tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post6005920285022429162..comments2024-03-25T03:52:40.426-07:00Comments on The Ongoing Campaign: Demihuman Level Limits?faoladhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-79900794979376861102012-01-11T00:35:53.329-08:002012-01-11T00:35:53.329-08:00There's a lot to be said for that position. I&...There's a lot to be said for that position. I'm particularly fond of GURPS for those sorts of games, for instance, and I like BRP/CoC very much as well. However, I think that there are some very useful aspects of D&D outside of (and I love this formulation, so thanks for that) "nebbish-to-demigod". For instance, it takes approximately 30 seconds to make a character in OD&D (roll 3d6 in order 6 times, pick a class and alignment, roll hit points, and you're done except for starting equipment and maybe spells if you're a Magic User). There are a few things to improve that (take max hp, or roll a hit die for 0 level as well and take the higher result, for instance, or get rid of alignments), but the process is simple by design. Other systems add other fiddly bits (skills in BRP/CoC, for example).faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-64516831681341921712012-01-10T23:20:49.396-08:002012-01-10T23:20:49.396-08:00...that is, if I'm not looking for that nebbis......that is, if I'm not looking for that nebbish-to-demigod experience then I play something with fewer problematic subsystems.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-3883665373059465152012-01-10T23:17:25.991-08:002012-01-10T23:17:25.991-08:00Sure, you can use any rule set for any style of pl...Sure, you can use any rule set for any style of play. I mostly play CoC and other kinds of investigative games, so I'm no stranger to the monster for which there is no premeditated or direct solution - in fact that's one of the things I like most about CoC: it has a clearly-defined problem space that specifically forecloses direct approaches. Perhaps that's why I regard DnD the way I do; because it's the only game I play that has levels.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-20557652493150601802012-01-10T16:05:21.410-08:002012-01-10T16:05:21.410-08:00"the fundamental goal of the game, encoded in...<i>"the fundamental goal of the game, encoded in the rules, is to increase in level"</i><br /><br />OK, I see that we're playing two different games. For you, it's about the rules. For me, it's about what I want to do. The game is unique in that the goals are set by the players, not by the rules. Sure, there are some things the rules set up as explicit possibilities (the classic endgame, for instance, or, as you say, leveling), but the victory conditions are actually entirely personal.<br /><br />Secondly, I see the argument that it's necessary to have levels to, for example, defeat a dragon, but I reject it. Sure, at least a few levels are necessary (in Chainmail, only a Hero could even attempt to fight one), but it isn't mechanics that are important. Rather, it is ingenuity. Don't fight a dragon, collapse the cave it lives in. Hire an army to help you (sure, they're immune to normal missiles, but 100 men-at-arms get a <i>lot</i> of melee attacks, and even a dragon can't kill all of them at once; of course, there's the fear effect to consider, but there are ways around anything, given enough thought). Pull a Bilbo, and lure the dragon onto the weapons of someone else of higher level. And so on. Unlike computer games, you aren't limited in the things you can try to what the designer thought up. The GM is there to referee unusual actions, and it is expected that you will try some.<br /><br />See, I've <a href="http://ongoingcampaign.blogspot.com/2011/11/design-notes-character-improvement.html" rel="nofollow">discussed before</a> that leveling is not essential to the gaming experience. Some games forego leveling entirely in favor of simply gaining money and using it to improve your character's equipment, and therefore his capabilities. In a game where magic items can be bought and sold (which is many, though I recognize not all, gaming worlds), a character that has hit the level limit can still get money to buy magic items with, or to hire mercenaries and such if powerful items aren't available at ye olde magik shoppe. So, sure, the character can (in games that include them) hope to gain new feats or whatever, but why should that be necessary? Gold still equals power, in some sense. It's up to the player to figure out how to leverage that power at the gaming table.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-33034233710472338722012-01-10T15:37:58.937-08:002012-01-10T15:37:58.937-08:00HEY FFS JUST USE NON-SKILL BASED FEATS AND WHEN YO...HEY FFS JUST USE NON-SKILL BASED FEATS AND WHEN YOUR HALFMAN TOPS OUT IN LEVEL HE CAN STILL TRACK XP AWARDS AND GAIN FEATS..THEN THE PLAYER HAS SUMPIN TO STRIVE FOR AND HIS POINTYEARED CHARACTER TOO!