Level advancement rate

[GRWelsh]

What are your opinions on the appropriate level advancement rate? For example, let's say you are DMing for a group of players who regularly meet every other week. Assuming they all survive, what level do you think they should be after a year of real time play? And after two years? And then three years? Assume that all of the players are consistent in making it to at least 20 game sessions per year (it's to be expected a few are missed for holidays, vacation, family events, etc.), and each game session is an average of 4 hours long. An alternate way to answer this would be in XP amounts, e. g. average of 10,001 XP per player after 1 real year, 30,001 XP per player after 2 real years, 110,001 XP per player after 3 real years, etc.

In my current in-person campaign, the players have been at it for 2 years and 4 months of real time with one character death, and other than that the characters have an average of 25,000-30,000 XP each, which is less than what I would have anticipated at this point. I think I give out a decent amount of treasure and magic items, but I think an issue is that not every session is in a dungeon or scenario and players will sometimes have sessions that are more about role-playing, intrigue, etc. that simply don't have big XP payouts. I don't like to give out story award XPs or big treasure rewards for inferior challenges, so some sessions result in far fewer XP awards than others.

P. S. The in-game time period they have been adventuring has been from 15 Flocktime (May) to 12 Patchwall (October) in CY 575... So only about 5 months in the lives of the characters. Sometimes two or three game sessions happens on the same campaign date because I hit the 'pause button' between sessions (still in the dungeon exploring because they haven't taken damage or used many resources, unable to get back to town for some reason, in the middle of a dramatic situation, etc.).

[Scott]

My unhelpful answer is: It really depends. The ToEE, or any big dungeon, is kind of a fast track to advance. There's no real travel involved. The PCs can park pretty close to the dungeon and just bash away at it. If the DM doesn't throw side treks at them, a party could hit 8th-9th level pretty fast like that. But if you're doing a lot of travel and hitting a lot of smaller site based locations it could stretch it out. In addition to the travel there's more role playing as each new adventure unfolds and the party gets to know the new story and NPCs.

[Scott]

That's lower than what I would expect too. I would say after 2+ years something like 10th level or higher would be closer to expected.
But I think what really matters is, are the players having fun? Ask them what they think.
I think the amount of treasure the 1E rules expected PCs to get is probably much more than most people realize. At name level will the PCs have enough gold accumulated to build castles? In almost every campaign I've played in, or run, the answer would be no, but that's really what the rules expect to happen. And that's after all the monthly expenses and training costs the rules assume the PCs will be paying too.
When I looked at it that way it really changed how much treasure I give out.

[Scott]

I was recently looking through the BECMI books, and, as usual, it makes me wonder how does anybody that plays the game like I do ever make it to those crazy levels?
I remember an article I read when 3E was first published that included a study WotC did when developing the rules that said with older editions, the average was after six months PCs would be 9th level.

[geneweigel]

From DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS COMPANION SET - DUNGEON MASTERS COMPANION: BOOK 2 (1984) by Frank Mentzer page 2 :

Adventure Planning
When you create adventures, try to estimate the difficulty. Only characters who can match the challenges should play them; too powerful PCs will find play unchallenging, while too weak PCs may all die. You can also create an adventure for a specific character or group. This is more difficult in some ways. You must select monsters, traps, and treasures to match the characters’ level, and then put them together in a story that makes sense. When designing adventures for specific characters, review their equipment first. You can safely include many powerful monsters if the characters have special equipment to handle the creatures. For example, characters with weapons that have special bonuses against reptiles have a good chance to defeat a group of dangerous dinosaurs. Carefully consider alignment and abilities, as well. Lawfuls prefer Chaotic opponents. Two or more Patriarchs can handle many lesser Undead. Remember the demi-human abilities (finding secret doors, stone traps, etc.), and add special features for them. Rates of Progress After reaching “Name” level, characters should gain a new level of experience for every 3 to 8 successful adventures. More adventures can cause player frustration; fewer adventures can make the game too easy, and eventually bore them. If you play twice or more each week, 6 to 8 adventures per level gained is recommended. If your games are once a week or less often, 3 to 5 adventures per level are recommended. As an average, humans need about 125,000 XP to gain a level of experience. As DM, you may create adventures to accomplish whatever you wish by using the following Adventure Planning Table.
ADVENTURE PLANNING TABLE
# of Characters Rate of Progress 3 4 5 6 7 8
1 42 31 25 21 18 16
2 83 63 50 42 36 31
3 125 94 75 63 54 47
4 167 125 100 83 71 63
5 208 156 125 104 89 78
6 250 188 150 125 107 94
7 292 219 175 146 125 109
8 333 250 200 167 143 125
9 375 281 225 188 161 141
10 417 313 250 208 179 156
First, decide how many adventures the characters should complete before gaining their next levels of experience. This number of adventures to increase one level of experience is their Rate of Progress. Count the number of characters in the party, and then use the Table to find the total XP needed to be
gained on the adventure. (Each number represents 1,000 XP. For example, “85” means “85,000 XP.” )

