Three Models of Character Advancement

One of the aspects of Secrets of sha-Arthan that's been bedeviling me lately is character advancement. I've been trying to find an approach that both makes sense mechanically and feels appropriate to the setting’s tone and structure. I believe I’ve finally managed to thread that particular needle (something I’ll be talking about in more detail on Grognardia Games Direct next week). In the course of wrestling with the issue, though, I found myself reflecting more broadly on how roleplaying games have historically handled advancement and how those choices shape the experience of play.

After all, one of the more foundational elements of any RPG is its system for character advancement. How characters improve over time has a profound impact on gameplay. It shapes player incentives and directs the focus not just of individual sessions but of entire campaigns. While there are countless variations and hybrid models, I think most systems fall into three broad categories, each exemplifying a particular design philosophy. These categories are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive, but they are, in my experience, among the most common approaches used in games both old and new.

Objective Advancement: The Dungeons & Dragons Model

The traditional Dungeons & Dragons approach to advancement is probably the one most familiar to readers of this blog. Characters gain experience points (XP) for doing certain things, primarily defeating monsters and acquiring treasure. In OD&D and its descendants, including AD&D 1e, treasure was by far the more significant contributor to XP, sometimes by a significant factor over combat.

This approach to advancement is appealing in part because of its objectivity. The rules are clear about what earns XP and how much doing so nets them. Players know what kinds of activities will lead to advancement and this transparency encourages a particular style of play. Exploration, clever planning, risk management, and even negotiation (to avoid unnecessary fights) all emerge naturally when the primary goal is treasure not combat.

That said, this system is also clearly an artifact of game design rather than a simulation of anything. Despite attempts to explain it retroactively, there’s no in-world explanation for why recovering a chest of gold coins makes a thief better at climbing walls or a cleric suddenly able to cast a new level of spell. Advancement in D&D is largely a mechanical abstraction, divorced from the diegetic logic of the game world. Some players find this lack of in-setting justification jarring. Others, myself included, regard it as an acceptable (and often productive) mechanical contrivance.

Diegetic Advancement: The RuneQuest/BRP Model

A very different approach is found in games like RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, and other members of the Basic Role-Playing (BRP) family. Here, advancement is tied directly to what the character actually does during play. If a character successfully uses a skill, such as 1H Sword or Library Use, there’s a chance that skill will improve. The logic is intuitive: you get better at things by doing them.

This system is intensely diegetic. Improvement follows in-world logic and feels grounded in the character’s actual experiences. It avoids the abstraction of XP and provides a satisfying sense of verisimilitude. There's also something engaging about watching a character slowly improve in the areas he focuses on. Some characters become jacks-of-all-trades and others become specialists.

However, this comes at the cost of bookkeeping. Every skill use must be tracked and players must remember to mark those skills for later improvement rolls. In long-term play, this can become fiddly, particularly when characters have a large number of skills. It also risks encouraging behavior where players deliberately use low-probability skills just to have a chance at improving them, regardless of context.

Despite these quirks, BRP’s approach has had lasting influence, especially on games that prioritize character immersion and realism over abstract mechanics.

Narrative Advancement: The Milestone Model

The third common approach is often called “milestone” advancement. There are no experience points to tally nor skills to track. Instead, characters improve whenever the referee (or game system) deems that a “major” event has occurred, such as defeating a key antagonist, completing a quest, finishing an adventure, and so on.

This approach is most common in contemporary games, like Mörk Borg and its various spin-offs, though a versions of it exist even in current editions of D&D and Pathfinder. Its appeal lies in its flexibility and ease of use. It removes the need for careful tracking of treasure hoards or skill rolls and aligns character advancement with the narrative arc of a campaign.

However, it also introduces a great deal of subjectivity. What counts as a "milestone?" How long should characters go between them? Without clear guidance, milestone advancement can feel arbitrary and dependent more on the referee's whims than player action. It also risks undermining the sense of accomplishment that comes from overcoming difficult challenges. If advancement is inevitable, tied to narrative beats rather than earned through in-game actions, some players may feel less invested in their characters’ growth.

Moreover, milestone systems often flatten the pacing of advancement. In classic XP-based systems, players can level up at unpredictable times, sometimes quickly after a particularly lucrative dungeon crawl and, at other times, slowly, as they scrounge for minor treasures. That unevenness contributes to a feeling of dynamic progress. Milestone systems, by contrast, tend to regularize advancement, which some may appreciate but others may find dull.

Each of these advancement models brings with it certain strengths and certain limitations. The classic D&D approach encourages player choice and strategic planning at the cost of diegetic coherence. The BRP model is immersive and logical, but mechanically heavy. Milestone advancement is smooth and flexible but often lacks clarity and player-driven incentives. Designers and referees must both consider the kind of play they want to foster. Do they want a game that rewards careful play and tangible goals? One that simulates the experience of a character’s development? Or one that supports a tightly woven narrative with minimal overhead?

There are, of course, many other variations and hybrid approaches. Games like Pendragon offer their own takes on advancement, blending elements of these three models in novel ways. Other games, like classic Traveller, all but eschew mechanical advancement altogether. Nevertheless, these three remain, I think, the primary modes by which roleplaying games have handled the question of character growth.

As always, I am probably forgetting one (or more!) obvious examples of alternate approaches to advancement. If you know of a system that doesn’t fall easily into any of these categories or otherwise deviates from the scheme I've laid out here, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Levels Are For Video Games

Today, "leveling up" is a central feature of countless video games, from sprawling open-world RPGs to mobile idle clickers. As anyone who reads this blog of course knows, levels come from Dungeons & Dragons, which introduced them half a century ago as a way to mark a character's growth in power and ability through play over time. What began as a simple abstraction to track advancement has since become a core gameplay loop in video and computer games, where clear, incremental progress has come to be seen as essential to keeping players engaged. 

As video games came to outshine the tabletop games from which they borrowed mechanical concepts like levels, it was perhaps inevitable that tabletop RPGs would return the compliment by inflecting their own designs with assumptions shaped by digital play. Over time, many adopted video game-inspired approaches to advancement: faster progression, more frequent rewards, and clearly defined “power-ups” that echo the dopamine loops of their digital descendants. The result is that some players now approach tabletop RPGs expecting the same steady drip of mechanical achievement they get from a screen, treating levels, feats, and skill boosts not as optional frameworks but as the very point of play. This feedback loop between mediums has reshaped how many people think about character advancement, often narrowing it to the accumulation of stats rather than the growth of an in-game persona, his relationships, or his impact on the wider setting. It’s also made me increasingly skeptical, if not outright critical, of levels themselves.

Before we get too far, let me be clear: this post isn’t an attack on levels. They’ve been a part of tabletop RPGs since 1974 and I'm not advocating for their abandonment. In the Gygaxo-Arnesonian conception of levels, a character can cast more spells, survive more wounds, and fight more fearsome foes as he advances. In this conception, levels bring a sense of scale and direction to campaigns and help frame a rough arc of a character's growth after the fashion of, say, Conan's rise from a young, inexperienced warrior to a battle-hardened general of Aquilonia (and, eventually, its king). It was, therefore, only natural that early computer RPGs, like Ultima and Wizardry would follow suit. Computers are excellent at tracking numbers, after all, and early video games needed straightforward mechanics.

