Does anyone find it strange that so many 1st level character plot hooks (e.g. LMoP, SKT) include a patron looking for experienced adventurers to deal with a threat, or to act as guards on a dangerous caravan route or skilled negotiators to broker an irreconcilable deal amongst many other plots that all presuppose that the characters have been adventuring for some time? Aren't 1st-level characters new to this adventuring life, aren't they inexperienced and naïve? Surely there are better ways to hook these greenhorns that don't require a pretense that the party knows what it's doing already and the members are competent.
It occurs to me that there's also an expectation that 1st-level characters start their journey as youngsters, fresh off the farm and wide-eyed with wonder and flatulent with fear. This, surely, stifles the players' ability to create the grizzled veteran soldier, or the wise cleric, or the wizened… wizard unless they start at higher levels. How do you reconcile these dichotomies for low-level characters in your games?
Any one with a single level in a class is considered to have some experience. A 1st Level Fighter has more experience than a middling Guard. Sometimes that experience is as a Guard or such, so they may not have experience in Adventuring, but they are not new to fighting or casting magic or stealing everything that isn't nailed down. I either expect all my players' characters to have some experience, or I start them at 3rd level because they are experienced adventurers.
Now if someone wants to start the characters out as individuals with minimum experience, they can use the concept of 0th level characters. This can do this a number of ways: they only have their Racial Traits and 1+Con Mod HP, they have only equipment proficiencies and cantrips (with the previous), or they have a special "training" class. I haven't done this, as I have those characters have some experience as I said, but I may some time.
I also rarely use published adventures, so... yeah... perhaps not completely relevant to me. My plot hooks are usually tailored to the characters or something anyone would react to.
I think the advertisement of looking for experienced adventurers would be an attempt to avoid getting complete morons but it likely wouldn't work. I seen a lot of under-experienced folks apply for jobs I know they couldn't handle. It might also be an attempt to lure adventurers into a plot believing the reward will be greater than it actually will be once completed. If I were a real hero, I wouldn't go running after ads. They would come to me either in person or a small band would be sent to find me and request my presence. So I don't have a problem with the hook being a proclamation of a leader looking for experienced adventurers. Heck, would anybody ever advertise for inexperienced adventurers?
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
There are a lot of job postings IRL where the "desired qualifications" are quite a bit higher than what the employer will settle for. Maybe in their mind they'll get a level 5 adventurer but none show up or care to bother about their quest, so they're left with newbies who "just might do". Or maybe, being not adventurers themselves, to them it's hard to tell the difference between adventurer skill levels--you might think this is easy, but just imagine how a lay person might compare the skills of two engineers, or lawyers, especially if people are willing to BS their resumes.
I saw a group use their session 0 to do a simple bounty task to try to find a guy's son as a means to introduce themselves to each other and to the game. (The simple task eventually led them to an enterprising, greedy druid whose miracle cure elixir was turning some people into small animals, and this group of strangers saved a slew of folks' families who were being ignored by the politicians and guardspeople in the town and made a fortune ... that probably ended up in a lake.)
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
My party's wizard has an interesting take on this: he's not gaining powers, he's remembering things he learned in his youth.
He's an elderly human who, after graduating from wizard college, decided he liked fishing more than magic and went to live in the woods. Many years later, he got dragged into adventuring against his will and is therefore rusty with his spells. Each character level is him remembering how to do more tricks.
My own character did something similar. She's a ranger school dropout and has been figuring out nature magic and hunting skills on her own. So she started the campaign with some formal education, but practical experience is really allowing her to grow. That, and she recently met a god, so...cleric multiclass levels!
Just remember that the job listings in a D&D world are no different than the job postings in our real world. Every company says they're looking to fill an entry-level position - but they say you need to have 6 years of experience, a Masters degree, and speak four languages.
What an employer writes in the ad is not necessarily exactly what they're looking for. What they want is someone who is good enough to get the job done, but not so good that the company would actually have to pay them a decent salary.
It's the same with adventuring. The caravan company is looking for guards to protect their caravan. They don't want incompetent schlubs, but they also don't want to have to pay what a 10th level character would expect as payment.
They want a 1st level adventurer. They want you. Take the job, and don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
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Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
I mean, if you're playing an Elven character, then you are probably like 100 years old as a level 1.
Level 1 characters are already heroic figures. They are hyper-competent in their craft compared to the rank and file. Remember, a level one fight is proficient with every weapon and every type of armour. They are equally at ease with using a dagger as with using a halberd as with using a crossbow. A level 1 wizard can materialise firebolts from nothing at will. They aren't new to casting spells. They're not the best in the world, but the have perhaps more proficiency with their craft than other people can hope to achieve in their lifetime.
