Name level versus max character level

[Vahnavoi]

This thread is inspired by a single, faulty thought that sometimes raises its head: that the length of a game is defined by reaching max character level. Which just isn't true even for most games that have max level.

Let's define the concepts first:

"Name level" was a concept in older editions of D&D (and continues to be so in many OSR games), roughly achieved between character levels 9 and 11 (depending on class). This was a turning point for the character, including changes both to social standing of the character (earning a domain and retainers to go with it) as well as the level up process itself (lowering rate of hit points gained, XP required for following levels turning from exponential to linear etc.). For purposes of this thread, "name level" is the level at which a character class has achieved all its defining abilities and can move on to pursue terminal game goals.

"Max character level" is simpler to define: it is whatever arbitrary level at which a game says you stop leveling. Notably, existence of max level is independent from existence of a name level and they need not overlap with it. Indeed, in old school games, it pretty much never does.

For a non-old school example of name versus maximum level, there's E6 and E10 variants of d20 D&D. These nominally have max level at 6 and 10, respectively, but this is inaccurate: characters continue to gain experience points and receive more feats at set XP benchmarks. As such, the 6th and 10th level actually function more like name levels.

This distinction got lost for mainstream D&D when level scales and XP requirements were standardized to single 1st to 20th scale. I maintain this is what codified and popularized the misconception that a full play of the game is taking a character from 1st to max character level. Newer rules (notably Epic rules for 3rd edition and 4th edition) have included other breakpoints in leveling that sometimes function like name level, but they've not done much to do away with that idea.

So, what's the issue here? What is the point to having separate name and max character levels? What is lost when that distinction is lost?

To understand what the utility is, let's make a distinction between two sorts of game goals: terminal game goals and instrumental game goals. Terminal game goals are those goals that end the game upon being reached: the things that can reasonably be said to win the game (scenario, campaign, etc.) such as saving the princess, defeating the evil overlord, bringing found treasure to safety etc.. Instrumental game goals are those goals that help achieving terminal goals: the intermediate steps of finding the princess, becoming strong enough to fight the overlord, gaining means to transport the treasure etc..

So what kind of a goal is improving a character, then, by means such as gaining XP and levels? Terminal or instrumental?

This is what name level can help clarify, or indeed, establish: the point at which gaining levels has served its instrumental purpose and it's time to move on to other goals. It is possible to make this ironclad, by setting name level as max character level. But there are a few reasons to not do this. First is challenge scaling: a game may be winnable at name level, but it might be desirable to leave a way for players to make it easier for themselves, such as by allowing to still gain level for some minor benefit. Second is prestige: even without any additional mechanical benefit, ascending level can be used for showing how much a character has done (or avoided doing) beyond the strictly necessary. Third is linked to the second: motivation. Point scores encourage people to do things that increase their score, and sometimes discourage doing things that don't.

Fourth reason to have name level and max character level be distinct becomes apparent if you ask what happens if max character level is also name level? Well it gives the impression that a character isn't complete before max level, as opposed to the idea that level past a point are for convenience and prestige, as above. This isn't much of an issue if max level is easy to reach, mind. It becomes a problem when a game places max level way far from the beginning of the game, because then it starts to temporally stretch out everything else in the game. In the worst case scenario, there starts to be confusion over whether reaching that level is instrumental or terminal; other kinds of goals start to look more reachable that max character level, but no matter what else a character does, their journey still appears incomplete because they lack their final defining ability.

This kind of confusion has, and has had, sweeping game design effects. For example, in 3rd edition, a lot of classes are front-loaded, with lots of abilities in the first "half" of level progression and many empty levels in the second "half". At the same time, it can be observed a lot of builds "come online" at 8th to 10th level. The reason is that these "halves" weren't equal halves at all and the 11 to 20 range of the progression was after name level, with the sweet spot for many builds effectively being where name level used to be. A lot of supposed fixes, such as filling in the empty levels and placing capstones at the nominal peak of 20th level only make the issues worse. In addition to aforementioned issues, they add to exponential power curves, resulting to many builds that took 8 to 10 levels to "come online" being obsoleted in just a few levels. Meanwhile, the aforementioned E6 and E10 variants fix the problem by effectively re-instituting name level.

The discussion is still reflected on, for example, an idea floated around on these forums of how various level ranges (for example 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 15, 16 to 20) do or should constitute different "tiers" of play. (As noted, 4th edition pretty much did this, as did BECMI way earlier.) The reason why these kind of discussions don't really seem to have much an effect is because they rarely touch on the concept of terminal goals and the distinction between name and max character level.

If you want to do this kind of breakdown properly, you have to do away with single 1st to max level chart. Instead, you want one chart for each tier. This part is easy to do, it's just an expansion of class-level-up table. One column has, say, 5th level as name level, with all levels after that "empty" / offering only minor, incremental benefits. Second column repeats this with 10th level as name level, so on and so forth. The more important and harder part is that each name level should be calibrated so that at that point, a class has every ability it strictly needs for rest of the game. The harder and most important part is explaining what sort of terminal game goals these abilities are meant to handle for each implemented tier - the name scenarios and campaigns. The things you are meant to do in the game to win it that aren't gaining XP and levels.