As the years went by, the leveling paradigm took over. Players of video games came to expect a steady stream of mechanical rewards for their investment of time. Kill monsters, gain experience, level up. It’s a feedback loop as familiar and addictive as a slot machine and just as tightly engineered. With the massive success of MMORPGs and action-RPGs, the model has became entrenched and, unsurprisingly, it has filtered back into tabletop gaming. Many players now approach tabletop RPGs with the assumption that leveling up, or some equivalent form of mechanical advancement, is not only expected but essential.

And that brings back to something I've been feeling for some time: tabletop RPGs don’t need levels. In fact, they don’t need mechanical advancement at all.

Plenty of games, some of them quite old, have already demonstrated this. Consider my favorite roleplaying game, Traveller. Characters in Traveller begin the game with their skills already in place, having completed careers before adventuring begins. There is no leveling system. Characters can improve, albeit very slowly, with years of in-game training, but mechanical advancement is not central to the experience of playing Traveller. Instead, the game focuses on exploration, commerce, politics, and survival in an indifferent universe. What matters is what one's character does within the setting, not how his numbers go up.

The same could even be said for a game like Call of Cthulhu, where the main arc of a character’s life isn’t defined by rising power but by gradual decline – into madness, death, or at best, retirement from delving into the Mythos. He might get better at Library Use or Spot Hidden, but he’ll never become an investigator resistant, never mind immune, to cosmic horror. That’s not the point of the game. Even RuneQuest, though it includes skill advancement through use, eschews levels entirely. A seasoned Gloranthan character is still vulnerable, still mortal. Advancement, when it comes, is more than a matter of increasing skill percentiles, but rather one of reputation, relationships, position within the world of the Third Age.

These games remind us that the real power of tabletop RPGs lies not in mechanics, but in meaning. Unlike a video game, which must quantify progress to function, a tabletop RPG has no such constraint. The game lives in conversation and imagination. If a Traveller character becomes the right hand man of the subector duke, or earns the ire of an Ine Givar terrorist cell, or uncovers the secrets of the Ancients, those are significant achievements. No hit points were gained, no XP awarded, yet the character has advanced in ways no level system can fully capture.

This is not to say that mechanical advancement is inherently bad, because I've used to good effect for decades. Leveling provides structure and creates a sense of forward motion. These are good things. For some players, it also scratches an itch that is very real. However, when mechanical growth becomes the primary – only – form of advancement, it distorts the nature of tabletop play. Players start to see everything through the lens of optimization. They choose actions based on what yields the most mechanical benefit, rather than what makes the most sense for their character or the world he inhabits.

I’ve seen it happen; I suspect most of us have. A party bypasses an intriguing mystery because it offers no clear reward. A player makes choices like navigating a skill tree, optimizing for mechanical advantage rather than what fits the world or character. That mindset can make sense in a video game, where content is finite and progress must be explicitly marked. But tabletop RPGs aren’t software. They aren’t bound by code or limited to scripted outcomes. Their flexibility is their greatest strength. A character can change the world – or be changed by it – without his stats shifting at all.

If there’s one thing my House of Worms campaign has taught me, it’s to lean into that flexibility. We should reward clever thinking, bold risks, and engagement with the setting over mechanical upgrades. The most satisfying kind of advancement comes from caring about a character and his place in the world, not just from tallying experience points. When advancement does happen, it should feel earned not because the rules dictate it, but because something significant has happened.

Levels are great. Experience points can be fun. But they are tools, not goals. Tabletop RPGs aren’t about reaching 10th level. They’re about entering and exploring an imaginary world through an equally imaginary character. What matters isn’t how many hit points your fighter has, but what you do with them. Success might mean founding a colony, retiring in disgrace, making a terrible bargain with an otherworldly power, or changing the course of an empire. These are the kinds of outcomes that emerge from choices, consequences, and collaboration with the referee and other players, not from ticking boxes on a character sheet. Advancement in a tabletop RPG is ultimately about meaning, not math.

Those aren’t the kinds of achievements a level-up screen can show you and that’s exactly what makes them worth chasing – or, increasingly, it’s what keeps me playing after all these years.

Winning

My ongoing House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign continues to barrel along, even after nearly nine and a half years of weekly play. You may recall from a few recent posts that the characters are currently traveling through the land of Salarvyá as part of a lengthy overland trek to explore the ruins of the nonhuman Mihálli. Though their reasons for doing so are ultimately personal – attempting to understand the magical diagrams found in the Almanac of Wába – their expedition is under the patronage of Prince Rereshqála, eldest son of the emperor and a potential heir to the Petal Throne. Consequently, their travels have been filled with many unexpected twists and turns, as political machinations, religious conflict, violent rebellions, and petty rivalries have intruded on their lives. 

These intrusions have made for fun and exciting sessions – but very little experience points. As I've explained before, EPT is, rules-wise at least, a variant of original Dungeons & Dragons. Like OD&D, experience points are given for only two things: enemies defeated and treasure. Since most of our sessions include neither combat nor the looting of the underworld, there are thus very few opportunities for the characters to acquire XP. The has been the norm in the campaign for many years now, with weeks or even months passing between occasions when I award experience points to any character. On those rare occasions when I do, the amounts are usually small, so small, in fact, that they scarcely make a dent in the vast numbers of XP needed by every character to attain a new level.

Players accustomed to the pace of advancement common in other games, including Dungeons & Dragons, might see this as a problem, but I assure you it hasn't been. The reason why is quite simple: in the House of Worms campaign, advancement is not solely measured by gaining new levels. This might seem peculiar, especially in a game whose rules are so closely modeled on those of D&D, but it actually makes sense in play. Advancement in this campaign is measured by other, in-game rewards, such as status, position, and influence, not to mention knowledge. These are the things that matter to the characters and allow them to have a greater impact on the world of the campaign. 

Allow me to offer a couple of examples. The titular House of Worms clan is a small one found only in the city of Sokátis and the region immediately nearby. It's respectably medium-ranked, with commercial interests in winemaking and minor ties to the Temples of Sárku and Durritlámish. For good and for ill, no one outside of Sokátis (nor many within the city, for that matter) paid much attention to it – that is, until the player characters started their adventures. Over the years of play, their efforts have brought them and their clan to the direct attention of two imperial princes (and the indirect attention of two more), helped forge a beneficial alliance with an ancient aristocratic clan, expand the markets for their wines, and establish a new branch of the clan in another city. 

The player characters themselves have also enjoyed personal successes. Aíthfo rose from a rootless adventurer to governor of an imperial colony. Grujúng became a respected elder and clanmaster, as well as the general of a frontier legion. Keléno rose within the scholarly hierarchy of his temple, acquiring both greater command of sorcery and not one but three wives in the process. Nebússa, too, married the niece of the Disposer of Mekú and rising within the secretive Omnipotent Azure Legion. I could similarly list the accomplishments of Znayáshu, Chiyé, Kirktá, and Qurén, but I hope I've made my point.

None of the foregoing accomplishments are remotely connected to experience points and only a small number (e.g. Keléno's sorcery) have anything to do with game mechanics. Yet each and every one of these accomplishments is not just important to the development of the campaign as a "living" place where actions have consequences, but also to the development of the characters, as they become more fully realized within the setting. RPGs are often described as games in which there are "no winners or losers," but that's not really true, is it? Players whose choices in the game result in better outcomes for their characters, whether that means more XP/levels or more status/position/influence within the campaign setting are, on some level, winning, are they not?

