Character Advancement as Story

The role of game designers? Obviously, to design a fun experience.

What happens when they fail? Obviously, a game that isn't fun anymore. We had this problem with D&D 4, and it shook our trust in games from big publishers. The game was great in some ways, but in others they let excess, bloat, and repetition ruin the game. And the bad parts outweighed the good. I flip through page after page of the same magic item, +1 to +6, one or two abilities each, a few of them the only good ones, and ask myself why?

D&D 4 was a card game printed in book format and it sucked. The tactical battle chess parts we loved.

I had this article this week where it felt too negative, so I kept rewriting it, but the problem wasn't one particular game or one feature, I felt it was more a systemic problem with the empowerment of those who play the game - versus the control the game designers exert over players. This isn't within the game as characters, but in a larger sense as players outside the game and our ability to change and improve the game.

With commercial games under closed licenses, you are stuck buying a new version of the books every couple years giving the game designers "another chance" to get it right this time. Or to simply "refresh mechanics." You are very much in a Mac/Windows situation, where the companies can drop support for hardware, force you to buy new hardware, change things at-will and invalidate characters, control the multi-player experience, and own exclusive access to the official rules.

Yes, third party publishers fill a lot of the gaps, but they are still dependent on the core game not breaking features for their products to still work correctly a few years down the road. Third-party products are also hard to sell at times to those unfamiliar, so I feel they are a patch to broken designs at best.

B/X is Linux

And Linux/Unix is great. Just ask your phone. Or iOS. Or cloud services. Or anything except Windows, but even they have made some great steps towards integrating, so props to their team for making things work together.

B/X is like the Unix/Linux world. You are free to switch distributions at any time. Anyone can come up with something. You are free to come up with your own system. You can make it as compatible or not with other B/X material, your choice. If a version of B/X goes "stale" (whatever that means) you can switch to another, but honestly, there is nothing stopping you from playing and enjoying something that isn't the "hot new!"

My Labyrinth Lord books are still good 20 years from now, just as fun, just as interesting, and they still work. Yes, Old School Essentials is the cool new kid on the block and I love that game, but there is room for everyone and honestly, no one really gets left out. I could take a character from either game and get them working in another in about 5 minutes, the monsters and magic items at 99% compatible, and the adventures just work as-is, with possibly a few very small tweaks here and there.

Mind you older versions of copyrighted games still work 20 years from now, but they will be forever locked in the same state. New content difficult to produce and acquire, updates and other creations near impossible, and remixes out of the question. As a matter of choice I prefer supporting open games with open publishing licenses when I have a choice, but there are some exceptions.

I feel B/X is a good thing for the hobby as a whole, even for the big commercial games, because it keeps people from dropping off the map and quitting pen-and-paper games entirely if they are not interested in the big publisher games. It sustains a lot of interest in the market interested in free and experimental gaming. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Big Box Classes

Here is where my thoughts take a huge swerve, and this is what I was having trouble with. Games, especially ones with "big box" character classes designed by the game design teams, run into a lot of post-launch issues. I remember the Pathfinder 1e rogue and the D&D 5 ranger being the "least exciting" classes to play, and those class getting entirely redesigned during the game's release cycle to "patch" them.

Supposedly, hundreds of thousands of people play-tested these games - and those classes - before release? That is what I see in the marketing material. Why weren't these issues caught, or were they late-game problems that were never really play-tested all that well? There is probably a thousand reasons why and this isn't a road I want to go down with my thinking, to be honest.

And also, play-testing the high-level games of any major commercial release - even in the MMO world - is never an easy or certain thing. If there is one thing about the playtesting the marketers tout, it is probably 90% done at the lower levels and very lightly where it matters most - the highest endgame levels.

And then I recently got this book:

This is the B/X Options book that lets you custom design character classes for all B/X style games. This is a great tool, and it even has a ton of classes designed with plenty of variants to keep a group interested for a good long time. I see this book as one of my essential books when playing Old School Essentials, either Basic or Advanced, since it gives me the tools to custom hack a class, give a player uninterested in the selection a few more options, or build a new class for an NPC just for fun.

I love the book, I love the toolbox it gives me, and this is going to be a keeper and highly recommended to anyone interested in B/X gaming. But this is also a book that got my interest in GURPS or Hero System 6th Edition rekindled.