[KorvinStarmast]

This thread is inspired by a single, faulty thought that sometimes raises its head: that the length of a game is defined by reaching max character level. Which just isn't true even for most games that have max level. Yes.
The things you are meant to do in the game to win it that aren't gaining XP and levels. But 'winning it, (the game)' isn't the objective of the RPG that you are referring. It is the objective of a great many CRPGs/MMORPGs/MOBAs that are derived from it.

Your post brings to mind the difference between going from level 1-50, or 1-60, or 1-70 in Diablo III (depending on how early in its life one started playing) and the 'end game' of ladder running (or finding how high in the insane difficulty tiers one could manage) that happens once one completes what you call the instrumental objectives.

Similar but different is the 1-20 level progression in the original Guild Wars (man, that's been a while) - then the end game PvP aspect which resulted after one built the character / team / guild.

If we are to confine this discussion to the d20 system, and the more general D&D, level based family of games, the name level transition point relies somewhat on "what does the end game look like?" The current answer is that as one achieves 'name' level, one goes from adventure / pulp hero to superhero.

In TSR editions, the game included more than adventuring. In the current edition, there's a notable lack of that material (Matt Coleville's efforts on Strongholds notwithstanding, I have it but so far none of my players are interested in that aspect of the game yet).

Is the gaming audience interested in that transition point?
I don't think so (even though I still am).

[Anonymouswizard]

I honestly think there can be a benefit to having a character who just stops improving. That's it, you're done, you're at the point you need to be, no more powers for you. I think character advancement does not have to be the goal players move towards, and getting rid of it when the game shifts into high gear with in-character rewards shifting almost exclusively to things like political power and alliances. So I don't see why Name Level can't also be the actual level cap.

To me the ideal way to do that would be to tie progression to a character arc. Agree a bunch of milestones with your GM, when you hit one you get the pie, and when you're finished you're at the highest level you'll achieve. I can see using something like that in a campaign using Unmasked or the like

[Thrudd]

I think it's reasonable for the game designers to recommend that campaigns or even entire campaign settings restrict themselves to only one or two "tiers" of play. This way, reaching the max level "build" doesn't take forever, and players can enjoy using their full build to greatest effect and might work on finding better loot and gear (or going on epic quests to save the world, or building kingdoms and engaging in politics), with maybe only small and more gradual improvements to hp and ability scores.

This would also have the effect of keeping campaigns much more narratively coherent. I'd say that, for narrative purposes, it would be reasonable to suggest that a number of years passes in the lives of the characters in between tiers of play (if they are going to continue on to higher tiers), and probably months between levels. Going from level 1-20 power in current D&D over the course of a single year or less is narratively absurd, unless the narrative is that these are demi-gods who have been stripped of their powers and are gaining them back through effort, or some other divine intervention type story.

[False God]

I'm still going to argue that the lack of "name leveling", since this is contextually very much about D&D and D&D-style games, is that D&D is a very low-RP-investment game.

Non-mathematical rewards are generally looked down upon, disregarded and not really all that common of rewards. Land is neat, but your adventures will usually take you far from it. Titles are great, but meaningless to kings and queens of lands far from home. Lordship can be fun, when you're doing it and not rolling a single d20 for some abstracted months of "how did my kingdom do while I was away?"

If it doesn't help you immediately kill monsters, get loot or advance in levels, D&D and D&D-likes tend to ignore it.

Worse IME is when it comes up it often divides groups. Jimmy and Susie want to be Lords of the Realms, but Joe and Jill want to kill some orcs. Jimmy and Sue suggest that they can raise armies and Joe and Jill can lead them and slay all the orcs in the 15 Kingdoms. But Joe and Jill are uninterested in leading armies, they want to crush skulls with their own hands.

Without whole groups who enjoy "name leveling" as opposed to XP-leveling, the campaigns grind to a halt, players drop out, and the whole thing goes belly up. Or at least that's been my experience.

I LIKE name leveling, and I like systems that provide it. I like side-leveling (raising your stats or skills without raising your level by spending in-game time doing related stuff) and I like systems that provide it. I try to provide it as available options in all my games regardless of system. But I find more often than not in D&D-likes, people just aren't interested, and finding a group that is is tremendously hard.

[KorvinStarmast]

Going from level 1-20 power in current D&D over the course of a single year or less is narratively absurd, unless the narrative is that these are demi-gods who have been stripped of their powers and are gaining them back through effort, or some other divine intervention type story. I respectfully disagree. We did that in Phoenix's Campaign over about sixteen months of RL time (and various amounts of down time from a week to a month) at various points depending on what "the world" was doing. It made narrative sense, and we did get involved in a conflict with a demigod, a couple of dragons that were a lot more like great wyrms than Ancient Dragons, and a few Powers with a capital P (One of whom was the Patron of our Sorc/Warlock) that tied into what we were doing and trying to achieve. We pursued a lot of different, and sometimes related, personal and team in-world goals.


But I find more often than not in D&D-likes, people just aren't interested, and finding a group that is is tremendously hard. I think we are encountering the same thing

Is the gaming audience interested in that transition point? I don't think so (even though I still am).

[Vahnavoi]

Yes. But 'winning it, (the game)' isn't the objective of the RPG that you are referring. It is the objective of a great many CRPGs/MMORPGs/MOBAs that are derived from it.

This is a vicious lie and repeating it only gives a false impression of how tabletop roleplaying games actually work.