I don't want to make too much of this, because it's not my main point. At the same time, I think we're often too quick to dismiss the idea that all RPGs have measures of success. Those measures may vary from game to game and sometimes even campaign to campaign, but they do exist. In the House of Worms campaign, success is measured just as much – if not more – by how powerful and influential the characters have become within the setting as by their experience point totals. Likewise, in my Barrett's Raiders Twilight: 2000 campaign, success is measured at present by survival against the harsh conditions of post-WWIII Poland and, ultimately, by returning safely to NATO lines. That's what "winning" looks like in this context.

Mind you, I also think winning consists in maintaining a long campaign, so what do I know?

Slow and Steady

My House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign began in early March 2015 with six players. Eight years later, there are now seven players, four of whom have been there since the beginning. However, because of EPT's unusual approach to experience points and leveling, the rate at which these characters have advanced has been slow, even though most of them have taken part in more than 300 sessions. Indeed, until our most recent session, there was only a single character who'd reached the lofty heights of 7th level – and he only did so through the use of a magical tome (EPT's equivalent to the manual of puissant skill at arms).

That all changed this week. The characters all received a fairly large sum of experience points, thanks largely to their battles against high hit dice monsters (100 XP per HD according to the rules). This sum pushed two characters across the line into 7th level and brought several others closer to that mark. One of the newly minted 7th-level characters is Grujúng hiZnáyu, played by cartographer extraordinaire, Dyson Logos. Dyson celebrates this milestone briefly on his own blog, which is where the image above originally appeared (that's Grujúng's actual character sheet, in case anyone's interested).

About a year ago, I pondered the question of whether advancement rules are even necessary in RPGs, based on my experience of refereeing House of Worms all these years. I suppose it's inevitable I'd ponder it again after this past week's session. My feeling remains that, while it's not absolutely necessary that characters mechanically advance in a roleplaying game, it is important that they advance in some way. In the House of Worms campaign, for example, the characters have advanced socially over the course of time, gaining new ranks and positions within Tsolyáni society, as well as the prestige and influence that goes with such advances. That higher hit points or more spells were among the benefits they gained didn't matter for the most part. What did matter is that the players could see their successes had positive consequences for their characters, however they were quantified.

Secrets (Again)

Earlier this month, I posted about my fumbling attempts to come up with an alternative to D&D-style abstract experience points for use in Secrets of sha-Arthan. I received a lot of helpful comments and they, along with private discussions and internal playtesting of the game's draft rules, have begun to bring me closer to a satisfactory solution. That said, there's still a lot of work to be done to get it just right, but then that's the sort of thing with which wider playtesting should help.

It is by now a truism, I think, to state that a roleplaying game's experience/advancement system, whatever form it takes, encourages certain activities and approaches to play by rewarding them. For example, Dungeons & Dragons awards experience points primarily on the basis of treasure, with a smaller but still more significant amount of XP given for defeating opponents. Consequently, D&D, at least in its classical form, is a game where treasure hunting and monster slaying take center stage, since those are the activities by which experience points are earned and characters can advance in levels. Advancement comes through different activities in other games, such as skill use in those derived from Basic Role-Playing. 

If you're involved with any RPG long enough, you may notice that players sometimes begin to modify the way they play in accordance with what nets their characters the most in-game rewards. When I was a kid, I distinctly remember occasions when my friends would actively seek out "a few more experience points" by having their characters wander through the wilderness hoping that a random encounter would bring enough XP to achieve the next level. Players of BRP games are, of course, familiar with the phenomenon of "check mongering," in which players seek excuses to make skill checks for their characters, in the hopes of improving them. 

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with this kind of emergent behavior. At base, RPGs are games and it's only natural – rational even – that players will try to find ways to use a game's rules to their advantage. Rather than attempting to find ways to disincentivize this behavior in Secrets of sha-Arthan, my instinct is to find ways to harness it to encourage the kind of adventures and campaigns that I enjoy, hence the shift to the accumulation of secrets rather than XP as the method of advancement.

But what qualifies as a secret? There are two kinds of secrets. The first is mundane, namely, a fact about the setting that the character does not yet know. For example, encountering Unmaker cultists for the first time would certainly qualify as a secret in this first sense. For that matter, encountering almost any "monster" for the first time is also a secret. There are many other secrets in this sense – traveling to a far-off city, locating the entrance to a Vault, becoming aligned with a faction or cult, even coming into possession of a magic item.

However, there's a second type of secret, one that's closer to the usual sense in which the word is used. A secret of this type is something genuinely hidden or unknown, knowledge of which is rare within the setting. It's one thing simply to encounter the aforementioned Unmaker cultists, but it's another thing entirely to understand their origins and the nature of their beliefs. Likewise, many creatures, magic items, and spells tie into obscure aspects of sha-Arthan. These are the "true" secrets of the game.

I opted for this approach to character advancement because I hope it will encourage the kind of gameplay I most enjoy. Both my earlier Dwimmermount OD&D campaign and my ongoing House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaigns are rooted in the uncovering of secrets of their respective settings. Refereeing House of Worms in particular has taught me that piecing together disparate pieces of knowledge about a setting can be very compelling to players. Indeed, it can become a powerful driver of both player and character engagement. 

As the players could tell you, House of Worms is comparatively light on combat and treasure seeking; its main focus is and always has been on exploration of its setting and wrestling with the secrets thereof. The campaign's recent shift is toward an even greater focus on these matters and there is (as yet) no sign that this has in any way made the campaign less compelling – quite the opposite, in fact. It's my hope that I can "bottle" this approach in Secrets of sha-Arthan by not only being very explicit about its emphasis on exploration of its setting but also by rewarding such exploration in its advancement system. I can't pretend that it will be easy to do this well, but, armed with more than eight years of experience in this arena, I feel I have as good a chance as anyone to succeed.

Onward!

Secrets

I am continually amazed by just how influential the design of Dungeons & Dragons has been on nearly all roleplaying games that have followed in its wake. Aside from those games descended from or inspired by Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing, the vast majority of RPGs include rules for character advancement that make use of experience points in one form or another. Lest there be any confusion, by "experience points," I mean an abstract, numerical measure of a character's achievement the accumulation of which enables said character to improve his abilities or acquire new ones, whether in level-based "chunks" or by using them directly as currency.  

I was pondering this fact recently as I was working on the latest draft of Secrets of sha-Arthan. After a couple of periods of doubt, I've committed myself to a D&D-descended class-and-level design, because it's familiar and easy to use. The experience of refereeing House of Worms over the last eight years using the 1975 Empire of the Petal Throne rules – itself a D&D variant – confirms this to my satisfaction. Given all this, I had initially assumed, without much thought, that I would also be adopting a D&D-style experience system, right down to XP for defeating enemies and accumulating treasure. 

But, as I was revising my draft in light of playtest comments and suggestions, I began to wonder: do I need to use experience points at all? Or at least, do I need to use experience points in the same way as Dungeons & Dragons? The truth is, I've never had a problem with D&D's XP system. It does its just well and largely gets out of the way. Does it "make sense" from an in-game perspective? Kinda, sorta, if you squint the right way and don't ask too many probing questions. As I said, I'm largely fine with it and have used EPT's idiosyncratic version of it without much complaint from my players over the course of the campaign. That's why I was (am?) prepared to use it more or less as-is in Secrets of sha-Arthan.

