High Level Play (long post)

[tenbones]

That's impressive man. I mean it. Cool stuff. I am playing once every couple of weeks, and I'd like to play more often but I can't seem to find the time.

I hear this a lot from others, including those in my direct orbit. I think it's a "me-thing". I really don't get a lot of sleep - I'll sneak naps in here and there, but when I'm awake, I'm doing shit. And if I get a deadline? Mike Mearls asked me to help him on a book for Goodman Games, I had three weeks to go ham, and I think I produced 90k words of content (I went way overboard). I wish I had more time to develop and polish it, but... deadlines. I was "that guy" when we worked for Dragon - I'd send them a list of stuff I was interested in developing, but I ended up becoming the go-to guy for features they wanted done on tight deadline, because I could produce good copy very quickly and it was clean (helps that my wife would do my editing before I handed it in LOL), but that's because I never slept, so I always found the time.

Anyhow, I think it's just my personal nature to do things intensely otherwise I feel it's not worth my time. That plays very much into my gaming - and GMing, where the palette and canvas are totally wide open for me. It works against me because my players are scared to GM me, even though I tell them all I'd be happy to simply run modules or whatever, and if they want GM-coaching, I'm totally down.

I dunno, maybe I don't feel in my players the same interest I ahve in the game, so I get tired and avoid long campaigns. I had soem great campaigns back in the day - both as a player and as DM - but maybe we became a bit jaded.

I think this is a thing too. I'm *always* trying to keep things "fresh". Since my campaigns do not have set lengths, they end when they end, when it comes time to spin-up a new campaign - I'm always there to pitch thematic ideas to them to see what sticks, and I develop from there.

Of course there is give and take - I'm subject to my own personal interests which can change, but I'll always collect folders of information for future possible campaigns. And this is to prevent my players from becoming jaded with *my* games. I believe a healthy group should have more than one GM, but my group? It's pretty much me, I'd LOVE to have another in the group... but this forces me to always be trying to do new things, new innovations, also because it forces ME from getting stale and sniffing my own design-farts for too long.

Again, it's my personality. Since I don't plan out my campaigns per se, I create a setting sandbox and think "What can give me maximum mileage? How far am I willing to go with this sandbox? How wide and how vertical?" What I pitch to my group is a TINY slice of that. I never tell them the whole thing, because that's part of the discovery of play.

But I have a TON of stuff I've never run, simply because in the negotiation of "What's next" - the players will often tell me what they're in the mood for, and it's often fairly straight and narrow, so I never get to the 'other stuff'. For example - my players will say something like "we wanna do a Pirate-themed game."  I might go to my Campaign Design folder, and look at stuff there and pitch them -

"What about a Post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior game where you guys are Pirates?"
"What about you guys are part of a Pirate Fleet in the Old Republic of Star Wars?"
"What about you guys privateers on the Spanish Main... fighting Pirates, but turn to piracy?"

So I'll try to flip things around for both of us so we all get what we want with our expectations not being *exactly* what either of us expected. That let's me approach my sandboxes from different angles that I may not have originally concepted. What's better, it means that any of the material I've collected doesn't go to waste if thematically it didn't fit with the mainline idea. But it'll allow me to continually add to that idea folder...

For instance - if I'm personally interested in running a Post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior style game it means I'm tossing into that folder anything I think is useful for running a straight up Mad Max game: vehicle combat rules, pics, scavenging/trade/kit-bashing gear rules etc.

But if the players provide a "theme" for what they wanna play - I might take that theme and apply it to my folder. Pirates? Can I leverage my scavenging/trade/kit-bashing rules for aquatic Waterworld type play? Can I merge the two? Where Road-Warrior meets the Sea? and it'll send me off down rabbit-holes of making content for those ideas and I see if it sticks mentally for me.

Same goes with any other kinda theme - and I can apply them to any concept that interests me - whether it's running "Star Wars", or whatever. The next big thing is figuring out how far can I actually take it? Is my Post-Apocalyptic Pirate game local-only? Is there something *beyond* that concept that the sandbox can open up to?