To get a game out of a game system, a game master needs to include a scenario (or a set of scenarios, AKA a campaign). These nearly always have both explicit and implicit victory conditions, objectives the players are trying to reach & the reaching of which give a natural stopping point for that scenario. Failing to acknowledge these has never helped anyone. Furthermore, even in absence of discussion of an explicit victory condition, all systems with ascending point scores imply a direction and a goal of their own: winning means getting a higher score. This thought is at the root of XP and level motivated behaviours. It doesn't matter if we're talking of D&D or Tetris, the basic psychology of it stays the same. Players who think XP & levels are self-important play differently than players who have another objective that XP & level may or may not be instrumental to.


Your post brings to mind the difference between going from level 1-50, or 1-60, or 1-70 in Diablo III (depending on how early in its life one started playing) and the 'end game' of ladder running (or finding how high in the insane difficulty tiers one could manage) that happens once one completes what you call the instrumental objectives.

Similar but different is the 1-20 level progression in the original Guild Wars (man, that's been a while) - then the end game PvP aspect which resulted after one built the character / team / guild.

The concepts are applicable to any game with levels, even games other than roleplaying games. Discussing specific examples is only worth it if they show how the concepts have been implemented particularly well or particularly poorly.


If we are to confine this discussion to the d20 system, and the more general D&D, level based family of games, the name level transition point relies somewhat on "what does the end game look like?" The current answer is that as one achieves 'name' level, one goes from adventure / pulp hero to superhero.

In TSR editions, the game included more than adventuring. In the current edition, there's a notable lack of that material (Matt Coleville's efforts on Strongholds notwithstanding, I have it but so far none of my players are interested in that aspect of the game yet).

Is the gaming audience interested in that transition point?
I don't think so (even though I still am).

The point is that by defining name level and its associated terminal game goals, it's possible to 1) specify the point at which such transitions would occur and then 2) give the choice of whether to implement such a transition point in an actual played game.

In your terms: a game can have one name level for pulp heroes and another for superheroes. If you choose to use the level-up column for pulp heroes, by name level characters have all necessary abilities to engage in pulp adventures and no levels gained past that will grant them new abilities that would trivialize pulp adventures or force the characters to transition into non-pulp heroes. If you choose to use level-up column for superheroes, characters will gain further abilities, possibly at a different rate, until they have all the necessary abilities for superheroic adventures, and then no levels gained past that will trivialize or force the characters to transition into non-superheroic adventures. (I'm for the moment ignoring that both "pulp" and "superheroes" are very loose aesthetics that don't have a definable boundary to set of challenges they would include.)

Or in other words: the device can be used to directly inform a prospective game master that a game system allows for multiple different end games.

---


So I don't see why Name Level can't also be the actual level cap.

As noted, it can be, and there is no issue with it as long as reaching that level is easy - that is, the time and effort required to reach that level doesn't eclipse other game activities. At that point it's a question of how much use you have for scaling, prestige and motivation for additional levels.

---


I think it's reasonable for the game designers to recommend that campaigns or even entire campaign settings restrict themselves to only one or two "tiers" of play.

It is; but it's just as reasonable for them to have or recommend more, provided they have the resources to implement them. The point of this thread is to discuss how the device of name level can be used to specify where the top of a tier actually is and the power curve of subsequent levels is meant to taper or plateau.

Also, as corollary to last paragraph of my first post, that cramming all tiers into a single level progression is unnecessary. Forced downtime between levels or tiers (a thing that did exist in earlier editions, by the way) is a solution to a problem that doesn't need to exist to begin with.

[KorvinStarmast]

This is a vicious lie and repeating it only gives a false impression of how tabletop roleplaying games actually work. No, it's not a lie. It was one of the original appeals of the D&D game, and it was actually a two in one: The game didn't end, and there wasn't a win condition that ended the game. This was new for most of us (who were not in Wesley's Braunstein group, etc).

It was wide open, and play went on as long as a referee and players kept showing up for it. Win, where it happened, was limited to a given battle or finding that treasure that we'd been hunting for five or six sessions. But you didn't win the game in the sense that winning the game had before that. (Nor in the sense of winning in Military War Games that all of this grew from and which I was involved with when I was in the military)

You could also lose, particularly at name level, if you squared off with your 'once allies now rivals' and went to war with each other. (Had a few experiences with that, but that's a long time ago).

So what you mean by win (or seem to mean) isn't what it means to win a game.

Has that changed at this point in time? Perhaps. We can't seem to get the CRPG/MMORPG aspects out of the D&D family.
Are there conditions for in-game success?
Yes. Two two simple measures of success:
living through the next adventure (not dying) and getting that next level.

There are a myriad of other measures of success (find that treasure! rescue the princess!) that will depend on what a given table did and was doing.

If you want to 'win' at a convention (we all play the Hill Giant adventure, who won?) you have to overlay a points system to create a win condition onto a game that isn't about winning the game.
(I'm for the moment ignoring that both "pulp" and "superheroes" are very loose aesthetics that don't have a definable boundary to set of challenges they would include.)
Yes, that is what they were intended to be.

