TheRPGSite

This is splitting off from "No Pantheons are listed in the 2024 PHB for D&D 5E?" (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/no-pantheons-are-listed-in-the-2024-phb-for-dd-5e/) since it's a separate topic.

The topic is the relation of zero-to-hero to emergent story - which I take as interesting events coming together in play in a way that isn't pre-planned by anyone at the table.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 26, 2025, 11:01:09 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 26, 2025, 10:41:07 AMReducing species (nee race) to the same level of importance as Background with the two together becoming "origin" is their intention. While this is new(ish) for D&D, it's becoming fairly common in other more modern games.

"Common" does not equal "good."  It represents part of the shift away from zero-to-hero RPGs (with emergent story) and towards PC fantasy superheroes whose "backstories" are more important than their adventures.

And before some moron asks, "But how does reducing the influence of race make backstories more important?  Seems like it would do the opposite."  Race, random ability scores, backgrounds, hard class niches, etc. all act to define characters in ways that are not always conducive to player choice.  Rolling an 11 for Int really limits your character's chances of being a powerful mage (in older editions).  Playing a dwarf came with cultural and ability score constraints.  Sure, some DMs bent those for players on occasion, but playing a dwarf with 11 Int generally precluded the player from playing a 6'5" tree-loving, claustrophobic, master wizard.  You played an elf or druid if you wanted something like that.  (And for the folks that say, "That sounds cool for a dwarf to be those things,"  that's because most of the people posting here are experienced enough to play against type and still be successful.  Not so much a newbie...).  But now, if I want my dwarf to be a hermaphroditic, purple-haired, 6'5", magical snowflake ("who's kind of random.. LOL!"), there's nothing in the race to stand in my way.  We can all be anything!  (Which is the great lie that schools and media are telling all of our children... but that's another topic.)

HappyDaze responded,

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 26, 2025, 12:46:43 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 26, 2025, 11:01:09 AMthe shift away from zero-to-hero RPGs

Good riddance to that. It gets repetitive. Look at Traveller for an early example of chucking that defective pattern.

I don't have a problem with other people enjoying zero-to-hero, but it has been one of my least favorite parts of D&D. When I was a teen in the 1980s, that was one of the things that turned me on to other RPGs like Call of Cthulhu, Champions, Ars Magica, and others.


I've liked it better when the PCs start seeming like real and interesting people, not cardboard cutouts. From there, they can still develop and change a lot, but if the initial adventures are more interesting, then that snowballs into more interesting later adventures too.

While poorly-designed PCs can detract from emergent stories, I find that can be handled by a good session zero, where the GM can head off players with ideas for PCs that will cause problems. Good player choices makes PCs who support emergent story.

HappyDaze is a troll.

Just ignore everything he says and move on with your life.

The fun part of the game was starting out as a zero and seeing if you even survive to MAYBE become a hero.

I thought "zero-to-hero" just referred to the power differential between a starting character and an experienced one. What Eirikrautha was talking about is more a question of how much the words on your character sheet at the end of creation are prescriptive of how you play the character. Those are pretty separate issues. Traveller was mentioned as a counter-example, but that has far more prescriptive character creation than old-school D&D does.

The way the OP defined "emergent story", I don't think either of them matters much to it. That kind of emergent story is more a function of a good GM and good players than anything else.

I more often see "emergent story" defined not just as an unplanned story, but one that emerges as a direct consequence of game mechanics. In that sense, a more prescriptive character sheet would correlate with it. Think of something like Pendragon, which mechanizes the character's personality. That can certainly be annoying, but it's also likely to produce story beats the player couldn't anticipate because they're now tied to dice rolls. WFRP and other games that mechanize the character's social status potentially do the same thing.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on January 27, 2025, 07:41:41 AMThe fun part of the game was starting out as a zero and seeing if you even survive to MAYBE become a hero.

This is the allure.

There's several things going on in emergent story, many of them orthogonal to zero to hero.  However, games that support zero to hero also tend to support having limits--sometimes seemingly arbitrary limits--and those are critical to having emergent story with most players.

Limits are freeing.  For most people.  The exceptions are not as plentiful as people think. In particular, there are many people who think that limits aren't freeing to them, who are wrong.

The exact limits are not critical--only that there are some and that they have some bite to them.  In some ways, an arbitrary limit is even better for this purpose than one that seems to fit, because it's clear it serves no purpose but to say, "You can play X or Y but not X and Y in the same character."  Take early D&D wizard weapon restrictions.  "Gandalf had a sword.  Why can't I?"  If the GM wants wizards to have swords, there's no real harm in it, as long as the GM replaces that restriction with some other one that will cause someone to chafe.

BTW, this is also true in more generic system.  Which is why GURPS and Fantasy Hero, to name two, produce better campaigns when the GM puts some hard limits on who can buy what.  Hero 4th edition even tells you to do precisely that.  I remember a Champions GM who had a hard rule of "No more than 1 messed up psychological disadvantage per 4 characters."  It's arbitrary in the game world, but excellent for making the 1 or 2 messed up characters stand out--and given the rest of the party and the GM fodder to work with and bounce off of.  That's "Minor Hero to Major Hero" arc, and it still has the same issues.

Separately, there's no requirement that a character with little or no back story, playing for a short time, need be a "cardboard" character.  Learning to focus on what is happening and make the character live in that, is a skill like any other.  Relying on back story and pre-planned characterization all the time will make most players precisely 1-dimensional as the "actor"--always leaning on the crutch of their back story.  That is, all of their characters are different on paper but the same in play.  I'd rather have a cardboard character than a cardboard player, not least because a player that avoids being cardboard will not stay cardboard in their characterization for long.

Many players don't like these restrictions even when they are necessary.  The GM should put on their big boy pants and do what is good for the game--including helping the players to grow.  Learning to roll with what the dice hand you isn't the only way to achieve that, but it is a great, in your face, way to make no bones about it, while achieving it. 

I'm going to agree with the OP and HappyDaze that zero-to-hero becomes boringly repetitive. As stated, games like Traveller, Champions, even Palladium Fantasy (just starting with around 14-15 hp makes a massive difference in survival) offered meaningful deviations from that style early on.

Similarly, medieval fantasy itself gets boring if that's all you're doing. Thank God that Robotech (and the rest of Palladium's catalogue), Star Wars, Champions, World of Darkness, etc. came into my orbit.

Variety is the spice of life. I'd get bored if all I played were superhero genre games too.

And just because someone has different preferences in the hobby doesn't make them a troll. It means they're someone with different preferences. Do you call someone who prefers fresh spinich to iceberg lettuce for their salads a troll if they posted about that on cooking forum?

To me, zero-to-hero and funnels feel like they're designed for people who find the role-play part of RPGs tiresome. They don't want to get into why their PC is risking their life in pursuit of treasure; their PC is just a meatsuit for interacting with a game.

These days I prefer games with at least a hint of backstory. I'm not talking pages; I'm saying "veteran with no legitimate prospects and two hungry kids at home" or "landless house knight seeking to gather the bride price of the noble maiden he desires" as alternatives to "Human Fighter 1."

However that does favor systems where you aren't going to be ganked in the first scene (so Palladium Fantasy if I'm wanting an old school style game). Starting every campaign like its Squid Games the RPG (funnels and TSR-era D&D in general) gets equally repetitive.

But then, the first D&D module I got as a kid was DL1 Dragons of Despair so, for me, starting PCs of 4th-6th level with way above normal stats (i.e. not "zeroes") was what D&D was telling me it was about.

In short, zero-to-hero is A mode of play; one I even engage with from time to time; but it's not the ONLY mode of play and all the others have their positives too.

Quote from: grimshwiz on January 27, 2025, 06:30:22 AMHappyDaze is a troll.

Just ignore everything he says and move on with your life.

I don't troll gaming topics, but thanks for playing.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 27, 2025, 08:08:09 AMI thought "zero-to-hero" just referred to the power differential between a starting character and an experienced one. What Eirikrautha was talking about is more a question of how much the words on your character sheet at the end of creation are prescriptive of how you play the character. Those are pretty separate issues. Traveller was mentioned as a counter-example, but that has far more prescriptive character creation than old-school D&D does.

