pit fiends and balrogs isn't particularly outside the range of facing them in 1e as far as invested play time goes. So I think your assertion that it actually pushes high level play out is mistaken.

I also have no idea where you're getting the idea that you need to be 25th level in 3e to do the things you could do in 1e at 18th level.

I think there's plenty of room to debate how successful (or not) 3e's rules were at supplying a robust high level experience, but I don't think your analysis is persuasive. And, though my data are anecdotal because they are based on my experiences and circles of players that I know, 3e certainly led to more people I know getting up to 15th level and above compared to 1e or 2e. My experience with 3e (and PF) is that the rules truly did make higher level PCs more accessible without having to generate the PCs at a high level in the first place.

 

[Celebrim]

I think you're failing to make a break from your experiences in earlier editions and it undermines your analysis. The effort it takes to go from 1st to 20th level is greatly reduced compared to 1e, so the length of time it takes to face those pit fiends and balrogs isn't particularly outside the range of facing them in 1e as far as invested play time goes. So I think your assertion that it actually pushes high level play out is mistaken.

Yes, the effort it takes to go from 1st to 20th level in 3e is greatly reduced compared to 1e, but that misses the point completely.

A balrog in 1e is an 8HD monster. A Pit Fiend is IIRC a 13HD monster. In 3e both are CR 20, and not reasonable foes until 16th level or so. So is the time it takes the party to go from 1st to 'Balrog slayer' in 3e really shorter than the time it took in 1e? Mature adult dragons in 3e have a CR between 13 and 18. Is the time it takes the party to go from 1st level to 'Dragon slayer' (assuming a dragon that doesn't look like an oversized drake) really shorter in 3e than 1e? In 1e, a party of 18th level characters could reasonably challenge famous foes like Tiamat, Orcus, Demogorgon, Lloth, Mephistopheles, Ssendam, and so forth. How high of a level would you need to be in 3e, given that the even the servants and minions of these beings aren't really intended to be foes until 20th level and beyond?

Converting 1e material over to 3.5e (especially) makes for a thought provoking experience on how different encounters scale between editions.

 

[billd91]

Yes, the effort it takes to go from 1st to 20th level in 3e is greatly reduced compared to 1e, but that misses the point completely.

A balrog in 1e is an 8HD monster. A Pit Fiend is IIRC a 13HD monster. In 3e both are CR 20, and not reasonable foes until 16th level or so. So is the time it takes the party to go from 1st to 'Balrog slayer' in 3e really shorter than the time it took in 1e? Mature adult dragons in 3e have a CR between 13 and 18. Is the time it takes the party to go from 1st level to 'Dragon slayer' (assuming a dragon that doesn't look like an oversized drake) really shorter in 3e than 1e? In 1e, a party of 18th level characters could reasonably challenge famous foes like Tiamat, Orcus, Demogorgon, Lloth, Mephistopheles, Ssendam, and so forth. How high of a level would you need to be in 3e, given that the even the servants and minions of these beings aren't really intended to be foes until 20th level and beyond?

Converting 1e material over to 3.5e (especially) makes for a thought provoking experience on how different encounters scale between editions.

For the balrog in 1e, it wouldn't have taken that long, no. But then that balrog is way underpowered for his description and role. The upgunned version in 2e is a much closer match to both the pit fiend and the rate at which you'd encounter one in 3e. But for the pit fiend, I think 3e provides a reasonable match for 1e experiences, not just 2e.

As far as being a dragon slayer, dragons were on an upgrade path from 2e onward, so the comparison there is probably closest compared to 1e. But though mature dragons may have fairly high CRs, dragon CRs run as low as 2, putting dragons on the whole spectrum of availability.

As far as dealing with famous foes, Paizo's own APs for Dungeon had characters right around 20th level facing Kyuss and Demogorgon. And they're generally getting to that level with a lot less play time than it would take a 1e party to reach 18th level.

 

[Staffan]

So when did the default expectation become, "Your character is going to reach 20th level", so that we create AP's for it?

I would think it's the other way around: people see the high levels in the PHB, want to get there (but do it "honestly" rather than just starting at high levels), and APs leading into the high teens are created to accomodate that desire.