---


The point of this thread is to discuss how the device of name level can be used to specify where the top of a tier actually is and the power curve of subsequent levels is meant to taper or plateau.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Worse IME is when it comes up it often divides groups. Jimmy and Susie want to be Lords of the Realms, but Joe and Jill want to kill some orcs. Jimmy and Sue suggest that they can raise armies and Joe and Jill can lead them and slay all the orcs in the 15 Kingdoms. But Joe and Jill are uninterested in leading armies, they want to crush skulls with their own hands.

Without whole groups who enjoy "name leveling" as opposed to XP-leveling, the campaigns grind to a halt, players drop out, and the whole thing goes belly up. Or at least that's been my experience.

I LIKE name leveling, and I like systems that provide it. I like side-leveling (raising your stats or skills without raising your level by spending in-game time doing related stuff) and I like systems that provide it. I try to provide it as available options in all my games regardless of system. But I find more often than not in D&D-likes, people just aren't interested, and finding a group that is is tremendously hard.

My issue with the name level transition is basically along these lines. Trying to shoehorn two almost completely separate game systems into the same framework means that someone is always annoyed at all points. And means that you're basically playing two separate games. And if you're going to do that...play two separate games. Find a game that handles the strategic layer really well, and then "zoom in" to the D&D layer. You can totally do that--offload the parts D&D doesn't handle to a different system. Good luck finding people willing to do that, especially in enough size to run campaigns.

------------------

As to the broader topic--

I run a persistent world. Campaigns that end (and lots do well before hitting max level[1]) with PCs alive see those PCs retire and become static (in power) NPCs at whatever relative power level they were at[2]. If it was a planned end, I run a session where it's narrative "ok, what are your characters aiming for in the future" talk. Little or no mechanics, just playing the next 50 years or so forward so I have a sense of how to play them for other groups. Because other people will encounter them or the effects of their actions. I don't guarantee that that "play forward" part will actually come true, because other campaigns might alter stuff or even (gasp) kill off those NPCs later. But I know what the characters' objectives are.

This means that "Name Level" (the point at which they retire) is wherever the campaign ended. Currently, after ~16 groups, I've got:
1. one set of active level 20 characters who just barely (in universe) retired. A second set got to level 20, but only in a non-canonical offshoot campaign that didn't get recorded.
2. One set of ~15th level characters. They're getting old enough now as to be not major players at the aventuring level, but are the king of a country and his allies (the rest didn't want to rule, so they're like the king's head researcher, the head of a bank, and the king's enforcer).
3. Several at ~10th level.
4. A few at ~8th level.
5. A lot at ~5th level.

One of the 5th level people is actually the "queen-equivalent" of a nation, so level =/= NPC power.

[1] whether because the group falls apart due to scheduling or because it was only being run during a school year and the year ended.
[2] there's actually a bunch of worldbuilding explaining why this is, but basically it has to do the idea that everyone has a "plateau". For most normal people, it's fairly low. ~level 3-5-equivalent, hit by adulthood. PCs are drawn from the pool of people whose plateau is much higher, and actually indeterminate from the start. So whatever level they were when they retired? That was, retrospectively, their plateau.

[Thrudd]

I'm still going to argue that the lack of "name leveling", since this is contextually very much about D&D and D&D-style games, is that D&D is a very low-RP-investment game.

Non-mathematical rewards are generally looked down upon, disregarded and not really all that common of rewards. Land is neat, but your adventures will usually take you far from it. Titles are great, but meaningless to kings and queens of lands far from home. Lordship can be fun, when you're doing it and not rolling a single d20 for some abstracted months of "how did my kingdom do while I was away?"

If it doesn't help you immediately kill monsters, get loot or advance in levels, D&D and D&D-likes tend to ignore it.

Worse IME is when it comes up it often divides groups. Jimmy and Susie want to be Lords of the Realms, but Joe and Jill want to kill some orcs. Jimmy and Sue suggest that they can raise armies and Joe and Jill can lead them and slay all the orcs in the 15 Kingdoms. But Joe and Jill are uninterested in leading armies, they want to crush skulls with their own hands.

Without whole groups who enjoy "name leveling" as opposed to XP-leveling, the campaigns grind to a halt, players drop out, and the whole thing goes belly up. Or at least that's been my experience.

I LIKE name leveling, and I like systems that provide it. I like side-leveling (raising your stats or skills without raising your level by spending in-game time doing related stuff) and I like systems that provide it. I try to provide it as available options in all my games regardless of system. But I find more often than not in D&D-likes, people just aren't interested, and finding a group that is is tremendously hard.
I think more people would be interested if it were a part of the official rules. A lot of people only want to do what they know, and don't trust a DM to do things off book.

I look at this sort of like reaching max level in an MMO. You actually spend a lot more of the game at max level doing the "end game" content. The leveling is the learning process for playing the game and the character's abilities. The "end game" for D&D doesn't need to be kingdoms and politics and armies, or not only that. There can also be the hunt for better loot and finding more spells. The occasional "save the world" quest where the characters will be tested to the limits.

If someone likes high level D&D, why would you want to play a game where you get to max level and then only play a single adventure with your finally completed character build?

I think it's also reasonable to want to keep the numbers smaller, with fewer mechanical moving parts, but still have some version of the "iconic" D&D experience, fighting dragons, beholders, demons, traveling the planes etc. So why not have max 6th level characters who are able to find some great magic items and do some stuff that's currently reserved for high level? I can see some DMs preferring to keep things lower level for the sake of ease and speed of planning encounters.
.

