Monday, November 16, 2020

What Level is the King?

I remember well when I got my copy of The World of Greyhawk: it was 1982, the same year that The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun was released. I remember that because I justified the purchase of the folio by claiming that I "needed" it as a companion to module WG4, which was (I think) the first AD&D module specifically advertised as being set in the World of Greyhawk (unlike, say, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which, while set on Oerth, didn't draw attention to that fact). I had to justify the purchase because, up until that point, I was a dedicated home brewer when it came to fantasy settings, at least as far as Dungeons & Dragons was concerned. The idea of buying someone else's setting, even if that someone was Gary Gygax himself, initially struck me as odd. I quickly overcame my concerns, in large part because The World of Greyhawk is a terrific product – presenting just enough detail to give the referee something to use as a foundation but not so much that he's drowning in minutiae. From that point on, I became a devoted fan of Oerth and, for a time, shifted the action of my ongoing AD&D campaign there. 

I was especially fond of the entries describing the various kingdoms of the Flanaess. Among the information they provided were the names, titles, class, and level of each realm's ruler. Thus, we learn that the king of the Frost Barbarians is a 15th level fighter, while the Overking of Aerdy is a a cleric/magic-user of 7th/12th level. Indeed, if you spend much time reading the entries – and I spent a lot of time doing so as a kid – you'll notice that the rulers are all at least 10th level and most are in the 12 to 15 range, with some ranging as high as 18th level. At the time, this seemed to make sense to me, since D&D's endgame allowed for the possibility of high-level player characters becoming rulers themselves. Why the wouldn't the king of Furyondy be a 14th level paladin? Furthermore, by making rulers high-level characters, it ensured that they couldn't be easily dispatched by unscrupulous PCs.

As the years wore on, this approach became less appealing to me, for various reasons, and I started thinking about alternative ones. However, it wasn't until I started refereeing my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne that the matter became more pressing. The player characters are now mostly all levels 5 and 6 (which is significant in EPT, given its experience system). More importantly, many of the characters have attained positions of political power within the Tsolyáni colony of Linyaró. Earlier in the campaign, the characters interacted with several politically important and influential NPCs but I never bothered to stat them up, since game mechanics didn't matter in these interactions. As events unfold, though, that might change and I'm not sure the best way to handle things.

What's interesting is that Professor apparently Barker wrestled with this very same problem. The disjunction between power as represented by game mechanics and power as represented by position within the setting is quite acute in Tékumel. The setting's societies are profoundly hierarchical and tradition-bound, where true power flows from sources unlike those represented by the acquisition of experience points and advancement in level. There's no necessary connection between the two: the God-Emperor is the most powerful man in all of Tsolyánu and yet there is no reason to assume he's very high level. Conversely, a very experienced fighter in the Hirilákte Arena might well be quite high level and yet, politically and socially, he's a nobody. This wouldn't be an issue if high level didn't also bring high hit points and generally better ability to survive (though the matter is mitigated slightly in EPT by the presence of an "instant kill" rule not present in D&D). 

Ultimately, Professor Barker's solution was to dispense with levels entirely and create a new game system to accommodate Tékumel better. That system was Swords & Glory and, despite its many flaws, has some interesting ideas to consider on this and other questions. Right now, though, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this topic. Have you come up with a way to deal with it or is it something you don't worry about in your own games? 

25 comments:

  1. Actually yes I have come up with something. It born of the fact that in CSIO every NPCs had a level so I just rolled with that. First off level has nothing to do with one's rank in society but rather reflect life experience in one's profession i.e. class. A king can be 1st level if they are young and just started training.

    Level 1 to 2 are trained apprentices.
    Level 3 is a journeyman
    Level 6 is a leader in one's profession or a warrior first major command.
    Level 9 is a grandmaster level of skill.
    Level 12 is Olympic or Nobel Prize level of skill
    Level 16 is legendary skill in the vein of Aristotle, Plato, Einstein, Sun Tzu, Julius Caesar. The best of the best.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Does the level have any game mechanical effect?

      Delete
    2. They are D&D levels. I don't know if you remember my Majestic Wilderlands supplement for Swords & Wizardry. But I kept on developing it.

      What I wrote above is basically how I handled it when I ran AD&D 1e back in the day and when I picked up OD&D again in the form Swords & Wizardry, it what I continued.

      I ran the Majestic Wilderlands for a long time using GURPS. So what I did to "roughly" translate characters over was to count every 25 point as a level. As it been my experience with starting GURPS character at 125 pts they are about as capable of AD&D 5th level character. With important differences of course.

      So when it came to my work since the MW supplement. I doubled down on that idea far as building NPCs for my campaigns. So like GURPS at the 125 to 150 point level, a 5th to 6th level MW character I considered to be a skilled professional who is notable in a handful of things. And scaled down and up from there. Keeping in mind the traditional 9th to 12th level range for character reaching the pinnacle.

      I just got done with the layout of my basic rules for the new system. One of the things I did was include a chapter of NPCs as detailed as the monsters. If you like I can send you a copy of the PDF so you can see how it works out for me.

