It is not a law, it is a principle which merely states that it can make a useful framework. Perhaps more explanation or a wikipedia link would help clarify just what the hero's journey is.

As for leveling up, I guess I never had any of those problems.

I find D&D works just fine for levels 1-15 and doesn't start to break down until level 20 or so. Since I usually start games at level 1 and have slow advancement I have never had to end a game because the heroes were too high level (usually the game runs its course before then or real life gets in the way).

As for power level, I ask you why should the young newbie be just as powerful as the grizled vetteran? That makes no sense to me. In D&D the young newbie is a lower level character than the veteran, but the experience curve in D&D is such that lower level characters rappidly catch up since lower level characters need less xp to level and gain more xp for the same encounter then the higher level characters. Lower level characters rappidly catch up until they merely lag 1 level behind the grisled vetteran, and I like those kinds of mechanics just fine.

You might like Deadlands for Savage Worlds which has a "Veteran of the Wierd West" perk you can take at character creation that makes you a grizled vetteran but gives you disadvantages too so you arent that much more powerful than the young bloods.

You may also want to look into Ars Magica's troupe style play that is designed to have characters of varying power levels adventuring together.

But you are saying you want character advancement WITHOUT the characters gaining in power? (so after 10 adventures you are barely more powerful than when you started, but your character has developed?) If I understand you correctly that is an interesting idea, but not one that is likely to be popular among most gamers. I'm just not sure what need is filled by keeping everyone at the same relative power level?

Power is relative, Conan.  But you miss my point, as well.

Let's head back to Starwars, eh?  Now, Obi-Wan is a grizzled veteran in every sense of the term.  In 'A New Hope' he doesn't dominate the party by virtue of his awesomisity.

Now, there is no debating that he's grizzled and presumtively higher level than everyone else, right?  And sure, his interations with Luke suggest that he is 'in charge'.

But once you get the 'party' together, Obi-wan's 'domination' fades. Han Solo doesn't need Obi-Wans help particularly, and Obi-Wan doesn't overshadow Han or Chewie's ability to whup Stormtrooper ass.

Now: In an RPG, modeling a grizzled veteran, that is a character who has been played for a while and has some XP under his belt you almost never see that. Any character with a significant XP advantage will overpower just about everyone else, in some game systems going so far as to be able to outdo the entire party all at once!  Sure, not universally, but in the big named games? Yeah. Imagine Obi-Wan as a 10th level character in a First level game?  Or a 100xp Vampire amidst starter characters in the WoD? Or a 100+ Karma Shadowrun character?

Growth tends to be explosively fast in RPGs in that regard.


In 'real life' and in many, if not most... stories... you know the stuff we use for inspiration for games?... even the Newb characters have value. A mixed expirence group works, because the differences between Han and Luke and even Obi-Wan  are minor. Luke does stuff that Han doesn't... there is a near-equality.

The young buck doesn't have to know more than the grizzled veteran to compete. But I'm out of time here... I'll try to address this more later.

1) Obi-wan would have been a higher level NPC in A New Hope
2) He DID outdo the other characters. He took on Darth Vader mano-y-mano while the rest of the party ran. He wandered around the deathstar alone without fear of capture and deactivated its main systems so the Falcon could escape.

Yes Han and Luke could do things without him because they were competent characters, and they all had different skills. Obi wan could kick all their butts if he so chose (as out of character as that would be) but he can't fly a ship.

Every RPG I have ever played could handle such situations with ease, so I think this is a matter of us both having very different experiences in play.

Class based systems help with niche protection, so if you have a super powerful character of one class, the other characters can still shine so long as they have different classes, or at least picked a very different build of feats and skills.

If you have a high level paladin in a party, the archers can still shoot and kill orcs (especially if the paladin is currently occupied with a very powerful black guard), the wizard can still cast his spells and the rogue can still sneak around and find/dissarm traps.

Just so long as the high level character isn't controlled by a power gamer bent on stealing the spotlight in every scene he can, and the DM is competent, such issues are no harder to run in play than a party that is all the same level.

