Friday, October 7, 2022

What Are Levels For?

In light of my earlier post on levels, I find myself wondering: what are levels for? This is a sincere question on my part. Levels – by which I mean experience levels – are simply one of those things that Dungeons & Dragons has always had but whose purpose I never questioned. Obviously, levels are a marker of accumulated experience and thus advancement, but why does that even matter? 

In OD&D, there's an implicit suggestion that experience level is indexed to the difficulty posed by the typical inhabitants of a given dungeon level (hence the re-use of the key term). However, that suggestion is a very loose one, since the Monster Level Tables found in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures don't present a one-for-one correlation between dungeon level and monster level (which is to say, hit dice – itself an inexact measure of relative difficulty). And, of course, the Wilderness Wandering Monster tables don't even make a pretense of correlating difficulty with monster level/hit dice, so what's going on?

Again, I want to reiterate I'm being sincere in asking about the purpose of levels in D&D. It may very well be that, despite my long years of playing the game, I've simply been too thickheaded to understand their point beyond providing a simple milestone for when a character gains access to more potent abilities. If so, I'd be grateful to anyone who can enlighten me on this matter. Plenty of other RPGs manage to get by without levels; why does D&D have them?

16 comments:

  1. I've assumed for a while now that they are an equivalency for how many figures the character is "worth" in Chainmail or other war game, with level 10 characters being a equivalent to normal unit at 1:10. Not sure where I got this idea.

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    1. Yes, I think if the question is “how did D&D end up with levels?” then we have to look to Chainmail and say: if we have Heroes and Superheroes and Wizards, then at some point players will want a way to promote their favourite veteran units from simple fighting men to Heroes etc after several battles. This becomes more acute when you start thinking about small bands of adventurers that a player will focus on.

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  2. D&D has them probably from the simple expediency of having them from the beginning. If you think about it, before D&D, games had "winning" and "ending" conditions. D&D (RPG's) have no such conditions. How many times have you been asked by non-role-players "Yeah, but how do you win?" or "You mean the game just keeps going on and on?" As such, levels act as a measuring stick of progress for an otherwise potentially endless game. Maybe, probably, an imperfect system/idea, but one that you can seemingly wrap your head around.

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  3. Whatever the exact thought process that brought them about happens to be (and mbarclay’s suggestion certainly sounds plausible), I think they persist because they are an easy to grasp game concept to measure power and survivability. Basically, a party of level x characters has roughly y combat and survival effectiveness, and it follows that x+1 = y+1 and so forth. However crude and riddled with exceptions/edge cases (of varying types and amounts depending on which specific version of D&D you are talking about) levels as a measuring tool may be, it is still a fairly easy game concept to grasp. Contrast that with later point buy systems (admittedly not the only alternative to a level-based system). From my own personal experience both GURPS and the different flavors of Champions/Hero System spring to mind, and figuring out if a particular antagonist either way too easy or way too deadly can be a much more involved process. It is by no means impossible to do so, but I think it is easier to ballpark at a glance levels.

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  4. Levels exist because of D&D origins in miniature wargaming. Where by necessity statistics for individual figures are kept simple even when we are talking about skirmish level man to man combat.

    So given that it was natural represent heroes and other extraordinary creatures/people as worth being X figures of a normal fighting man.

    And when Dave Arneson ran Blackmoor that got extrapolated into levels to smooth out the progression from veteran (1 figure), to hero (4 figures), to super-hero (8 figures).

    Once Dave got a handle on how wanted to handle man to man combat and spellcasting that got extrapolated to fit the level scheme. Like saying OK instead of 1 hit to kill let go with 1d6 hit point, and instead of 1 hit let's go with 1d6 damage.

    And Gary incorporated that into the design of D&D when Dave taught him how to play.

    In a nutshell it was a series of ad-hoc rulings to handle issues that came up with a Braunstein style campaign that turned into what we would now call tabletop roleplaying.

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    1. Indeed, I believe you're as to the origin. Unfortunately the term started to be used loosely to also describe rankings for spells and the depth of dungeon levels. the lack of correlation (such as the need for a Magic-user to be 3rd level before being able to use 2nd level spells) could be quite confusing for the neophyte.

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    2. It is just a matter of designers being lazy and using the same word for everything. In Chainmail, spells don't have levels but have complexity and wizards could use any spells independently of the wizard level. IIRC the Spell Complexity was an optional rule so the DM could use ask the wizard to roll 2d6 above the spell complexity to check if it is properly cast or something like that. You can check that the Spell Complexity in Chainmail loosely corresponds to the Spell Level in OD&D.

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  5. Levels also serve as a recognition of achievement for the players, much like the belt system in martial arts. Witness the enduring popularity in video games of levels as well as the "level up" phrase having entered popular speech.

    I also want to point out that in real life, combat skills improve primarily through training rather than through life & death situations (or even tournaments). But who wants to roleplay constant practice?!?

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  6. Improving a skill from 52% to 54% isn't exciting, whereas gaining a level and often a bunch of things (bonuses to hit, save, hit points, new spells etc.) can be.

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  7. Players want omnipotence. The DM wants a good story or playable, somewhat fair, game. The basic idea was, imo, players start at zero and levels are the cookie you get for engagement. By the time you get super powers, you are put out to pasture running a kingdom and the interesting story is likely your followers...rinse, repeat.

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  8. Rpgs are many things, including a game. Levels (and xp) are a way of keeping score, a reward for play, and a shorthand way of indicating that a player's "piece" has improved.

    Before video games perfected the dopamine rush, the risk reward cycle of xp and levels created a feeling that other games just didn't have at the time.

    I enjoyed rpgs w/o levels (e.g. Champions), but games with levels feed more into that rush.

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    1. I agree - levels are a dopamine-rush reward for successful play. Computer games maybe make this more obvious. D&D's success is largely due to all the reward mechanisms - XP, levels, gp, magic items, et al.

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  9. Fundamentally I like class and level for:

    - Hit points going up with level has a beneficial function for heroic fantasy. It makes it possible to have things like dragons that are an insane challenge for low level characters and become less and less of a challenge as PCs gain levels.

    - Spreading magic power via spells across levels defers more powerful magic to higher level. RQ cheats a bit by having the most powerful magic be rune spells, but basically then there are just two power levels. And amount of damage scaling by level meshes nicely with hit points scaling per level.

    For games that don't need these features, more granular "skill" systems work better, or even more granular Hero/GURPS like "point builds".

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  10. Have you ever noticed the different mind sets between level based games and non level based games. In Traveller or Twilight 2000 characters do not level up and acquiring new skills is rare and not associated with gaming experience. The difference I've noticed is that level based PCs endeavor to gain levels, while Traveller PCs are out for money, power and materialistic gain (better ships, more formidable armor, more lethal weaponry). T2K characters are looking for security or for a way home. Leveling up is the obvious goal, in level based systems. The game mechanic is driving the player characters motivation.

    This motivation is artificial and a little silly compared to real life or even fiction (sci-fi or fantasy). "Why do I work hard at my job? because I want to be a 6th level consultant that can take on a hoard on 1st level accountants, or be able to turn a corporate lawyer".

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  11. I've always looked at it as you suggest in OD&D: character level equals dungeon level. I'd suggest that character level = dungeon level = monster HD. It seems to me the progenitor of Challenge Ratings.

    As an illustration, a first level character should be in trouble on the fifth level of a dungeon, whereas a fifth level character on the first level should be relatively safe.

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  12. Levels ensure that D&D isn't just one game. It starts out as one game; and then it becomes another, different game; and then yet another, altogether different game; et iterum until the referee's creativity or capacity to improvise exhaust themselves.

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