I know, but you love this book, why switch?

I get this feeling where if I am finding myself having to design rigid character classes to fit my archetype characters, or changing my characters to fit a character class, something bigger is wrong here.

Point Buy Systems

Why design classes? With GURPS or Hero System, I get XP, and I directly spend those points on powers, abilities or skills as I level. I am not "pre designing" my experience as I level and running the risk my design sucks at level 20 and is unfun to play.

I know, these are closed systems for the most part, and I am still looking for that mythical point-buy creation and improvement open license game. I have not found it yet. So for now, GURPS and Hero System are good choices for me and have a lot of content to play with.

If my character starts out a rogue, sneaks into a wizard school and impersonates a student, learns magic, goes on a long boat trip, ends up shipwrecked on a desert island and has to be a survivor, ends up being a barbarian freedom fighter for local tribes after they learn their homeland was an evil empire, plays noble pirate for a while raising the evil empire's shipping, learns shamanistic spirit magic from the lizardfolk tribes, and returns to their home kingdom as an ambassador for the new world and negotiates a peace treaty as a diplomat...well, that is my character class when all is said and done.

That character is a mess, but they are a mess written by an interesting story, and they reflect their experiences in who they are. Their skills, powers, and abilities are all reflected by their background, and as I played them, that unique experience of "who they are" is directly reflected on that character sheet.

Does multiclassing do that well? Rogue 2/Wizard 3/Naturalist 3/Barbarian 2/Pirate 4/Shaman 3/ Diplomat 3? A level 20 character that could never negotiate with a pure level 20 Diplomat, or even a level 10 one. Then again, in a world that is changing and reflecting people's diverse backgrounds and cultures, why limit ourselves to "one set path in life" and tell ourselves "a game designer's intentions have decided who we are and what we will be before we explore the world and find ourselves?"

I wish B/X had point-buy character advancement.

Character Advancement as Story

I like it when a story shapes the character's development rather than the other way around. I feel if a class limits the character's story, we have a fundamental problem. At least in how I want to play solo games and sustain my interest in them. I do admit when I am playing with others, classes are a shortcut that directs people's roles around a table and brings some order to the chaos.

But when playing solo, part of the unknown for me lies in character advancement. I don't want to know what path they take, and I want that to change depending on the direction I take. As the fog of war of the character's future is revealed as I play, and I have no idea where they are going.

I don't get that in games with classes, B/X, Pathfinder, or D&D. For the most part, I know how their character is growing in skills, abilities, and powers. Multiclassing is my only option for change in the character's future, and that is a sub-optimal solution.

When I am in a game where something different happens, and my character has to buy new skills and powers to do well in this new situation, I never expected that. My road warrior needs to be a mechanic. My astronaut needs to be a medic. My ranger needs to be a wizard. Can they with their current ability scores? What do they need to do to make it happen? Is there a build that enhances what they already do?

I am surprised, my build is organic and fluid, and the story is reflected in the final character. I still like my B/X games with classes, and those are wonderful, tight, Monopoly-like designs and fun packages. For stories I tell solo, I like systems that give me complete control over my character's past, present, and future.

The Level System

This one started over coffee. DarkgarX mentioned to me that once levels were put into the game, the dynamic of the game changes from story to advancement. The feeling goes from "what am I doing in the game world" to "how can I get points?"

Now, admittedly, this is a pretty negative view of level-based games, but it is an interesting "advancement dynamic" that I am sure is present in all games. Everyone wants to do well, and everyone wants to get levels or skill points in a non-level based system to get rewarded at the end of the night and advance their characters. So this pressure is present in any game system with an advancement system present.

But do levels change things?

Levels, the Elephant in the Room

I always found it funny that levels are the one thing you can't talk about in-game in-character, yet in D&D they control everything, from character power to spells to monster hit dice. My Pathfinder world design, Realms of Proteus, tries to do away with that and allows in-game characters to speak freely of their level and stats, so there is a fun bit of power and meta gaming going on there, but for the most part we use euphemisms, "seasons" or some other sort of relative explanation of power and strength.

But do levels change things? Is the primary focus on hit-points and levels a factor in making the game more mathematical and cut-throat?

In a pure story-based game, you have this outward focus on how your character fits into the current story and overall game world. Your stats can be increased, and the focus of improvement is to allow your character to better be able to influence the story. A higher persuasion skill lets you persuade more NPCs, and thus your influence over that story grows. You can think of story based games as a fight to control the ever-shifting narrative between the players and the referee-controlled NPCs.

Levels. Hit dice. Tactical combat. Damage per turn. Whiff rate. Condition spells. Attacks of opportunity. Advantage and disadvantage. Here we go with traditional D&D style level based games, and a whole host of hard mathematical statistics comes into play. Not only do you have to be good at controlling the narrative, you have to be able to know how this hard math works, and master the combat rules. Levels make this easier, but also complicate things as you go up.

Levels vs. Narrative

Do levels fight the narrative push and pull? They certainly distract from it a bit, because all of a sudden you are not purely worried about narrative influence, to do good and control the narrative, you need to master the combat system too. You need levels to get better at this system, because roleplaying matters little in raising combat power. You need XP to get better, and you need to defeatefoes and solve problems.

Note how D&D type games lump problem solving and combat in the same pile of XP. If you solve problems with roleplaying and get XP, you get better at controlling the narrative (roleplaying skills), but you also get better in combat. You could have a 20th level character who just got roleplaying XP in their career and never touched a weapon, yet this person would be a better fighter than 99% of the people on the planet. You could have the inverse, a combat-only barbarian who never spoke a word being a diplomatic master negotiator at the narrative-influencing social skills just because of their level.

I think it is this connection between the ability for a high-level character to influence the narrative and the "let's have combat for XP" part of the game that troubles me. In a purely story-driven narrative game without levels, all you are doing with advancement is ticking up the skills you want. If you just want to be a talker, all you buy are social skills. If you just want to be a fighter, you work on fighting skills. Levels remove that granularity and ability to specialize, now yes, there are more social style classes in the D&D style games, like bard or thief, but those classes typically force you into a skill-monkey role and take away your ability to excel at combat.

D&D's classes make those choices for you.

You want to fight? Be a fighter! You want to be a fighter who excels at narrative control and social situations? You are out of luck, roll a rogue or a bard. Yes, as a fighter you can put skill points and feats towards social abilities, but typically (Pathfinder is a good example), the more skill-point heavy and social-focused classes are going to have an easier time of buying these feats and skills.

In D&D, King Arthur is King Arthur because he can kill very well, not because he has the skills and social power over the kingdom's narrative that a king should have. There's a disconnect there, and a simplification that I feel makes pure-story based games focused on the narrative a better choice for pure roleplayers than D&D style games.

Levels vs. Storytelling

I have had pure roleplayers at my table who played D&D 3-5 because that's what our group played. I always felt bad for them because they could care less about this mess of combat rules and gaining levels, and they just wanted to have fun. We did a good job accommodating them, but the game we played (D&D 4) required an attention to builds and rules that I felt turned them off to the whole game. We had some that loved the battle chess aspect, and we still like this part of the game, but the combat and level rules felt like an artificial limitation put over the game for players who were more interested in narrative control than "kill for treasure and XP."

If your players are more concerned with mathematical concerns and tactical battles, D&D works better, and I will go as far to say that D&D 4 works the best for players who want a Warhammer style figure tactical combat experience. D&D 5 tries to bring the story back to the table, yet it still has the baggage of a tactical game based on resource management, and a level system that connects narrative control and combat ability into one lump sum of XP. D&D style systems also pre-choose your character's lifetime ability to perform narrative control and combat contributions from game #1 with your choice of class.

Yes, you can switch careers and multiclass in mid-stream, but King Arthur is not a bard nor a rogue.

Answers?

I don't feel there is a good answer for this in the modern D&D style games. Again, we are hit with the abstraction of the class and combat systems, and this limits our choices. Of course fighters are the ones with the swords that never think their way out of a situation. The game assumes "fighters fight" and gimps their skills and gives them the best damage output and choices in swinging swords. I would love to see a D&D system "off the rails" that let people be people, reward skills used, and got rid of the abstract class and level system entirely.

Yes, Legend, Runequest, and other games do this, and they do it well.

There is a choice here of how much control you feel you should have (as a player) over your control over what happens at the table. If I choose to be a social character, I don't want my choices limited to, "well, pick a social class and suck at combat for as long as you have that character." If for a couple sessions I want to improve combat skills, let me improve combat skills. If for some others, I want to be the master of parlay, let me do that and improve my social prowess.

