QuoteHowever, I believe OHT's point is that even if that is the case, it's better to have that lower level spectrum in the gradient included for those that want it, because anyone can just start higher to fit their tastes, as opposed to starting the gradient at a higher level of competance and telling all those players who like lower levels (like OG above) "tough shit".

I think that's WoTC's take on Next. Anyone can start at level 4 and get your feat choice, whatever. But a lot of people like playing those low levels, and they are able to with the way the rules are structured. I think it's a good idea.

I have not been following D&D Next. Thinking about it, I would divide up most RPGs into three categories for advancement.

1) Fixed Starting Point + Increasing Complexity

There is a system-coded starting point for all characters. You can make a more powerful character effectively by taking a starting character and giving them immediate XP, but higher power means more complication. Also, there is no way to be below the starting point. D&D was always a little this way, and definitely got more so with later editions. It's also true of many other RPGs, from Traveller to Dungeon World.

2) Fixed Starting Point + Stats

There is a system-coded starting point, but higher power isn't necessarily more complicated. It could just mean higher stats. For example, in BRP or D6, a more powerful character may just get higher skill and stat numbers rather than a juggling dozens of spells, items, etc.

3) Variable Starting Point

In games like GURPS, Hero, Amber, or James Bond 007, there isn't really a fixed starting point. It isn't endlessly scalable, because other mechanics may not support things, but there is a very wide range. There may be a suggested default like 100 points for GURPS, but it is trivially changed.


While there's nothing broken per se about #1, I think there are a lot of nice things about the flexibility of #3. For example, I liked Exploderwizard's example of character starting as exceptional pre-teens and advancing from there. I've also had fun in campaigns like Amber or Champions where the characters started out very superhuman, but still had a lot of progression.

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?

Only if the genre you're emulating does not follow that format.

RPGPundit

Quote from: One Horse Town;723042Is there any earthly reason why any game with advancement rules shouldn't model zero to hero adventuring?

There are so many alternatives this almost seems like a trick question.  Maybe I'm reading you too broadly?

Zero to hero strikes me as a sort of personal power interpretation of postwar hierarchical corporate climbing. You start in the mail room and work your way up to the executive suite - except instead of social status, managed head count and the size of your pay packet, you gain in raw personal power (e.g. fighting, magic, etc.).  By the time you're at your peak, you can go head to head with a whole union, or a small army of orcs, and call it a fair fight.

The effect is the same, you become a heavy, a figure of note: someone who can't be easily influenced (or even held accountable) by the people of lesser rank.

So, there are countless reasons why you wouldn't want "zero to hero" (at least in anything like this form) while still having advancement.

In "war is hell" or horror games, you may make specific skill gains (e.g. marksmanship, lore) over time, but you never achieve clear superiority over even commonplace threats (e.g. being sniped, a single fish man).

In Florentine intrigue, accomplishments may be primarily in terms of wealth and social connections, but if you let down your guard, even a couple of Napolese thugs are a lethal threat.

Quote from: RPGPundit;725176Only if the genre you're emulating does not follow that format.

RPGPundit

Fair point. For me that's where M&M fell down.

You know what works really well for zero-to-hero games?  Superheroes.

Now, I can hear your confused shrieking, but listen for a second.

I don't mean zero as in marginally better than an average person, I mean zero as in unknown, just starting out, Year One sort of stuff.  The best superheroes work because they have history, at least until they get relaunched. So if you're looking at Pre-New52 Superman, you know he spent a lot of time being a hero secretly before he appeared. Then, he fought General Zod and had to execute him. He wasn't a founding member of the JLA, but he was the most important member. He's beaten into a coma by Doomsday, a fight that levels most of the Eastern seaboard, only to be resurrected at a lower power level.

Sort of starts to sound like a D&D campaign, doesn't it? Recurring characters, some big wins, some big losses, lots of things in between with a little connective tissue. There's not an overall story to a superhero's life, there are things that happen. Adventures. Campaigns.

Superheros tend to start out with lots and lots of powers, and slowly lose them over time.

You know, the zero to hero model really works well for a certain group of Players that I haven't seen mentioned. The Players that are new to the game or RPGs in general. Starting out at level 1 allows them to make mistakes and learn the system before advancing on to more difficult challenges. The learning curve is as gradual as the level advancement.

Quote from: jeff37923;725684You know, the zero to hero model really works well for a certain group of Players that I haven't seen mentioned. The Players that are new to the game or RPGs in general. Starting out at level 1 allows them to make mistakes and learn the system before advancing on to more difficult challenges. The learning curve is as gradual as the level advancement.

I don't know, I like new players, I don't find they any more make mistakes than veterans players. But then it comes down to what you consider a mistake in the context of a roleplaying game.

In my book (and I appreciate how stuffy this sounds) the only mistake a player can make is acting in a way that is not in-character. Asking a question on the rules is not a mistake. Making a sub-optimal character is not a mistake. Losing a fight is not a mistake. Missing a clue is not a mistake. Not packing duck tape in your bag is not a mistake.  

The mental leap that allows you to see things through the eyes of a character is fairly intuitive things, it's not something you get better at with practice. I understand the concept of system mastery, it just doesn't do much for me and I don't tend to run system where it matters very much.

Quote from: jeff37923;725684You know, the zero to hero model really works well for a certain group of Players that I haven't seen mentioned. The Players that are new to the game or RPGs in general. Starting out at level 1 allows them to make mistakes and learn the system before advancing on to more difficult challenges. The learning curve is as gradual as the level advancement.