But there was this little voice in the back of my mind telling me I could do better, telling me I could do something that fit both the sha-Arthan setting and the intended focus of game play, namely, the uncovering of secrets. Like Tékumel, which inspired it, sha-Arthan is an ancient world full of mysteries. Things are most definitely not what they seem and my goal from the beginning has been the creation and presentation of a fantasy setting in which unraveling its mysteries lies at the heart of things. Rather than merely delving into the depths for "more and bigger loot," I wanted to emphasize learning more about the setting and its history but in a way that was both approachable and valuable in-game.

Unfortunately, I must confess to being a bit stumped on how best to achieve these two goals. One of the perennial issues of any detail-rich setting, whether it be Glorantha, Tékumel, or Hârn, is degree to which those details become the setting rather than illuminate it. I know far too many self-professed "Tékumel fans" who never actually play in the setting; instead, their hobby consists of talking and thinking about the setting and its encyclopedic details rather than exploring them through play. That's something I do not wish to encourage with sha-Arthan – quite the opposite, in fact, which is precisely why I keep thinking about ways to square this particular circle. 

Here's an example of what I'm aiming for. Sorcery is a fact of sha-Arthan and has been for untold millennia but its workings are neither widely understood nor publicly taught. Spell formulae are thus secrets and player character sorcerers can only acquire additional ones through in-game activities, such as finding occult tomes or instruction crystals, joining a cult, or simply convincing another sorcerer to share his knowledge with the PC. Thus, to achieve a higher level, the character must do something in-game, such as, for example, learn a certain number of new spells through his own efforts. In effect, the character is actively involved in the acquisition of the power traditionally associated with gaining a new level and his player simultaneously learns a bit more about the setting in the process.

I very much like this idea and think it opens up a lot of possibilities, but it'll require a lot more work from the referee, who has to consider where the necessary secrets are located within his own campaign, not to mention from me, who has to lay this all out in a way that is easily intelligible to others. There's also the fact that the secrets necessary for every character class to gain levels are as straightforward as they are for sorcerers or adepts, whose level-based abilities derived from spells or psychic disciplines and are, therefore, easier to present as in-game knowledge. What about martial warriors or persuasive scions, to say nothing of the nonhuman Chenot, Ga'andrin, or Jalaka? How do I make a secrets-based advancement system work for them? 

I have little doubt I'll eventually find a way to make this idea work. At the moment, though, it's proving a little vexing, because I can clearly see where I want to go with the game. I just don't – yet – know how to get there.

White Dwarf: Issue #61

Issue #61 of White Dwarf (January 1985) has a very strange cover by Chris Achilleos. I'm not sure if the armored bird (?) man with a whip is supposed to be a hero or a villain. Perhaps the ambiguity is the point. In any case, it's certainly striking, if a bit confusing to a man of my limited imagination. In his editorial, Ian Livingstone announces that, starting next issue, WD will include regular columns devoted to both Call of Cthulhu and GW's own Golden Heroes. I recall CoC content being a staple of the magazine during the period when I was a subscriber, so this is no surprise. Likewise, by the mid-80s, Games Workshop was well on its way toward becoming more than just a distributor and publisher of UK editions of American games, so shining the spotlight on Golden Heroes makes a great deal of sense.

Oliver MacDonald's "The Spice of Life" for RuneQuest offers an expansion of the alchemy rules in game's rulebook. It's fine for what it is, though, in my opinion, it focuses far too much on the details of the Alchemists Guild than it does on the products of its members. I'd personally have preferred more alchemical substances than the article provides, but that's a matter of taste, I suppose.

"Open Box" kicks off with a review of the Dungeons & Dragons Companion Set, to which the reviewer gives a very fair 7 out of 10. Also reviewed is Pacesetter's Timemaster RPG (7 out of 10) and an adventure for it, Crossed Swords (7 out of 10). Pacesetter's Chill is here too, scoring 7 out of 10, along with the scenario Village of Twilight, which only nets 6 out of 10. The much more obscure Witch Hunt from Statcom Simulations receives 5 out of 10 because of its "limited" scope, with the reviewer suggesting that he couldn't "imagine players wanting to bother playing it more than once or twice." Finally, there's the review of The Adventures of Indiana Jones, which gets – and I know you'll be surprised by this – a 7 out of 10 (yes, yes, I know the reviewers weren't responsible for the numerical scores). More interesting to me is that the reviewer is quite evenhanded in his treatment of Indiana Jones, a game that's usually viewed with utter revulsion. While recognizing its limited nature, reviewer Adrian Knowles nevertheless found it fun and understood that it was written "entirely with a young market in mind."

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is what it is, for good and for bad. For me, it's rough going, not merely because I frequently disagree with Langford's assessments of the books he reviews, but also because I find it difficult to muster much interest in brief reviews of books from more than three decades ago. This issue, he tackles, among other books, Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice, a book about which I have decidedly mixed feelings (like most of Heinlein's oeuvre). Reading Langford's comments, I found myself wondering what I'd think of Job were I to delve into again (not that that's very likely).

Part 3 of "Eye of Newt and Tongue of Bat" by Graeme Davis continues, focusing on rings, armor, and shields. Like its predecessors in the series, this one is fine – neither inspired nor terrible but perfectly adequate for its quixotic task of making the crafting of magic items in AD&D interesting. Andy Slack's "The Motivated Traveller," on the other hand, is much more intriguing. In it, he puts forward an alternate experience system for use with Traveller (and other SF RPGs, like Space Opera, Star Frontiers, and Universe). The system is built on the idea that each character can have up to three "motivations," such as adept, altruist, hedonist, killer, miser, and so on. A character earns "victory points" (VP) based on his pursuit of his motivations, with success bringing him an increased "victory level" (VL) that brings with it reputation and influence. Slack's system is really only an outline, but it's an interesting one that might work well in games that are about more than fighting and looting (not that there's anything wrong with that). 

Ian Marsh's "Beyond the Shadow of a Dream" is a fantasy scenario that's remarkable for the fact that it is dual-statted for both Fighting Fantasy and D&D. However, it's not a programmed adventure but instead a traditional one that requires a referee to play. The scenario takes place in an unnamed city and involves the hunt for a youthful storyteller who's gone missing after appearing several nights, to great acclaim, in a local inn. The characters are tasked with unraveling the mystery of what happened to the storyteller. It's a surprisingly moody and expansive adventure that includes lots of interesting details, not to mention twists and turns. 

Meanwhile, "The Dark Usurper" by Jon Sutherland and Gareth Hill is a straight-up, 104-entry Fighting Fantasy solo adventure. The player assumes the role of a knight wrongly imprisoned, who must escape the tower where he is held – fairly conventional stuff. Simon Burley's "Days of Future Past" is the final part of his article looking at setting up a superhero campaign. This time, he focuses on how on to make use of adventure modules for other games (and genres), converting them to the conventions of superheroism. It's an admittedly odd approach and one I wouldn't have expected, but I think Burley does a good job with it. 

"All Creepies Great and Small" is a collection of new bugs for use as D&D monsters by Russell May. Most of these are wholly imaginary insects rather than simply being giant versions of terrestrial arthropods, though we do get a few real-world examples, like the giant mosquito. I'm a well-known fan of vermin monsters, so this article definitely caught my fancy. "Treasures" is a collection of four unique magic items for RuneQuest. They range from the relatively mundane (stones that glow in the dark) to the mythological (fang warriors who spring from hydra's teeth) to the epic (the helm of a hero of old). I'm also a sucker for unique magic items, so I enjoyed this article as well.