I'd agree that zero-to-hero is about power differential, and Traveller certainly isn't "zero-to-hero". Also, Traveller chargen uses a lot of random roll during chargen, but it isn't any more or less prescriptive after the end of character creation. To put it another way, these two are completely independent:

• Prescriptive chargen: How much control does the player have over how the character turns out at the end of character creation
• Prescriptive play: How much the words on your character sheet at the end of creation are prescriptive of how you play the character

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 27, 2025, 08:08:09 AMI more often see "emergent story" defined not just as an unplanned story, but one that emerges as a direct consequence of game mechanics. In that sense, a more prescriptive character sheet would correlate with it. Think of something like Pendragon, which mechanizes the character's personality. That can certainly be annoying, but it's also likely to produce story beats the player couldn't anticipate because they're now tied to dice rolls. WFRP and other games that mechanize the character's social status potentially do the same thing.

I suspect that Pendragon's Passion rolls aren't what Eirikrautha meant by emergent story. Mechanics that produce story beats includes a lot of Forge-esque games like My Life With Master or Dogs in the Vineyard where rolls dictate a lot more of story events.

Old-school D&D has a lot of stuff that is out of the hands of mechanics. Where Pendragon puts much of character personality and changes into mechanics, old-school D&D largely leaves that outside of mechanics - along with how clever a character is, because puzzles and riddles and such are solved by player thinking, not by dice rolling.

Are those the only two options?  zero to hero and superhero from zero?   Personally, I find myself drawn to RPGs where the characters start out as competent adults in their chosen field and progress from there but still remain relatively grounded.   Think Neo from the matrix going from recently decanted coppertop to at best Morpheus at max level instead of toggling on the god-mode cheat he did in the first film.  Good enough to fight a withdrawal from the agents but not to take one on reliably without preplanning/significant advantages and even then only temporarily.   I don't know what to call that style or if there is already a name for it.   Good to great?   Good, better, best?

Quote from: jhkim on January 27, 2025, 01:23:31 PM

QuoteI thought "zero-to-hero" just referred to the power differential between a starting character and an experienced one. What Eirikrautha was talking about is more a question of how much the words on your character sheet at the end of creation are prescriptive of how you play the character. Those are pretty separate issues. Traveller was mentioned as a counter-example, but that has far more prescriptive character creation than old-school D&D does.

I'd agree that zero-to-hero is about power differential, and Traveller certainly isn't "zero-to-hero". Also, Traveller chargen uses a lot of random roll during chargen, but it isn't any more or less prescriptive after the end of character creation. To put it another way, these two are completely independent:

• • Prescriptive chargen: How much control does the player have over how the character turns out at the end of character creation
  • Prescriptive play: How much the words on your character sheet at the end of creation are prescriptive of how you play the character

That's a fair distinction, but I would still say that Traveller character creation is more prescriptive of play than say BECMI character creation is. Traveller creation gives you your character's social status, age, home planet and entire career history, all things that should influence how you play the character if you're approaching the game in good faith. It's less prescriptive than Pendragon, maybe, but still more than D&D.

If you're not approaching the game in good faith, nothing is going to prescribe how you play your character except for the social influence of the other people at the table. You can roll a Dwarf in BECMI and then just decide your dwarf is a rainbow-haired transsexual who once defeated a dragon by farting at it. The only thing that's going to stop you is your DM and fellow players refusing to continue playing with you.

Quote from: jhkim on January 27, 2025, 01:23:31 PM

QuoteI more often see "emergent story" defined not just as an unplanned story, but one that emerges as a direct consequence of game mechanics. In that sense, a more prescriptive character sheet would correlate with it. Think of something like Pendragon, which mechanizes the character's personality. That can certainly be annoying, but it's also likely to produce story beats the player couldn't anticipate because they're now tied to dice rolls. WFRP and other games that mechanize the character's social status potentially do the same thing.

I suspect that Pendragon's Passion rolls aren't what Eirikrautha meant by emergent story. Mechanics that produce story beats includes a lot of Forge-esque games like My Life With Master or Dogs in the Vineyard where rolls dictate a lot more of story events.

Old-school D&D has a lot of stuff that is out of the hands of mechanics. Where Pendragon puts much of character personality and changes into mechanics, old-school D&D largely leaves that outside of mechanics - along with how clever a character is, because puzzles and riddles and such are solved by player thinking, not by dice rolling.

I used Pendragon as an example because it's a particularly extreme one. Knowing Eirikrautha's posting history, I would also doubt it's what he had in mind. Under the definition I gave there, those things which are left outside of D&D's mechanics would not be emergent story. They're just improvisation. Emergent story in a D&D context would be something like the campaign going in an unexpected direction because of a missed saving throw or an unusual result on the random encounter table.

Quote from: RNGm on January 27, 2025, 01:40:59 PMAre those the only two options?  zero to hero and superhero from zero?  Personally, I find myself drawn to RPGs where the characters start out as competent adults in their chosen field and progress from there but still remain relatively grounded. Think Neo from the matrix going from recently decanted coppertop to at best Morpheus at max level instead of toggling on the god-mode cheat he did in the first film.  Good enough to fight a withdrawal from the agents but not to take one on reliably without preplanning/significant advantages and even then only temporarily.  I don't know what to call that style or if there is already a name for it.  Good to great?  Good, better, best?

I agree. I'm totally fine with "hero to hero" arcs, and frankly I think character progression is overrated as a part of RPGs. It's almost a crutch for suboptimal campaign design. If the scenario is engaging enough and the world changes in response to the players' actions, then you shouldn't need escalating power levels to keep players interested in the game.

Not that character progression is a bad thing, mind you. It just isn't strictly necessary. I do prefer there to be some of it, but like you I'd rather have starting characters be competent and then have reasonable skill and/or power improvements.

Quote from: RNGm on January 27, 2025, 01:40:59 PMAre those the only two options?  zero to hero and superhero from zero? Personally, I find myself drawn to RPGs where the characters start out as competent adults in their chosen field and progress from there but still remain relatively grounded. Think Neo from the matrix going from recently decanted coppertop to at best Morpheus at max level instead of toggling on the god-mode cheat he did in the first film.  Good enough to fight a withdrawal from the agents but not to take one on reliably without preplanning/significant advantages and even then only temporarily.  I don't know what to call that style or if there is already a name for it. Good to great? Good, better, best?

I feel largely the same. Some of the best campaigns I've been in have been;

- low-tier M&M (PL 6-8; street level/Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, early-career Spider-Man and Batman)
- Spycraft (i.e. the series version of Mission Impossible)
- Robotech (the bar-non best was an extended campaign involving an early Hovertank squad assigned to the Zentraedi Control Zone of South America a few years after the Macross portion ended; they were one of the first units assigned to break in and test the prototype VHT's while dealing with locals, government bureaucrats, bandits, insurgents, EBSIS spies, rogue Zentraedi, etc.)

You have enough oomph to feel competent, but there's still a lot of people as good or better for you to work towards becoming like.

If pressed for a name I'd call it "Experts" or "Specialists" style play. You start solidly competent in 1-2 things and grow fairly quickly to become among the best of the best in those things while rounding out your kit by becoming good at a broader and broader scope of things.

Basically, using a scale of 1-10 I'd say;
- Zero-to-Hero starts at 1 and rises to 10 across the board.
- Superhero starts at 8-10 across the board and eventually everything hits 10.
- Experts/Specialists starts at a 5 in your chosen expertise and 1-3 in some other bits. Over the campaign your expertise goes up to an 8 while other bits rise to 5-6 and you pick up a few more 1-3s as well.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 27, 2025, 03:33:47 PMI agree. I'm totally fine with "hero to hero" arcs, and frankly I think character progression is overrated as a part of RPGs. It's almost a crutch for suboptimal campaign design. If the scenario is engaging enough and the world changes in response to the players' actions, then you shouldn't need escalating power levels to keep players interested in the game.

The most consistent experience I had playing various Palladium games for several decades is that in terms of game play, players really only cared about leveling until around level 4-6 and only a bit more for Fantasy specifically).

Once you got to the 4-6 range your main skills were solid enough, most of your powers/spells were developed enough, and/or you had enough experience to be assigned the more elite mecha. After that the GM could just skip handing out XP entirely as the players focused on completing their goals in the campaign.

It was fairly typical to go from level 1-4 in maybe 5-6 sessions, 5-6 within maybe 10 sessions and then just never level up again across 50+ sessions.

I'll say this; Keven Seimbeida had a real knack for designing extremely interesting campaign settings. Leveling up was almost invariably the least interesting part of playing in any of his settings.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 27, 2025, 03:33:47 PMI agree. I'm totally fine with "hero to hero" arcs, and frankly I think character progression is overrated as a part of RPGs. It's almost a crutch for suboptimal campaign design. If the scenario is engaging enough and the world changes in response to the players' actions, then you shouldn't need escalating power levels to keep players interested in the game.

Not that character progression is a bad thing, mind you. It just isn't strictly necessary. I do prefer there to be some of it, but like you I'd rather have starting characters be competent and then have reasonable skill and/or power improvements.

Agreed but I'd probably categorize it as linear character progression instead of the more exponential you see in zero to hero systems.  I like the feeling of measured incremental progression in my characters where it's not a night and day difference from one game to the next.

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 27, 2025, 03:46:33 PM- Robotech (the bar-non best was an extended campaign involving an early Hovertank squad assigned to the Zentraedi Control Zone of South America a few years after the Macross portion ended; they were one of the first units assigned to break in and test the prototype VHT's while dealing with locals, government bureaucrats, bandits, insurgents, EBSIS spies, rogue Zentraedi, etc.)

Sounds like a cool campaign.  I'd say that's a good example in that the majority of the power is in the hovertank you start out with and you only get fractionally better (more attacks per round, better offensive and defensive bonuses) but what challenged you initially is never something you can completely discount (10d6x10 MDC is still gonna hurt whether you're 1st or 15th level).

QuoteThe most consistent experience I had playing various Palladium games for several decades is that in terms of game play, players really only cared about leveling until around level 4-6 and only a bit more for Fantasy specifically).

True but I'd say most of the power in Palladium style games is more from creation than advancement (whether Rifts, Robotech, or even HU... the only ones I played FWIW) and any potential issues of power come more from balancing from player to player rather than level to level.

Quote from: RNGm on January 27, 2025, 03:53:22 PMAgreed but I'd probably categorize it as linear character progression instead of the more exponential you see in zero to hero systems.  I like the feeling of measured incremental progression in my characters where it's not a night and day difference from one game to the next.

You can get some of that effect with the granularity of the progression, too. If every level has a big jump in power, in part because you don't get many of those jumps or very often, then it feels very different than the finer granularity.  That's true even if your overall competence after N sessions is about the same.

I've actually seen that go the other way, in Fantasy Hero campaigns, where having a small, linear progression can be more annoying than having no progression or chunk progression.  Actually had players ask me to just save up their points and let them know when they had 10+, because it "felt" tedious trying to save up for the next thing 1 to 3 points at a time.

Plus, it's always relative to the opposition in the setting.  I frequently run games that are quite a bit on the road towards zero to hero, without the exponential growth.  If the opposition isn't scaling like mad, then the difference between a zero/hero/superhero is more fine, too.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 27, 2025, 08:56:17 AMThe exact limits are not critical--only that there are some and that they have some bite to them.  In some ways, an arbitrary limit is even better for this purpose than one that seems to fit, because it's clear it serves no purpose but to say, "You can play X or Y but not X and Y in the same character."  Take early D&D wizard weapon restrictions.  "Gandalf had a sword.  Why can't I?"  If the GM wants wizards to have swords, there's no real harm in it, as long as the GM replaces that restriction with some other one that will cause someone to chafe.

BTW, this is also true in more generic system.  Which is why GURPS and Fantasy Hero, to name two, produce better campaigns when the GM puts some hard limits on who can buy what.  Hero 4th edition even tells you to do precisely that.  I remember a Champions GM who had a hard rule of "No more than 1 messed up psychological disadvantage per 4 characters."  It's arbitrary in the game world, but excellent for making the 1 or 2 messed up characters stand out--and given the rest of the party and the GM fodder to work with and bounce off of.  That's "Minor Hero to Major Hero" arc, and it still has the same issues.

I'd say that limits are useful as one creative tool to end up with characters that work well for the game. However, what helps the creative process best varies a lot from player to player. Also, limits can come from the GM setting hard limits in advance to prescribe what the PCs should be like, but they can also come from the group or even from oneself during chargen. For example, I will sometimes do things like roll a die to decide on chargen options, even though I could make a choice - that's a self-imposed limit.

For me, a good session zero and brainstorming ideas usually makes a big difference, much moreso than GM-imposed hard limits.

Regarding your Champions example - that sounds like the limit could work fine. Still, one of my favorite Champions games from undergrad had a party who almost all had messed-up psychological disads. The result was a group who were terrible at working together, but fascinating and hilarious to interact in play - a bit like the early New Mutants or the short-lived TV show "Alphas". I still remember vividly the crazed action as they all struggled to get through the adventure.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 27, 2025, 08:56:17 AMSeparately, there's no requirement that a character with little or no back story, playing for a short time, need be a "cardboard" character.  Learning to focus on what is happening and make the character live in that, is a skill like any other.  Relying on back story and pre-planned characterization all the time will make most players precisely 1-dimensional as the "actor"--always leaning on the crutch of their back story.  That is, all of their characters are different on paper but the same in play.  I'd rather have a cardboard character than a cardboard player, not least because a player that avoids being cardboard will not stay cardboard in their characterization for long.

What this implies is that games like Traveller produce cardboard play because the characters inherently have backstory. I strongly disagree. I think seeing the character as someone with a home and a past is generally a positive thing.

Is it possible for back story to be a crutch? Sure. Obviously, a player can create bad back story. Even if it isn't inherently bad, a common problem is that the player creates a back story that fails to connect to the campaign, at which point they are stuck. This is a case where no back story would be better, because the player can improvise sides to the character that connect better. But a poorly-fit back story is easily addressed during a decent session zero.

Quote from: jhkim on January 27, 2025, 08:02:09 PMWhat this implies is that games like Traveller produce cardboard play because the characters inherently have backstory. I strongly disagree. I think seeing the character as someone with a home and a past is generally a positive thing.

Your ability to torture non-existent implications out of what other people write is truly impressive.  It's like you read it, think about it, and still manage to completely miss the point.

Traveler characters barely have any back story as the term is usually used, at least not automatically.  The mechanics of the character creation implies what has come before, but with a very light touch. 

To answer other points made earlier in this topic, the same can be said for a light tough with, say, social status, or family, etc.  Quick, I'm the 5th child of a retainer of a poor, landed knight.  That doesn't intrude on the game's ability to develop in play at all, nor does it get in the way of the player running with it however they want.  There's no back "story" there at all, merely background details. 

Contrast that with the whole push of the several paragraph back story where someone practically fills in the fan fiction version of the funnel, working out the way they imagined.  That does actively get in the way of playing the character reacting to the emergent story, because the story of that character is already well along, and worse, the future is starting to jell in the player's mind, if only subconsciously.

Before using Traveller as an example, it should be noted which version of Traveller is used for character creation. Classic Traveller created skilled characters, but was pretty bare bones in character backgrounds and prior events. It wasn't until Mongoose Traveller that events were detailed during the 4-year term of service. Homeworld backgrounds didn't start coming into play until Megatraveller came out.

Quote from: jeff37923 on January 28, 2025, 08:59:25 AMBefore using Traveller as an example, it should be noted which version of Traveller is used for character creation. Classic Traveller created skilled characters, but was pretty bare bones in character backgrounds and prior events. It wasn't until Mongoose Traveller that events were detailed during the 4-year term of service. Homeworld backgrounds didn't start coming into play until Megatraveller came out.

No version of the zero-to-hero game was specified either (although D&D is implied), so the whole range is applicable even if the specifics vary (just as with D&D).

The majority of classic rpgs, and I include things like Champions, World of Darkness and Call of Cthulu here, have you begin as weak but competent enough for an initial adventure within their setting.

There's fundamentally no difference in the competence level for the expected initial adventures of a 1st level Wizard, A starting Superhero, a 13th Generation Vampire, or a Professor of Obscure languages in Cthulu.

