Or should it normally require several sessions of play?

Thought prompted by GMing a lot of low level 5e recently. No matter how XP awards are tweaked, the XP table strongly encourages hitting 2nd level after 3-4 hours of play, since you only need 300 XP for 2nd compared to 900 for 3rd and 2700 for 4th. The xp table is designed so PCs hit 2nd in 1 session, 3rd in another 1-2 sessions, but then several sessions per level after that. In my new 5e campaign I'm giving XP for gold and cutting monster XP to 20% - the PCs still got 363 XP after the first 4 hour session, pretty much exactly the same sort of amount as they'd have got from xp-for-kills I suspect.

I'm still ambivalent whether or not this is a good idea. In particular I'm not sure whether players have enough of a feeling of accomplishment on reaching 2nd & 3rd, and getting out of the initial danger zone. Would it be worth using an entirely different XP table?

I don't use fiat levelling, I find it unsatisfying both as player & GM, but IME GMs who do tend to award a level every few sessions, so initial advancement often slower.

I prefer in one or two sessions myself, simply for player survivability.  Still fragile, but not so much that it kills the interest in the campaign after a rather unsatisfying wipe out.

*Waits for the Grognards to tell me I'm doing it wrong, again.*

I don't like first level games.  The PCs are too fragile and too incompetent.  I also find the monsters whimpy and uninteresting.  But I never skip onver first level because players, new players especially need a chance to learn their character try some of their abilities before they go to level 2 and need to pick new stuff.  

I also just DM fiat 1 level per session until level 3 which is where I want them to be.

First level in 5e does not feel like an actual complete level. It feels like level 0.75. And level 2 certainly does not feel like the serious jump up that it does in other editions. I get the feeling that a brief stay in level 1 is expected. Kind of a jump into cold water all at once to get used to it before you start wading. A quick, "oh, look this is pretty dangerous. Don't get too comfortable or too attached to your character. Did you make the right decision with this guy? Want to switch out for a fighter? No? Okay. Everyone acclimated? Okay, here's level 2, where things start to get real..." kind of thing.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1007926*Waits for the Grognards to tell me I'm doing it wrong, again.*

I'm done harping on how you invite it and are just as bad as those you claim are picking on you. You'd be right in this case. 5e isn't the other editions, so there shouldn't be an expectation that it should play the same as other editions. From level 3 and up, I feel like the differences are rather specific and active decisions (ex.: plentiful quick natural healing is a deliberate decision to get rid of someone 'having' to play the cleric, saves are harder to make but spell effects reduced to make spells fun to cast without them dominating the game, etc.). The different feel of 1st and 2nd levels... it might just be happenstance. It's not like there was anything close to a consensus as to how squishy you were supposed to start off (even within a sample size of one, since a lot of people like the low-level funnel... once in a while). Maybe the designers just said, 'y'know, instead of worrying about how zero or hero you're supposed to be at 1st level, we just make 1st level only last about one session?' I hate to use 5e's overall popularity as a metric as to whether this individual choice was a success (but what other metrics doe we have?), but it seems to have worked.

I remember reading about that philosophy during 5e development. Rush them out of the lower levels fast so they can get to the good stuff.

Low level play is a different game, there is a lot more caution and fear when you can be taken out by a nasty slip on wet pavement or an unusually bad insect bite. On the other hand, that is the time when advancement matters the most, players are hungry for each xp in a way they never will be again. I say drag it out a little longer. The time they want it the most is precisely the time to delay that reward.When they finally do level up, the sense of relief will be palpable, and the players will really feel they paid their dues to get there.

EDIT: I should note I have no experience of 5e per se.

I stretch level 1 out quite a bit by using the XP schedule from AD&D and allowing players to exchange gold for XP. I think this is important, because it gets players used to the idea that their characters can, die and it gets them using their heads instead of expecting their powers to get them through anything I throw at them. Levels 1-3 are important because proportionally speaking, those are the biggest increases in hit points they'll ever see. Players also become much more motivated to take risks and seek out a big payday when they realize that grinding through random gaggles of goblins out in the killing fields means they'll hit level 2 some time in 2019.

A level 3 Fighter seems like a veritable god next to level 1 characters.

There's a sweet spot, probably different for everyone, where the low level game is really fun--when you are making hard decisions about buying a useful 50 gp item or saving up for the heavy armor or a lowbow. When you couldn't possibly afford hirelings to watch horses or mules while you are in the dungeon, so are travelling on foot and thus are keeping good track of your encumbrance and every copper and whether to grab the weapons off the bandits because hey, resale value (but weight). When every battle is potentially lost, and you do your absolute best to get as much information ahead of time to determine whether or not to engage at all. But also when you have enough hp to actually say, "hey, I'm getting low, I'd better move to the back line" and actually be able to do so before going down. I personally find that in levels 2-4 in 5e, and that's where I like to stretch out the xp tables.