<br /><br />:p<br />-NUNYAAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-89863158907707590762012-01-10T08:47:49.998-08:002012-01-10T08:47:49.998-08:00Hmmm... if your fundamental argument here is that ...Hmmm... if your fundamental argument here is that levels model heroic buffness and authority but should not be taken as an index of one's capacity for heroic acts (because, eg, Frodo saves the world despite being "lower level" than, say, Aragorn)....... then D&D might not be the best game to represent that distinction. <br /><br />I guess in some sense by mechanically representing halflings as underdogs, it simulates the hobbits' difficulties in pursuing their missions - nobody will take them seriously, they must face the Big Bad with nothing but their nerve, and they can't build up a buffer of hit points to carry them through hours of frontline fighting. <br /><br />On the other hand, the fundamental goal of the game, encoded in the rules, is to increase in level - mechanically you'd be suicidal to take on a dragon head to head at first level, but the game provides a way for you to grow into that situation, to the point where you could engage the dragon with confidence. Unless you choose to play a halfling, in which case you don't get to play that game. You just get to play "Dungeons."<br /><br />I agree with you that it's not necessarily nonsensical or "broken" - one can find a good-sounding rationale for the level limits as they stand, if you put a bit of effort in. But it is definitely perverse.<br /><br />(if you're also obliquely saying that the Nazis would've loved D&D had it been around in the 30s, although they might not have loved Tolkien so much or found him such a good fit for their ideologies, then I'd agree with you there)richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-35846639753388840982012-01-10T07:41:18.374-08:002012-01-10T07:41:18.374-08:00Yes, I was being rather sarcastic there. I never k...Yes, I was being rather sarcastic there. I never know what to make of claims that this or that "race" is not "heroic". In Tolkien, hobbits are the least of the peoples of Middle-Earth, but they are also, as Gandalf repeatedly observes, the most remarkable ones. In reality, there are many people who, without intensive training or particular talent, act heroically.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-17920963758421725322012-01-10T05:36:29.607-08:002012-01-10T05:36:29.607-08:00I understand the second paragraph of your comment,...I understand the second paragraph of your comment, but I'm not quite sure what to do with the first - I don't know if you're being ironic.<br /><br />Mana is such a useful concept, it really belongs in every gamer's vocabulary.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-15252237804143818792012-01-09T06:37:05.796-08:002012-01-09T06:37:05.796-08:00richard: Yes, because people are either completely...richard: Yes, because people are either completely and utterly the pinnacles of heroism or they are mud-people of no interest to the true heroes. Try reading <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> or <i>The Hobbit</i> sometime, followed up by Spinrad's <i>The Iron Dream</i>.<br /><br />I'm hot for humanocentrism with nonhuman options because that's what I like (not least because that's the way I started playing, though that's not the only reason by any means). If you like something different, play a game that allows you to do that different thing (GURPS does an excellent job, for example). Or else play a game which maximizes the nonhuman characters (such as D&D without level limits). Good on ya! My point here, though, is that the level limits concept is not irrational or "broken" (whatever that last actually means in terms of adventure games), as some have charged, and can be seen to be representative rather than metagame-y.faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-51025098418459868712012-01-09T03:33:07.769-08:002012-01-09T03:33:07.769-08:00Why are you so hot for humanocentrism? Because you...Why are you so hot for humanocentrism? Because you see it in some source literature and you want to play out that lit as a game? Why then allow non-human PCs? Surely they're just not hero material?richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-85804897520491662862012-01-08T14:02:57.389-08:002012-01-08T14:02:57.389-08:00Has it never occurred to anyone that level limits ...Has it never occurred to anyone that level limits are there precisely because they're supposed to be there? I mean, Frodo will never slaughter hordes of attackers the way Conan or John Carter does, because he's 3 feet tall and no amount of combat experience is going to change that. There's an ass kicking hobbit in Order of the Stick...and it just seems unnatural... <br /> <br />In real life, I think it'd be very generous to call anyone reading this a 2nd level fighter...as in, the equivalent to 2 fighting men on the field of battle. Yet does anyone doubt that they could kick the living crap out of Frodo in a throwdown? It'd be like fighting an 8 year old. <br /><br />In the LotR movies the elves and dwarves did okay but the hobbits were _useless_ on the battlefield. They have the lowest level cap of the three... it's not coincidence, it's design.<br /> <br />@ NUNYA <br /> <br />Not everyone in the world, or even the OSR, was alive 30 years ago. This stuff is actually brand new to me; I didn't read AD&D until Osric rolled into town.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8116962779728480800.post-41002415698666935612012-01-08T08:29:18.469-08:002012-01-08T08:29:18.469-08:00OMFG THANK YOU!! I WAS JUST THINKNG TWODAY HOW WHA...OMFG THANK YOU!! I WAS JUST THINKNG TWODAY HOW WHAT TSR D$AND NEEDS IS A GOOD HASHING OUT OF DEM-IHUMAN LEVEL LIMITS AS I CAM COULD ONLY FIND 4,741 POSTS ON DRAGGIN-FOOTS !!! <br /><br />HEY, OSR -I AM NOT HAD ENUFF ALREDDY WITH A THIRTY YEAR OLD ARGUMINTS!!!1 <br /><br />:p<br /><br />-NUNYAAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com