[Thrudd]

It is; but it's just as reasonable for them to have or recommend more, provided they have the resources to implement them. The point of this thread is to discuss how the device of name level can be used to specify where the top of a tier actually is and the power curve of subsequent levels is meant to taper or plateau.

Also, as corollary to last paragraph of my first post, that cramming all tiers into a single level progression is unnecessary. Forced downtime between levels or tiers (a thing that did exist in earlier editions, by the way) is a solution to a problem that doesn't need to exist to begin with.

Yes, I agree. There can be rules for post-max level ability gain that is significantly slower and smaller at each tier of play, like AD&D post-name level levelling. I don't see why there couldn't also be rules for moving from tier to tier, if the group wants that (or just considering the 1-20 level progression as a single "tier"). Do you mean, specifically gaining a name, like "Hero" or "Archmage" in-game, to narratively indicate to the players that they are now among the most important or powerful people in the game world?

[Vahnavoi]

@False God: the reason non-mathematical rewards are frowned upon or glossed over is precisely because the game has included ascending point score (XP) and levels as mathematical rewards for decades, while pretending it has no (other) terminal game goals. To buck that trend and find a group of players who are interested in other types of rewards requires explicit talk of terminal goals and how mathematical rewards relate to them.

Or in other words: the situation exists for a reason & you can do something about it; it's not an unmovable default.

---

@PhoenixPhyre: two groups playing different scenarios, with relevantly different (implicit or explicit) terminal goals, have always played different games, even if they've nominally used the same game system. Meanwhile, making a system that's capable of handling scenarios with different terminal goals, and thus capable of implementing different games, is entirely possible. A system can have more than one framework without forcing them to be in the same played game; the difference is in how and if this is communicated.

As for how you implement name level, that is of no use to players playing their characters. In fact it serves neither historical purposes of the concept nor the specific functions defined by me. It's a separate invention with its own purpose that doesn't really bear relation to what I'm discussing.

[KorvinStarmast]

@False God: the reason non-mathematical rewards are frowned upon or glossed over is precisely because the game has included ascending point score (XP) and levels as mathematical rewards for decades, while pretending it has no (other) terminal game goals. To make sure I am understanding your reward stance, is the magic ring that a PC finds in a treasure hoard, the that lets the character see in the dark, a mathematical reward or not? (Assume that WBL does not exist in that game).

[Vahnavoi]

Yes, I agree. There can be rules for post-max level ability gain that is significantly slower and smaller at each tier of play, like AD&D post-name level levelling. I don't see why there couldn't also be rules for moving from tier to tier, if the group wants that (or just considering the 1-20 level progression as a single "tier").

Rules for jumping tiers are a separate issue; depending on how the separate level curves are calibrated, this could be as simple as taking post-name level XP total and turning it into levels in a new tier. What narrative or in-character action would accompany this is an open question; it could be anything from years of training (as you suggest) to something silly like having an alien from outer space unlock your true potential.

The process doesn't have to be complex or hard, it needs to be obvious & something a player has to consciously choose. If it's possible to jump tiers on accident, the whole concept loses meaning.


Do you mean, specifically gaining a name, like "Hero" or "Archmage" in-game, to narratively indicate to the players that they are now among the most important or powerful people in the game world?

The important thing is to communicate to the player that their character is effectively fully learned; tying that to specific in-character title is where name level gets, well, its name, but it's not strictly necessary. Such a title can have utility of its own, provided it's used correctly. (Correct in this case means informative; when applied to characters, it should actually tell about their capabilities and social standing.)

---


To make sure I am understanding your reward stance, is the magic ring that a PC finds in a treasure hoard, the that lets the character see in the dark, a mathematical reward or not? (Assume that WBL does not exist in that game).

Technically any game effect that can be mathematically quantified is a mathematical reward. The real question is why a player is excited about it?

1) Are they excited about it because it allows them to gain more XP and a higher level?
2) Are they excited about it because it allows them to navigate a dark cave complex, which is the actual scenario objective?

In the former, the reward is evaluated in terms of abstract game math that is taken as self-important; the object is rewarding because it gets you a higher score. In the latter, the reward is evaluated in terms of concrete in-game events; the object is rewarding because it lets you do something.

These forms of reward are not always mutually exclusive, so don't mistake that for the point. There can also be any number of intermediate steps on the way. The point is about where the buck stops: what is the ultimate reason the thing is rewarding. After all, you can be excited about getting out of the cave because it gets you most points - or you can be excited about getting most points because it gets you out of the cave.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@PhoenixPhyre: two groups playing different scenarios, with relevantly different (implicit or explicit) terminal goals, have always played different games, even if they've nominally used the same game system. Meanwhile, making a system that's capable of handling scenarios with different terminal goals, and thus capable of implementing different games, is entirely possible. A system can have more than one framework without forcing them to be in the same played game; the difference is in how and if this is communicated.

I fundamentally disagree with the first sentence. If that were true, no game has ever been played by more than one group or even one person, because people within the group don't have the same terminal goals. You can play the same game with different goals.