There's two big things that gave the illusion everything after the Fighter is more competent..

Point buy, and the fact very few players used the rules as RAW in those other games.

Point buy is a big thing. In Vampire I get to choose my little dots and be exactly as competent in something as I want to be.

I can max out my Dexterity attribute and my Brawl score and be at the top level of fighting for the system! Obviously I'm better than that 1st level fighter!

Except.. No you can't. Because you actually ignored the rules as written which state the maximum you can have a skill at character creation, is 3.

And if you don't want a completely lop sided character, you need to spread some points to Strength so you can actually do damage, and Stamina so you can take damage.

So really you're about as good as a 1st level fighter within the system.

And if you're following the rules as written, when it comes to xp, you're getting like 1 pt a session, 3 if you had a capstone to a story arc.

So you're advancing about as fast as that 1st level fighter in an OSR game.

But most people who played these games, ignored these rules. They gave more points for character creation in Champions. They gave way more xp out in Vampire.

The only people who tended to follow RAW with slow progression and weak characters was CoC players because that was the point of the game.

Level based systems seemed slower and more restrictive because you had less freedom in creation and you went up in competency all at once.

But the reality is, all of these core original foundation rpg games assumed you were going to meet every single week for years and had time to slowly grow your characters.

They were just easier to start at a higher power level or achieve power faster because of being point buy vs level.

Now of course we have games that start you as ultra competent from the get go. But I truly believe every one of those original core games was zero to hero, it's just the point buys were easier to get stronger, faster since you could ignore the rules on xp and starting points easier.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 27, 2025, 09:42:19 PM

Quote from: jhkim on January 27, 2025, 08:02:09 PMWhat this implies is that games like Traveller produce cardboard play because the characters inherently have backstory. I strongly disagree. I think seeing the character as someone with a home and a past is generally a positive thing.

Your ability to torture non-existent implications out of what other people write is truly impressive.  It's like you read it, think about it, and still manage to completely miss the point.

Traveler characters barely have any back story as the term is usually used, at least not automatically.  The mechanics of the character creation implies what has come before, but with a very light touch. 

To answer other points made earlier in this topic, the same can be said for a light tough with, say, social status, or family, etc.  Quick, I'm the 5th child of a retainer of a poor, landed knight.  That doesn't intrude on the game's ability to develop in play at all, nor does it get in the way of the player running with it however they want.  There's no back "story" there at all, merely background details. 

Contrast that with the whole push of the several paragraph back story where someone practically fills in the fan fiction version of the funnel, working out the way they imagined.  That does actively get in the way of playing the character reacting to the emergent story, because the story of that character is already well along, and worse, the future is starting to jell in the player's mind, if only subconsciously.

A Traveller character has far more detail than just "5th child of a retainer of a poor, landed knight". If I were to write out in sentences all the details, it would be a whole page or more - particularly for Mercenary or High Guard in classic Traveller where each year's assignment is treated separately. That history frequently involves the character seeing combat action - including being wounded and/or decorated for their part.

So it seems like what you have an issue with is not the amount of detail, or even whether the character has been in combat action, but rather some other quality about what is written into the background.

To get to more specifics, here's the backstory for a sample PC in 1st edition Champions (1981):

QuoteCRUSADER was trained by the CIA, and assigned to infiltrate VIPER. The organization found out he was a CIA agent, and brainwashed CRUSADER into becoming an assassin for them. He killed one victim, but the psychological strain broke the conditioning. However, both the CIA and VIPER are now looking for him. CRUSADER's Code against Killing and his hatred of Killing Attacks all stem from the brainwashing and his reaction against it.

Is this the sort of back story that you consider a problem? If not, then can you give a specific example of what is?

Quote from: jhkim on January 28, 2025, 02:59:56 PMSo it seems like what you have an issue with is not the amount of detail, or even whether the character has been in combat action, but rather some other quality about what is written into the background.

To get to more specifics, here's the backstory for a sample PC in 1st edition Champions (1981):

QuoteCRUSADER was trained by the CIA, and assigned to infiltrate VIPER. The organization found out he was a CIA agent, and brainwashed CRUSADER into becoming an assassin for them. He killed one victim, but the psychological strain broke the conditioning. However, both the CIA and VIPER are now looking for him. CRUSADER's Code against Killing and his hatred of Killing Attacks all stem from the brainwashing and his reaction against it.

Is this the sort of back story that you consider a problem? If not, then can you give a specific example of what is?

Like I said before, that example is borderline.  Of course, any Champions character is likely to be borderline, because hunted and psych disadvantages lend themselves to that sort of thing.  Not to mention that Champions is halfway to soap opera.

Let's break it down:

- Trained by the CIA - fine.

- Assigned to infiltrate VIPER - better would be "undercover operative" and leave it at that, but that's quibbling.

- The organization found out he was a CIA agent - just say "blown cover" and be done.

- and brainwashed Crusader into becoming an assassin for them - just plain stupid, leave some mystery here, "turned"

- He killed one victim, but the psychological strain broke the conditioning - the player can think it, but you don't need this detail, before the game starts.  This is exactly the kind of thing that ought to happen after play.

- However, both the CIA and VIPER are now looking for him - oh, really.  Just put the hunted down and be done with it.

- Code against killing and his hatred of killing attacks all stem from the brainwashing and his reaction against it - again, the disadvantages are on the freaking character sheet.

BTW, this kind of nonsense is a great example of why in our Develop in Play Hero System games, we tended to have a GM-assigned hunted and a psychological disadvantage that was filled in after the first adventure or two.  (Also caused a bundle of points to drop fast, which meant the player got a chance for some quick tweaking after they tested the character.)

With that in mind, we are left with "Crusader trained by the CIA, cover blown in operations against VIPER" ... and adventure starts here with a great hook.  Will he get caught and turned?  Will he become an assassin? Will he break the the strain and kill someone?  Maybe.  Or it could go some other way that will be meaningful to everyone at the table, and not just in the wanker's head.

OK, I'm gone for a couple of days and suddenly I'm saying all these things and meaning all these things that I don't remember saying or meaning.  I feel like Adm. Stockdale, "Who am I, and what am I doing here?"

First, just to be blunt and honest, I have a hard time responding in good faith to this kind of thread, primarily because of the people involved.  This isn't the first time jhkim has started a thread based off my replies, and I sometimes feel like these threads (and some replies in other threads) are just jhkim trying to outsource disagreement ("Hey, this guy said something I don't like.  Would anyone else like to dogpile on him with me?").  Of course, the king of low value commentary is ready to agree with him (that's you, HappyDerp).  And Chris, while you tend to say some intelligent stuff once in a while, you've had a disturbing trend of agreeing with those two lately.  If I found myself on the same side of an argument with jhkim and HappyDaze more than once or twice, I'd be doing a serious self-evaluation of my opinions...

But, against my better judgement, I'll take this thread as a legitimate attempt to have a meaningful conversation (not the HappyDerp part of it, though... he's just a low-effort troll).  So, to clarify, my original statement was a comment based on the evolution of D&D.  I couldn't give a crap about Call of Cthulhu (there's enough existential horror in the real world for me to want to roleplay it... Kamala Harris was a heartbeat away from the presidency!) or the incoherent mess that passes for Palladium systems (my group recently tried to play Beyond the Supernatural again, which we hadn't played since the late 80's.  It was so bad I almost suggested switching over to the Savage Worlds implementation of Palladium... but then I came to my senses! Love ya, TB!).  I'm talking about Dungeons and Dragons.

So, I'll cut to the chase and make my absolutist statement right here (just so jhkim can get to his whining and gnashing of teeth early... this dude is so allergic to strong statements spoken with conviction he'd argue with "Cancer is bad."):

Without zero to hero (i.e. the growth of a character from a relatively low-power/low-status individual into a hero), it's not Dungeons and Dragons anymore.  Period.  Full Stop.  End of F'ing Story.

