Your experiences with E(X)

[weenie]

What are the playground's experiences with the EX(E6, E8...) variants of D&D? Which variant do you like best?

I have tried DMing a E6 campaign a while ago. It was also pretty low magic and low wealth and I chose the approach where lvl6 individuals are pretty rare(generals, the king's champion, leaders of big organisations and some other highly skilled people). My characters started at lvl 3 and combat was usually very brutal. I lost one pc in a very easy fight against a few standard orcs and the other fights they had were also pretty tough. I must say I really liked it. The grittines gave my players a good reason to work together and think things through, and the general lack of magic really made it more special and memorable. All in all I liked my campaign better than standard vanilla D&D.

EDIT: One more question, how do you feel the game changes if you go from E6 to E8 or E10(above that it's pretty much a standard campaign for me :smallsmile: )

[truemane]

I'm running an E6 campaign right now. I've had positive experiences with them overall. I've even gone as far as E12, with positive results. I like to GM small, detailed areas of play with an emphasis on moral and emotional conflicts with lots of intrigue and combat that, while not necessarily deadly, should always have consequences. So the scope of E6 fits right into the kinds of games I like to run.

The important part is to make sure everyone knows this is not the same game as the standard 20 level progression. Change the rules and you change the world that reflects those rules. So long as everyone is on board with the base premise, it's can be whole lot of fun..

Also, Gestalt-E6 is also a hoot. The level cap means you can have interesting PC's with very broad bases, but it cuts out most of the cheesy crap that Gestalt can breed if you're not careful.

[some guy]

The first campaign that I ran went from 1 to 9 (well, 1 pc got to 9, 2 to 8 and 2 to 7). The one after that went till level 5 and the current one is probably going to end at 5 or 6.

Campaigns I played in ended at level 7 and 8. So E6 and E8 are pretty standard for me. Most players I run for don't like (or are too busy to commit to) long running campaigns.

So, this:

The important part is to make sure everyone knows this is not the same game as the standard 20 level progression. Change the rules and you change the world that reflects those rules. So long as everyone is on board with the base premise, it's can be whole lot of fun..

Is a bit of a shocker to me. I didn't know people played in level 1-20 campaigns.

[truemane]

Is a bit of a shocker to me. I didn't know people played in level 1-20 campaigns.

Sure, but some campaigns start higher than level 1. Most games, actually. I haven't played a level 1 PC in some time. And unless the game looks really, really good, I generally don't join them.

My point was just that it's not just the mechanics that are different when there are 20th level people running around vs. 6th level people, that change fundamentally changes some of the basic assumptions about what the game is and therefore what the game world is.