"Prize Competition" announces an adventure design competition. Entrants are to use a map (see below) provided by White Dwarf and then write a 4000-10,000-word scenario for a game of their choosing. The winner's submission will be published and he will receive a cash prize of £150. 

I'll be curious to see the winning entry.

"High and Dry" by Gary Chalk and Joe Dever looks at dry-brushing techniques for miniatures. As usual, the article is accompanied by lots of color illustrations, which is a delight to a guy like me, whose painting skills have always been poor. The issue also includes "Gobbledigook," "Thrud the Barbarian," and "The Travellers." Needless to say, I enjoyed them all, particularly "Thrud," which pokes fun at the well-worn trope of a weakling spending years developing his body and unarmed fighting skills to seek vengeance against those who mocked him. Mind you, "The Travellers" is great this issue too, as it continues to parody every science fiction franchise Mark Harrison can think of.

All in all, White Dwarf continues to impress. The magazine is now in a very comfortable spot, with a very diverse coverage of games for every taste. 

Doing It Wrong

I've been re-reading the AD&D Second Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, as part of my continuing exploration of the concepts of experience and level. I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at how the various TSR editions of the game handle these matters. In doing so, I was surprised to see this bit of highlighted text:

As an option? What's going on here? Prior to looking at this section for the first time in untold years, I had assumed that, when it came to the awarding of experience points, 2e followed closely in the footsteps of its predecessor, with XP being given for the defeat of foes and the acquisition of treasure. That's certainly how I remember XP awards working in Second Edition. It's also how I remember playing the game back in the late '80s and early '90s. Was I playing the game wrong all those years ago?

Yes, apparently. If you play AD&D 2e by the book, there are only two ways that characters earn experience points. The first are the group awards, earned for "victory over their foes." This type of award has existed in every edition of Dungeons & Dragons since 1974 and is based on the hit dice and special abilities of the enemies defeated. The second are individual awards, given out on the basis of a character's class. Thus, a fighter gets an individual award of 10 XP per hit die of a defeated enemy per level, while a magic-user gets one by using spells "to overcome foes or problems" at a rate of 50 XP per level of the spell cast, among other awards. This second type of award is new to Second Edition.

When you look at the individual class awards, you'll notice something interesting. A class award for thieves is 2 XP per gold piece value of treasure obtained. What used to be a default means of obtaining experience – a "group award" in Second Edition's parlance – is now exclusive to thieves (and other rogues) and at twice the previous rate. I can see the train of logic that led to this element of the new edition's design: if you're committed to the idea of individual class-based awards, it makes sense that thieves ought to be rewarded for, well, stealing. However, the rules develop this notion in a way that completely excludes other classes for benefiting, experience-wise, from the acquisition of treasure. 

This is a huge shift away from the design of all prior editions of Dungeons & Dragons, which accepted the implicit pulp fantasy assumption that, to one degree or another, all characters are thieves, in the sense that they all benefit from treasure hunting, tomb robbing, and similar larcenous activities. Second Edition is a tacit repudiation of that conception of D&D, which I suppose only makes sense for a post-Dragonlance edition. The shift toward a more "heroic" presentation of the game was well under way by this point and perhaps this change is yet more evidence of it.

How I somehow managed not to take notice of it, though, is a genuine mystery.

Grousing about Levels

Having extensively played Dungeons & Dragons in one form or another – including Empire of the Petal Throne, which is clearly derived from D&D – for more than four decades now, I've pretty well made my peace with its idiosyncrasies. That said, there is one aspect of the game that increasingly vexes me and that's the way that experience points and levels interact with one another. 

One of the first things you'll notice if you take a look at an experience table for any class in any edition of D&D is that, as level increases, so too do hit points. Glancing at other charts indexed to level reveals that nearly every important mechanical feature of a class, such as its combat effectiveness, saving throws, spell and other abilities, likewise increase in step with level increases. 

While it's certainly simpler to tie every ability to a character's level, it doesn't make much sense. Logically – to the extent that word has any meaning in this context – abilities ought to go up separately, as a character makes use of them and thereby becomes better at using them or through study and practice. Of course, this is not how D&D works or was ever intended to work. I don't blame the game for not conforming to this specific understanding of experience.

In my House of Worms campaign, which uses Empire of the Petal Throne, this issue has reared its head several times. Unlike D&D, EPT includes a rudimentary skill system that delineates the areas of knowledge a character knows at the start of his career. In addition, as the character gains levels, he has the opportunity to acquire new skills, in addition to the more usual D&D-ish benefits of more hit points, greater combat effectiveness, etc. But what if a character wants to pick up a new skill outside of a level increase? This is an issue, because level increases in EPT occur much more slowly than in D&D. Furthermore, among the possible skills are things like foreign languages that ought to be learnable simply by seeking out a tutor or by spending enough time in a foreign land among native speakers to develop some degree of fluency. (To be fair, this is also an issue in D&D, which ties language acquisition to Intelligence score.)

In my campaign, I allowed characters to acquire new skills (and spells) by spending time and money to study with someone capable of teaching them. This made logical sense to me, since that's how people acquire new skills in the real world. It was also attractive as part of the game, because it immersed the characters further in the setting. If, for example, they wanted to learn the Livyáni language prior to their visit to that far-off land, they'd need to find and hire an NPC to teach them. If one of them wanted to learn the sphere of impermeable quiescence spell, he'd need to visit the Temple of Sárku and cajole one of its sorcerers into instructing him in its intricacies. All of this led to a greater connection to the people and institutions of the setting, which I consider important to the long-term success of the campaign.

But none of this, strictly speaking, is allowed by the game. More to the point, it's contrary to the way skill acquisition is presented in the Empire of the Petal Throne rulebook, which ties it to level advancement, just like hit points or saving throws. Now, obviously, I'm well within my rights as the referee to change anything in the rulebook I want and have done so without any qualms. However, that doesn't change the fact that what I am doing – detaching a level-based ability from levels – is the camel's nose under the tent for uncoupling experience gain, level advancement, and ability improvement. 

I'm by no means opposed to this line of thought. Indeed, I'm rather well disposed toward it, especially of late. At the same time, there's no denying that it inevitably leads to some places I'm not sure Dungeons & Dragons (and games based on its model, like EPT) can go very far. That might explain why I find myself looking longingly at Basic Role-Playing and its descendants for inspiration, even though I am instinctively more inclined toward the D&D approach to most things, given its relative simplicity for newcomers. 

I'd be very interested in hearing others' thoughts on this matter, particularly from those who've wrestled with it in their own campaigns.

Gold as Experience

As characters meet monsters in mortal combat and defeat them, and when they obtain various forms of treasure (money, gems, jewelry, magical items, etc.), they gain "experience". This adds to their experience point total, gradually moving them upwards through the levels.

–Dungeons & Dragons, Volume 1, p. 18 (1974)

The importance of finding treasure to a character's level advancement is a foundational feature of the Gygaxian presentation of D&D. In fact, after the publication of Greyhawk in 1975, which introduced a new – and less rewarding – method for calculating the XP of defeating monsters, finding treasure only rose became more importance. In AD&D, which uses a roughly similar system, Gygax explains that the system is intended to be an abstraction rather than reflective the in-game activities by which a character might "actually" advance in the skills and abilities of his chosen class.