Give the old grizled paladin stat penalties for old age and he/she may even struggle to keep up with the lower level characters in some situations.

The one class this gets tricky with in D&D is the wizard as high level wizards have such a range of spells they can encroach on the niches of other classes.

A good GM will make sure every character has a chance to shine now and then no matter what their level.

If the linear power scaling of D&D gives you a headache, I recommend systems where the bonuses for leveling up get smaller and smaller at higher levels and the differences between levels is small. You might like Alternity for those reasons.

Also Traveller does a GREAT job of mixing older veterans with younger characters with a minimal power gap.

I'd dispute that Obi Wan has to be a higher level NPC to be workable, thats the whole point of my arguement. It shouldn't HAVE to be that way at all.  Neither did he have to be significantly better to wander around solo.  Han and Luke did fine until they started the jailbreak. Sure, not solo, but none-the-less competent.

By saying 'older grizzled veterans must be higher level NPCs' you automatically invalidate any concept that relies on being the old veteran 'mentor' as a player character. Some guys want to be Luke, some want to be Obi-Wan (at least until he gets himself whacked...)

You suggest house ruled workaround and fancy tricks, often relying on 'well adjusted players and skilled GMs' to make work, I want something that is inherent to the game system.  You shouldn't have to break a game like that to make such a simple, common, concept work. Fiction, and game ideas, are littered with 'mixed power' parties that work just fine.  Real RPG sessions rarely, if ever, do.... outside Traveller perhaps.

You point Traveller allows for the older grizzled folks to run alongside the young turks... but that only reinforces my point: Traveller, to my knowledge, had no real XP system, no real character growth in game.  Thus it didn't follow any 'Heroes Journey' at all, and it remains a long standing popular game line.  What I suggest is that Traveller shows us that rampant, even excessive, character growth isn't necessary to make a game system fun and workable.  It shows that there are other paths... and I think those paths should be explored a little more in game design, they are seriously neglected.

Quote from: SpikeI'd dispute that Obi Wan has to be a higher level NPC to be workable, thats the whole point of my arguement. It shouldn't HAVE to be that way at all.  Neither did he have to be significantly better to wander around solo.  Han and Luke did fine until they started the jailbreak. Sure, not solo, but none-the-less competent.

Obi wan was obviously more powerful than Luke or Han. In most RPGs that translates to being higher level. HOWEVER the mentor archetype can be easily modeled in any system among equivalent level characters.

Quote from: SpikeBy saying 'older grizzled veterans must be higher level NPCs' you automatically invalidate any concept that relies on being the old veteran 'mentor' as a player character. Some guys want to be Luke, some want to be Obi-Wan (at least until he gets himself whacked...)

A higher level character is only one way to model a mentor in d20. You can also use the Mentor archetype from "Mythic Heroes" by Bad Axe games (which I adapted for True20 in the True20 companion).

Quote from: SpikeYou suggest house ruled workaround and fancy tricks, often relying on 'well adjusted players and skilled GMs' to make work,

It really does not require anything fancy. Your average group of gamers are quite capable of handling the mentor archetype.

Quote from: SpikeI want something that is inherent to the game system.,

I have given you examples for Savage Worlds (Veteran of the Weird West), d20 (higher level PC, or Mentor Archetype), True20 and Traveller. Is there a specific game you are thinking of that I havent covered?

Quote from: SpikeYou shouldn't have to break a game like that to make such a simple, common, concept work.

What exactly have I suggested that "breaks" a game?

Quote from: SpikeFiction, and game ideas, are littered with 'mixed power' parties that work just fine.  Real RPG sessions rarely, if ever, do.... outside Traveller perhaps.

My experience is quite different. The games I have played in regularly have heroes of varying power and ability within the group. Sometimes this is due to better or worse stat rolls, sometimes due to character concept, sometimes due to having PCs of different levels and any number of other reasons. The obsession with "game ballance" and having all the heroes always be at the exact same power level is a fairly modern concern, and is both easy to ignore and difficult to maintain. Evenly powered PCs are the exception rather than the norm.