This character arc is so much a part of D&D's deoxyribonucleic acid that you cannot play D&D without it.  Sure, you can play fantasy RPGs (or any other kind of RPG) without this arc.  But it's NOT D&D.  And no, jhkim, just because you played a "campaign" of what you called D&D in March of 1992 where you all dressed up like French maids and spanked each other with carrion crawler tentacles (Has anyone else noticed that he always has some decades-old campaign he played for a couple of sessions that exactly contradicts whatever point anyone is making that he also remembers perfectly clearly?  Do you keep a hyper-extensive journal or something?  With the number of games you have purportedly played, how do you have time to eat?  Things that make you go "hmmm..."), that isn't "evidence" of what D&D is.  And this is one of the reasons that WotC "D&D" isn't real D&D, because they have steered hard away from that arc.  Every character starts as a pansexual demi-goddess who everyone loves, and who has had all of these wonderful adventures proving that she was perfect all along long before the first session starts.  Blehhh... 

Steven Mitchell, your post is spot on about limits and their creative possibilities.  That post alone almost made having to read posts by HappyDerp tolerable (almost).

As for "emergent story," the definition is not obscure or difficult.  In fact, I think Prof Dungeonmaster has a pretty good video out recently that describes that style of play well (jump to about 2:45 into the video):



Snowflake characters are completely incompatible with emergent story in RPGs, simply because there is no guarantee that any particular outcome will happen to (or for) the players.  They may defeat the villain, they may lose, they may die in a meaningless skirmish long before the villain is even revealed.  The characters' stories come from the stories of what happened once play starts, not some onanistic pre-written fan fiction.  They are nobodies who might become somebody.

The sort of (good) DMing that leads to emergent stories in games?  Well, it's about setting up challenges and not solutions.  I may decide that some villain has taken up residence outside a small town, hoping to resurrect the worship of a fallen evil god in the ruins of a temple razed decades before.  He needs the town (and its people) for supplies, cover, and sacrifices.  He may have hired orcs to waylay caravans to and from the town.  He may have coopted the local trading post to help smuggle supplies and weapons.  He may be building a force of bandits in a nearby abandoned building, preparing for wholesale slaughter and kidnapping.  So, when the PCs roll into town, maybe on a mission to deliver goods or dispose of the orcs, I have no idea how this is going to end.  No set-pieces or "plot points."  The players tell me what they do, and the town (and villain) reacts.  Maybe they kill the orcs and bandits, and the villain sneaks away to try again.  Maybe the PCs get sidetracked and never meet the villain's forces, in which case the next time they pass the village it is a ghost-town with an evil temple nearby.  Whatever happens to the characters (because of their choices), it becomes part of their "story."

I think that both zero-to-hero and emergent story are intertwined.  It's hard (not impossible, just hard) to let the story emerge from play when the players already have a ton of mental baggage and expectations for who and what their PCs are.  It's much easier to let the story happen from play when the characters aren't already bound by twenty pages of backstory.  And they are both important parts of D&D.  Which is why recent WotC sucks at making D&D adventures and games...

One RPG I've played, recommends:

+2, +1, +1, +0, +0, -1

For the 6 Ability Scores, for Starting Characters.

Not a Hero, but Not a Zero either.  Just someone trying to make a difference, in their world.  You don't excel, but you don't suck either.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 28, 2025, 05:32:01 PMWithout zero to hero (i.e. the growth of a character from a relatively low-power/low-status individual into a hero), it's not Dungeons and Dragons anymore.  Period.  Full Stop.  End of F'ing Story.

I agree... but is anyone advocating otherwise?   Admittedly I've been skimming longer posts that are fully detailed recaps of progression systems in games I've never played nor have any interest in so I may have missed it.   We're mainly discussing the pros and cons of different systems both in theory and practice and not specifically D&D.

Quote from: jhkim on January 28, 2025, 02:59:56 PMTo get to more specifics, here's the backstory for a sample PC in 1st edition Champions (1981):

QuoteCRUSADER was trained by the CIA, and assigned to infiltrate VIPER. The organization found out he was a CIA agent, and brainwashed CRUSADER into becoming an assassin for them. He killed one victim, but the psychological strain broke the conditioning. However, both the CIA and VIPER are now looking for him. CRUSADER's Code against Killing and his hatred of Killing Attacks all stem from the brainwashing and his reaction against it.

Is this the sort of back story that you consider a problem? If not, then can you give a specific example of what is?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 28, 2025, 03:54:38 PMBTW, this kind of nonsense is a great example of why in our Develop in Play Hero System games, we tended to have a GM-assigned hunted and a psychological disadvantage that was filled in after the first adventure or two.  (Also caused a bundle of points to drop fast, which meant the player got a chance for some quick tweaking after they tested the character.)

With that in mind, we are left with "Crusader trained by the CIA, cover blown in operations against VIPER" ... and adventure starts here with a great hook.  Will he get caught and turned?  Will he become an assassin? Will he break the the strain and kill someone?  Maybe.  Or it could go some other way that will be meaningful to everyone at the table, and not just in the wanker's head.

Thanks for the clarification.

I think I understand what you're saying, but my experience is different - so it seems like a "Your Mileage May Vary" issue. I played a lot of Champions especially in the 1980s and 1990s, and we never used the "Develop in Play" rules you noted, and I didn't feel a need for them. We would generally allow some editing of a character during the first few sessions of play, to fix problems that came up. However, there was always an initial version.

If someone introduced a PC like Crusader, we'd probably discuss how he fits with the group and campaign during session zero - but most likely it would be fine. We might tweak some things based on how he relates to the other PCs, but I wouldn't foresee it being a problem that he was briefly a brainwashed assassin.


I've had designed characters that didn't work out well in play. Still, usually designed characters were fine, so my usual solution has been to adjust the character to work how others worked.

Quote from: RNGm on January 28, 2025, 06:11:43 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 28, 2025, 05:32:01 PMWithout zero to hero (i.e. the growth of a character from a relatively low-power/low-status individual into a hero), it's not Dungeons and Dragons anymore.  Period.  Full Stop.  End of F'ing Story.

I agree... but is anyone advocating otherwise?   Admittedly I've been skimming longer posts that are fully detailed recaps of progression systems in games I've never played nor have any interest in so I may have missed it.   We're mainly discussing the pros and cons of different systems both in theory and practice and not specifically D&D.

Yeah. For this thread, discussion of what counts as D&D or not isn't what I was responding to. I was more interested in the quality of play across different systems. We can make a separate thread to discuss what counts as D&D if people want to discuss that.

Quote from: jhkim on January 28, 2025, 07:20:01 PMYeah. For this thread, discussion of what counts as D&D or not isn't what I was responding to.

Well, that's what I was responding to in the thread you quoted.  So why quote me if you're not interested in that?

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 28, 2025, 05:32:01 PMAnd this is one of the reasons that WotC "D&D" isn't real D&D, because they have steered hard away from that arc.  Every character starts as a pansexual demi-goddess who everyone loves, and who has had all of these wonderful adventures proving that she was perfect all along long before the first session starts.  Blehhh... 

I agree with pretty much everything about your Post except for this right here. This is blatantly wrong. There is nothing inherent within the core books of Dungeons and Dragons put out by WotC from 3.0 to 5.5. that says this. Nothing, none, notta, zilch, Zero.

You are blatantly wrong, prejudiced, or just lying. I own most editions of D&D, Several OSR books and both editions of Pathfinder.

All of them, every single one of them, is Zero to Hero. Some of them start you off, slightly stronger at 1st level (5th edition and Pathfinder 2 giving you full Hit points at level 1 instead of rolling) but all of them, even the WotC ones, assume your first level character does not have some great story attached to them yet, and is just starting their career.

You guys really need to stop telling these blatant lies about 5th edition. It doesn't help anyone's case to go around saying things that are NOT in the fucking books.

Quote from: Orphan81 on January 28, 2025, 08:14:35 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 28, 2025, 05:32:01 PMAnd this is one of the reasons that WotC "D&D" isn't real D&D, because they have steered hard away from that arc.  Every character starts as a pansexual demi-goddess who everyone loves, and who has had all of these wonderful adventures proving that she was perfect all along long before the first session starts.  Blehhh... 

I agree with pretty much everything about your Post except for this right here. This is blatantly wrong. There is nothing inherent within the core books of Dungeons and Dragons put out by WotC from 3.0 to 5.5. that says this. Nothing, none, notta, zilch, Zero.