And in this particular case, the goals aren't really the issue. It's the necessary structures and supports as well as the type of play. And if 50% of your session is spent doing "castle stuff" and you hate that part, you're pissed off 50% of the time. Same (but in reverse) if 50% of the session is spent doing "smash skulls" and you hate that. Trying to mix those paradigms in the same sessions just makes someone mad all of the time. And that's bad business.

Let's take a video game example. I HATE pvp. And refuse to do it. At all. I will not participate in optional pvp and will actively shun games that make it mandatory. And I've yet to see a game where the pve balance wasn't skewed by the introduction of pvp except to the degree that they're separate game modes entirely, with no overlap. Except even then, the introduction and maintenance of pvp requires developer time that I'd prefer they spend on new cooperative or single-player content. Thus, introducing pvp into a game damages the game from my perspective.

But from someone else's point of view, the pve/cooperative mode is the intruder and the pvp is the point of the game. Unless they're truly separate modes, someone is irritated in both cases. MMOs and AAA video games have enough resources to "split the difference" mostly acceptably, in most cases.

In this analogy, pvp is "name level" play and pve is "regular" play. Or vice versa. It doesn't really matter which. TTRPGs...don't have those resources to split the difference. Even the biggest is only really about 5 real rules/system people. Every person you pull into making "name level" stuff is much less you can do on the other parts. Even if name level is completely separate and has no interference on the rest of the play. Which is...unlikely. So trying to shoehorn a completely separate game mode that shares basically none of the core assumptions[1] as the other mode is literally trying to make a second, separate game system within the first system. Yet keep the two interoperative. Forgive me if that's unlikely when they're barely able to make one consistent system.

[1] Players play one character who progresses via levels and xp, mostly by adventuring. Conflicts are at a single-person scale, resolved by resolving individual actions. Time scales are, when necessary at all, at the < 1 day range. By contrast, the "castles and leaders" thing has you playing a whole area, that progresses by competely different criteria, mostly by talking and logistics. Conflicts are at the group scale, resolved by examining abstracted actions over many people. Time scales are mostly in the month range.

Rule systems and mechanics are not scale independent. They only work, by nature, within a very narrow range unless you make all of them fully abstract from the get go. In which case, you have neither D&D or any other class/level system nor a kingdom simulator.

[Vahnavoi]

I fundamentally disagree with the first sentence. If that were true, no game has ever been played by more than one group or even one person, because people within the group don't have the same terminal goals. You can play the same game with different goals.

This disagreement only exists because you are taking my statement furthers than I. I'm not talking about terminal goals of people, I'm talking about terminal goals of games, as defined by game rules. People have definitely agreed to play games with the same victory conditions (etc.). But something like your typical tabletop roleplaying game is not, in fact, a complete game, it is a system for making a game, and those games can, and do, in effect have different terminal goals, among other rule differences. I see no issue in saying that, say, two groups utilizing a D&D system to play radically different scenarios are playing different games, and I see no utility in pretending they're playing the same one.


And in this particular case, the goals aren't really the issue. It's the necessary structures and supports as well as the type of play. And if 50% of your session is spent doing "castle stuff" and you hate that part, you're pissed off 50% of the time. Same (but in reverse) if 50% of the session is spent doing "smash skulls" and you hate that. Trying to mix those paradigms in the same sessions just makes someone mad all of the time. And that's bad business.

One, this misses the relevant point, which is that systems can exists which can construct both a game that's 100% castle stuff and another that's 100% smash skulls. It is not given, even for the sake of example, that the system level supports and structures for these are so non-overlapping that any time spent on one is away from the other. Furthermore, being a negative nelly about mixing paradigms misses that there are people who actually like a mix. There already was a game design movement that emphasized "coherency" and proclaimed that to make better games, games ought to stick to one "creative agenda" - the Forge / GNS. By their standards, all D&D editions up to that point (up to 3.5, specifically) were incoherent both in their own terms, and yours. But "coherent" games did not become massively more popular than "incoherent" ones. Virtually all of them were and remain niche. The one edition that maybe was informed by Forge / GNS, 4th edition, did not do better than it's more incoherent predecessors.

So, historically and empirically, I don't have a strong reason to believe the people who demand gameplay is 100% this or that overwhelm people who are fine with, or even prefer a mix. Your extended PvE versus PvP analogy has the same pitfall - there are plenty of popular and succesful game with both game modes, with a lot of players engaging in both, with the game systems and engines very obviously recycling assets ("structures and support") between game modes. There is no clear reason to believe such games would've been better business as only on or the other. (And some were cobbled together by a small handful or even individual people; modern video games often take loads of people, but basic game design, especially on pen & paper, doesn't.)

The rest, is very clearly you not conversing the same thing I am when talking about name levels. Let me quote myself:


For purposes of this thread, "name level" is the level at which a character class has achieved all its defining abilities and can move on to pursue terminal game goals.

Your entire line of criticism is based on the historical use and the accompanying shift in gameplay; but for the points I'm making, that is secondary. For a system or tier of a system that's 100% about smashing skulls, name level means you have all the defining abilities for skull-smashing & can now go smash the biggest skulls. You may get some +to hit and +to dam so you can smash skulls even harder as you gain level, but there is no ability that would suddenly make the game not about smashing skulls simply as a function of leveling.

A system or tier of a system that transitions from 100% skull smashing to 50% skull smashing, 50% castle stuff is for people who consider both parts as defining of what characters ought to do.

