Game Masters, Remember, You Aren't Required To Go To Level 20

Level 20 has, in the minds of many of us, been enshrined as the ultimate end goal of any level-based RPG. While we go on about how Dungeons and Dragons isn't the only game out there, it set the standard for so many things in tabletop gaming, and that level 20 finish line is present in so many games. And while there are some games where you might go beyond that into epic levels, or using mythic tiers as Pathfinder created, level 20 is commonly accepted as the "normal" end. It's what many Game Masters designed their campaigns around, and in the minds of a lot of players it's when you finally reach your character's full potential.

Something to remember, though... just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you have to do it. Your game is no less fun, and no less valid, for choosing to get off the bus before the route terminates at the epic capstone showdown.

This is okay for some games... but not ALL games...

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It's An Option. Not A Requirement.

Over the years I've met my share of Game Masters who lamented how frustrating it was to have to really crank up their math at higher levels of a campaign in order to keep their players challenged. I've also met my share of folks who wanted to try their hands at being a Game Master, but they were intimidated by the idea that they'd have to tell a full, complete story over such a huge stretch of levels in order to keep their players happy, and to be a "real" GM.

So, while a lot of us already know this, I'm going to repeat it. The scale of your story is entirely up to you, and your players. If you want to tell a grounded story that's going to take the PCs from level 1-5, that is your prerogative. If you want to have your punch up with the BBEG around level 10-11, because level 13 is where the math gets too frustrating for you, that is perfectly acceptable. Hell, if you just want to run a series of occasional one shots that are loosely strung together with hand-waved plot explanations where characters are only going to gain a level every 10 sessions and you're calling it quits at the end of level 3, there is nothing stopping you from doing that.

And, for the record, this applies to all RPGs... I'm just using level-based ones as an easy example. I made a video expounding on this for the World/Chronicles of Darkness a while back in case you missed it.

However, with this said, there are some caveats I'd throw into this.

First and foremost, ballpark where you plan to take your campaign so that your players know, and can set their expectations accordingly. If you show up to a game that you think is going to go to level 20, and you're excited to play an epic-level wizards with all the overpowered 9th-level spells you can handle, you might feel you were cheated if the campaign ends at level 6 because you had expected another 14 levels. Alternatively, if some of your players like to build a foundation for their end-game goals, then it might be good to know they should be going for something like the champion of a local town or small city, rather than a legendary paladin who went toe-to-toe with a great daemon lord for the fate of the world by the end of this game.

Secondly, if your players have concerns, make sure you address them. If you are comfortable with a game that runs in the 4-7 level range, but your players want that huge, epic finish, then you may not be able to give them what they want. That's all right, too. Just like how sometimes people don't want to play the particular RPG you want to run, sometimes they also don't want to play a story at the scale you want to run it at. Try to talk things out and find common ground so you can all have a good time, but don't sacrifice your fun and comfort level as a GM; it's better to have no game rather than a game that's burning you out, and you aren't enjoying.

Thirdly, examine the kind of scale, power level, whatever you want to call it of the game that you're running. If you want to run a game of Pathfinder, Dungeons and Dragons (most editions), or even some Savage Worlds that's relatively low on stakes and character power (a medieval murder mystery, a weird West gang dispute over a frontier town, so on and so forth), you can probably make that happen without too much bending and twisting. But if you're running a game that is meant to be a big, bombastic, high-powered thing (Scion, Exalted, and so on) they aren't really supposed to be small in scale or effect. Which is not to say you can't find a way to make it happen if you want to keep things smaller scale, but just be aware that some games are easy to do this with, and other games you're going to be swimming upstream to try to make it happen.

At the end of it all, though, I just wanted to remind all the GMs and prospective GMs out there... you don't have to go big or go home. You can run games that stop before they become rocket tag, or which keep the numbers at a lower level. You can run campaigns that can be wrapped up in 6-7 months, or even just 3 months if that's all the gas you have in your tank. You are allowed to do whatever the hell you want, as long as your players back you up, and everyone is willing to make this happen.

A Bit of Additional Reading

If this is the sort of advice that you (or someone you play with) needs to see, I'd actually recommend grabbing a copy of 100 Tips And Tricks For Being A Better Game Master, as it collects some of the best field-tested pieces of advice that have appeared on this blog over the past dozen years or so. And if you're feeling really frisky (or you just like to have both sides of the coin), consider grabbing the sister supplement 100 Tips And Tricks For Being A Better RPG Player while you're at it!

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Everything in an RPG is Situational... Everything

There is, perhaps, no bigger argument when it comes to a game's mechanics than about what's more "powerful" when it comes time to roll the dice. While this is a discussion that can be had on a one-to-one comparison (discussing damage output, for example, or discussing the number of dice thrown for particular effects), the more general the discussion becomes the more likely it is you're comparing apples to pineapples.

That's tough enough to get good sense out of, but there is one, undeniable fact when it comes to RPGs pretty much across the board... every power, every ability, and every skill is going to be more "powerful" in certain situations than it is in others. And if you don't remember that, then all you and the person you're arguing with are doing is blowing hot air in each other's faces.

Look, I'm just saying, wizard trumps barbarian. Fight me!

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Everything Has Its Strong Suit

I've said this several times before, but it bears repeating. Everything in an RPG has a situation where it's going to be more potent, and a situation where it's going to be useless. Even things we think of as obviously powerful are going to be rendered moot in some situations and games because there are simply too many variables for anything to be universally powerful across the board.

