A few hours ago some friends of mine were sitting around discussing the merits/drawbacks of bards. I joined in the discussion by mentioning that I had played a ‘silent’ bard in a game here (Some Secrets are Best Left Buried, which unfortunately fizzled before it got too far along). As the discussion progressed it was mentioned that this game was played on the 2e rule set. As soon as ‘2e’ was mentioned a groan dissipated from my friends and the following comment was made:

“2e? Oh God… you could play a character in that for like four years and only get to level 10!”

It is now nearly three am, I am having a bout of insomnia and I keep chewing over this comment.

Levels? Is that the most important aspect to playing D&D, or any RPG for that matter?

To put things in a bit of perspective let me tell you a bit out my own gaming experiences. The first D&D game I participated in was with this same group of gentlemen about five or six years ago now. They graciously let me play a succubus in a campaign that lasted about six months. Since then I have played several other games with them (nearly always as the only female player, something which I might write about at a later date). Most campaigns, including that first one, we have not played to completion, and few last longer than 2 months. I actually became rather disillusioned with the whole thing about two years after that first game and stopped playing until they could prove to me that they would play something for more than 2 months. Only this past year have I really picked it back up with them and a few weeks ago we finally finished our first campaign! *gasp!*

In that I played a Hafling Favored Soul who began as a level 5 character and who worked her way all the way up to level 20 and saved the world with her companions in a mere 9 months. With that game completed we are working on starting up another, getting characters rolled and background stories written. I have been watching while my husband and the other gents in this endeavor build their characters. They have been spending hours hiking atop the 3.5 pdf mountain. They spelunk through the dark crevices of obscure books; search for perfectly placed combinations of stats, spells, modifiers, feats, and proficiencies as footholds to the summit, where apparently some awesomely supreme character awaits them. 

Most, however, will show up with a few paragraphs of a ‘background’ story and no real character development despite all this prior workup. Come to think of it the gent who made the comment about not reaching level 10 for years recently came to the first gaming session of a game with NO background story, the DM decided to go on anyway and decided that he had simply woken up with amnesia that morning and that they would work out the details later… I made no comment. 

Before I go on with that, let me go deeper into my history with gaming. While I have only been an active player in RPG for perhaps five or six years (I know I’m a baby compared to so many of you around here) that succubus was not my first experience with the gaming world. You see I am the product of a line of gamers. My parents were teenagers in the 70’s and my father played war games. Ah yes, the war game, the beautiful yet regimented system that would one day help birth the world of RPG that we so happily loose ourselves in today. He played these games well into my life and I can remember him meticulously rebuilding Gettysburg in our basement as a small child. The war games, of course, also led to the fascinating first editions of D&D, and living in Denver at the time he had the unique privilege of getting to play at conventions where the Demi-God himself, Gary Gygax, was DMing. My mother was even involved in this, although not with Gettysburg, and I have memories of that too. 

I can recall sitting around the basement listening to my parents play while I leafed through the Monster Manual. I don’t know what edition it was but I can still clearly see the red demon-like creature that snarled across its cover and the red ribbon it came with to use as a book mark. I played with the figurines, not cheap plastic figurines, but real metal ones that my father had carefully hand painted to look like the characters in the game. My mother played a rogue, with brunette hair and an outfit that had a pair of iridescent green pants. 

My mother played a rogue. She did not play a rogue for six months, and then a bard on the next go around, and a sorcerer for the next game. She played a rogue. She played that same rogue for years. If I asked her today she could tell me her character’s name and the adventures she went on. She could tell me the romances she had and the dragons she fought. What level she was when she fought that dragon at she could probably guess at, but the levels are not what she remembers, she remembers the role play. 

I find myself being nostalgic, over something I have the misfortune of only having had experienced as an outsider and a small child at that. 

I live in a world where video games fill the spaces between gaming sessions for most of my friends. Leveling your character quickly so it is not squished by some computerized villain or pulverized by some teenager half way across the world is the concern. They play the same games and compete with each other over these levels. These video games call themselves ‘RPG’s’ sometimes. Yes you can ‘create’ a character and have them make ‘choices’ that will determine their fate. They are not Mario bouncing across the screen eternally in search of Princess Peach. Your character ‘interacts’ with NPC’s and other players if it is an online game. But it is all within the confines of the game. 

Currently my husband, and seemingly everyone else, is addicted to the latest and greatest game ‘Dragon Age’. Compared to many I have had the ‘privilege’ of watching him play it appears to have more ‘interaction’ than most. Even so I have watched him drag the mouse up and down the list of provided responses his character can possibly make during a discussion with one of the computer NPC’s. He is searching for the response that is closest to what he would like his character to say. If he was capable of actually saying the response he wanted he likely would be out of the confines of the game. 

Which is what a real RPG is about in my opinion. There are rules and guidelines that have been set down in books which help to level the playing field, making it so no one character is being vastly under or over played. These things should be taken into consideration (see Eol’s Blog concerning character creation *end plug*) certainly. But the real fun begins when you sit down at the table and actually play, or in our case I suppose in front of the computer and type. 

It is the interaction between real people creating a world and an adventure that truly is only confined by the limits of our own imaginations that is the magical world of an RPG. 

If it takes ten years to reach level 2 does it really matter? Why must every game end with the players greedily demanding experience points to be ladled out and groans when it is just short of the next level? Why is a character’s race decided because it gets the best stat bonuses for a certain class? When did the mechanics of the game take over the game itself?

Don’t get me completely wrong here. I still will continue to play in my tabletop games. We have had some wonderful moments of real role play. However, I wonder at times what the motivation for those moments are, especially while wading through some of the more laborious mechanical discussions that occur between them. I wonder if the games were different for my parents, and I wonder what I have missed in that respect and I have begun to understand why they stopped playing. Beyond that I also recognize that I am grateful for having found this little haven for those of us who still play primarily for the adventure.

M.