[False God]

I think more people would be interested if it were a part of the official rules. A lot of people only want to do what they know, and don't trust a DM to do things off book.
I agree, with a caveat. While more players of D&D-likes would be interested in it, because it's part of the rules, IME overall fewer people would play the game. No different than any other system that includes name-leveling.

Many folks come to D&D-likes (as opposed to other systems) specifically for the relatively low investment. Even with the massive amount of content for the game, D&D doesn't require that level of investment. It doesn't require you to think hard, to role-play hard, or even try hard (most at-level enemies are below par for the average party).

All those other non-D&D games that include name-leveling as part of them system? That all require more investment. Investment in the game-world, investment in your party, investment in your character, and so on. You do have to think about if the Empress is really someone you want to befriend, if the party is really on your side, if that group of bandits might destroy all the work you've put in.

Sure, if you put it in the books more people will be into it because some people will be into whatever is in the books. But there will be a lot more people who just aren't interested and go play something else.

To mirror your later comparison, D&D and D&D-likes are the MMO equivalent of LFG, most of the fun with hardly any of the investment required for actual raiding content.


@False God: the reason non-mathematical rewards are frowned upon or glossed over is precisely because the game has included ascending point score (XP) and levels as mathematical rewards for decades, while pretending it has no (other) terminal game goals. To buck that trend and find a group of players who are interested in other types of rewards requires explicit talk of terminal goals and how mathematical rewards relate to them.

Or in other words: the situation exists for a reason & you can do something about it; it's not an unmovable default.

I do, but my larger point was that those people are a much smaller portion of the playerbase.

I actually like to run high-level campaigns, or more often now "pick your level" campaigns because I attract people who are less interested in "leveling up". I hardly even have folks roll for stats anymore, just two rules:
1: Pick your stats to best represent your character, 4-20.
2: Pick your level to best represent your character. 1-20.

First off I find myself with far fewer dissatisfied players. Yes, I do I get folks who write "20" in every stat and pick level 20, but the weird part is, they do this once or twice and then grow out of it. When you've already "won" the game, you have to find new ways to have fun.
Secondly I wind up with far fewer "I had this cool idea but my stats just suck." situations with folks suiciding, retiring or being forced to play with the faulty character or quit the group.
Thirdly I generally find folks, even the ones who make low-level characters, are far less interested in "leveling". The level they picked is the level at which they have the most fun, which best expresses their character concept and that character tends to "grow" more than than it levels, and yes they often level after a while but at a time when it is appropriate for their character to do so, rather than after killing X number of monsters.
I also find that folks are generally less interested in, or at least they don't feel under pressure to, constantly seek out dangerous challenges to earn the most amount of loot and XP possible and they're more willing to check out the "small stuff", without worrying if its going to be the most bang for their buck.

I think most importantly to me, the end result of telling players to "make your character as you see your character" tells me FAR better what sort of game they actually want to play than asking them has ever done.

[Thrudd]

I agree, with a caveat. While more players of D&D-likes would be interested in it, because it's part of the rules, IME overall fewer people would play the game. No different than any other system that includes name-leveling.

Many folks come to D&D-likes (as opposed to other systems) specifically for the relatively low investment. Even with the massive amount of content for the game, D&D doesn't require that level of investment. It doesn't require you to think hard, to role-play hard, or even try hard (most at-level enemies are below par for the average party).

All those other non-D&D games that include name-leveling as part of them system? That all require more investment. Investment in the game-world, investment in your party, investment in your character, and so on. You do have to think about if the Empress is really someone you want to befriend, if the party is really on your side, if that group of bandits might destroy all the work you've put in.

Sure, if you put it in the books more people will be into it because some people will be into whatever is in the books. But there will be a lot more people who just aren't interested and go play something else.

To mirror your later comparison, D&D and D&D-likes are the MMO equivalent of LFG, most of the fun with hardly any of the investment required for actual raiding content.



I do, but my larger point was that those people are a much smaller portion of the playerbase.

I actually like to run high-level campaigns, or more often now "pick your level" campaigns because I attract people who are less interested in "leveling up". I hardly even have folks roll for stats anymore, just two rules:
1: Pick your stats to best represent your character, 4-20.
2: Pick your level to best represent your character. 1-20.

First off I find myself with far fewer dissatisfied players. Yes, I do I get folks who write "20" in every stat and pick level 20, but the weird part is, they do this once or twice and then grow out of it. When you've already "won" the game, you have to find new ways to have fun.
Secondly I wind up with far fewer "I had this cool idea but my stats just suck." situations with folks suiciding, retiring or being forced to play with the faulty character or quit the group.
Thirdly I generally find folks, even the ones who make low-level characters, are far less interested in "leveling". The level they picked is the level at which they have the most fun, which best expresses their character concept and that character tends to "grow" more than than it levels, and yes they often level after a while but at a time when it is appropriate for their character to do so, rather than after killing X number of monsters.
I also find that folks are generally less interested in, or at least they don't feel under pressure to, constantly seek out dangerous challenges to earn the most amount of loot and XP possible and they're more willing to check out the "small stuff", without worrying if its going to be the most bang for their buck.

I think most importantly to me, the end result of telling players to "make your character as you see your character" tells me FAR better what sort of game they actually want to play than asking them has ever done.