I have never had any significant problems with this set-up. I accepted it without question when I was first introduced to D&D more than forty years ago and have made good use of it in multiple campaigns in the years since (including in my D&D-derived Empire of the Petal Throne campaign). I largely agree with Gygax that it's a perfectly workable compromise for a game whose rules don't (generally) possess a high degree of detail (see the one-minute combat round as another example of this in action).

However – you knew there'd be a "however" – I've been thinking lately about the need for experience and advancement systems for roleplaying games. In doing so, I began to think about the idea of using gold and other monetary treasure in a slightly different way. In Chaosium's RuneQuest, characters can improve both characteristics and skills through training. This training takes two things: time and money. A character who lacks either cannot make use of this method of improvement and must instead rely on the much more unpredictable method of experience rolls after the successful use of a skill in an adventure. It's worth noting, too, that even spells are acquired by "buying" them, usually from a cult.

Beginning characters often lack sufficient funds to buy all the training and spells they desire. That's why the cults and guilds of RuneQuest sometimes extend credit to neophytes, enabling them to take on a debt in exchange for training. This not only makes beginning characters a little more prepared for the adventuring life than they would otherwise be, but it establishes a connection between the character and the cult. In this way, beginning characters are immediately connected to the setting, one the referee can then use in the course of the campaign. It's an inspired idea to my mind and one I think more games should look to for inspiration.

This brings me back to the use of gold as a measure of experience in Dungeons & Dragons. As I've been thinking about this matter, I find myself wanting something akin to RuneQuest. Instead of a character simply improving all of his class-based abilities as soon as his experience total reaches a certain threshold, wouldn't it be more interesting – I won't say "realistic" – if instead he could use his gold to buy training that improved his abilities piecemeal. For example, he could employ a weapons master to increase his combat skills or acquire access to new spells at the sorcerer's guild and so on. Even mechanics like hit points and saving throws could be acquired through training of some sort or another. 

Now, I realize that AD&D at least already possesses training rules and that, to some extent, they exist to explain the purpose of the large sums of money needed to gain new levels. However, like so much in D&D and its descendants, they're very abstract, more abstract, I would argue, than many similar systems in the game. Mind you, I speak from some degree of ignorance, since I cannot recall ever having made use of these rules, nor did I ever know anyone who had, until relatively recently. It's quite possible that AD&D's rules work very well and achieve the kind of in-setting connection I increasingly see as vital to a campaign's long term success.

One thing the AD&D training rules do seem to do is take time. Much like those in RuneQuest, a character will spend weeks of in-game time training the new abilities he's acquired upon gaining a level. That's something I very much appreciate. Between my House of Worms campaign and the Pendragon campaign in which I'm currently playing, I am more convinced than ever that a long campaign should encompass years or in-game time, with characters and events growing and changing in the process. This is an area where RPGs excel and it ought to be embraced. 

Are Character Advancement Rules Necessary?

I've never made any secret of the fact that GDW's Traveller is my favorite roleplaying game. Over the years, I've played it a lot – perhaps not as often as Dungeons & Dragons but that's to be expected, I think. Fantasy RPGs have always been more popular than science fiction ones and D&D was (and is) the proverbial 800-lb. gorilla of fantasy roleplaying games. Even so, Traveller has had a profound influence on the way I look at – and play – RPGs. Indeed, it might well have had a greater influence on me than even Dungeons & Dragons.

I mention this because twice in recent weeks I've been asked about how I handle character advancement in my ongoing House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign. Though obviously derived from OD&D, EPT includes a number of unique mechanical features, including reduced experience points as characters rise in level. The practical effect of these reductions is that, unless one's campaign is focused very heavily on underworld exploration and the acquisition of huge amounts of treasure, character progression stalls out at about level 6 or 7. That's what has happened in House of Worms.

In Traveller, once you've generated your character, his characteristics or skill levels will probably never improve (though characteristics can decrease, due to the effects of aging). As the game explains,

Characters already know their basic physical and mental parameters; their basic educational and physical development have already occurred, and further improvement can only take place through dedicated endeavor. Experience gained as the character travels and adventures is, in a very real sense, an increased ability to play the role which he or she has assumed.

This is a dramatic counterpoint to the approach of D&D or indeed almost any other roleplaying game, where regular mechanical improvement is, if not the entire point of the game, a major feature of it. Traveller, by contrast, largely eschews this; the "reward" of playing Traveller over time is "increased ability to play the role" the player has adopted. In other words, the player becomes more experienced rather than his character.

Note the distinction I made: regular mechanical improvement, by which I meant things like increased hit points, combat ability, saving throws, etc. Traveller provides little scope for that after character generation and yet, despite their absence, I can't recall a single complaint from anyone with whom I've played the game over the years. Certainly no one in my Riphaeus Sector campaign was aggrieved by this state of affairs. Of course, a lack of regular mechanical improvements is not the same thing as a lack of all improvements. Whenever I've played Traveller, the characters have improved, through the acquisition of better gear, greater knowledge, and more far-reaching influence. None of this is insignificant and, in fact, I would argue that most of these non-mechanical improvements ultimately have longer-lasting consequences (particularly in long campaigns).

This is certainly what I have observed in the House of Worms campaign. Though no player character has acquired any new hit points or spells in a very long time, I don't think anyone involved in the campaign would attempt to make the claim that his character hasn't improved with time. For example, the characters began, seven years ago, as minor scions of the mid-ranked House of Worms clan in the city of Sokátis. Through a combination of skill, cleverness, and dumb luck, they're now in positions of some power and influence within Tsolyánu. In addition, they've learned more about the world of Tékumel, knowledge that has served them well as they attempt to unravel the mysteries of Achgé Peninsula. As in my Traveller campaigns of old, not a single player has ever complained about his character's "lack of improvement."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as I continue to work – albeit more slowly than I'd hoped – on The Secrets of sha-Arthan, the question of the mechanical improvement of characters is something I'm pondering. Are character advancement rules even necessary? Do we simply include them in nearly every RPG simply because D&D did so in 1974? I haven't made up my mind on this matter, but, between a lifetime of playing Traveller and the last seven years of my House of Worms campaign, I'm seriously beginning to wonder about their presumed necessity. At the very least, I'm looking more closely at experience and advancement than I have until now, with an eye toward understanding their purpose and effect on gameplay. What can we learn from Traveller and might its approach not be a better one than the never-ending mechanical escalation of Dungeons & Dragons? 

Strange Thoughts on Experience Bonuses

From the very beginning, the rules of Dungeons & Dragons rewarded high scores in a character's prime requisite with a bonus to earned experience. Although the actual implementation of this rule varies from edition to edition, it has been present in every version of the game published by TSR. It's also present in Empire of the Petal Throne, which is hardly surprising, given that its rules are derivative of those of OD&D. As originally presented in 1974, the rule provides the only explicit mechanical benefit to having a high score in Strength, Intelligence, or Wisdom, each one of which was associated with one of the three character classes (Fighting Man, Magic-User, and Cleric, respectively). The other three abilities – Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma – have other mechanical uses (however ill-defined in the case of Constitution). 

Supplement I changed all this, first by introducing the thief class, whose prime requisite was Dexterity, and second by beefing up the mechanical benefits of most of the other abilities (the main exception being Wisdom, which remains solely "an experience booster for clerics," in the words of Gygax). These changes, which were carried on and even expanded by later versions of the game, began the process that ended with the claim, in the AD&D Players Handbook, that it is "usually essential to the character's survival to be exceptional (with a rating of 15 or above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics."

