With all this talk of "dozens" or even "hundreds" of "heroes" swarming around the "4X layer" or whatever, how do we keep the roleplaying characters who SHOULD be at the center of the game from being overshadowed?
Two words: Level caps.
Now listen, I hate level caps as much as any other person. Hell I hate all types of caps period. But in D&D there is perfectly reasonable and extremely immersive justification for them, believe it or not, and the only reason you've never heard about it is that you've been playing CRPGs made by dingbats who don't know the first thing about D&D, and possibly can't read at all.
It boils down to the fact that programmers have grossly abused the concept of XP in CRPGs. A character isn't supposed to be able to ascend to godhood by exterminating every rat on the planet. The AD&D 2nd Edition "Dungeon Master's Guide" that taught me how to run the game back in the early-'90s says it plain as day that if the encounter isn't challenging, THE CHARACTERS GAIN NO XP from it.
...no experience is earned for situations in which the PCs have an overwhelming advantage over their foes. A 7th-level player character who needs one more experience point to advance in level can't just gather his friends together and hunt down a single orc. That orc wouldn't stand a chance, so the player character was never at any particular risk. If the same character had gone off on his own, thus risking ambush at the hands of a band of orcs, the DM could rule that the character had earned the experience.
The DM must decide what constitutes a significant risk to the player characters. Often it is sufficient if the characters think they are in danger, even when they are not. Their own paranoia increases the risk (and enhances the learning experience). Thus, if the party runs into a band of five kobolds and becomes convinced that there are 50 more around the next corner, the imagined risk becomes real for them. In such a case, an experience point reward might be appropriate.
Very postmodern for 1989, no? Perception shapes reality. Baudrillard would have approved if he wasn't too lame for gaming. My 13-year-old self was mightily impressed with these mechanics when I discovered them a couple years later, and I fell in love with the game on contact with the material. Meanwhile, 35 fucking years on and programmers are still giving demigod-level parties XP for every rat they hunt down and kill. Can programmers even read? It doesn't appear so. But what's the point in complaining about such "details" when the characters in CRPGs are immortal anyway thanks to the genius programmer mechanics of load/saving?
Meanwhile, Pathfinder's 2013 "Mythic Adventures" takes it further. I couldn't hope to adequately paraphrase the sheer awesomeness of this text, so I'll just copy-paste it:
What Makes Mythic Adventures Different?
In a world of might and sorcery, with dragons and elves, what does it mean to be “mythic?” Being mythic means possessing a degree of might unusual even in a fantasy world. Scenes turn more dramatic, the enemies are more lethal, and the consequences of the heroes’ actions make a far-ranging impact. Being mythic means invoking a sense of wonder and awe even in those already accustomed to the strange and unusual.
The way this book portrays the mythic narrative isn’t solely about stories at 20th level and monsters with high Challenge Ratings—it’s about the surprising and unfamiliar regardless of power and scale. Even 1st-level characters could be imbued with mythic power and become forces to be reckoned with. Similarly, lesser monsters such as ogres and skeletons that become mythic transform into terrifying foes with unknown powers, changing the nature of the story you’re playing—and startling those accustomed to their non-mythic ilk.
Not only the characters take on unexpected forms in mythic adventures; the setting does as well. The vistas are more dramatic, featuring flying islands and keeps that float in raging volcanoes. The colors are brighter, the sounds are more mysterious, and all of the other stimuli are sharper and more vibrant. Where the non-mythic hero would encounter a crumbling keep filled with familiar monsters, a mythic hero faces a towering citadel that builds itself from the bones of would-be invaders and is inhabited by cruel and malign creatures of nearly god-like power.
Besides the setting, the challenges that face mythic characters are far more harrowing than usual. Enhanced abilities allow mythic characters to take on threats beyond the reach of those without such power. They can face with ease foes both powerful and numerous. The real challenge is when they take on mythic creatures that possess the same resilient nature and abilities similar in potency to those they themselves rely on. When a mythic hero comes face to face with a mythic monster, the battle is truly legendary.
Finally, mythic adventures feature difficult choices and far-reaching consequences. As the characters progress through the story, they’re tasked with taking on challenges that seem impossible even to them, and might be tempted to wander from their path. As mythic heroes, they’re the first to respond to cataclysmic events, just as they’re the last bastion to stem the tide of evil and darkness that threatens to wash over the world. Their successes and failures leave marks on the world for centuries to come.
For the record, some Paizo Adventure Paths feature mythic mechanics, and some don't. For example, the penultimate AP in PF1, Return of the Runelords, is a mythic AP. To give you an example of how wildly inventive these adventures are, here's just one line taken from the short mythic adventure included with the rulebook, Fire Over Blackcrag:
The PCs fight on terrain firmly controlled by their enemy, and they should feel like the mountain is itself one of their adversaries.
So there's no question of becoming a mythic character by hunting down rats lol, the book makes it clear that only mythic challenges can forge mythic heroes—or villains.
Which brings us back to Ultimate Edition and its multiple layers. It is clear that different threat levels exist on different layers, with the greatest threats naturally arising solely from the roleplaying layer, simply because that's where Paizo and co.'s campaigns are ran. Therefore, if a character or hero or call him what you want isn't operating at that level... he can't rise to the highest levels of power in the game. And that, dear readers, is an implicit level cap. It's already in the bones of the game, in its structure, and all I am doing in this chapter is making it explicit. I didn't add these caps. They were already there, stretching all the way back to the 1989 "Dungeon Master's Guide", if not earlier (I still haven't read the 1E DMG).