You are blatantly wrong, prejudiced, or just lying. I own most editions of D&D, Several OSR books and both editions of Pathfinder.

All of them, every single one of them, is Zero to Hero. Some of them start you off, slightly stronger at 1st level (5th edition and Pathfinder 2 giving you full Hit points at level 1 instead of rolling) but all of them, even the WotC ones, assume your first level character does not have some great story attached to them yet, and is just starting their career.

You guys really need to stop telling these blatant lies about 5th edition. It doesn't help anyone's case to go around saying things that are NOT in the fucking books.

So, let's compare survivability of characters in AD&D to 3e, 4e, and 5e.  You are asserting that it's the same danger of death (I must have missed the "death saves" in AD&D)?  You are asserting that AD&D had a mechanical process of determining backgrounds that gave skills and bonuses?  Gave 1st level characters feats?  Gave Magic Users spells to cast every round?  The attributes gave the same level of bonuses?

I'm not responsible for your lack of perception.  Sure, the book doesn't say "make them superheroes" (even though the designers have said exactly that).  But the rules say that.  The characters in the latest editions start with way more power and ability than earlier editions.

So let's go to the actual text of 2024, shall we?

QuoteDetermining your character's origin involves choosing a background, a species, and two languages.

A character's background represents the place and occupation that were most formative for the character. The combination of background, species, and languages provides fertile soil for your imagination as you ponder your character's earliest days.

QuoteImagine Your Past and Present
Let your character's background and species inspire how you imagine their past. That past fed into the character's present. With that in mind, consider answers to the following questions as your character:

• Who raised you?
• Who was your dearest childhood friend?
• Did you grow up with a pet?
• Have you fallen in love? If so, with whom?
• Did you join an organization, such as a guild or religion? If so, are you still a member of it?
• What elements of your past inspire you to go on adventures now?

All of those directives occur before you determine ability scores.

QuoteAs you finish creating your character, consider whether you'd like to make up any other details about the character. Here are the sorts of things you might ask yourself as the character:

• What's your gender?
• What person or people do you care most about?
• What's your deepest fear?
• On your adventures, will you seek knowledge, wealth, glory, enlightenment, justice, mercy, power, or something else?

From the DMG:

QuoteEngage players who like acting by...

• Giving them opportunities to develop their characters' personalities and backgrounds.
• Allowing them to interact regularly with NPCs.
• Highlighting the roleplaying elements of combat encounters.
• Incorporating elements from their characters' backstories into your adventures.

QuoteEngage players who like storytelling by...

• Using their characters' backstories to shape the stories of the campaign.

QuoteCharacter Arcs
Like most protagonists in film and literature, D&D adventurers face challenges and change through the experience of overcoming them. By incorporating each character's motivations into your adventures and setting higher stakes through play, you'll help characters grow in exciting ways. You can use the DM's Character Tracker sheet to keep track of key information about each character. See "Getting Players Invested" in this chapter for more ideas.

Character Motivations. For each character, think about what motivates them to adventure. Motivations generally fall into the following categories:

Goal. A character's goal is a short-term reason for the character to adventure. At the start of a campaign, this might be a desire for treasure, a thirst for excitement, or some need from a character's backstory. As characters continue to adventure, they'll find different goals to pursue, such as finding a lost relic, honoring an ancestor, avenging a fallen mentor, or defeating a villain.

Ambition. A character's ambition is a broad, personal aspiration the character hopes to achieve through a lifetime of adventuring. A character might dream of becoming a legendary knight or bringing peace to their homeland. Ambitions might be unrelated to the character's current goal.

Quirks and Whims. Quirks and whims are a character's preferences, impulses, or other traits. They often emerge during play, such as a character's tendency to one-up a rude innkeeper or their oft-expressed fondness for displacer beast fur.

...

Family, Friends, and Foes. A character's origin (species and background) implies some amount of backstory, suggesting the character's family and what the character did before becoming an adventurer. Take note of specific background characters—friends, foes, family members, and others—who might appear in the campaign.

Should these background characters become important to the campaign, work with the player to develop them in detail. Revealing a character's lost sibling or childhood rival midcampaign should be handled carefully to avoid straining credulity. Make sure a player is comfortable with new developments about their character before introducing them.

Character-Focused Adventures. Adventures should occasionally highlight character motivations or elements of their backstory. Here are a few examples of character-focused adventures:
...

Setting New Goals. Characters can change their goals whenever they please, but you can encourage them to do so by giving them significant victories roughly every 5 levels. When characters accomplish their goals, consider the following questions:

• How does completing this goal create a new challenge?
• How is this victory only part of what the character wants to achieve?
• Who might be upset by the character completing this goal?
• What is a reward the character will be excited to receive that also moves them closer to their ambition?

Use the answers to these questions to develop new character goals and to inspire further adventures.

Yeah, you're right.  There's nothing in the new books that suggest the characters' backstories are really important or have a big impact on the direction of the campaign...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 28, 2025, 05:32:01 PMFirst, just to be blunt and honest, I have a hard time responding in good faith to this kind of thread, primarily because of the people involved. 

Try responding to the topic then, rather than to specific posters. If you can't see past who is saying something to actually deal with what is being said, that's a failure on your part.

About the definition of "zero-to-hero"... In some posts, two things are being conflated:

1) Being low-power and/or low-status

2) Having little or no detail in the character's background

A PC can start out as a low-power, low-status nobody - but I can still write three pages of fan fiction about their childhood and their relationship with their older stepsister and so on. In general conversation, the phrase "zero to hero" is used to talk about the difference in power level.

Quote from: Orphan81 on January 28, 2025, 12:11:16 PMThe majority of classic rpgs, and I include things like Champions, World of Darkness and Call of Cthulu here, have you begin as weak but competent enough for an initial adventure within their setting.

Quote from: Orphan81 on January 28, 2025, 12:11:16 PMNow of course we have games that start you as ultra competent from the get go. But I truly believe every one of those original core games was zero to hero, it's just the point buys were easier to get stronger, faster since you could ignore the rules on xp and starting points easier.

This waters the phrase down to meaninglessness. Call of Cthulhu is "zero-to-zero" and Champions is "hero-to-hero".

If it isn't clear enough from those 1980s examples, I'd cite _Marvel Superheroes_ and the _James Bond 007 RPG_ as "hero-to-hero". In MSH, you start by playing Spider-man or Captain America. You can still advance as XP to become more advanced Captain America, but you're clearly already a hero at the start. Likewise, in JB007, you can start out as a "Double Oh" agent. The examples of play have a Double-Oh PC doing what Bond does.

A concrete way to measure it would be this:  Take an encounter that would be challenging to the PCs at the very start of the game - 1st level, beginning superhero, etc. After twenty sessions of XP, take that same encounter and double it (e.g. instead of 6 enemies, have 12 enemies). How do the PCs fare?

In Call of Cthulhu or Champions, the PCs would be overmatched - following the rules exactly as written.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 28, 2025, 05:32:01 PMThe sort of (good) DMing that leads to emergent stories in games?  Well, it's about setting up challenges and not solutions.  I may decide that some villain has taken up residence outside a small town, hoping to resurrect the worship of a fallen evil god in the ruins of a temple razed decades before.  He needs the town (and its people) for supplies, cover, and sacrifices.  He may have hired orcs to waylay caravans to and from the town.  He may have coopted the local trading post to help smuggle supplies and weapons.  He may be building a force of bandits in a nearby abandoned building, preparing for wholesale slaughter and kidnapping.  So, when the PCs roll into town, maybe on a mission to deliver goods or dispose of the orcs, I have no idea how this is going to end.  No set-pieces or "plot points."  The players tell me what they do, and the town (and villain) reacts.  Maybe they kill the orcs and bandits, and the villain sneaks away to try again.  Maybe the PCs get sidetracked and never meet the villain's forces, in which case the next time they pass the village it is a ghost-town with an evil temple nearby.  Whatever happens to the characters (because of their choices), it becomes part of their "story."

