Reply To: RPG's and… the end times…

[kiranamida 5791xp 0]

I am half on board with this, most RPGs tend to plateau their power level regardless of whether they are level based or not. I find Ironclaw to be a good example of this: no levels, no classes but eventually you will trend towards buying every skill and gift your character can make use of and then eventually even those they will not. Ultimately there is only so much character scope in any system and a character that exists long enough will deplete all avenues of progress.

Characters will always get stronger as the whole play, reward cycle is a big part of most table top role play but I think perhaps the gotcha I find her is seeing character development as a number and a challenge to that number as the driving threat of a narrative. The so called Monster-of-the-Week problem.

It is true that a threat rating 1/8 Goblin is never going to be a threat to a lvl 7 fighter and bandits are unlikely to pose much mortal threat to the party that brought down the Demon Lord of Uz’Garthanik or whatever you want but is that the game you want to play? Years of fighting things that are just enough of a threat to you?
Well maybe for some people and for them, I see the problem but for me: the combat threat is not something that should always be an ever present part of the campaign.

I happen to be running a 5e campaign at the moment and the players bulldozed their way through level 3 with nary a moments pause for the challenges in front of them because the threat came from elsewhere: narrative consequence.
The various undead things and thugs that opposed them were easy to defeat but the consequence was not themselves running out of hit point.
They decided to stand and fight the zombies raised from the tavern staff: the Lord’s retainers were all murdered in their sleep elsewhere and each character had a personal object stolen and or now worried of nefarious magics.
They refused to parley with the bandit demanding they come with him: they will soon find out that he was only there because “the bad guys” had his family, they will have been made an example of in retaliation and they are already dealing with the fact that the lord they are travelling with shattered his leg in the ensuing chaos where they choose the cut a boat free of its mooring and make their escape and is now out of action.

You can occasionally have the big bad monster that the party need to defeat (and probably should as many of these games have martial aspects of the character front and centre) and I like to save the classic monster/hero level humanoids for this point so that they don’t become stale.
Why the character’s fight, if they fight at all and what are the effects of fighting beyond which number go up can compensate for a lot of the “it’s another group of goblin” moments I believe.

That being said, if you manage to keep a single consequence driven campaign going long enough to max out all your characters and have them dead end… then wow. My only advice is maybe start a new campaign and maybe take up writing fantasy novels.

 

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