In short, the level caps of Ultimate Edition are as follows:
- For the adventure-strategy layer (aka 4X/Master of Heroes) I set the cap at 7th-level because that's the barrier to entry for the highest-tier Pathfinder Society Scenarios commonly available: the 7-11 tier. This means that even if at some point we temporarily run out of lower-tier PFS Scenarios to level heroes to 7th-level so they can attempt the toughest tier, the players can still level their heroes by random encounters while exploring in the overworld, so there's no reason for any hero to ever get "stuck" with no way to progress, as does happen in Paizo's Organized Play system, because it lacks the overworld. But this cap also makes sense in terms of the setting and lore: 7th-level is about where the typical villain's captains are in the adventures and campaigns. So that's about the level of personal power you can expect your heroes to achieve if you keep them adventuring in this layer.
- Things escalate in the tactical layer (aka SRPG/Master of Combat). As aforesaid, the highest-tier scenarios commonly available are 7-11, so heroes here can get to 11th-level, for a start. Moreover, higher-tier scenarios do exist for 12th and above levels, and I've even seen the odd 15th-level one. But you can expect competition for access to these to be fierce, especially if we end up with many players and heroes on the overworld at some point. So for all intents and purposes the cap here is 11, but it can go as high as 15 on very rare occasions, and if you play really well. You shouldn't therefore expect to manage to get a lot of heroes to this height of power. One or two of them is the most that even the best players may reasonably achieve, at least in the short- and medium-term. All of which again tracks perfectly with the setting and lore, once again, because 11-15 is about where the villain's right-hand man or woman tends to be; the villain's lieutenant or lieutenants so to speak.
- And finally we arrive at the roleplaying layer (aka GMRPG/Battlegrounds) where there's no cap and characters can max out their levels to 20, plus 10 mythic tiers on top of that, if playing mythic content.
Not only are these caps extremely natural, but I would go as far as to say that any GM who doesn't implement them is going against what's written in the rules—not my rules, but D&D's/PF's. If you allow a character to gain mythic tiers from regular adventures and campaigns, that's against the text I just quoted; if you allow a character to reach 15+ level of power—i.e. epic levels of power—from short scenarios such as those of Pathfinder Society, you're going against the very definition of the epic; if you allow characters to go past 7th-level from random encounters you're making a mockery of the game itself, which employs random encounters merely as a tool of enhancing an adventure's dramatic structure rather than an end in itself.
So ultimately, just as there are caps for going from one level to the other—Yes you need XP but WHAT KIND of XP? Challenging XP, says the rulebook—so there should be caps for going from one RANGE of levels to the other. The only subjective value here is the exact levels where this line should be drawn, and I have given my justifications. In short:
1-7: Random encounters
7-15: Scripted scenarios
15-20/10: Epic/mythic adventures and campaigns
And that's how you manage to keep the handful of roleplaying characters at the very center of the world despite the dozens or hundreds of lesser heroes swarming all around them.
The goal ultimately, for a player who engages with all three layers, is that the leader of his faction will be his victorious campaign hero—if and when he manages to successfully complete a campaign—; his one or two top lieutenants will be his highest-ranking Pathfinder Society heroes; and their various captains will be the maxed-out adventure-strategy heroes. And below all these will be the hundreds and thousands of recruited units, plus building managers and so on. Then there will be his web of NPC contacts in the world, along with the organizations they belong to (Cult Engine 1.5 has a wonderful tool for depicting organization relationships that we'll be using), and then of course via the seduction and procreation mechanics there'll be wives and consorts and an entire bloodline (again sketched out beautifully via CE1.5's family tree feature).
And what about players who don't engage with all three layers?
That's fine, and expected, since the Venn diagram cross section of roleplayers, SRPG players and 4X players is small. Obviously I am smack in the middle of it, and we have a few more people like that already in the game. Everyone else can choose and pick the layer(s) of their choice, and the game will be all the better for everyone's contributions.
That said, engaging with all three layers is required to get the most out of the game. This is called synergy, and if the game didn't have it, it would be bad design. Therefore I had no choice in the matter: the moment I decided to synthesize all turn-based genres into one game/metaverse, I HAD to make those genres synergistic, otherwise it would have been an inferior experience for players who engaged with all the genres. After all, if they want to play the genres as separate entities, they can go on Steam. They come to my game precisely because they want to see what happens when all the genres are fused.
For maximum power and effectiveness in the game therefore, you MUST play all the layers, and combine them well. If you only play the 4X and SRPG layers, your faction will lack an epic/mythic leader, and if you do the reverse your leader won't have anyone to lead. And that's fine, not everyone plays to lead, and roleplaying a single character with dedication and gusto contributes just as much to the richness of the world as the most diehard strategist's most complex machinations. Meanwhile, the players who aren't interested in roleplaying and are in it only for the strategy are also contributing, even to the dedicated roleplayer's experience. What are they contributing? They are contributing what I like to call Dynamic Lore, aka Ultimate Lore, which will be the next chapter's subject.
