[TML] Leveling (was NEW SFRPG - Thousand Suns)

[Richard Aiken]

On Feb 7, 2008 2:42 AM, Stuart Frew <stuart at frew.net.nz> wrote:
> > Yeah.  The players aren't usually impressed when the DM says, "The
> > yeoman farmer carries himself with confidence and has several old
> > wound scars visible."  They just ask, "So what's his fighter level?"
>
> Well thats more a GM issue than a rules issue.
>
> In the d&d game I play, and have run, those sorts of questions just draw a
> blank stare.

I never answered those sorts of questions either, back when I ran
AD&D.  Note the "A" there; it was a long time ago.  But I think the
fact that such questions get *asked* - and particularly that they
*still* get asked today (more than a generation later) - is a function
of a level-based game.  I've never had players ask me the Brawling
skill level of a CT or GURPS NPC, for instance.

> Sure you can work the level out eventually but the similar thing happens in
> traveler, you can work out if the character is a highly skilled merc or some
> bozo who's just retired.

Sure.  But your character is doing that in-game, by watching how well
the NPC fights.  His player isn't asking the GM that obnoxious
question, because the answer to it is the only really important thing
about the encounter (at least, in that player's mind).

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein