It's a common complaint among some people that they don't like 'low-level' adventuring. Yet any game with advancement in it has a power gradient. You can then choose at which point along that power gradient you want to start play.

Is there any earthly reason why any game with advancement rules shouldn't model zero to hero adventuring?

Quote from: One Horse Town;723042It's a common complaint among some people that they don't like 'low-level' adventuring. Yet any game with advancement in it has a power gradient. You can then choose at which point along that power gradient you want to start play.

Is there any earthly reason why any game with advancement rules shouldn't model zero to hero adventuring?

Lots of reasons--its not true of a lot of fictions outside fantasy. Sci Fi is a common one where the heroes are all competent from the get go, and encouraging the idea of starting a Zero misses the genre trope completely.

Plus games don't often give advice for NOT starting at a zero, if a zero is the core rules default. It then gets into the hands of people who aren't aware you can do that, who just play the game as written. Which perpetuates the "one model" concept of zero to hero, when it isn't needed or fitting for the genre or game in particular.


Genres where it doesn't work, and most characters don't fit that idea: Space Opera (other than Star Wars), Most Sci Fi, Superheroes, a lot of recent fantasy series, Call of Cthulhu style horror, Wuxia (and Honk Kong shoot em ups that are loosely related.) Among many others.

I think it depends on how steep an advancement curve you want to have. D&D is in many versions almost geometric in its progression - a character only a few levels higher can trivially do by themselves what was a challenge for the whole party previously.

In other games the curve is less pronounced, and so "hero to accomplished hero" can be a more suitable progression then "zero to hero".

The complaint most often arises with systems which scale from "a housecat can kill a wizard" to "can blow up armies with a wiggle of the finger" as the default mode of play. Players and GMs sometimes don't get that you can start out in the midrange.

That's not to say that every advancement system must be zero to hero. If you don't want or see a need for zeroes, but prefer quite competent to very competent, far better options exist like lateral advancement, specialisation and branching competencies. These don't result in heroes in the all conquering sense, but still provide advancement.

Personally I dislike zero to hero systems because they focus the attention of players on advancement as an end unto itself rather than enjoying the game and playing their character.

Also at the hero level players have a tendency to just bull through challenges rather than using their heads, in my experience. Sure, not exclusively but it's a thing.

Then there's the resultant meta behaviour where players look for ways to advance within the structure of the rules that mightn't make any sense to their character, like say scouring dungeons for gold rather than plotting the death of the evil uncle who disinherited them. I mean yeah you could handwave that by saying they need the gold to pay for an army but one can't help but think that they might be better served by six months of intensive crossbow training and a vial of sticky hemlock pitch.

Different tastes I guess.

Quote from: Silverlion;723043Lots of reasons--its not true of a lot of fictions outside fantasy. Sci Fi is a common one where the heroes are all competent from the get go, and encouraging the idea of starting a Zero misses the genre trope completely.

Ah, but i presume that the world outside of the protagonists still has zero-G toilet cleaners and the like. The world is still zero to hero, so if you have an advancement system, surely it is more flexible if you're able to model both and the gradient to get you from one to the other?

QuotePlus games don't often give advice for NOT starting at a zero,

This i certainly agree with.

Quote from: The Traveller;723046Personally I dislike zero to hero systems because they focus the attention of players on advancement as an end unto itself rather than enjoying the game and playing their character.

And thus you have expressed the sum and whole of my issue with 3E/Pathfinder.

Back in the day when I was able to play D&D for hours and hours almost every day, the zero to hero model wasn't a big issue.

When one is older and has a lot of of other responsibilities unrelated to tabletop rpg gaming, some may only get around to playing D&D once a week (or once a month).  Some may not have the patience anymore to deal with going from zero to hero, when only playing once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month.  Over the years I've played with groups which insisted on starting at higher levels, largely for these reasons.


On the other hand, starting at higher levels has its own issues.  I've DM'd AD&D games where we started at something like level 30.  I told the players that they might find the game quickly becoming boring at such high levels.  In the end, they did get bored after awhile.

Quote from: The Traveller;723046Personally I dislike zero to hero systems because they focus the attention of players on advancement as an end unto itself rather than enjoying the game and playing their character.

If the players are playing the game then advancement is the road to victory. Why wouldn't they be be focused on those things that bring victory?

That said,some crunch heavy systems do focus an undue amount of attention on the goodies gained at level-up. At times the focus of getting new toys overshadows any concerns of the game world.

I think a lot of this disconnect comes from the in-game rewards being so disconnected from the imagined gamespace. In old school D&D players look forward to gaining levels/power and attain things that have standing in the game world- land, a fortress, loyal troops, influence, etc.

The newer editions have separated rewards for high level play from any connection to a world. More and better gear, powers, feats, and such things that encourage inward focused navel gazing that doesn't connect with the setting. The game world then becomes meaningless backdrop because all the "kewl stuff" is completely disconnected from it.

Quote from: The Traveller;723046Personally I dislike zero to hero systems because they focus the attention of players on advancement as an end unto itself rather than enjoying the game and playing their character.