This is not about being a "fan" of a game, I collect them all and love reading them, so count me in as a fan for them all, as my shelves will attest. What this is about is taking a look inside yourself and asking, "am I getting rewarded for the things I want to do at the table?" Does a game force you into a role that later on you may regret or limit your contributions? Yes, a good referee can adjust things and give chances for everyone to have fun, but if your game takes a turn for the political, can your combat-focused character adapt?

It is again about understanding what each game does best, and finding games that fit your view of gaming and how your contributions are rewarded. We have moved beyond the "network effect" where every game has to be a modern version of D&D, and we are moving into an era where games are designed around a almost niche "way it plays" and the reward and contribution systems are designed to fit that game. You see this in videogaming with indie gaming. The big-box games are always there like the Call of Duties and D&D games, but a huge market is developing for custom and unique experiences that are off the level system tracks and as diverse as the players in our hobby.

Pen-and-Paper Videogaming

Somehow, this all started when we were talking about XP charts.

When you have a unified XP chart, you are saying, "all class' power levels are roughly equivalent!" A level 5 thief should be as powerful as a level 5 fighter or level 5 mage.

Back in the original D&D, the designers knew about the power imbalance of mages and fighters (2,500 and 2,000 xp base), and put them above clerics and thieves (1,500 and 1,200 xp base). The charts were never a linear scale, just because a mage needed 2,500 xp for level two did not mean they advanced twice as slow as a thief all the way up, the difference between thieves and mages was never really more than a level or so of lag behind for the mage (a 14th level thief and a 12th level mage had around the same total xp).

Still, there was a difference.

In 3rd edition, we got the unified XP chart for all classes (and the CR system), and every class advanced at the same rate. Not surprisingly, those pesky power level differences came up, and this triggered an endless balance and rebalance cycle for all editions of the game since. You even see this in Pathfinder Unchained, where they redo three of the classes to make them compare better with the entire set of classes in the game.

"Mages are still the most powerful class in the game!"
"Rogues are weak."
"Why class X why you get all that plus a better to-hit with class Y?"

You hear a lot of this because naturally, a player expects a level five class X should be an equal and balanced choice with a level five class Y. You end up having to do the power and math shuffle on every class, again and again, like D&D 4th Edition's endless and painful errata and changes to classes and items.

If there was a problem with relative power level balance in the old "per class" XP chart system the issue could be easily addressed by just adjusting the charts. Mages still too powerful? Push them out by a thousand points here or there. So a level 9 thief is equivalent in raw power level to a what, a level 6 mage? Okay, that's where the charts should go.

We don't need to balance the class, we just adjust the charts.

The CR System Solution

Power levels were 'evened out' because of the CR system, really, and also to simplify things to avoid having a lot of charts. But note that in old school D&D, you did not all need to be the same level to adventure together, and conceivably, that level 6 mage in a party full of level 9 characters could and will contribute. This "the party needs to be within one level of each other, two max" sort of thing feels like it comes from MMOs and computer games, where it is important to balance things with math to make sure "everyone has a good time."

In the original D&D game, how did you determine CR? Here's how you did it:

"Last time our party of level one characters fought an ogre we got out butts kicked. Let's not do that."

You learned the game. There weren't thousands of creatures so you could weigh difficulty for them all relative to classes and powers. You failed, failed some more, died a lot, and then discovered what worked. You got lucky, and knew how far you could push your luck given what level you were and who was in the party. You had to think.

Try-fail-adjust-learn-succeed? That sounds like what you do in any game when you learn it.

The problem I have with CR encounter balancing is it assumes the dungeon master is a computer that balances content to entertain the players. The DM is there to "entertain" people like a DVD player, put in the disc, do the math, balance the game, and run the script. Press play.

Saying, "nobody likes getting killed," in D&D is like saying "nobody likes losing in Monopoly," and coming up with rules so one loses. Or even behind on money or properties every turn because every player needs to feel relative balance with each other. Yes, Monopoly is a competitive game, and D&D is cooperative, but if you take the learning curve out you take out the part of the game where becoming an experienced player is knowing what a monster does what and how you can fight them at what power level.