I think that both zero-to-hero and emergent story are intertwined.  It's hard (not impossible, just hard) to let the story emerge from play when the players already have a ton of mental baggage and expectations for who and what their PCs are.  It's much easier to let the story happen from play when the characters aren't already bound by twenty pages of backstory.  And they are both important parts of D&D.  Which is why recent WotC sucks at making D&D adventures and games...

Since they first started out, most RPG modules are written with plot points and set pieces. There were some innovators like Jaquays who emphasized non-linear dungeons, but a lot of modules - especially 1980s D&D tournament modules and later Dragonlance modules - were very structured and linear. In the 1990s, a point-to-point quest format became standard for many games.

I agree about letting story emerge by having challenges and not solutions. I should update my old article about "story soup" to about outlining that.

Where I disagree is that emergent story is a problem if the players know who and what their PCs are. First of all, talking only about the extreme of 20 pages of backstory is reductio ad absurdum - like saying that "zero to hero" doesn't work because complete zeroes are easily slaughtered by cats. I've played lots of modern story games as well as classic RPGs, and long background is the rare exception.


I'd say detailed background / backstory can be a problem only if the players understanding of who and what the PCs are doesn't match the game. The test is this:

• As play goes on, there is more and more accumulated background and story for the PC.
• If accumulated background and story are a problem, then it should be harder and harder to get emergent story out of a PC.

I find it's the opposite. As a PC gets more experienced and more detailed, then more emergent stories get easier.

So it's not detailed background that's the problem. It's poorly-fitted background.

Quote from: grimshwiz on January 27, 2025, 06:30:22 AMHappyDaze is a troll.

Just ignore everything he says and move on with your life.

The truth.

Quote from: jhkim on January 29, 2025, 03:00:19 AMI find it's the opposite. As a PC gets more experienced and more detailed, then more emergent stories get easier.

So it's not detailed background that's the problem. It's poorly-fitted background.

You are almost there.  Now keep going.  All detailed backgrounds are poor fits.  Some are less worse than others, the same way that some drug addicts have more discipline than others, and thus degrade slower.  Or to be more fair, at best, someone who puts a lot of effort into having a fitting, detailed background may pull it off, paying the opportunity cost you don't see of all the game play that could have been going on with that effort, instead.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 29, 2025, 08:51:12 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 29, 2025, 03:00:19 AMI find it's the opposite. As a PC gets more experienced and more detailed, then more emergent stories get easier.

So it's not detailed background that's the problem. It's poorly-fitted background.

You are almost there.  Now keep going.  All detailed backgrounds are poor fits.  Some are less worse than others, the same way that some drug addicts have more discipline than others, and thus degrade slower.  Or to be more fair, at best, someone who puts a lot of effort into having a fitting, detailed background may pull it off, paying the opportunity cost you don't see of all the game play that could have been going on with that effort, instead.

Conversely, I'd say zero background is always a bad fit. Said character is basically a "meat robot" avatar of the player.

I go back to my previous examples as wha I think are very good backgrounds for emergent results; a veteran with no legitimate prospects and hungry mouths to feed at home, and, the youngest son of a noble seeking to acquire the bride-price of a noble maiden he wishes to wed (both are Human Fighter 1s).

Neither is particularly deep, nor do they involve any past mighty deeds, but they provide a motive for their actions and at least some element that might influence decisions in how to handle things where a blank slate would not.

The family man, for example, has a reason to be more cautious. He's risking his life because he has no better options to feed his family at home, but living to bring the money home to his family is at the top of his goals... he'll take the lower risk/reward options and seek to minimize risks as best he can.

The youngest son though probably doesn't want to settle for just achieving the bride-price. His entire inheritance is likely his starting gear and he must not just meet the price, but then be able to support a noble lady in a style she is accustomed to. He's also grown up hearing tales of glory and knows brave deeds are a currency of their own. Similarly, since no one is depending upon his survival, he can afford greater risks... achieving a degree of immortality simply by dying well.

That's the value of a reasonable background in a zero-to-hero setup. The characters aren't just player avatars with no desires of their own. To roleplay them requires a degree of consideration of their limited backstories that keep these two 1st level Human Fighters from being interchangeable...

ie. The emergent story told after the party finishes their dungeon delve will be different depending on which of those Human F1s was in the party.

That's what I want out of a backstory. Enough of it so that even if you threw two statistically identical Human F1s into an adventure, the outcomes would be different (and not just because the combat dice rolled differently, but because the choices made in the adventure are different).

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 29, 2025, 10:37:06 AMConversely, I'd say zero background is always a bad fit. Said character is basically a "meat robot" avatar of the player.

I go back to my previous examples as wha I think are very good backgrounds for emergent results; a veteran with no legitimate prospects and hungry mouths to feed at home, and, the youngest son of a noble seeking to acquire the bride-price of a noble maiden he wishes to wed (both are Human Fighter 1s).

...

I don't disagree with those examples, though I would classify motivations and goals as separate from backgrounds--even if functionally the way motivations and goals get explained is in "background" text.

Yeah, desperately need money is great.  Desperately need money to feed my starving family is good (though doesn't explain why he keeps going when he has enough to accomplish that).  Any more than that shared before play starts is harmful to group engagement. 

Though of course there is a difference between some ideas that the player notes for themselves versus ones that are in a written background for the GM and/or group.  If the player isn't good at spinning up or remembering details when asked, it might be prudent to decide whether the spouse is ill, disabled, dead, missing, etc.  It might be helpful to note 3 kids instead of 5 or whatever.  Maybe jot some names for those NPCs.  That way, when they do something particularly risky and get asked why, they can say because little Suzy was gonna starve if he didn't take the chance.  Other players will remember that.

Where it completely goes off the rails is taking that next fatal step, of either sharing those irrelevant at start details or expanding on them. Wife is missing. Fine, that's something the character would know.  Versus, wife was kidnapped by brigands, orcs, yuan-ti, etc. Or ran off with a door-to-door bardic gauntlet salesman. Let the GM provide any additional details as the player would know them--and again, the other players will actually remember and care about it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 29, 2025, 08:51:12 AMAll detailed backgrounds are poor fits.  Some are less worse than others, the same way that some drug addicts have more discipline than others, and thus degrade slower.  Or to be more fair, at best, someone who puts a lot of effort into having a fitting, detailed background may pull it off, paying the opportunity cost you don't see of all the game play that could have been going on with that effort, instead.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 29, 2025, 11:11:31 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 29, 2025, 10:37:06 AMI go back to my previous examples as wha I think are very good backgrounds for emergent results; a veteran with no legitimate prospects and hungry mouths to feed at home, and, the youngest son of a noble seeking to acquire the bride-price of a noble maiden he wishes to wed (both are Human Fighter 1s).

I don't disagree with those examples, though I would classify motivations and goals as separate from backgrounds--even if functionally the way motivations and goals get explained is in "background" text.

Yeah, desperately need money is great.  Desperately need money to feed my starving family is good (though doesn't explain why he keeps going when he has enough to accomplish that).  Any more than that shared before play starts is harmful to group engagement. 

Though of course there is a difference between some ideas that the player notes for themselves versus ones that are in a written background for the GM and/or group.  If the player isn't good at spinning up or remembering details when asked, it might be prudent to decide whether the spouse is ill, disabled, dead, missing, etc.  It might be helpful to note 3 kids instead of 5 or whatever.  Maybe jot some names for those NPCs.  That way, when they do something particularly risky and get asked why, they can say because little Suzy was gonna starve if he didn't take the chance.  Other players will remember that.

This seems flatly contradictory to me. First you say that all detailed backgrounds are bad -- then you endorse creating details for all of a poor PCs siblings that they're providing for. From your examples, it seems like you're saying that some details are potentially good.

The question is, what is the criteria for good detail?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on January 29, 2025, 11:11:31 AMWhere it completely goes off the rails is taking that next fatal step, of either sharing those irrelevant at start details or expanding on them. Wife is missing. Fine, that's something the character would know.  Versus, wife was kidnapped by brigands, orcs, yuan-ti, etc. Or ran off with a door-to-door bardic gauntlet salesman. Let the GM provide any additional details as the player would know them--and again, the other players will actually remember and care about it.

Here you're defining not by what the detail is, but by who made it.

So, let's take a suggestion that the wife was kidnapped by yuan-ti... If the GM came up with it, then it's a good idea. If the player came up with it, it's a bad idea.