This is a thing in my D&D games where in the backs of all my players minds are the possibilities of Spelljammer - they're always wondering if it's in play LOL. I love to tease them about it... especially these days since I'm running Savage Forgotten Realms. But I need to know my own constraints (or at least pretend to - I almost *ALWAYS* stretch past my original concepts, because the games will often take us "there")

Then I just start building the sandbox, and it's pretty rote for me from there. Locations, setpieces, NPC's and their motivations, blah blah blah, non-stop winding up, cranking and tightening down, then I drop the PC's in there, contextualize them, then let the whole thing just unwind on its own steam.

[mAcular Chaotic]

A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

I am similarly as intense as you when it comes to throwing myself into things 100%. The part I can't match is finding other people that are as into it -- usually they want to keep things casual and get upset if I try to push for more, leaving me without much to go from there unless I want to try strangers instead of friends.

That and I have multiple interests of my own that I like to pursue, but still -- if i could do something like yours, I probably would.

[Zirunel]

A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

Well. In my own experience, cited above, which may not be typical, XP ceased to matter at t that level, no one cared. That's a bit of an exaggeration, it mattered to the MU in each party, but for the rest, XP no longer mattered. We did keep accumulating XP, but that is only because we continued to accumulate gold. It was the GP we sought and truly needed. We spent it as soon as we got it, but it was the GP that mattered. GP kept the battle going, XP was just something meh on the side. Except for the MU we had transcended XP as a useful metric or reward.

[PsyXypher]

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

Multiclassing is probably the main reason I haven't tried a D&D game in a while, since I always like to think longterm and hope my players do as well. Anyone have any experience with this at all?

[S'mon]

A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

In my sandbox games I give XP per RAW for monsters plus some quest/achievement XP. Here's one version of my 5e D&D non-combat XP awards scheme:

Non-Combat XP Awards, per PC.
Tier 1 (lvl 1-4), 2 (lvl 5-10), 3 (lvl 11-16), 4 (lvl 17-20)
Minor: 100/200/300/500 - overcome a moderate non-combat challenge
Moderate: 200/400/600/1000 - typical session award, minor quest completion
Major: 500/1000/2000/3000 - substantial quest completion
Mighty: 1000/2000/3000/5000 - major quest completion

The main difference between sandbox & linear is that the players are free to set their own goals, and I award XP often for player-directed goals. Usually every PC present gets the XP if they all helped one PC achieve that PC's particular goal. Eg one PC wants to kill slavers, every one who took part got XP for knocking off the chief slaver.

In pre-3e/OSR for a level-appropriate quest award I'm typically giving out 5% of what a Fighter of that level would need to level up.  This comes originally from the RC and BECMI Masters Set I think.

[S'mon]

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

The setup should preferably encourage multiple PCs across a variety of levels if you want really long term play. This requires individual XP. In my Faerun Adventures sandbox players get one primary PC who can start at half the level of the highest level PC - currently 8th, so new PCs start at 4th. Players can create many secondary PCs too, who typically start at 1/4 the level of the highest level PC.

[Mishihari]

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

The setup should preferably encourage multiple PCs across a variety of levels if you want really long term play. This requires individual XP. In my Faerun Adventures sandbox players get one primary PC who can start at half the level of the highest level PC - currently 8th, so new PCs start at 4th. Players can create many secondary PCs too, who typically start at 1/4 the level of the highest level PC.

And that's precisely what happened with my decade-long 1E group.  Each player had a stable of characters of various levels, and they'd pull out the ones they though fit best for any particular adventure.  ("Ones" because almost everyone played two characters at a time.)

[Persimmon]

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

The setup should preferably encourage multiple PCs across a variety of levels if you want really long term play. This requires individual XP. In my Faerun Adventures sandbox players get one primary PC who can start at half the level of the highest level PC - currently 8th, so new PCs start at 4th. Players can create many secondary PCs too, who typically start at 1/4 the level of the highest level PC.

And that's precisely what happened with my decade-long 1E group.  Each player had a stable of characters of various levels, and they'd pull out the ones they though fit best for any particular adventure.  ("Ones" because almost everyone played two characters at a time.)

We have also often used the stable approach or created adventuring companies wherein there are lots of PCs of varying levels.  Therefore, if someone bites it, you have a replacement PC with a pre-explained rationale for their involvement.  And most players are running multiple PCs due to the fact that we seldom have more than four players, usually just three.

[Ghostmaker]

I might try that at some point in a future campaign. Just to see how it works.

[tenbones]

A question -- since it's sandbox play, how do you assign XP? Do you give it when goals are completed?

Funny that you mention this... as I'm currently running SWADE Forgotten Realms. There is no XP. This is the first time I've ever run a non-Supers game like this. And in my Supers games it's a bit of a hybrid, where I give XP (Karma in MSH) but when there is downtime, I will give free advancement depending on what the PC's are doing during downtime.

This is much easier in skill-based games. In D&D I've never really done this. I award XP exactly as its earned by the group and individuals. In 1e/2e is was *very* common for PC's to be different levels over time because of the different XP requirements between classes as well as individual rewards, which in 2e were much more granular.

As I'm running SWADE, right now I'm running it RAW, no XP (although I'm considering going back to XP or hybridizing) In Savage Worlds pre-SWADE you rewarded PC's xp per session depending on how well they did. Usually 1-3 XP. On average if you're getting regular goals met, you should be getting an Advance (a "level" in D&D terms) around every 4 sessions. The reality is this is for more "adventure" based play, since I run sandbox things are a little more in-depth and requires more focus since a session can run slower than in typical module-style play. I'm thinking I may hybridize and reward PC's XP for specific individual accomplishments in-game, and still give goal-based Advances for the party normally. When the PC gets 5 XP they get an advance regardless of the normal progression.

At least that's my current thoughts. I haven't pulled the trigger on it.

I am similarly as intense as you when it comes to throwing myself into things 100%. The part I can't match is finding other people that are as into it -- usually they want to keep things casual and get upset if I try to push for more, leaving me without much to go from there unless I want to try strangers instead of friends.

That and I have multiple interests of my own that I like to pursue, but still -- if i could do something like yours, I probably would.

I'm not saying our intensity factor doesn't produce its own issues. GENERALLY speaking finding people that want to play with my group is not the real issue. The fact is no matter how much interviewing I do, it never seems to quite convey what we're doing until the prospect actually sits down and plays with us. Without fail, it has never quite taken the new players aback. Not in a bad way, but it always surprises them how different our games are from what they're generally used to. It's important for me to extract from my players their own input on everything I can think of about their character in how they go about doing things - often stuff most newer players simply don't consider.

That part is usually pleasant. The unpleasant part is when they're put into invariable moral dilemmas that emerge from their preconceptions of my game - like since I don't play with Alignment, they assume "anything goes!" and they start going wild, not really considering what it means for their particular PC. This can often produce very intense situations that can cause new (and even veteran) players to my games some unease.

I've had players leave because it caused them stress - "I just wanna hang out and roll dice." Well I point out that I'm not running those kinds of games. It's not that we don't do that - we do. But our goal isn't to JUST sit around and socialize and throw dice at things. I want my players to play their characters in the game and do "stuff". I recognize that not everyone is pro-active, and go-getters, my job is to entice those players into the world with engagement by any means necessary.

Passive players tend to have very difficult times in games - because they just wanna hang around, while my more active players tend to move the ball. Passive players will invariably be "forced" to go along because their lack of ownership and engagement puts them in circumstances that they may have not otherwise chosen. I'm not expecting each of my players to found their own kingdom/religion/guild or whatever, I'm only asking for PC engagement on *whatever* is before them. So if a passive player has no interest in "building" something in-game for their PC - and wants to be the ultimate party-support PC, GREAT! Do that. But they have to understand that comes with its own baggage because other PC's *are* doing stuff and it will impact them commensurate to the actions of the rest of the party.

This means *no one* is an island in my games. You can try all you want, but all stones in the stream will get washed downriver or be eroded away. One of the things that I always stress to new players is that they will get whatever they put into my campaigns. And often they will get far more than they expect because I tend to have high-bandwidth for detail. Anything that a player suggests that contextually *might* work, I'll try to see how I can make it happen especially if it's not something I even considered. Even if that means I have to build an entire new sub-system to support it. That's my job and part of the social contract for me as a GM.

It's definitely cost me a few players over the years - and that's fine. I want high-intensity gaming with depth. So high-level play is always a goal for me, and the reality is that has this hobby has grown (especially in the last 20-years), the level of casual-play has grown. This is good and bad, as it has groomed a lot of new folks in this hobby with shallow expectations of what a good deep TTRP group can really do. Sifting through those players is a chore, as you are fully aware - finding them isn't really enough. Mainly because they can't know what you're really offering until they hit the ground running.