Pen-and-Paper as Videogames

Somehow I feel this is part of the progression of D&D towards an entirely story-based game instead of a board game. CR does what? Balances encounters so you can get through them all as a party so you can complete a story at the end of the night. Without CR, you run around the ogre's room in the center of the dungeon defeating rats and spiders while looting what you can, and maybe you never fight the ogre - and you decided if you 'won' based on survival. If there was a goal, it had nothing to do with 'story award xp bonuses' or a series of balanced encounters leading up towards it. If you got the chalice, you got it, and you earned the king's trust - xp and balancing had nothing to do with it.

Then again, the king's trust is a very nice thing to have, and you don't need to put an xp reward on that either.

Healing surges, regenerating resources, encounter powers, and anything that resets the party's power is another step towards a story based game (and also an admission of the inability to balance a resource depletion game, like the classic D&D model of play). You have to "reset" the party for the next "encounter" because you can't balance things in the overall scheme, when really, what resources the player have and want to spend should be up to them. It feels fake, like an MMO where health and mana regenerate before you get to the next room, and the entire game is designed to be low-risk entertainment rather than a challenge of how to spend limited resources dwindling all the time.

Don't get me started on this "go back to town" sort of "one encounter per day" cliche either, That comes from videogames and it assumes the world never changes between visits to the dungeon. The pen-and-paper game as videogame mentality breeds this unrealistic way of thinking.

Less is More is Fun

Sometimes we like games to be smaller in focus with a limited set of content, such as Pathfinder Basic Set, where we can get the feeling of how monster X relates to class Y and power Z. Part of why we love Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy are because these rules are complete, done, and what's in the game is what is it. You can learn them. You know a level X thief is about as powerful as a level Y mage. You know how to defeat an owlbear, and how much power and resources that will take.

When you have thousands never-ending of monsters, feats, spells, classes, and powers, you never get a feeling of system mastery. You are always being hit with a new something, reacting, and never knowing how your power relates to the others before it is replaced and you move onto the next one. In Basic D&D, the fireball is what it is, and it is a unique AoE spell that fits a unique role. We don't have or need seventy variations of the spell. It is a unique puzzle piece to be pulled out when you need a...fireball.

And it becomes a unique resource we can spend, that does not recharge between fights.

That "how many resources it will take" is key. This is what the original D&D was about in the macro for the entire play session, not the micro between encounters. You should be able to run out of resources and 'fail' to achieve your goal, due to luck, normal use, or carelessness. You should decide if you will come back another day, if that is possible, and the next time the dungeon should change (tougher, better defenses, less loot, the chalice is lost, or they clear out) when the party gets back.

Know Your Game

There is a distinct game design here when you realize what is going on, and how every piece works together. Imposing systems like CR and auto-regen resources on what was a limited-resource game throws everything out of whack, and D&D becomes a totally different game. We are seeing a shift from resource management to story based gaming, while still thinking we are managing resources.

If you want a videogame style RPG, that is cool. Know what these look like. If you want a resource-based RPG, know what those look like. If you want to make a pen-and-paper game play more like a videogame, it is helpful to know what you need to do to get that result. If your love is resource-based play, know what rules enhance that experience and play that way.

We live in a time where every publisher tries to make every game appeal to everybody, and it all blurs together. The influence of MMOs and computer games in pen-and-paper gaming is strong, you see a lot of these videogame-inspired concepts in today's games, and they often conflict with how the original game was designed.

Missing that High-Level Smell?

George and I had a fun discussion this morning about the 'power level' of PCs in different games, especially as they level. Some games rocket the PCs into 'The Avengers' like superpowers, such as Exalted, many superhero games, and also MMOs like World of Warcraft. Many other games take things more slowly, and never really end up with more than stacked incremental buffs on multi-attacks (D&D3), where a +5 sword is as good as it gets. In WoW, characters typically start with 30-100 hit points, and end up with 100,000+ by the end of their career - with weapons and armor to match.

D&D4 takes it differently, with power level (relative to challenges) capping out about level 10, and then a lower advancement curve on up to 30 (with monster power creeping ahead of the characters steadily). There are some serious play testing and balance problems with D&D4 post level 10, with stun combos and other tactics making blowing out monsters easier than it should be. Some of this was rectified in D&D Essentials, but really too little too late for many of the groups we played with.