 

[gamerprinter]

Rite Publishing offers Coloseum Morpheuon which is a short AP starting at 15th level going to 20th on the Dream Plane, for those who want to play a high level setting. However, consider that my published short AP (trilogy) for Kaidan, The Curse of the Golden Spear is for levels 5 - 7, which is much closer to the levels I enjoy. I played in one Epic level campaign in 3x, and I basically hated it and never want to venture above 20th ever again.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I would think it's the other way around: people see the high levels in the PHB, want to get there (but do it "honestly" rather than just starting at high levels), and APs leading into the high teens are created to accomodate that desire.

That is certainly part of it. The other part is the paradigm shift in the objectives of play. Those objectives began to change once the build concept was fully realized.

Early TSR D&D featured play objectives that were based in the game world. Gaining power and political influence, commanding armies, becoming the master of a thieves or mages guild, etc. Treasure XP was a neutral score keeping mechanism that tracked progress toward those objectives. Treasure could be won or discovered by combat, interaction, or exploration. Reaching high level was a pre-requisite to obtaining the end game objectives. Characters of the same class were very similar to one another mechanically speaking. Actual play of the characters and player input is what created unique and memorable adventurers. Surviving to high level was fairly difficult and took quite a while.

WOTC D&D shifted play objectives radically with 3rd edition. The end game objectives from older editions were largely removed. Characters had many more mechanical options to choose from. XP now came strictly from overcoming challenges, largely combat, and the expectation was that the PCs would continue to face challenges from level 1 to 20. There was no endgame, no objective connected with the game world to strive for. The focus of play was now heavily on how effective you were at overcoming these challenges. A build that continued to grow in effectiveness and peak at level 20 fueled the desire to reach that level without taking years to do so. Not seeing the end result of a build in play was like playing with a puzzle with some of the pieces missing. What a character could accomplish mechanically via the rules became the most important aspect of play.

 

[Celebrim]

I would think it's the other way around: people see the high levels in the PHB, want to get there (but do it "honestly" rather than just starting at high levels), and APs leading into the high teens are created to accomodate that desire.

The 1e tables explicitly when up to 29th level for some classes, and for most classes other than Druid, Monk, and Assassin were explicitly unbounded. Yet I don't recall ever thinking that it was implied that we ought to be playing 29th level M-U's and 34th level thieves just because the rules provided for it. I think it would be very difficult to pin point the change in mindset, but the important point is that whatever caused the change in mindset the designers were catering to it and had the same expectations. Some theories:

1) Rise of MMORPGs/cRPGs: In a MMORPG, you are 'expected' to reach a hard level cap. Indeed, in a MMORPG, many consider that the game doesn't 'get good' until you are playing the end game content at the level cap, and so there is an expectation that everything to that point does not matter except your mechanical design for the character as it will be played when it matters. Hence, a tendency to plan out every step of the process with the ultimate goal of designing an interesting and optimal character at the level cap. The attitude of writing up optimized builds down to the very equipment you'll be carrying at the level cap, is ported directly from people's response to Blizzard games like Diablo and World of Warcraft.

2) Forgotten Realms as Definitive D&D: Whether I like it or not, and I don't, the FR have become for this generation the definitive notion of the D&D experience (at least, in the plurality or the main). And the FR was the first AD&D game world that took seriously the 29th level M-U's and 20th level Paladin's implied by the 1e charts and assumed that these represented not merely possibilities or a handful of legendary figures likely confined to the heroic past, but numerous, active, present movers and shakers. In the FR, if you weren't at least 15th level, you were pretty much a nobody. Even the bartenders were retired 10th level adventurers, and every single port town (it seemed) had a 7' tall 20th level fighter dual wielding longswords as the leader of the local watch or militia. The average village could field a midlevel adventuring party, leading one to wonder what the 1st level adventurers were for. Why are you hiring us to clear out the goblins as if they were a threat when the town drunk is a 8th level thief, the mayor is a 12th level M-U, and the corporal of the watch is a 10th level fighter? There were ordinary merchants that were 25th level fighters, and there were enough Archmages to fill Congress. Players that came out of this environment tended to have a mindset that paralleled the idea that a 10 Int was exceptionally stupid and justified playing the character like Forest Gump. You'd see 8th level called a 'low level character', when back in the day it was considered a 'superhero' - practically a cape with a sword and not that far from being Batman, Oliver Queen, or that sort of thing.

 

[billd91]

That is certainly part of it. The other part is the paradigm shift in the objectives of play. Those objectives began to change once the build concept was fully realized.