      I think you may find the general structure I use to be very useful for a detail rich setting like EPT. While still remaining classic D&D. The details will need the differ of course like the various lists of classes, monsters, the magic system, etc.

      Delete
    3. I do remember your Majestic Wilderlands supplement and liked it a lot. I still keep it near me on my bookshelf.

      I'll have to keep an eye out for full RPG when it's released.

      Delete
    4. Levels seem to be a little lowballed - 0e & 1e had 0 level which seems right for an apprentice & 4th level was supposed to be a Hero. 1st level fighters were titled "Veteran" after all and ordinary soldiers started at 0 level. For a GURPS conversion I would think 25 or 50 points base plus 25/level would be about right. That would make 150 point characters 4th or "hero" level and the 250 point beasts from Dungeon Fantasy 8th or "superhero" level.

      Delete
  2. This became an issue for me, too, when populating various regions in my various Wilderlands-style sandbox/hexcrawl campaign settings. When I studied the leaders of the settlements and their level of Region 01 (CSIO/Roglaras), I discovered that they ran from 2nd level to 17th level, with no rhyme or reason as size of the settlement versus the level of the leader. Though the curve was not perfect, it very nearly fit a roll of 3d6-1.

    Unfortunately, Bob Bledsaw had long since passed on by the time I got around to doing that, so I never had a chance to ask if he had randomized the levels of the leaders in such a manner or had simply assigned them.

    In feudal, dark age, and barbarian settings, I would think that leadership would fall to the higher-level types, as tradition-bound hierarchies quickly erode under violent threats, and in all three societies the leadership cadre is trained from a very early age in fighting. In the more "mature" societies, where leadership turnover is by tradition and hierarchy rather than right-of-might, an "emperor" might indeed be a mere 0-level "normal person," as their political power derives not from their own personal prowess or even charisma, but from tradition. But that's the exact kind of situation that generates rebellion from all those Name-level types who earned their power and prestige the hard way...

    ReplyDelete
  3. D&D doesn't make sense when viewed like that. I actually think it stop making sense as soon as you have a world, and not just a dungeon or a random wilderness.

    My solution was always to play something else that wasn't based around levels. It's one of the design artifacts it took stupidly long time for game designers to shake off. Within the design parameters of basic D&D it works, but not that far outside it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ultimately, that's the solution many people opted for, including Professor Barker.

      Delete
    2. All I can say is that I tried to take a crack at it with my Majestic Fantasy rules. When the book comes out we will see how well people think I hit the mark.

      Delete
  4. I was actually surprised to see your 6th level guard captain here the other day. I remember an OSR blog post some years back that convincingly argued that the most experienced and legendary characters from fantasy fiction (eg Aragorn) should be about level 3-5.

    Aha, found it:

    https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

    Justin of course has opinions not everyone agrees with, but I share his sympathies on this issue. It’s a thoughtful essay in any event.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't believe I've ever seen that post before; I'll have to take a look at it later.

      As for Captain Foulque, it's an interesting question. He's the leader of a mercenary company, which meant, in my eyes, he should be at least level 4 (the Hero level title). I opted for slightly hero to keep him a relevant antagonist for a while but not so powerful that he couldn't be eventually be defeated by a party of lower-level characters.

      Delete
  5. The same issue arises in the context of leaders of military units and war bands. Even in junior high, it didn't make sense to me that the captain of a company was necessarily the strongest physical fighter, or that a general would necessarily be a higher level fighter than that captain. There wasn't a mechanism in AD&D (which I was playing at the time) for a military leader having higher strategic or tactical ability. This was one advantage I perceived over skill-based systems like RuneQuest and later GURPS.

    Mind, I'm not sure my perception was correct. In actual game play, my players occasionally met a king or a duke or what have you as a patron, but they never had an adventure in which one of these NPCs needed to be statted out!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Picador, the article that you linked is based on 3E. I think that it doesn't work with OSR games.

    I think the king needs to be able to not be taken out by low level magic. I think that he needs to be able to make a saving throw more often than 10% of the time. I think that an AD&D world is so dangerous that rulers have to have levels in something - or they won't last long.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It depends. In a society where feats-of-arms are prized above all, the king will be expected to be the best fighter in the land if not one of the best and likewise for all of the barons and lords. Let's call that a noble or barbaric society. Whereas in an aristocratic or imperial society, the king or emperor is a sacred godhead who must be protected at all costs and thus is surrounded by an elite guard. Likewise the barons and lords are wealthy politician-courtiers rather than warriors. In this society, the king/emperor and his lords can all be 0-level. And in both scenarios, the wealthy will have the best magic items money can buy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I actually prefer my NPCs to be lower level. I very rarely have one above 6th. Primarily, I want to limit access to higher level spells, training, etc. This makes finding such resources into an adventure on its own.