It's important for the players to feel powerful, but on the other hand, it is important for them to feel challenged. The system needs to supply the fantasy-fulfillment of that power curve, without totally blowing up and turning into a numbers game, aka Zynga's Mafia Wars (or yes, even WoW), where the numbers, attack values, and AP values don't mean anything after a while. If the game plays the same at level X as it did at level 1, with the same balance and feel, you have a game designed on a spreadsheet, with no real change in character power.

The key is changing how the game is played every so often, and letting players get better at the new set of rules and challenges at these change-points. The game should change every so often, and players will have to get better at these new systems, adapt, equip, and excel. Games need to build in this play-style progression and change in order to keep interesting and make the high levels feel truly different than the low levels.

The Multiclass Trap

I was reading WoTC's Bruce's article, Wizard With a License to Kill, and my whole feeling of how multi-classing fails to give me a satisfying feel came crashing down on me. In the article, Bruce describes how he feels a "spy mage who is good with a dagger and stealth" works within DnD Next's mechanics. Here's how it goes, roughly, in my own interpretation and words:

You pick an overall background for your class, which I am assuming is like backgrounds in DnD4, a package of skills, possibly some abilities, and most likely nothing that improves as you level. That's all well and good, and pretty cool for a D&D character. Allrighty, let's get to the multi-class part.

Let's assume a superspy level character, and hit a full 20 levels. We want to be more mage than rogue, so let's do 15 levels of mage, and 5 of rogue. Ok, cool, we can cast like a level 15 mage, and fight like a 5th level rogue plus about 15 levels of weak combat modifiers of mage.

Let's put this character into a group of other 20th level characters, and toss them into a 20th level dungeon. Well, first thing, this character doesn't fight as well as the 20th level rogue, and can't cast spells as well as a 20th level mage. Trade offs, right? Well, yeah, but most players expect their multi-class creation to fight as well as a similarly leveled rogue and mage, and be able to keep up and contribute. Especially since monsters are balanced against pure-build characters equal to their level.

How we feel, and how SBRPG does it differently, is if your job relies on using a dagger, casting a spell, or using a skill - you perform that ability with a modifier equal to your class level. It's part of your job, thus a Class Skill, and it is locked to your level (plus modifiers for ability scores). A 7th level thief swings a dagger and picks a lock at a +7, just like a 7th level warrior swings his sword at a +7. There are no skill point systems or combat modifier progression charts, it's simple. Your level plus ability mods is your DRM if what ever you are doing is covered by your class.

The whole disconnect in d20-style systems with "skills needed to perform your job" and your level has always been strange, and gets worse when you put a disassociated skill-point system on top of it like in 3.5 and Pathfinder. If I am a 7th level thief, shouldn't my level describe my ability at being a thief? Otherwise, what does level describe? Why do I need to spend separate skill points to buy my "essential thief skills" of lockpicking and stealth?

We love all the games mentioned above, don't get us wrong; but we always felt that some of the systems in them do not play very well, such as combat modifier charts, multi-classing, or large skill point systems. They do not feel natural, and seem like design cruft held onto throughout revisions and editions. We designed SBRPG from scratch way back before DnD 3.0 with a simple truth:

3d6 + (Level + Ability Mods) - Challenge Level

Meet or beat a 12

Everything else comes from that.

Meaningful Levels and Freedom

George and I had another one of out game design discussions around leveling again, and we talked about what it means to level - and have meaningful levels. We talked about systems that parse out powers every couple levels, and have 'dead' levels stuck in them, where you are just increasing in skill and damage soaking ability. I am not a fan of new powers every X levels, to me, you need something more to keep players interested. Leveling up a chart is cool for some games, but there needs to be that something more, that ability to customize and choose your own path.

SBRPG was admittedly, a game that put you on a strict track. You designed your idea class to start, and you were off and running. You did not multiclass - since you could design the class you wanted at the start, why should you need to buffet your character up the level chart? In one way, you were designing your perfect "TV Action Star" right from level one, and then increasing the star's power up to insane levels. We mostly banned multiclassing, since it did not fit in our game, and the game was better for it.

SBRPG also gave you ever-increasing points as you level to spend on whatever you wanted. Want a freely-improvable skill? Go ahead, buy levels of it. Want a new power? It's gonna cost you, but it's there. Want to raise ability scores? There you go, cost is equal to the next level. You are going to get even more points next level, so go to town and don't worry about conserving them.