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Does anyone find it strange that so many 1st level character plot hooks (e.g. LMoP, SKT) include a patron looking for experienced adventurers to deal with a threat, or to act as guards on a dangerous caravan route or skilled negotiators to broker an irreconcilable deal amongst many other plots that all presuppose that the characters have been adventuring for some time? Aren't 1st-level characters new to this adventuring life, aren't they inexperienced and naïve? Surely there are better ways to hook these greenhorns that don't require a pretense that the party knows what it's doing already and the members are competent.
It occurs to me that there's also an expectation that 1st-level characters start their journey as youngsters, fresh off the farm and wide-eyed with wonder and flatulent with fear. This, surely, stifles the players' ability to create the grizzled veteran soldier, or the wise cleric, or the wizened… wizard unless they start at higher levels. How do you reconcile these dichotomies for low-level characters in your games?
Any one with a single level in a class is considered to have some experience. A 1st Level Fighter has more experience than a middling Guard. Sometimes that experience is as a Guard or such, so they may not have experience in Adventuring, but they are not new to fighting or casting magic or stealing everything that isn't nailed down. I either expect all my players' characters to have some experience, or I start them at 3rd level because they are experienced adventurers.
Now if someone wants to start the characters out as individuals with minimum experience, they can use the concept of 0th level characters. This can do this a number of ways: they only have their Racial Traits and 1+Con Mod HP, they have only equipment proficiencies and cantrips (with the previous), or they have a special "training" class. I haven't done this, as I have those characters have some experience as I said, but I may some time.
I also rarely use published adventures, so... yeah... perhaps not completely relevant to me. My plot hooks are usually tailored to the characters or something anyone would react to.
I think the advertisement of looking for experienced adventurers would be an attempt to avoid getting complete morons but it likely wouldn't work. I seen a lot of under-experienced folks apply for jobs I know they couldn't handle. It might also be an attempt to lure adventurers into a plot believing the reward will be greater than it actually will be once completed. If I were a real hero, I wouldn't go running after ads. They would come to me either in person or a small band would be sent to find me and request my presence. So I don't have a problem with the hook being a proclamation of a leader looking for experienced adventurers. Heck, would anybody ever advertise for inexperienced adventurers?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
There are a lot of job postings IRL where the "desired qualifications" are quite a bit higher than what the employer will settle for. Maybe in their mind they'll get a level 5 adventurer but none show up or care to bother about their quest, so they're left with newbies who "just might do". Or maybe, being not adventurers themselves, to them it's hard to tell the difference between adventurer skill levels--you might think this is easy, but just imagine how a lay person might compare the skills of two engineers, or lawyers, especially if people are willing to BS their resumes.
I saw a group use their session 0 to do a simple bounty task to try to find a guy's son as a means to introduce themselves to each other and to the game. (The simple task eventually led them to an enterprising, greedy druid whose miracle cure elixir was turning some people into small animals, and this group of strangers saved a slew of folks' families who were being ignored by the politicians and guardspeople in the town and made a fortune ... that probably ended up in a lake.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
My party's wizard has an interesting take on this: he's not gaining powers, he's remembering things he learned in his youth.
He's an elderly human who, after graduating from wizard college, decided he liked fishing more than magic and went to live in the woods. Many years later, he got dragged into adventuring against his will and is therefore rusty with his spells. Each character level is him remembering how to do more tricks.
My own character did something similar. She's a ranger school dropout and has been figuring out nature magic and hunting skills on her own. So she started the campaign with some formal education, but practical experience is really allowing her to grow. That, and she recently met a god, so...cleric multiclass levels!
Just remember that the job listings in a D&D world are no different than the job postings in our real world. Every company says they're looking to fill an entry-level position - but they say you need to have 6 years of experience, a Masters degree, and speak four languages.
What an employer writes in the ad is not necessarily exactly what they're looking for. What they want is someone who is good enough to get the job done, but not so good that the company would actually have to pay them a decent salary.
It's the same with adventuring. The caravan company is looking for guards to protect their caravan. They don't want incompetent schlubs, but they also don't want to have to pay what a 10th level character would expect as payment.
They want a 1st level adventurer. They want you. Take the job, and don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Tayn of Darkwood. Lvl 10 human Life Cleric of Lathander. Retired.
Ikram Sahir ibn Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad, Second Son of the House of Ra'ad, Defender of the Burning Sands. Lvl 9 Brass Dragonborn Sorcerer + Greater Fire Elemental Devil.
Viktor Gavriil. Lvl 20 White Dragonborn Grave Cleric, of Kurgan the God of Death.
Anzio Faro. Lvl 5 Prot. Aasimar Light Cleric.
I mean, if you're playing an Elven character, then you are probably like 100 years old as a level 1.
Level 1 characters are already heroic figures. They are hyper-competent in their craft compared to the rank and file. Remember, a level one fight is proficient with every weapon and every type of armour. They are equally at ease with using a dagger as with using a halberd as with using a crossbow. A level 1 wizard can materialise firebolts from nothing at will. They aren't new to casting spells. They're not the best in the world, but the have perhaps more proficiency with their craft than other people can hope to achieve in their lifetime.