Early TSR D&D featured play objectives that were based in the game world. Gaining power and political influence, commanding armies, becoming the master of a thieves or mages guild, etc. Treasure XP was a neutral score keeping mechanism that tracked progress toward those objectives. Treasure could be won or discovered by combat, interaction, or exploration. Reaching high level was a pre-requisite to obtaining the end game objectives. Characters of the same class were very similar to one another mechanically speaking. Actual play of the characters and player input is what created unique and memorable adventurers. Surviving to high level was fairly difficult and took quite a while.

WOTC D&D shifted play objectives radically with 3rd edition. The end game objectives from older editions were largely removed. Characters had many more mechanical options to choose from. XP now came strictly from overcoming challenges, largely combat, and the expectation was that the PCs would continue to face challenges from level 1 to 20. There was no endgame, no objective connected with the game world to strive for. The focus of play was now heavily on how effective you were at overcoming these challenges. A build that continued to grow in effectiveness and peak at level 20 fueled the desire to reach that level without taking years to do so. Not seeing the end result of a build in play was like playing with a puzzle with some of the pieces missing. What a character could accomplish mechanically via the rules became the most important aspect of play.

I'm going to disagree with some of that analysis because I think it misses important transitions from early D&D and WotC D&D.

1e AD&D awarded XP for treasure, generally a bit more than it did combat and I think ExploderWizard is right that it was neutral as to how you obtained that treasure - by exploration, by combat, or by negotiation. The point was, you got it (and you needed it because most of it went away via level-up training). Most classes had some kind of in-campaign benefit for being modestly high level that served as a campaign-oriented goal. But most XPs were obtained through gaining the reward of some kind of adventuring. In that sense, 1e also incorporates a heavy focus on overcoming challenges and thus reaping the appropriate rewards.

2e made the first shift away from that paradigm by removing XP for treasure as part of the core rule (it was called out as optional) and by adding story awards to the mix. Many of the class-based benefits of being moderately high level were retained, offering some in campaign goal to pursue. But the earning of XP was still from adventuring - overcoming opponents (killing wasn't necessary) and meeting story goals. And if my experience with 2e-era adventures is an indication, story goals were becoming a predominant way of gaining XPs in published adventures. These could come from rescuing the kidnapped princess, clearing a dungeon level, putting an end to the orc menace, whatever accomplishment the GM wanted to reward. This was also the first edition that gave you treasure that the PCs didn't necessarily know what to do with - they couldn't buy magic items (no prices in the DMG), training was optional (and mostly foregone), and there was no requirement to build a stronghold.

Then along came WotC with 3e. While there was an option for story awards (and RP awards, and other ad hoc awards), the focus did shift more to overcoming challenges that were focus in scope - encounters (which included encountered traps too). Again, you didn't need to kill the opponent, you just needed to overcome it. Most of your cash and any other rewards you gained via adventuring (and overcoming those challenges) was expected to be reinvested in your PC's abilities via magic items. There were very few in-campaign benefits of rising in level - you had to specifically purchase things like Leadership as a feat and building a stronghold (if you decided to not invest in personal power-ups) gained you little benefit.
I would argue this is probably D&D as a lot of people played it in 1e/2e anyway (something I feel explains a lot of 3e design choices, by the way). Not everyone was interested in gaining a set of followers by building a stronghold or temple or whatever, so I see the differences a bit less starkly on those grounds.
I do agree that what a character could accomplish mechanically became a more important aspect of play and advancement - in large part because there was now so many options available that were all on the table. Previously, mechanical differentiation past about 9th level or so was mainly for spellcasters gaining new spells. Now, with the easy availability of items to gain new abilities and feats, everyone gets to mess about with it and it draws a lot of focus. Hell, even so-called "dead" levels became a subject of much consternation - a concern that barely existed before 3e.

4e was much the same as 3e but with more emphasis on story or quest awards. Money was still pretty much expected to be reinvested in personal powerups.

5e returns us more to the 2e state of affairs. Treasure gained isn't immediately sucked away for training. It isn't expected to be invested as power-ups. But there aren't that many inducements to spend it on class-specific stuff either. The players really do have carte blanche to decide what, if anything, they want to do with their wealth. For some, it lessens the point of playing (or at least of gaining treasure). To others, it returns the point of playing for the experience of playing rather than pursuing power-ups.