It's true that in D&D, a higher-level character is more complicated to play than a lower-level character - especially for spellcasters or for any character in later editions. Starting out at level 10 would mean having loads of spells, magic items, and/or feats to juggle around.

However, there are a lot of systems where you can start out powerful without it being complex. For example, I found the Unisystem is easy to jump into for beginners, even if you are playing someone powerful like a Slayer in the Buffy system. Being powerful is mostly about having higher stats. It isn't complicated, and it was easy for me as GM to throw them simple challenges at first as they learned the system, and then ramped up the difficulty.

Quote from: JonWake;725633I don't mean zero as in marginally better than an average person, I mean zero as in unknown, just starting out, Year One sort of stuff.

Great, but that's not how we define the term.

Quote from: TristramEvans;725635Superheros tend to start out with lots and lots of powers, and slowly lose them over time.

Actually its more cyclic. They start out with few and then add in more over time as new authors add increasinly silly stuff in an attempt to add drama then when they have lost sight of their 'roots' they are rebooted with a slimmed down power set which covers their core activities.

Kaviler and Clay is a good read and their hero "The Escapist" who starts out as a magician/escapologist then goes to war to fight the nazis gets loads of new powers attributed to him as the market is filled with fying super strong invulnerable heroes.

I think it tends to be especialy true of the golden age when heroes were literally competing for who had the most dramatic/interesting/most powerful powers so as to attract readers.

But it happens all over. Captain Britain was cool, then he got a septre that meant he could fly and he became naff then he was rebooted in a far too modern way.
Captain Marvel is a perfect example as his powers grew in his competition with Superman developed. Then ... well then he was gone and when he came back it was all about character rather than who coudl run the fastest, lif the most, win in a fight etc etc

Let's say I want to play a game where, I dunno, you play spies working for the Spying Organization, which fights a shadowy war against the Terrorist Organization.

Why is the Spying Organization sending out Zeroes out to fight the Terrorist Organization? Isn't it kind of completely against genre for the Spying Organization to go "Welp, here is a motley collection of incompetents who could become very skilled over time, let's throw them at the enemy and see if they survive?"

Don't, instead, you usually watch spy flicks where the heroes are, you know, good at their jobs?

Quote from: jeff37923;725684You know, the zero to hero model really works well for a certain group of Players that I haven't seen mentioned. The Players that are new to the game or RPGs in general. Starting out at level 1 allows them to make mistakes and learn the system before advancing on to more difficult challenges. The learning curve is as gradual as the level advancement.

I don't find that to be the case at all for any D&D edition except 4e. In 0e-3e 1st level PCs are far more fragile than a brand new player intuitively expects, and  very hard to keep alive. They are also limited in their abilities. My most successful games with my son Bill (6.5) have been (a) Dragon Warriors, with its robust starting PCs, and (b) BECMI D&D, but starting at 4th level Magic-User, so 4 spells. In pre-4e D&D, I think 3rd or 4th level fits the brand new player's idea of what an heroic adventurer character should look like.

4e has more robust characters with a wider range of powers so it's not an issue there, but with 0e-2e the game gets significantly easier once the PCs reach 2nd or 3rd level, so starting at higher level works much better for newbie players.

Quote from: Ravenswing;723118(shrug)  I play GURPS.  Beginning characters in GURPS are competent.  Hoorah.

The thing about GURPS though, is that unless one starts out with a really big pile of points, even heroic GURPS dudes will tend to be McClane rather than Rambo. Not saying that's bad, hell I prefer Die Hard to Rambo by a big margin, but it's a thing. I've run fairly action movie-esque GURPS campaigns and the thing about it is, even a totally badass 200+ point action hero can be put down like a dog by a single lucky mook even if the fight's low-tech (with guns involved it gets even more dangerous). I don't hate this, but it's a thing to be kept in mind. Only GURPS superheroes with a bunch of points and stuff could be compared to high level D&D characters I'd say (yes a 1000 point GURPS character will mop the floor with an army of 75 pts mooks much like a 10th level D&D character vs orcs...but that's an extreme case).

Quote from: S'mon4e has more robust characters with a wider range of powers so it's not an issue there, but with 0e-2e the game gets significantly easier once the PCs reach 2nd or 3rd level, so starting at higher level works much better for newbie players.

In my old campaigns (whether GMed by myself or friends) PCs would usually start at level 3 so as to be able to survive say getting hit by orcs a couple times. We tended to prefer levels 3-9 or thereabouts, with levels 5-7 in particular being the best spot.

Is 5-7 possibly the sweet spot for jumping straight into a more or less epic campaign? I hadn't played D&D in years, but I just started playing in a campaign where we kicked off at 6th level. It seems to bring a good level of survivability against heavy odds, when you're just up against large groups of enemies ... So far, sailor-zombies and toad-men, with a giant toad that we beat through tactics. In any big combat, characters have lost up to about half their hit-points, so it does feel dangerous, but we haven't really been in danger of sudden mook-death .... To start a game where the characters already feel like heroes with a backstory, 5th-6th level feels quite good.

The only problem has been the time it takes to figure out spell-lists for the magic-user characters (I'm not playing one, and I lose patience a little when the half-elf wizard has to redo her spell list at the beginning of every session ... she just keeps losing it!). But my character, a ranger who roamed the wilds after having mystical experiences in the deep forest, and was brought up son of a pirate-king, feels tough without being overpowered ...