I'm fine with it as it works as designed.  There are times when "rush through the first levels relatively quickly, especially at first," is what I want to do.  Makes it particularly easy to start people at 1st with a higher level group.  I never particularly cared for the early charts gap from 1st to 3rd, as taking as long to get 3rd as 2nd seemed off, given how much more survivable 2nd level characters were.

If I'm playing a game where I want to spend more time in the low levels, I still appreciate the relative difference between 1st through 5th.  Even if I gave, say, half or less XP, I'd do it uniformly through those levels, and probably past that.  That'd be a game to stay under level 11 for a long campaign, and would work just fine with the lower rate.

There is one other thing about the level pace that I find interesting.  I'm running infrequent sessions in my game at work at about 1.25 hours per session.  The default gives a very solid advancement for that kind of pace.  Makes me wonder if they had some research where people were typically doing 2-3 hour sessions on average, perhaps with a fair amount of the session not focused on killing things.  For such a group, you could easily spend a solid month at 1st level.  Whereas my main group, if we met more, I'd want to slow the overall leveling pace down throughout the levels.  Since our sessions are also infrequent but long, the pace as standard is tolerable, even if a bit fast for my personal tastes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1007954There is one other thing about the level pace that I find interesting.  I'm running infrequent sessions in my game at work at about 1.25 hours per session.  The default gives a very solid advancement for that kind of pace.  

I also found the 5e XP rate works very well in my text chat online game, where sessions are about 2-3 hours and run half as fast as tabletop, so similar to 1.25 hour tabletop.

Looking at the other end of the scale, I found the high level XP chart worked well in my Paizo Adventure Path game but is a bit fast for sandbox play, because at high levels spells tend to dominate the sandbox in a way they don't in linear dungeon APs. So I'm planning to slow advancement from 11th in my tabletop Wilderlands sandbox by reducing the XP for gp ratio to 1:10. This may prompt PCs to retire from active adventuring at 11th, creating a soft cap, which seems fine. It means the gp needed to level above 11th will be similar to high level AD&D PCs, who typically need 150,000-300,000 XP to level.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1007954I'm fine with it as it works as designed.  

I guess that's how I feel, on balance. I won't mind if it takes my new group a couple more sessions to get from 2nd to 3rd, though. 2nd seems like a bit of a sweet spot for dungeon crawling; tough enough that death from one blow is now unlikely, but still restricted to 1st level spells.

Dunno about 5e specifically, but for earlier editions, I shoot for 1 session to 2nd level, 2 sessions to go from 2nd to 3rd level, 3 sessions to go from 3rd to 4th level, etc.
I like for the characters to level up and for the players to feel like they're making progress, and then slowing it down gradually.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1007926*Waits for the Grognards to tell me I'm doing it wrong, again.*

Show us on the doll where OD&D touched you in a bad way.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1007941I'm done harping on how you invite it and are just as bad as those you claim are picking on you. You'd be right in this case. 5e isn't the other editions,

Precisely.  I am not going to buy 5th edition in any case, and am unlikely to play it.  I admit that things like the subject of the thread continue to make me less interested, but on the other hand I've known since 1977 or so that those of us who actually enjoy the challenges of low-level play are in the minority.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1007966I am not going to buy 5th edition in any case, and am unlikely to play it.  I admit that things like the subject of the thread continue to make me less interested, but on the other hand I've known since 1977 or so that those of us who actually enjoy the challenges of low-level play are in the minority.

Well, if the situation comes up, I would suggest not going our of your way to refuse trying it. I feel like it would fit (or be readily molded to) your stated preferred playstyle better than the Pathfinder you're currently stuck with (plus the basic rules are free). I wouldn't say that the gameplay is actually that much more or less challenging than any edition except early oD&D on one side and 4e on the other. 1st level is still lethal, they just pass you through it very quickly.

As to the challenge of low-level play, I think you are right. As much as the 'low-level funnel' is revered now in OSR circles now, I feel like the concerns about getting to level 2 were prevalent well before most people were playing B/X or AD&D. By the time I started gaming, a whole bunch of things like max hp at 1st seemed to be quite common. Is there any truth (to your knowledge) to the oft heard story that Gary ended up starting games off at level 3?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1007966Precisely.  I am not going to buy 5th edition in any case, and am unlikely to play it.  I admit that things like the subject of the thread continue to make me less interested, but on the other hand I've known since 1977 or so that those of us who actually enjoy the challenges of low-level play are in the minority.

Then why do you post in every single D&D thread that doesn't deal with the editions you DO know?  It's clear by this statement that you don't know, or even care to understand, that your style of gaming is just your style, and it's not for everyone.  But here you are again, threadcrapping.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1007941I'm done harping on how you invite it and are just as bad as those you claim are picking on you.

So what your saying is that there IS a 'Bad Wrong Fun' way to play?  Right, moving on.