Also at the hero level players have a tendency to just bull through challenges rather than using their heads, in my experience. Sure, not exclusively but it's a thing.

Then there's the resultant meta behaviour where players look for ways to advance within the structure of the rules that mightn't make any sense to their character, like say scouring dungeons for gold rather than plotting the death of the evil uncle who disinherited them. I mean yeah you could handwave that by saying they need the gold to pay for an army but one can't help but think that they might be better served by six months of intensive crossbow training and a vial of sticky hemlock pitch.

I've come across this frequently with individuals who seem to have a high tolerance for doing boring repetitive tasks in video games.  (Without resorting to using tricks due to programming bugs and/or cheat codes).

When they play D&D, they frequently do the same thing in dungeon crawling.  Such as searching every inch for every single gold piece, secret passage, secret chamber, etc ...

I think there are legitimate reasons why people don't like that playstyle, but one of the most common reasons given that I don't get is the "I feel cheated because if I have to start at level 3, then that's two levels I don't get to use.". I don't get that because everyone has parts of the game they don't use.  I don't play bards or rangers, or play at levels above 12 or so, but I don't feel cheated.  I mean, no one is taking away your gaming time, so it makes no sense.. As long as you can play the style you want, and no one is forcing you to play levels 1 and 2, I don't get what the big deal is.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;723059I think there are legitimate reasons why people don't like that playstyle, but one of the most common reasons given that I don't get is the "I feel cheated because if I have to start at level 3, then that's two levels I don't get to use.". I don't get that because everyone has parts of the game they don't use.  I don't play bards or rangers, or play at levels above 12 or so, but I don't feel cheated.  I mean, no one is taking away your gaming time, so it makes no sense.. As long as you can play the style you want, and no one is forcing you to play levels 1 and 2, I don't get what the big deal is.

Somebody out there somewhere will be enjoying content that I don't. This content will be included in a product that I HAVE TO BUY!

Me! me! me! !me! :rolleyes:

For dungeons and dragons i like having the zero to hero range to work with. I use D&D for a wide range of campaign styles, and find i just like having the option of starting at 1st level, or beginning at 3rd, or 5th. But i don't need it for every game. Games with less scale, where you start out pretty good but don't necessarily improve all that much mechanically can be fun.

I think the time aspect is a big thing for me when it comes to 'Zero to Hero.' These days yeah, twice a month is at best. Usually alternating something like twice a month-once a month. During a 'Holiday Spree' we may get three!! But generally yeah, thanks to work/families/etc...it becomes a pain.


Now, okay. A DM could, in theory, speed up advancement by tripling XP per encounter or something. But at that point-why not just start at, say, level 5 or so? I find 5 for D&D games actually a pretty solid starting level-you're pretty competent, the classes haven't yet span off into ruling the roost(everyone I find manages to contribute nicely around now), but they definitely aren't like some sorta god who can take on everything and everything yet.


I don't always dislike low levels, but when my time is shorter I find starting a little bit higher makes things a bit more interesting. As a kid, though-certainly. We could usually play entire weekends, so level 1 wasn't so bad. Two days a week, eight times a month? No problem.

I agree that starting too high can also have an issue, though. Generally I go by a 3/5/7 rule. If we really really want to play 'low' level, we generally choose 3 over 1. 5 is a solid enough starting level. If we want to be beefier, 7, IMO, is a pretty good 'higher' level. (YMMV with all of this-this is from years of tinkering with different starting levels.) 3x you usually start getting PrCs about now if you want them, and so on, but you still aren't excessive(though the class differences are starting to show more here, IMO.) Really high levels work better for those odd weekend-marathons(we do sometimes get these while visiting friends overseas since it's usually during vacation time.)


(Note: This is generally discussing various iterations of D&D. In the old D&D of 36 levels, you can play around with the lower end more and start after Name level and still actually be having a lot of fun at that point.)

Hero to zero isn't meant to simulate any kind of genre. Of course, D&D itself isn't meant to simulate genre either. It's a game. And maybe the core premise of the game is progression. Why do people like progression? Ask an evolutionary biologist. People love hitting that pellet reward lever.

As for the scale of the progression, preferences vary a lot. More recent editions of D&D have substantially upped the power level and survivability of starting PCs. That's clearly what many players want. Furthermore, only a fraction of groups every play a high-level campaign. So I think you can tighten up the scale of zero to hero and still have a game that rewards players with clear progression.

Quote from: Haffrung;723069More recent editions of D&D have substantially upped the power level and survivability of starting PCs. That's clearly what many players want. Furthermore, only a fraction of groups every play a high-level campaign. So I think you can tighten up the scale of zero to hero and still have a game that rewards players with clear progression.

If I were to DM 4E again, I would end at around level 3 (or 4-5).  After level 5, I found the slow long combat to be a huge annoyance especially with really impatient players.  Levels 1 to 3-4 of 4E seems to hit the "sweet spot" for many impatient players, when it comes to survivability, length of encounters, powers, etc ...