Is that your position?

If so, then this isn't about the amount of background detail or even what the detail is, but rather who controls it.

Quote from: jhkim on January 29, 2025, 04:47:57 PMHere you're defining not by what the detail is, but by who made it.

So, let's take a suggestion that the wife was kidnapped by yuan-ti... If the GM came up with it, then it's a good idea. If the player came up with it, it's a bad idea.

Is that your position?

If so, then this isn't about the amount of background detail or even what the detail is, but rather who controls it.

(Deep breath, types, deletes ...) OK, No. It's when the detail emerges in play, the whole point of this topic.

Some details are irrelevant or actually harmful if they occur before play begins.  Many are outside the scope of what the player should even be considering.  Let's spell it out.  Bad version:

Player: My character's wife is missing.
GM: Sure, we'll say she was abducted by orcs.
Player: Could we make it those snake people instead?
GM: Hmm, yeah I can make that work.

(Later in the game, as this gets explained in some kind of exposition--or even worse, background drops en masse)
Other players :  Whatever.

Good Version:

Player: My character's wife is missing.
GM:  OK.

(Later in the game, party comes across signs that orcs, yuan-ti, whatever, abducted, killed, whatever someone or even several someones)

Player: Get chill up spine, "Hey, we need to track this down."  Hmm, could it be?

(Even later when the party finds the wife's body, rescues her, or finds signs that she was in the group that got pulled out by the orcish leaders that they've been fighting.)

Player: Those bastards have my wife.  I'll not rest until we get her back!  Or kill the bastards.  Or whatever he would say depending on how it played out above.
Other Players:  Right there with you!

As hackneyed and drawn out as my example is, I hope it has conveyed the very fundamental difference between what happens before play starts versus what develops in play.  It should be obvious why the emergent story (told after the adventure is complete), no matter how it comes out, is going to be stronger in the second case than the first.  If not, I'll say more.

 

Why zero to hero is great is because it allows more variety in foes.
Fighting Goblins for your entire career is likely to get lame pretty quick.

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 29, 2025, 09:03:32 PMWhy zero to hero is great is because it allows more variety in foes.
Fighting Goblins for your entire career is likely to get lame pretty quick.

Literally no game I've ever played or even heard of without zero to hero advancement is remotely even close to that level of monotony; I get that you're exaggerating for effect but you're slathering it on pretty thick.  The difference is that players will have to work together to fight off a giant with no certainty of winning instead of EACH player breezing through taking one on individually by 10th level.  Personally, I think a bog standard (pun intended) troll should be a tense encounter with real risk for even experienced adventurers instead of a ho-hum random forgettable random encounter. 

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 29, 2025, 09:03:32 PMWhy zero to hero is great is because it allows more variety in foes.
Fighting Goblins for your entire career is likely to get lame pretty quick.

Played in a Star Wars game for a long time and various types of Stormtroopers were fought for the entire career of my characters (two of them). Sure, there were other oppoents too, but there were always Stormtroopers around if nothing else showed up to shoot.

Quote from: Ruprecht on January 29, 2025, 09:03:32 PMWhy zero to hero is great is because it allows more variety in foes.
Fighting Goblins for your entire career is likely to get lame pretty quick.

The most variety I found in a campaign was in the superhero genre; literally every supervillain (solo, teams, or organizations) had their own shtick and scheme and had to be overcome in different ways.

You definitely don't start as a zero when you can lift a tank and tank an exploding shell as opening moves.

A lot of the "zero-is-better" and "anything pre-established is bad" arguments seem to always present the opposing idea in the worst light and their own preferences in the best.

ex. that other players would go "who cares" to a background element coming in to play, but will be gung ho "we're there with you" if they only find out later in play.

Please.

My experience is that any player who goes "who cares?" to the first example will yawn if the same comes up in play, and anyone who says "we're there with you" to the second would also say "we should make that a priority, let's go" if they learn it from the start.

Sidebar - the "my wife is missing" is a prime example of where the PC should be knowing more. If my wife went missing I'd be scrounging for every possible clue to find her, not shrugging my shoulders saying "she's gone, oh well." This doesn't mean over-deciding establishing details can't be bad... just that it's a very poor example to me because the nature of the potential threat to a loved one makes the lack of any knowledge other than "missing" feel discongruous to human nature. - end sidebar.

The same with "fighting goblins would get boring" as if that's the only thing you'd ever face without zero-to-hero progression.

It's disingenuous at best.

Zero-to-hero has its good points and can be really enjoyable. Not discovering things about your character until the GM decides them for you in the right context can be fun (say, if you're playing an amnesiac) too.

But they're not the always best and sole way to play, except as a personal preference.

Me? I prefer a variety of different modes because I would find every setup and progression being broadly the same to not fit more than a handful of genres and I do get burnt out on particular genres if they're all I do.

I'm specifically pushing to run a superhero game for my Friday night crew specifically because the last three campaigns have been zero-to-hero fantasy. If it's zero-to-hero fantasy again I'm gonna have to find a new group for my own sanity.

If all you like is zero-to-hero fantasy with thin at best backstories then have at it. Just don't pretend its what's best for everyone all the time.

Well the assumptions that seem to be here (mostly) we're talking about a D&D type of progression? Zero-to-Hero for me being, as always, contextual to the setting, but it's normies(+) suddenly doing big shit relative to whatever the status-quo for the setting is. At least broadly speaking.

But conversely, I also try to adapt my baseline villains - let's use Goblins accordingly. As the heroes learn to mow them down, the Goblins themselves adapt. While people might say "fighting goblins forever is boring" - the GM's job is to keep it interesting. And while I generally agree, making characters fight only one general monster repeatedly *is* boring, the goal should be to set parameters to change or end that status-quo.

Meanwhile *I* get to scale up the stakes to keep the Heroes on their toes.

- The Goblins are reproducing their numbers at a startling rate, they're becoming more feral. Why? Maglubiyet blessed the Goblin Queen and she's producing like an ant-queen? Attrition is causing her make more and more who learn less and less as the Heroes constantly cull them? Maybe it's something else? Whatever it is - until it's dealt with, they'll keep coming.
- They're adapting, using novel tactics and even multi-tier strategies. Why? They have some new mutant Goblins that are /gasp Smart. And they serve as mad-genius officers hatching plans. Until these guys are hunted down and killed - they'll keep coming, and getting smarter as they learn more and more.
- They start bringing in more allies, often against their own will. Why? Because they have numbers and with Smart Gobs leading them they can coerce/force others to their will to use against the PC's and their peoples.

This dovetails with what Chris24601 is saying. *I* can stretch out the assumed gameplay I'd get out of Goblins a *very* long time - but I leave it up to the PC's to decide that organically. While they're grinding on that, I'm introducing other issues into the Sandbox, to help incentivize the need to deal with some form of finality the "Goblin Problem" - which will have some general parameters on when that will happen. The point being, it's not the only thing the PC's would be doing in the campaign.

Yes, they're "just Goblins" but their importance is, like any other monster you toss into the gaming stew, only as important as you want. The PC's are Heroes because they deal with shit no one else reasonably can, and they earn it. That's the journey.

Some players don't like doing the Zero-to-Hero thing because they wanna get straight to the meat and start cooking. I definitely get that. This is likely why many of my players *always* want to play Supers at my table. And now Rifts. They want to start the game like dick-swinging Godzillas and are looking to fight Kaiju-sized problems and pretend they're not killing thousands as whole cities get smashed underfoot.

That's hard to pull off in D&D-style campaigns because that's "high-level" play, and you gotta GET THERE. That requires a system that's easy to support and players with the ability to grind there naturally. I've rarely seen (i.e. NEVER) a D&D specific game starting at 20+ level of power and going very far. And largely it has to do with the system more than the setting.

ALTHOUGH... I have this idea in MSH/Heroic to do a fantasy-based supers game set in this Mos Eisley like place in one of the Ten Realms, where Asgardians, Vanir, Greek Immortals, Aliens etc. all gather to do "jobs" across the universe that others won't/can't do. Since everyone is of relative same power-level this would be both high-powered and yet Zero-to-Anti-Hero.