D&D 5E Why Do Higher Levels Get Less Play?

[Zardnaar]

I wouldn't. I would publish level 15-20 adventures that explicitly weren't "endgame" adventures. Honestly they should make one of their anthologies that is just high level adventures.

I Honestly think the "They don't sell" bit is self fulfilling prophecy BS.

It may have become self fulfilling but the sales numbers for some older product is out there.

The high selling stuff is basically core books, Basic boxes and Gary Gygax adventures and a few like B4 and X1. The made adventures for CM part of BECMI

Paizo said something similar. OGL has been around 25 years. 2E and 3E had products like High Level Campaigns, Netheril, Epic Level Handbook. Dungeon magazine had several adventures.

If there was massive demand for it someone would do it. Product was made.

 

[Maxperson]

Once you have sufficiently explored who a character is at lower levels, the upper levels are at risk of narrowing down to become mostly a tactical exercise. And while I think there's some market for that, I would be unsurprised if broadly the draw of RPGs drops off as character exploration narrows to mostly be in tactical concerns.

I haven't really found that risk to be true for myself, or seen it in my players. Yes, I know it's a small group, but the increased power at higher levels changes what the PC can do and the scope, which often affects how he interacts with the world and who he is. People change with increased power, and often so do PCs.

 

[Maxperson]

As an option, that would be cool. But not everyone want's to play fantasy simcity. Some people still want to kick ass and chew bubble gum. And they want to do it at grand scale. Domain management fundamentally changes game play unless it's something that is done via few rolls between sessions. They are interested in personal power growth and how much cool stuff they can do personally.

Yep. The only thing I disagreed with there is the word "should." Those tiers can have those things, but don't need those things to be fun.

 

[Maxperson]

I wouldn't. I would publish level 15-20 adventures that explicitly weren't "endgame" adventures. Honestly they should make one of their anthologies that is just high level adventures.

I Honestly think the "They don't sell" bit is self fulfilling prophecy BS.

I would buy that in a heartbeat.

 

[GrimCo]

I've done that vastly lower levels than 17.

And running 2-4 normal encounters togather in waves done that as well.

What was response from your players? My group didn't particularly like it. It took too much time. I rolled individual initiative for every monster so some of the monsters, due to shear number of them, could act before players, cause when i ran one or two high level ones, if players won initiative, they would sometimes (more often than not) wipe them before they could even act ( that was kind of anticlimactic for them also). It's finding that sweet balance between challenging, relatively fast, but not too fast encounters that is one of the bigger high level challenges for DM-s. And i play with experienced players with very good grasp of mechanics of their characters who don't take ages to decide what will they do on their turn.

 

[Zardnaar]

What was response from your players? My group didn't particularly like it. It took too much time. I rolled individual initiative for every monster so some of the monsters, due to shear number of them, could act before players, cause when i ran one or two high level ones, if players won initiative, they would sometimes (more often than not) wipe them before they could even act ( that was kind of anticlimactic for them also). It's finding that sweet balance between challenging, relatively fast, but not too fast encounters that is one of the bigger high level challenges for DM-s. And i play with experienced players with very good grasp of mechanics of their characters who don't take ages to decide what will they do on their turn.

They killed them all 3 encounters like that no short rest even. Level 12.

Most of my players are newer but they see something like command in action or whatever from another player and rapidly figure things out.
One new player was also scary quick how fast she caught on. She did ask for recommended abilities for her battlemaster (probe, precision, reposte).

BG3 effect. Most of the newer ones are familiar with things from that.

 

[GrimCo]

Yep. The only thing I disagreed with there is the word "should." Those tiers can have those things, but don't need those things to be fun.

Agree. They could have those tiers, but it should be strictly optional. And to be honest, personally, if high levels shifted to more of a domain management and faction power dynamics, i would rather play Houses of the Bloodied that is designed for that kind of games. D&D just isn't good at that kind of games from mechanics standpoint.

 

[Minigiant]

If there was massive demand for it someone would do it. Product was made.

You don't ask a chef who doesn't like beef to make you a beef burger.

It takes a good marketing campaign to create demand for a below average product.

 

[Zardnaar]

You don't ask a chef who doesn't like beef to make you a beef burger.

It takes a good marketing campaign to create demand for a below average product.

You're claiming all the high level stuff created is low quality?

 

[Clint_L]

...but, my counter point is, the size of the threat is not inversely proportional to the narrative stakes. It can be sure, I agree lots of blockbuster movies are yawn and probably push spectacle over; or at the expense of, story.

But the thing is, lots of movies that are not blockbusters are also yawn.

Scale doesn't need to be a hindrance to story.

A point I and others already addressed, as well.

Anyway, Umbran is making the same case more effectively than I did.