[GRWelsh]

I wonder if Frank Mentzer is using 'adventure' interchangeably with 'game session.' In my experience, most adventures (modules) take more than one game session averaging 4 hours each. But let's say he means per game session. In my campaign we average 22 game sessions (game nights) per year since we probably miss an average of 4 per year due to holidays, family, vacations, etc. Since my campaign started we've probably had 55 game sessions. On Frank Mentzer's advice of characters going up a level every 3-5 adventures, my main characters should be in the 11th-18th level range! That seems high. Although, I think my current party's level range of 4th-6th seems low. 6th-8th would probably be about right. I'll have to up the treasure values going forward.

[geneweigel]

Here are some more Mentzer talk from POLYHEDRON #7 (NOV 1982) NOTES FROM THE DUNGEON MASTER (Also in this issue, Mentzer announced he will be stepping back from POLYHEDRON except for his various articles to "work with Gary" most likely on BECMI):

In the ongoing campaign, your players will develop higher level characters. On the average, looking at data we've received from hundreds of
DMs worldwide, it seems that the average advancement of a character is about 2-3 levels per year. In other words, a campaign that's been running for 3
years usually has many player characters averaging around 6th to 9th level 01 experience. The campaign then usually levels all, to stabilize with a few powerful characters (levels up into the twenties) but with the bulk 01 them between 7th and 13th level. Some lower levels are still around. but
this seems to be the most popular level of play. This is one reason, incidentally, that RPGA'" AD&DT~ game tournament adventures are usually for levels 5-9.
What do you do, as DM, when a player's high or moderate level character is lost? This could be due to lack of available spells, blowing a critical roll, or extreme situations (such as total disintegration). If there are no low-level characters in the campaign, and the poor player is forced to run a 1st level anything in higher-level company, the character is handicapped from the start and has a shorter life expectancy. II the players are experienced enough
to handle it, I'll start characters all at a higher level of experience. (Gasp!) Note the first part of that; if the players themselves need more grounding in strategy, spell use, or whatever. they all keep working with the low levels until they've got their act together. But it's silly to tell a six-year veteran of the game that he or she must run a character all the way up from the bottom, even though everyone else has a 7-9 level character, when the original character was lost due to a blown saving throw or otherwise uncontrollable situation. My method is a variant from the system as published, but it works and doesn't adversely affect play in any way. The first ground rule is NEVER to start a character equal to or greater than an existing one. Obviously, the players have spent a lot of time and effort gelling there, and it's unfair to pop someone up into the same bracket. It always causes some resentment and charges of favoritism, so DON'T. Decide on the starting level. I've used ld4, ld4+1, ld3+1 and ld3+2 for this, depending on the average level of the
characters already in the campaign. I've also assigned a level, arbitrarily, especially for monk, druid, and other specialized classes with regimented hierarchies. I set the experience point total at minimum for the level decided on, plus d%xl0 (10-1000) additional Cash on hand , AFTER the character is fully equipped (house rules: up to 5 oil, 2 holy water. 1 animal, any and all reasonable other non-magical items) is set equal to 10% of the experience point total. Finally, magic items are rolled for to complete the better-than-starting-level character. (I use the "Chance Per Level for Magic Item" table on DMG pg. 194, which is supposed to be for NPC town encounters, and cheerfully veto or change results as desired. Another chart is given under "Party Magic Items," DMG pg. 175-176, which is supposed to be used for randomly encountered parties.) Finally. the player should be given notes on the character's background,
acquaintances, and some history. In these cases, I often alter past reality subtly; for example. I'll tell the existent characters that they have, at several points in the past. run into this "new" character, and have possibly adventured with him or her (assuming that alignment, profession, and other variables would have given this result). Presto - an " old" character. from scratch. 1. MAGIC MOUTH ALARM: The party may find that the area they're penetrating has an alarm system, if there's a magic-user about who could set one up. (Note that witch doctors can cast a magic mouth, according to DMG.) Just have each mouth instructed " Scream when anything screams within range." The residents of the area, if they have time, need only scream to set off the alarm. A domino-type chain can be set up merely by placing a magic mouth every 20 or 30 feet, with the same instructions, so that they set each other off. A powerfully enchanted corridor changes the characters to 1/ 16" height, gradually acting on them as it gels smaller so they don't notice the change. There's lots of fun in store as characters fiercely battle a normal amoeba, housefly. and other denizens of the microscopic world. (Make sure you decide on all related game mechanics
first). Caution, though: magical effects should be of normal power bul with reduced areas and ranges, while weapons will do insignificant damage. The reverse can be quite strange, with the characters enlarged to hundreds of feet tall. They are seen as huge marauders, invading giants threatening the residents of the countryside. The most powerful NPCs in the world would certainly flock to slop the characters from stepping on the cows, accidentally triggering earthquakes, and so forth . ~~