The real key is getting them to grow and step up to playing with deeper engagement. We have to grow that generation of gamer that will one day be us.

[tenbones]

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

Multiclassing is probably the main reason I haven't tried a D&D game in a while, since I always like to think longterm and hope my players do as well. Anyone have any experience with this at all?

Oh yes, this has always been an "issue". I say in quotes because back in the day - we didn't really have any other options. We played D&D, and the Dual-Class/Multi-class rules were literally the only option in the book, so that's what we did. It wasn't until I started playing non-D&D TTRPG's that it even entered my mind that "class" itself is just some arbitrary package of abilities and it led me down the trail of actual game-design.

It's also why I really like Savage Worlds - which the current Pathfinder edition *has* "classes" but you can build your PC as you go. A Fighter *can* learn magic and cast spells, and even do the Gish thing with far better clarity than D&D itself. The real question you're asking is "does the system interfere with the conceits of the campaign"? High-level play can *really* muddy those waters if you have ambitious players.

So my short answer is yes - system can and does impact high-level play. I mean "high-level" for most classes in D&D is breaking exceptions of what mere-mortals could otherwise do early on in the game. You can say they're "extrapolations" but let's be real, classes are narrow channels of play for "normal" people just starting to show themselves as being 'exceptional'. The problem is the assumption that a character wants to always stay in that channel.

The proverbial "Mounted" character that suddenly is faced with dungeon-diving where all their nifty abilities on horseback are meaningless now that the party is going into the Underdark. Earlier editions of D&D were more forgiving than later editions imo. Although 5e still suffers from this, especially with Feats, the pre-Feat era of D&D was more manageable although that focused progression was still a thing.

Which is weird given that even back then, most powerhouse NPC's were multi/dual-classed. Which sets that standard of expectation right? Elminster was a 3rd level fighter. Drizzt started as a Fighter. etc. But the narrative of these NPC's changed as their fictional narratives grew - well I say PC's are no different over the course of a campaign. That *demands* a system that can handle that reality with mechanical rigor, rather than forcing a GM to do the Handwavium Manuever "Yes, Drizzt, I'll let you translate your Fighter levels to Ranger." UGH.

I certainly don't mind roles for starting PC's. I think that once you're out of the starting gate, the mechanics of a game should allow for maximal flexibility as long as its contextually justified in the game. This is extremely important for high-level play.

[Lunamancer]

Something I've thought about in earlier versions of D&D is how it's possible to "Dead-End" your character. Level caps and all that.

Multiclassing is probably the main reason I haven't tried a D&D game in a while, since I always like to think longterm and hope my players do as well. Anyone have any experience with this at all?

I have plenty of experience with it. And my experience is, there is no dead end. Level is not the proper measure. Understand, I run core 1E BtB. There are a lot of constraints that a lot of people ignore that really flip a lot of conclusions on their heads. Upthread I laid out some of those constraints that reign in high level play. But there are constraints that affect play at all levels. And the escape valve for that is in magic items. Magic-item accumulation. And I'm not talking about getting +5 everything. It's more the limited use items that add a tremendous amount of firepower.

The other thing I'd ask is, how long of a term is long-term? After a couple of hundred years of game time elapsed, the original party members that were human are dead and being level 20 isn't doing much for them. Meanwhile, the elfs and dwarfs are still living. I've been talking about this style of campaign for 20 years. But now there's a link upthread about some people who seem to be doing something similar. Recently, I saw a Facebook post from Frank Mentzer where he's talking about skipping large amounts of time to be able to play a character's whole life.

I always found it weird, people who would worry about these level limits. They always seemed to assume the campaign would last long enough for those level limits to matter but at the same time not long enough for age to matter. Like you have to hit a sweet spot of dysfunction for the cited issue to even manifest. I buy into that old adage that if you're not having fun, you're playing wrong. It would seem to follow from there, if you have to run things in a very specific way in order to get to a place that's not fun, you're doing it wrong.

So just don't do that. Don't ignore the reasonable constraints that keep high level play grounded. Don't run a campaign specifically aimed at the dysfunctional timeframe. Don't interpret things in ways that reinforce the primacy of level. Instead understand the game was originally included specific strengths and weaknesses so that it wouldn't just be a bigger badder level hierarchy, but rather for everything to be checks and balances against everything else.


That's what's worked for me for a long, long time.