I'm not sure how only going up five or ten levels instead of twenty would require more investment from the players? I mean, such a game could still be run as a beer & pretzels game where they just go to a different dungeon every session and kill stuff. It actually might be better for players who want that, since you could keep it at lower tiers and they don't need to remember so many spells and abilities. It doesn't take more investment to write down some magic items you find than it is to update all your stats.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people still play D&D with investment in the setting and the story and characters. Maybe not in league play, where they just go through the published modules, but plenty of people watch streaming games where there is heavy narrative investment from the players, and likely try to replicate that themselves. Are you just objecting to the domain management thing? Because that's not the only option for max/name-level play, and I don't see how having an extra option would drive more people away.

[False God]

I'm not sure how only going up five or ten levels instead of twenty would require more investment from the players? I mean, such a game could still be run as a beer & pretzels game where they just go to a different dungeon every session and kill stuff. It actually might be better for players who want that, since you could keep it at lower tiers and they don't need to remember so many spells and abilities. It doesn't take more investment to write down some magic items you find than it is to update all your stats.
It's not the levels that require investment, it's the investment that requires investment. 1 or 20 the investment in D&D-likes is fairly low. You can usually google up good high-level builds and spells, it's all that other stuff that name-level gameplay involves that the levels themselves inherently do not.


I'm pretty sure a lot of people still play D&D with investment in the setting and the story and characters. Maybe not in league play, where they just go through the published modules, but plenty of people watch streaming games where there is heavy narrative investment from the players, and likely try to replicate that themselves. Are you just objecting to the domain management thing? Because that's not the only option for max/name-level play, and I don't see how having an extra option would drive more people away.
As I addressed in another thread, all that other stuff is 99% optional in D&D. The setting, the story, the characters, the role-play, the kingdoms, the people in them, totally unnecessary to playing the game. But it's not for more name-level-heavy games.

To address the OP a bit...

Using name-level for the tiers is fairly meaningless. It's just a name slapped on top of a system that doesn't care what you call it. 4E did it, but you can strip it away and it doesn't change anything. 5E does it, but it doesn't mean anything, which again, makes its usage in a D&D-like system pretty pointless. Maybe it means you get a few more +1's or something but that doesn't really say anything about the expected gameplay, which remains unchanged regardless of the level.

PhoenixPhyre gets into it a bit. The scope or scale of D&D, regardless of level, never really changes. You start off against 5 wolves and then maybe 5 orcs and then maybe 5 owlbears and on and on until you're fighting 5 dragons or 5 solars or 5 gods or something. It's very personal in terms of scale and scope. Individually those battles may represent part of something larger, but you're always addressing the larger thing on a personal level.

Name level gameplay expands the scope of the game. Things aren't personal. You're dealing with 5 shops each with 5 staff each with 5 customers, or you're dealing with 5 princes and 5 kingdoms with 5 unique problems where a singular resolution to any one of them can have rippling effects on the rest and often in unpredictable ways.

ACK models it well. Adventuring is a personal affair. Conquering is a semi-personal affair. Kingdoms are an impersonal affair. The nature of the game changes as the name level does.

Name level changes without game-nature changes is just a different way to say "1, 2, 3, 4...."

I'm not objecting to ACK gameplay, I love it. D&D-likes are just poorly built for it.

[RandomPeasant]

I think it is almost certainly true that games would be better if leveling up (or the equivalent) was made more optional. Most stories don't involve that much power progression. If someone has a particular character concept in mind, telling them that they must keep accumulating abilities and fighting more powerful foes will almost always end up violating that character concept.


Virtually all of them were and remain niche.

To be fair, this is true of the overwhelming majority of TTRPGs in general. It's really hard to draw conclusions about the TTRPG market because that market is basically D&D, and then a couple of things that enfranchised TTRPG players probably know about (Shadowrun, GURPS, WoD and the like), and then a huge tail of random stuff. And the margin between each of those steps is huge. It's like if movies were "the MCU" and then "indie horror films" with nothing in between.

[Vahnavoi]

@FalseGod: you are falling to the same pitfall as PhoenixPhyre - critiquing the historical use without really touching the rest of my arguments. That you say "Name level changes without game-nature changes is just a different way to say "1, 2, 3, 4...."" shows this. This can only be true if name level is level 1, that is, a character has all its defining abilities from the start, and can engage the endgame from the start. For any other configuration, a distinction can be made between levels that grant new abilities, creating a steep upward curve in play power, versus levels that don't and create a taper or plateau in the curve.

You also seem to have missed my reasoning for why 4th edition tier structure didn't have my desired effect: it doesn't have distinct endgames for each tier. As far as I know it doesn't even talk about the possibility of such. The concluding statement of my first post was "The harder and most important part is explaining what sort of terminal game goals these abilities are meant to handle for each implemented tier - the name scenarios and campaigns. The things you are meant to do in the game to win it that aren't gaining XP and levels."

Your point about ACKS is ironic, given its chief source of ideas is BECMI era D&D. It does some things better than modern D&D because it developed on some things old D&D did that modern D&D doesn't.

---

@RandomPeasant: I don't really disagree with your point that most RPGs are niche, but I don't see it as weakening mine. If anything, it demonstrates game design and business don't correlate all that much, so arguments from "bad business" are dubious.