For an obvious example, consider the paladin.

This fight is almost totally one-sided.

Paladins are a perfect example of situational potency. Because if you're in a game chock full of evil dragons, undead, demons, and other nasties who rely largely on fear and disease to make them dangerous enemies, then a paladin almost feels like they're playing with cheat codes on. They're flat-out immune to a lot of the conditions coming their way, they get huge bonus damage from their smite, and they can call on potent divine powers to make them an even bigger threat against evil enemies.

You know the easiest way to kick them off the ladder? Put them in a situation where they aren't fighting evil enemies all the time.

Paladins are geared very specifically to stand against the forces of evil. Even if they aren't doing that (say they're fighting a construct, or dealing with magical beasts, or have an opposing force of neutral mercenaries who are just here for the money) they've still got a full base attack bonus, good armor, ability to heal themselves, and a lot of other tricks... but they are no longer a one-character-wrecking-ball.

Yeah, that checks out.

We see this with a lot of other classes and builds, as well. The two-weapon fighter who becomes a blender if they can take a full attack is rendered a lot less viable if they need to run all over the battlefield just to reach a target (or worse, the target is out of melee reach). The ranger who can utterly destroy their favored enemy (especially if they can grant their bonuses to the rest of the party) becomes a lot less effective when dealing with foes outside that specialty, and outside their favored terrain. Rogues and slayers who find themselves up against foes immune to precision damage suddenly find themselves nowhere near as useful as they would otherwise be.

And before all the spellcaster mains out there start preening, you're not immune to this either. While it's true that magic can give you a pretty deep bag of tricks, even those tricks are going to be situational... and when you aren't prepped for the right situation you're no more useful than the barbarian staring up at the flying dragon with their greatsword in-hand.

Easy examples are the evokers and blasters. Dropping a fireball might be impressive if it's on a large group of regular mooks, but if they all have evasion and your DC isn't up to snuff, then suddenly your big hammer didn't amount to a hill of beans. If your magus relies on the nova blast from a huge shocking grasp critical, and you suddenly stab an enemy that doesn't take that electricity damage (or worse, gets healed by it), then you've got a conundrum on your hands. If you're an enchanter, mindless enemies (or those protected by the right spells) can take your most potent whammies off the table. Illusionists have a similar issue, compounded by enemies that have senses that allow them to ignore illusions as fakes. Those who rely on conjured monsters can easily be countered by low-level protective spells that mean the creatures can't actually attack them. Necromancers often find their most debilitating powers are useless against those who are already undead. And if you specialized in utility spells, but you find yourself on an open battlefield where none of them are appropriate, you may suddenly find yourself wishing you'd prepped a few tactical strikes just to be safe.

And the list goes on.

This Applies To Every Aspect of a Game

A lot of folks out there have probably noticed that the last section focused largely on combat. The reason for that is that it's the most visibly crunchy part of the game, and it can be life and death for the PCs... but it's important to remember that situational ability is still applicable outside of the initiative order.

Especially then, you might say.

Say, for example, you wanted to play a rogue specialized in stealth and trap disarming. If your game is a dungeon crawl, or you're the point person on a heist, then you are in your element and doing exactly what you're made for. If you're in a situation that's largely about social maneuvering and mystery solving, then your skill set may not come into play as often (though it may be useful in certain spots, such as eavesdropping, or breaking into a location to try to find evidence).

Alternatively, the big bad bruiser who would be lord of the battlefield in a combat heavy game is going to be twiddling their thumbs in a campaign where problems can't be meaningfully solved through the application of violence. While the diviner, who may have been less than helpful during a siege or a run-and-gun style campaign, is going to be a magical Sherlock Holmes when it comes to solving a murder, or finding out what happened to stolen valuables.

Every ability, every skill, every spell, is going to have a situation where it is useful, and where it is less than useful. And if the situation where it's strong doesn't come up in a particular campaign, it's easy to think of it as useless. If the campaign is made up almost entirely of situations where a particular ability is strong, then it can seem far more potent than it really is.

Specify Your Parameters

Something that I think would make these discussions far more useful for all of us would be if we narrowed our parameters for what we're actually talking about. It would also stop us from comparing totally unrelated fruits to declare which is the best.

For example, if your parameters are, "What is the most powerful class for killing demons?" you now have a level playing field to compare abilities, feats, powers, etc. If the question is, "Who puts out the highest melee damage?" that's also something you can find an actual answer for using math instead of conflicting opinions.

This also works when you try to discuss character utility and breadth of usefulness over a vague "power" that can be hard to quantify. Comparing the spell lists for bards and wizards, for example, you could see which spells would allow you to overcome particular obstacles that would otherwise be quite hazardous to the party (things like endure elements or perhaps fly). This also stops conversations where one person feels that a bard is more flexible (and thus more powerful), and someone else feels that a barbarian has maximized damage output (and is thus more powerful), since neither of you are talking about the same thing.

Lastly, remember to specify in which situation these things are coming into play. Who is the enemy, how many are there, what is the environment, what is the task at hand, etc.? Because without these specifics we don't have anything to gauge the situation by, and you might be extolling the virtues of a sledgehammer at solving problems that instead call for a can of WD-40 and a Phillips head screwdriver.

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That's all for this week's Crunch topic! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio! Or if you'd like to read some of my books, like my alley cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

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