After lots of thought on the matter, I have made some measure of peace with the idea that ability scores should be mechanically important. If not, what's the point of even generating them? However, I continue to worry that, by making high scores in abilities mechanically beneficial, there will come to be an expectation that, as in AD&D, most characters must have high ability scores. In that case, we get a variation on the previous question: what's the point of generating ability scores at all if every character needs to have high ones? 

The question becomes even more relevant when one considers that, as written, characters with high scores in their prime requisite not only reap immediate mechanical benefits from those scores (hit and damage bonuses, higher hit points, etc.), they also advance faster in their chosen class, thanks to the bonus to earned experience. To my mind, this makes high ability scores so attractive that I wonder why any player would not deem a character with any sub-optimal abilities "hopeless" and roll up a new one. Consider, too, the increasingly absurd lengths to which AD&D went to ensure that all player characters were exceptional in their ability scores.

As is so often the case these days, I find myself taking inspiration from Chaosium's RuneQuest. In RQ, there are mechanical benefits to having a low score in at least one ability. I very much like that because that benefit comes at a cost; there's a trade-off between two clear mechanical goods. I'd love to see something similar in D&D and derivative games, something that provides some incentive not to have high scores in every ability.

That's why I have a strange idea: what if, instead of granting an experience bonus for high ability scores, one granted them for low scores? On some level, this makes intuitive sense to me. Would not a character whose native abilities were already exceptional learn less from his experiences than a character whose abilities were below average? Further, I can't help but feel that granting an XP bonus to a high score, which already grants clear mechanical benefits, is gilding the lily, so to speak. If the goal is to keep the random rolling ability scores and encourage players to keep the scores rolled, does it not make sense to provide a "consolation prize" to low scores?

I am sure there are problems with this idea and, if so, I expect my readers to point them out in the comments. From my current vantage point, though, I think this is something to be explored, both from a purely game perspective and from the point of view of learning through experience. 

Random Roll: DMG, p. 85

On page 85 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, there's a section entitled "Experience Value of Treasure Taken." Though only four paragraphs long, the section contains a number of interesting details that I think are worthy of examination. To start, the section notes that all metal, gems, and jewelry should converted to  their total value in gold pieces in preparation for determining the amount of experience points gained. This is straightforward and uncontroversial. More intriguing is what follows next.

If the relative value of the monsters(s) or guardian device fought equals or exceeds that of the party which took the treasure, experience is awarded on a 1 for 1 basis. If the guardian(s) was relatively weaker, award experience on a 5 g.p. to 4 x.p., 3 to 2, 2 to 1, 3 to 1, or even 4 or more to 1 basis according to the relative strengths. For example, if a 10th level magic-user takes 1,000 g.p. from 10 kobolds, the relative strengths are about 20 to 1 in favor of the magic-user. (Such strength comparisons are subjective and must be based on the degree of challenge the Dungeon Master had the monster(s) pose the treasure taker.)

I honestly cannot recall ever reading this section of the DMG nor can I recall anyone using it. That said, it's not without precedent. Volume 1 of OD&D includes a very similar guideline and even Moldvay Basic suggests that the DM can lower the number of XP awarded if the encounter poses too little of a challenge. And, of course, the Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons expanded on this idea to introduce "challenge ratings" to aid the DM in creating challenges appropriate to the level of the characters. To say that I was surprised to see this section in the Dungeon Masters Guide is an understatement – but then that's the point of this series: to shed some light on the obscure corners of AD&D.

Treasure must be physically taken out of the dungeon or lair and turned into a transportable medium or stored in the player's stronghold to be counted for experience points.

On the other hand, this guidelines is one I've always followed, though I'm not sure I'd ever seen it explicitly stated anywhere. More fascinating is the next paragraph.

All items (including magic) or creatures sold for gold pieces prior to the awarding of experience points for an adventure must be considered as treasure taken, and the gold pieces received for the sale add to the total treasure taken. (Those magic items not sold gain only a relatively small amount of experience points, for their value is in their usage.)

Again, I don't recall this rule and can't remember anyone ever using it back in the day. In retrospect, it makes the experience and sale value columns of the magic items in the DMG make more sense. A quick check of that section reveals that the gold piece value also doubles as the amount of XP gained for selling it. Very interesting! Even at my advanced age, I can still learn something new.

The final paragraph of the section takes the form of an extended note.

Players who balk at equating gold pieces to experience points should be gently but firmly reminded that in a game certain compromises must be made. While it is more "realistic" for clerics to study holy writings, pray, chant, practice self-discipline, etc. to gain experience, it would not make a playable game roll along. Similarly, fighters must be exercising, riding, smiting pelts, tilting at the lists, and engaging in weapons practice of various sorts to gain real expertise (experience); magic-users should be deciphering old scrolls, searching ancient tomes, experimenting alchemically, and so forth; while thieves should spend their off-hours honing their skills, "casing" various buildings, watching potential victims, and carefully planning their next "job". All very realistic but conducive to non-game boredom!

 Well said.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 112

Page 112 of the Dungeon Masters Guide contains a number of interesting sections, each of which is worthy of highlighting and discussions. For today, though, I want to focus on the section entitled "The Ongoing Campaign," since it relates to several topics near and dear to my heart. In the first paragraph, Gygax lays out one of the primary threats to a long campaign: boredom.

While it might seem highly unlikely to those who have not been involved in fantasy adventure gaming for an extended period of time, after the flush of excitement wears off – perhaps a few months or a year, depending on the intensity of play – some participants will become bored and move to other gaming forms, returning to your campaign only occasionally. Shortly thereafter even your most dedicated players will occasionally find that dungeon levels and wilderness castles grow stale, regardless of subtle differences and unusual challenges.

I find it intriguing that Gygax uses the phrase "fantasy adventure gaming" here. It's clearly a synonym for "fantasy role-playing game" and similar formulations, but it's also a reminder that, even in 1979, five years after the publication of OD&D, the matter of just what to call this hobby was still in flux (cue the comments telling me I need to read The Elusive Shift – yes, I do). 

In any case, what Gygax describes here is likely familiar to anyone who's been involved in the hobby for any length of time. Maintaining player interest is an eternal struggle and, in my experience, has only become stronger as the hobby has aged. As a younger person, the dangers lie in other activities or pursuits that competed with one's attention, while nowadays I've observed that it is the plethora of available RPGs that poses the greatest threat. "Gamer ADD" seems very prevalent these days and is the bane of any referee hoping to keep his campaign going for more than a few months. Despite this, Gygax holds out hope that "it is possible … to devise a campaign which will have a very minimal amount of participant attrition and enthusiast ennui, and it is not particularly difficult to do so."

He goes on:

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the game must be neither too difficult to survive nor so easy as to offer little excitement or challenge, There must be always something desirable to gain, something important to lose, and the chance of having either happen.

This is a perennial topic for Gygax and one, I think, that was born out of extensive experience as a referee. He rightly understood that more fun – and long-term interest – depends in not a small way on the establishment of stakes for the players. This is why, for example, the possibility of character death is, in my opinion, vital to the long-term viability of a campaign. He continues:

Furthermore, there must be some purpose to it all. There must be a backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities. Thus, characters begin as less than pawns, but as they progress in experience, each eventually realizes that he or she is a meaningful, if lowly, piece in the cosmic game being conducted. 