A character's age, level and the mentor concept are all largely independent of eachother. It would be unusual to have a lower level mentor, or a younger one, but not impossible. Similarly it is possible to have amentor the same age and level as the rest of the party, or the same level and older, or the same age and higher level, or any other combination just so long as it all makes sense in some fashion.

Quote from: SpikeYou point Traveller allows for the older grizzled folks to run alongside the young turks... but that only reinforces my point: Traveller, to my knowledge, had no real XP system, no real character growth in game.  Thus it didn't follow any 'Heroes Journey' at all, and it remains a long standing popular game line.  What I suggest is that Traveller shows us that rampant, even excessive, character growth isn't necessary to make a game system fun and workable.  It shows that there are other paths... and I think those paths should be explored a little more in game design, they are seriously neglected.

I agree it could be interesting, but don't see how this has any bearing on the hero's journey. The hero's journey is actually more about character development than power growth (though it often includes some of the latter).

I would also contend that the reason there are few games without a power curve is because there is little demand for such games.

If you want to discuss this lat point further I would perfer to do so in another thread, since I feel it is a bit off topic.

For someone who dislikes the hero's journey I find it odd you demand specific rules for modeling it. I am also confused by your earlier assertion that hundreds of RPGs are modeled after the hero's journey, since you now seem to be arguing that none of them do. If it seems I am having trouble understanding your points, it is because you seem to keep contradicting yourself.

My points are:
- The hero's journey is a useful tool when building adventures
- Heroic archetypes (like the mentor) CAN be modeled in a variety of ways in most game systems.
- While you could make a good game without a power curve, I'm not sure that is what most people want. Anyhow there are already games (Traveller may be a possible example) that do this.

Rather than get roped into a sidebar discussion over Obi Wan, I think it would be better if you addressed how, specifically, you mean for the Heroes Journey to be implemented in Games and Game Design.

'Cause right now we aren't really discussing your Fundaments, we're discussing wether or not Obi-Wan is modelable in D&D... which SO isn't the point.

As for Savage Worlds/Deadlands: Grizzled veteran never seemed to provide any meaningful difference mechanically, but then I never played Deadlands games where taking it was an option (I'd be hard pressed to say 'GM refusal' or 'too early an Edition' as the cause).

Nor did I mean to suggest that it's impossible to model it in a variety of games. I even cited on example myself a la Shatterzone (where a grizzled veteran has more skills but less attributes to back them up).

The hero's journey is IMHO mostly useful in writing adventures (whether you are a game designer or a Game Master).

I already provided a brief outline of how I see it relating to an RPG, though perhaps I made the mistake of focusing too much on the power gain and less on the character development aspects, but character development is usually mostly left to the players rather than covered by adventure modules or game rules.

Now that brings me to an interesting question... in what ways might the rules be able to encourage character development? Is such encouragement needed, is it even useful, or should the rules leave character development 100% in the hands of the players?

I think your definition of theory is a little weak. A "description" of a game could be...

"5 people sat around a table. 2 drank Mountain Dew and 1 drank Dr. Pepper, 1 drank water, and the last drank beer. The Dr. Pepper drinker spent a lot of time text messaging. They fiddled with stuff on the table and laughed on average every 2.65 minutes. One of the Mountain Dew Drinkers went to the bathroom 6 times that afternoon."

Some accounts are better than others, and in some sense explanatory value appears to be one of the differences. But this begs a far more interesting question than just what is a theory. The question is what you want your theory to explain about gaming. Time and time again, I think people dive into the question of what theory to use for gaming and which is better at this and that without really spending much time thinking about what the theory is meant to explain.

I'm particularly skeptical of the value of any theory about gaming that seeks to describe or explain things solely from within the framework of the game itself. Seems to me the more interestung questions would relate gaming to other aspects of people's lives. Why someone chooses gaming at any moment from among the many other things they could do strike me as involving far more interesting questions than what abstract properties can one find in the games and how can we quantify them?