We did not care too much about balance, since the game balanced itself - NPCs of the level were designed with the same rules. At high levels, super-ninja agility 40 characters were blasting out 10 or more attacks a turn with guns, melee weapons, rocket launchers, or any other implements of destruction. Offensive ability was high, but weapons were deadly, and defenses could get tricky given a good build.

We did not punish character designers, it was up to the group to call a cheese-ball build for what it was, and hey, people liked the freedom to go wild. You bought the book - it's your right. It was old-school in that mentality where the designers knew they were giving players a toolbox full of power tools, sharp instruments, and chemicals - but great things are created when you cut people free. You can't build a beautiful piece of furniture without dangerous tools, and we let trusted people and let them create.

It was a game written to be a computer programming language, like C++ - you could do something totally lame with it, something destructive, or something incredibly awesome. You can see some object-oriented principles in the design to this day, and the theory of 'simple to play, but build whatever your imagination can dream' is a powerful design theory that holds true, even today.

The Level Trap

Over chocolate-rum-bunnies and coffee last night (don't ask, a spring-time Easter candy-making experiment went deliciously wrong), George and I were discussing levels. I then went on a rant against leveling in RPGs...at that point, it just seemed levels were overused everywhere in every game, as an easy way to describe character power, and too often, a tool used in an exclusionary way.

Levels are everywhere. Most every MMORPG has them, and not only that, your gear itself has levels. So not only do you have to keep up with the Jones', you have to make sure your gear keeps up to the Jones' gear. And if you have ever tried to raid with under-leveled gear, and people told you, "Dude, your gear is too low level" - you know. This is true in 4th Edition D&D as well, your character has levels, and the game expects your character to have similarly leveled gear. We ran many games where an under-geared character just suffered through encounters, and it hurt. Motivation? Maybe. But when you start to see the math through the veil, it becomes trite (just like an MMO).

Facebook games have levels, some just exist as an endless progression of levels ad-nausea, with my level 700 gangster being owned by gangs of level 1100+ thugs. I don't know what the difference between a level 400 gangster and a level 700 one would be, level alone a level 2000 one. Games also suffer from level creep, with higher level limits meaning 'more fun' up there, with legendary and epic level rules a requirement, and rules for becoming a god the de-jour of RPGs. Who says gods are high-level characters? If you look at traditional mythology, some gods were created by accident or happenstance, and others by blood relation alone.

The original AD&D had a section as I recall where they tried to clear up all the things they used level with, character levels, dungeon levels, spell levels, and so on. It makes me miss the day where maybe characters and spells had levels, and oh yeah maybe dungeons had something similar, and that was it. We didn't need to have gear levels, or gear progression, my 20th level fighter could use a +2 longsword and chain-mail, and be just fine. Not every high level character was lucky enough to have them; and more importantly, they failed saving throws and were fragile at times. Nobody assumed you needed magic items with pluses equal to your level divided by five in all gear slots, you didn't fall behind in DPS or ability, and your saving throws were good enough.

Of course, times change, and of course my character needs a +4 ring of protection, and a cloak of protection, and gauntlets of strength; and wouldn't it be cool if we could have better ones only higher-level characters could use? Let's give that gear a level requirement, or a 'suggested' level for use, and design our encounters around having level-appropriate gear. And we don't want to upset players, so don't take away prized gear, and some games even allow players to pick the next magic items they will find.

Honestly, I'm not sure there is an answer here. It just seems using a numerical level to rate everything has become the easy way to describe something. SBRPG itself is guilty as well, with levels for hazards, characters, difficulties, and faction attributes. We never had gear levels, preferring to  just design magic items straight powers, and you live with it. If those x-ray glasses let you see through 500 hits of wall, so be it. If the sword you found gave you an extra 2d6 ice damage, fine. Nothing guaranteed you finding anything else like one; and it was never said the referee needs to create ice swords that go from 2d6 all the way up to 10d6, in 2 dice increments.

Levels themselves are fine. Overusing them is lazy design. It is something to be aware of, and also something to ask "is there a better way?" If you are twisting your design to fit into a level system, something may be wrong. If you need to rate everything from items to conversations in levels, and you can't think of a more natural way to express your game mechanics, something may be amiss. Stop, think, and reflect a bit...is there a better way to rate this than a number?