    It also helps establish the idea that political power does not necessarily stem from the ability to use and target brute force. Thus, if my party were unscrupulous enough to assassinate a king in order to usurp him, their crude attempt at grabbing power would be resisted at all levels...they would have to figure out how to win the kingdom outside of their ability to kill people.

    BTW, this disparity between experience and political power is hinted at in B/X where Nobles are listed as 3HD monsters...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For my Majestic Fantasy RPG, I opted to work it out for a level 1 to 12 range with outliers as high at 16. But there no reason why can't work for a level 1 to 6 range with outliers as high as 9. If that how one view what levels means in a setting.

      Delete
  9. One solution is to create a "Ruling Men" class. Might be too much work. Just let the "Lords" of the realsm be any level, even lv0. Do we need to care? But the actual ruler class might be fun to make.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Is a King a fighter, magic user, cleric or thief? Classes and levels denote a specific skill set and it is not the skill set of leadership. Perhaps an old Dragon-magazine style NPC class might be more appropriate.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think if we are referring to semi-feudal societies loosely based on the European middle ages the nobility would very likely be trained fighters. Considering that high nobility would have access to better trainers and have more leisure time to practice, it is reasonable to assume that most kings would have at least several levels of fighter.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I say that 9th level is enough for a fighter to claw their way into the aristocracy on martial skill alone, without birthright being a factor. Real aristocrats from a noble family would be lower-level, though probably still leveled characters

    ReplyDelete
  13. I think that the most meaningful level titles (for Fighting Men) are Veteran (1), Hero (4) and Superhero (8). Veterans are seasoned fighters, Heroes are of the stature of Aragorn, Odysseus and Sigurd. Superheroes are living legends like Achilles and Beowulf. Most people aren't even Veterans... the world's most accomplished grocer is still just a 0 level man.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Part of the problem here is the lack of an ageing mechanism in D&D (Is there one somewhere in the AD&D rules? ). So there's a default assumption that good fighters just keep getting better (or at least no worse). But even the greatest historical fighter-kings are unlikely to have been as good in their middle years as they were at the height of their physical powers.

    Robert Bruce was clearly a 'high-level fighter' in 1314, if the de Bohun tale is true, but he would have hardly been capable of such feats in the last two or three years of his reign. So might it be best to envisage warrior-kings losing a level every so often after a certain age?

    ReplyDelete
  15. In my game, 12th. That's because everything has a level in my game which is equivalent to character level in terms of effect. So a 12th level noble is a King, a 12th level polity is a Kingdom, a 12th level settlement is a Royal City, a 12th level castle is a Royal Castle, a 12th level army is a Royal Army (commanded by a 12th level General), and an event that affects an 12th level area affects a kingdom, etc.

    The King themselves might not be 12th level as a class. In fact they are much more likely to only be around 7th level as a class if randomly generated in a normal game or 10-12th level in a wuxia game.

    [Incidentally my kingdoms are defined as the amount or territory that is the maximum that a single individual can exercise direct authority over. So they are much more like the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia, Wessex, and Northumbria in size. Similar cultures can join together as High Kingdoms (such as England, Scotland or Wales), or even a Great Kingdom. Beyond that you are talking about Empires, which operate differently. And it goes in reverse - you have Lesser Kingdoms ruled over by a Sovereign Prince, and petty kingdoms ruled over by a Sovereign Duke (but who both may freely be called King, especially by their subjects).]

    Incidentally the lesser ranks in the Aristocrat Hierarchy are Prince (11th), Duke (10th), Marquis/Earl (9th), Count (8th), Viscount (7th), Baron (6th), Knight Bannerette (5th), Manorial Knight (4th), Household Knight (3rd), Gentleman (2nd), Bastard (1st). As Aristocrats they have social precedence over all other characters of equivalent level (and usually in Court it is the aristocratic level that is all that matters - so a Viscount who is the General of the Royal Army would only have a precedence of the 7th level, but their actual political power is 12th - immediately after that of the King). [Although in some places it is the Religious caste that has precedence over the Military caste, such as with the mandarins of China.]

    ReplyDelete
  16. I started writing a comment and it turned into a blog post. TL:DR version is. Historically, most pre modern rulers had to be able to fight and command in order to maintain their rulership. In a D&D context, that would seem to be more important when you have magic and monsters to contend with. On the whole, my rulers are high level though a low level ruler would be possible if they have a lot of protection from high level characters.

    https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2020/11/20/what-level-is-the-king/

    ReplyDelete
  17. I'm in the camp of assuming high-level rulers. The world is just too dangerous.

    Experience Points are only gained by adventuring (i.e. dangerous martial and magical pursuits), not diplomacy or commanding an army from a hill, so rulers will typically send their offspring on adventures -- just like those fairy tale kings sending their three sons off into the unknown.

    Obviously, they'll stack the deck by providing quality arms, magic items, and, perhaps most importantly, qualified mentors and protectors.

    These tend to be mid-level at best, because at name-level (or even before) a hero will stand on his own feet, not play the bodyguard or babysitter.

    -Johann Mitland

    ReplyDelete