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Assuming three sessions per level, one game a week, everyone DMs 1/6th of the time... everyone gets around 42 games per year (figure in some holidays when nobody plays). That's 14 levels a year, which is more than enough to stay at the top of the available module curve. I dunno if a game a week counts as having a life outside LFR or not, but I think it does. 

On the other hand, your point vis a vis organizational issues rings true. Practically speaking, it ought to be possible to get two tables going in most locations. You can dedicate one to level 1-4s, but the second one is gonna be a puzzle, and it's not going to be possible to have a table for each level band. So play will really slow down there.

On the third hand, I agree with EB. Part of why I play LFR is for the feeling of satisfaction I get when I hit a new level, and that really goes away if I don't have to work for it. 

I think that there is room in the RPGA for a campaign that allowed you to start at a higher level as the campaign progressed - heck, that's what the D&D Campaign model was all about. However, I don't think it's appropriate for *every* campaign model, and to change things that substantially with a campaign that's already gotten its highest-level characters halfway to retirement is unwise; it's a pretty substantial change, even more so than the recent changes to retrains (which were a BIG adjustment for many longtime Living Campaign players).

I understand that I'm probably in the minority of people that post to these boards that think allowing people to start a character at a level higher than 1 would be good for LFR. 

But as a "serious" supporter of LFR who started when the campaign started, the only reason I have a level 14 level character is because I went to a local con and played a ton of paragon level mods (and a big thanks to the judges that made that possible!).  Usually I judge 50% of the time or more - and that seems pretty typical in our area.

Whether the people who don't judge do so because they are intimidated, don't feel qualified or just plain don't enjoy it doesn't really matter.   But what I see with our current system is more and more mods that I and other judges can't play because we spend too much time ensuring other people have a game.  That's frustrating.  We also continuously offer mods at all levels at our local game day (every slot has at least 1 table of a 1-4 mod) so that new people can join which is spreading our judge pool ever thinner.  Also frustrating.  The gap between "haves" who were lucky enough to start characters when the campaign started and the "have nots" who started later seems to be growing with the "middle" tiers not getting a lot of interest.

There are many, many ways to reward people who play starting from level 1.   Say that you can only start a higher level character at the bottom of a tier (4, 7, 11, etc) and can't play a "lower" mod until you qualify for the next tier.  Give them slightly less gold and limit the level of items they can pick to their current level or less.  Penalize them 20% XP and GP for the first 3 mods they play, or similar.

Whether the people we would gain would be "lower quality" or "more casual" is debatable.  But I can guarantee that some of the people who are most committed to making LFR work are sometimes the ones who could benefit most from being able to create higher level characters.

If "organically growing" your character is important to you, don't take advantage of the rule allowing you to create a higher level character. 

If you're a newbie, I hope your local gaming group supports you.  If the group is big enough, you might be ok for now.  If it's a smaller group, well, good luck.

In any case, this debate is probably moot.  Someone somewhere else will or likely already has made a decision.  But just because we've always done it this way doesn't necessarily mean we should continue doing it.  Inertia isn't necessarily a good thing if you're headed towards a brick wall. 

Allen.

Feb 22, 2010 -- 1:26AM, Madfox11 wrote:

And how many people do you know who play that often?

That's the wrong question. I've played or DMed 22 games so far this year, and I will keep it up at something close to that pace, because I go out of my way to have a lot of LFR. Unsurprisingly, most of the people I play with also hit about that pace -- there's a weekly game day with four tables a bit south of me, and all my regulars play at that as well as my game day, which is once every two weeks. I am atypical. The last hobby I spent a lot of time on was WoW raiding, and in comparison I'm not doing as much LFR, but I do a fair bit. So, yeah, I have a self-selected LFR social group that games a lot, which means my answer to that question is irrelevant.

The right question is whether or not a weekly time commitment to a hobby is typical, and I think it is. Think of LFR like bar trivia, karaoke night, ballroom dancing groups, bowling night, the office softball league, etc. It isn't weird for non-gamers to have weekly activities; it's pretty normal.

The organizational question is the thing that would sort of reluctantly sell me on the idea of creating characters at higher levels. I might still lose interest in the campaign, because I'm highly motivated by sense of achievement. That doesn't make it a bad idea, that's just a personal thing. My distaste is not a universal ruling principle.

I suspect it might be too much tracking, but if I were revamping the CCG and I wanted to allow for higher level play, I'd steal sidekicking/flashbacks from City of Heroes. The way they do it: if your PC is lower level than his party, he gets a temporary power boost up to the party's average level, so you can play with your high level friends. If you go the other way, the opposite happens.

Come to think of it... OK. So let's say I want to play LFR with my paragon friends but I only have a level 3 character. For that session, my PC's level goes up the top of the band (let's say 14) but I don't get all the extra powers, the paragon path, and so on -- I just get my level adjustments to my rolls, plus bonuses equal to the bonuses I'd get under the DMG2 no magic item rules, plus the additional hit points.

Now I can play in the adventure and be useful. I am not as good as someone who's worked their way up, but I can contribute. My to hit rolls are off by... 2 points from what they'd be normally, since I didn't get my attribute boosts. If that's too much of a handicap we could fix it by increasing the DMG2 bonus numbers. My damage rolls would certainly be lower, and I wouldn't have cool tricks. But I also wouldn't be roadkill.

At the end of the adventure, I get experience equal to the experience I'd get if I played an adventure in my level band.

Let high level characters do the same thing in reverse. Probably make them lose an appropriate number of powers. Low level adventures would still be easy for them, so you could level a character with ludicrous ease that way, but it's not like it's so hard as is so I don't care about that abuse.

There are probably holes in this. Not having cool high level power tricks is maybe a problem for the "sidekicks". But it might be a workable concept. 

Feb 22, 2010 -- 5:23AM, Dragon9 wrote:

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

You do realize that people on these boards are not going to be particular representative for the LFR community at large?

Personally I am not convinced  the typical player plays LFR once per week. I don't, and nor do the majority of people I regularly game with. For us LFR is mostly the game you play at conventions, gaming clubs and game days. Most also have multiple PCs not because their PC has reached maximum level or because they want to play everything, but because they have to play adventures of a lower level band.