Gygax packs a lot into this section, touching on three different topics in the space of a few sentences. First, he points out the necessity for a campaign setting, a wider world in which the characters live and against which their adventures are set. Second, he seems to suggest that the increase in a character's power, as represented by level and experience, mirrors their growth in importance in the setting itself. I don't think that's particularly controversial, but I'm not sure I've seen it articulated in this way. Finally, he connects the growth in character power to greater involvement to "the cosmic game." Given this perspective, it becomes clearer why Gygax continued place such an importance on alignment and why his Gord the Rogue series evolved the way it did. In any case, he clearly felt that one of the keys to keeping a campaign alive was to ensure that the actions of the player characters "have meaning above and beyond that of personal aggrandizement."

His next paragraph contains a great deal of wisdom as well.

But if serious purpose is integral to a successfully ongoing campaign, there must be moments of relief as well. Such counterplots can be lesser and different themes within the whole, whether some side dungeon or quest or minor altercation between petty nobles, or whatever. Occasional "pure fun" scenarios can be conducted also. That is, moments of silliness and humor help to contrast with the grinding seriousness of a titanic struggle and relieve participants at the same time. After all, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game, a pastime for fun and enjoyment.

I can find little disagree with here, since it's all good sense, in particular the reminder that RPGs are, above all, games. This may explain in part his hostility toward amateur thespianism. Even if the two are unconnected, I do think we forget the "gamey-ness" of roleplaying at our peril. Like the pulp literature that inspired it, roleplaying games are meant to be enjoyed as a form of escapism. That's not to say that RPGs can't, let alone shouldn't occasionally touch on matters of lasting import, but that shouldn't be their primary purpose. Among the many lessons I've learned from my ongoing House of Worms campaign is that "serious" matters should never predominate. Continued enthusiasm and long-term engagement comes from an emphasis on "adventuresome" matters placed in a larger context and punctuated by occasional diversions. I'd say that Gygax's advice in the Dungeon Masters Guide comports with my own experience quite closely, demonstrating that, whatever his flaws as a businessman or public face for TSR, he knew what he was talking about when it came to refereeing. 

Random Roll: DMG, p. 119

The Dungeon Masters Guide devotes three paragraphs on p. 119, right before the descriptions of magic items, to "Energy Draining by Undead or Device." When my eyes came across this section, I knew immediately it'd be worth examining. The matter of level drain remains one of the most contentious topics in all of D&D and AD&D, right up there with alignment in terms of spawning debates and disagreements, even after more than forty years. I've touched on this topic several times previously and in those instances it generated a lot of comments, suggesting people have strong feelings on the subject. I've personally never had any real issues with the rules as written, but, even so, I remain keen to see if there are details and nuances about it that I might have missed.

Gygax begins his discussion of this topic in the Dungeon Masters Guide by stating that "when a character loses a level of energy, he or she loses an experience level," adding

he or she loses hit points equal to those gained with the acquisition of the former experience level (including bonus points for constitution), all abilities gained with the experience level now lost, and experience points sufficient to bring the total possessed to the mid-point of the next lower level. 

What immediately strikes me is that the drained character only loses half the XP between the previously earned level and the new, weakened one. I can't recall ever seeing that rule before or, if so, I'd long ago forgotten it. In the years since, I've always docked a drained character all the experience points earned between the previous level and the new one. Thus, a 5th-level fighter struck by a wight would drop down to 4th level and 8001 XP, according to my scheme, while Gygax says that the fighter would have 13,001 XP. Apparently, I've been doing it wrong all these years. I think this takes a little of the bite out of level drain, though probably not enough for dedicated opponents of the mechanic.

That first paragraph goes on to say

If this brings the character below 1st level of experience, then the individual is a 0 level person never capable of gaining experience again. If a 0 level individual is drained an energy level, he or she is dead (possibly to become an undead monster).

This is fascinating to me for what it might imply about a metaphysical distinction between ordinary, 0 level people and adventurers. Does Gygax mean to suggest that no level 0 character can ever gain XP, or does this apply only to characters who formerly had levels above 0 who drop down to that level due to energy drain? He doesn't clarify the matter, unfortunately. 

On the matter of multi-class characters, Gygax explains that the drain always affects the class with the highest level or, if they are equal, the highest experience point total. In the case of an energy drain that steals two levels, one level is taken from each class (at least in the class of, say, a fighter/magic-user; presumably a character with three classes struck by a spectre loses one level each from the two highest classes). 

Gygax also elaborates on the matter of "lesser undead controlled by their slayer/drainer." He explains that, in most cases, "each has but half the hit dice of a normal undead monster of this type." However, in the case of vampires, the situation is somewhat more complex.

Lesser vampires have but half their former level of experience with respect to profession (cleric, fighter, etc.) at the time they initially encountered and were subsequently slain/drained by their now-master vampire, i.e., an 8th level thief killed by a vampire, even though drained to below 0 level in the process, returns as a 4th level thief vampire, as appropriate. However, upon the destruction of their slayer/drainer, such lesser undead gain energy levels from characters they subsequently slay/drain until they reach the maximum number of hit dice (and their former level of class experience as well, if applicable) appropriate to their type of undead monster. Upon reaching full hit dice status, they are able to slay/drain and control lesser undead as they once were.

Though not directly relevant to the overall question of level drain, I found it intriguing nonetheless, since it makes clear how differently Gygax viewed vampires from other undead. As a younger person, I noted that nearly every vampire to appear in a AD&D module had character levels, a possibility noted in the Monster Manual but whose details were never fully explicated until the DMG.

Adventure Planning à la Mentzer

 

I've been re-reading Frank Mentzer's 1984 D&D Companion Set, for which I have warm feelings, despite its flaws. While I was doing this primarily to refresh my memory of the rules for dominions and mass combat, in doing so I've come across some very fascinating little bits I hadn't remembered. For example, there's the section reproduced above offering advice on "adventure planning." The interesting bits, in my opinion, occur in the section titled "Rates of Progress."

In that section, Mentzer states that name level characters

should gain a new level of experience for every 3 to 8 successful adventures. More adventures can cause player frustration; fewer adventure can make the game too easy and eventually bore them.

So much to ponder in just a couple of sentences. First, there's the idea that level advancement should occur at a predictable rate. Does this idea exist in any other version of TSR era Dungeons & Dragons? Second, there's the idea that "player frustration" is both tied to a slow rate of advancement – "slow" being defined as more than nine adventures between levels – and to be avoided. To me, that's a strangely reductionist understanding of why people enjoy RPGs. Now, I understand that Mentzer's version of D&D goes all the way to Level 36, so there's probably an expectation of at least some people who play it that their characters might eventually reach that level, which will take time. Does that therefore mean they expect level advancement according to a schedule? I wouldn't think so, but then I share M.A.R. Barker's assertion that a roleplaying campaign is not a casual parlor pastime. 

Take a look, too, at the Adventure Planning Table. The leftmost column is for the number of characters in a campaign, which numbers from 1 to 10. Remember the Companion Rules came out in 1984, just a decade after the publication of OD&D. In my post the other day about large groups, the question of when the shift toward smaller groups became more common was posed. Looking at the chart, it would seem that, whether or not small groups were common by this point, they were at least envisaged as a possibility. A commenter suggested that the shift might have been the result of the game's being marketed more toward children than adults, which I think is plausible. Mind you, I've criticized BECMI as "kiddie D&D," so I might be more inclined toward this interpretation of events than is warranted. Regardless, this whole section is fascinating to me.