[Scott]

Frank is really on a different page sometimes. That’s a lot of work to get the players to level up when you want them to level up. It’s basically milestone leveling without admitting it’s milestone leveling.

[geneweigel]

In Dragon and Polyhedron, he admits here and there that he messed up and became carried away several times. So he has to be taken with a grain of salt. He was Gary's go to at TSR but with that hostile "Dragonlance" environs, and Frank's style, it seems he was let out of the creative cage on "ironing out" BECMI.

I remember purchasing BOOK OF MARVELOUS MAGIC (1985) and being seduced by Gary's name being on it (An omen of things to come.) because my brother was the BECMI guy. I had divorced that line after the disappointment of the Companion Set (1984) so to have this "sort of Gary" thing was confusing after my brother lauding Mentzer as superior all the time had me automatically shoot down Mentzer. I correlated Mentzer with Elmore's visuals thats why I generally dislike Larry's art. Gary liked Larry's art a lot, as he told me, but I just have to put that stuff away after a while as it ruins my "dungeon mood".

I've since relented on Mentzer bashing but I still can't get over Frank immediately after Gary left talking about Gary's wife. That just fucked up my brain.

[GRWelsh]

Ultimately it boils down to what you said, Scott, about whether the players are having fun or not. The DM can only "chart out" so much since it always comes back to player choices. Sometimes a DM leaves things out of his control, and that can result in low XP patches (e. g. if the players happen to focus on role-playing with NPCs in town, or happen to explore a part of the dungeon with a lot of empty rooms and not much treasure, etc.). Overall, though, I think one can plan based on general expectations. Gaining 2-3 levels per year of gaming as a minimum sounds reasonable.

For replacements we've always started at 1st or brought in an existing but lower level character. But Frank's suggestions are reasonable. I agree the replacement should not be the same level or higher as the character that expired.

[Scott]

Most of the players I know would not want to start above 1st level for a long term campaign character. In his later days, when he started DMing OD&D again, Gary had his players start at 2nd or 3rd level, and that would be fine, since that's where everybody started, and it effectively became the new 1st level, but if I was in a game where everybody worked their way up to 8th level from 1st, and then my PC got killed, I would not want to start at 5th level. I could never have the same kind of attachment to that PC.
When I stock a dungeon, I am pretty detailed with the treasure, but I always include a few encounters with "gems" and after the party finds them I'll set the number and value based on how much experience I think the party should get based on how the session has gone.

[GRWelsh]

In my experience when you bring in a 1st level character with a party of high level characters at around 8th level, the newbie will hang out in the back of the party and soak up XP and go up roughly one level per session. In pretty short order he will stabilize at about a level below the others.

I've been trying a similar approach with treasure is that I'll either leave it vague or alter it based on what I think is appropriate. I tend to write a lot of my game notes in text with an ink pen and imagining the dungeon, and sometimes it doesn't get finalized until the actual Game Night with me setting out dungeon tiles and props.

[grodog]

In part, it depends on the number of players too. My paladin in the Monday game I play in only hit 8th level from 7th after 18 month of real-time weekly games. But that’s a large group, generally 10+ players/PCs.

We’ve had a few new players join our crew using 1st level PCs too, and thus far they have universally died—one hit from a fire giant or a bad roll for a hill giant boulder kills at that level….

Allan.

[Scott]

It's good to have backup PCs. Ideally I'd run my story/plot driven game, but also run a Greyhawk Dungeon game when time permits so players could have a backup character ready in the event the PC in the other game bites it.

[GRWelsh]

Yesterday I ran a game for the backup PCs since Randy couldn't make it. Every so often, when the main PCs are down a player and we want to pause until that player is back, we have the option to run a game with the secondary characters and get them some XP. It's also a fun change of pace. And I like them having characters they all know and would organically fit into the main party if needed.

[geneweigel]

From B2 THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS (1980):

Using the KEEP as “home base”, your players should be able to have quite a number of adventures (playing sessions) before they have exhausted all the possibilities of the Caves of Chaos map. Assuming that they have played well, their player characters will certainly have advanced a level or two in experience when the last minion of darkness falls before their might.