Topic: Levels of NPC's throughout the population of your game world.

[Old Man]

One of my favorite topics and apologies for jumping in late here. For my world, I used to do general categories:
Ordinary folk - levels 1-5
Important folk - levels 6-10
Heroes/Villains - levels 11-15
Epic Heroes/Epic Villains - levels 16+

Percent-wise, for the "adventuring" populace - those that PCs tended to run into in the field, I would use the following:

1d100: 1-95 Ordinary Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Important Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Hero, 96+ Epic Hero

You can scale within the 1-95 accordingly and even move the "roll again" breakpoint as you see fit.

Regards,
Old Man

[Lord Garth]

One of my favorite topics and apologies for jumping in late here. For my world, I used to do general categories:
Ordinary folk - levels 1-5
Important folk - levels 6-10
Heroes/Villains - levels 11-15
Epic Heroes/Epic Villains - levels 16+

Percent-wise, for the "adventuring" populace - those that PCs tended to run into in the field, I would use the following:

1d100: 1-95 Ordinary Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Important Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Hero, 96+ Epic Hero

You can scale within the 1-95 accordingly and even move the "roll again" breakpoint as you see fit.

Regards,
Old Man

Out of curiosity, You really would roll to determine the NPCs the PCs meet? I don't run "scripted" games, but I always have a clear idea of what the world is doing in the campaigns I've GM'd, so I've never, ever, rolled chance on NPCs. There might be a percentage change of my players bumping into A or B, but their chances of bumping into an out-of-context (in my games) NPCs are none.

[Old Man]

...

Out of curiosity, You really would roll to determine the NPCs the PCs meet? I don't run "scripted" games, but I always have a clear idea of what the world is doing in the campaigns I've GM'd, so I've never, ever, rolled chance on NPCs. There might be a percentage change of my players bumping into A or B, but their chances of bumping into an out-of-context (in my games) NPCs are none.

Yep. I had a mix of "adventure-driven" players and "situation-driven" players. The latter group were always poking about in towns and wondering who they might wander into. One, a thief, like to establish contacts in each town. Hence I'd randomly generate race/class/level (see ROCO IV for early RM2 based sample random people tables) even random names at times.

[markc]

 In RMSS and RMFRP Power Points are divorced from Stat Bonuses, this frees up a lot of things that can be done with the system. Everyone from the least intuitive (In) to the most intuitive can access Channeling magic, which IMHO is how it should be. There are no stat barriers to say you can do this or you can do that. The difference is your profession determines the base DP cost for skills and you can spend your DP's as you wish. This means your Layman (profession) can be working as a Church Priest (Channeling his choice of magic) and then go on to study as an Essence User. Is he going to be as good as a Cleric, no he does not have the professions bonuses to the skills, is he going to be as good an Essence Caster as someone who's choice or magic is Essence? No because his choice of magic is Channeling so it will cost him a lot more DP to learn the spells Essence Casters can learn cheaply. But he can do it if he wishes. And IMHO this is more life like as you can have people take the same classes (school) or have the exact same experience (life) but have different levels of skill. IMHO that is the strength of RMSS vs that of RM2 and one I hope makes it into RMU.


MDC

[Thot]

[...]
Ordinary folk - levels 1-5
Important folk - levels 6-10
Heroes/Villains - levels 11-15
Epic Heroes/Epic Villains - levels 16+

Percent-wise, for the "adventuring" populace - those that PCs tended to run into in the field, I would use the following:

1d100: 1-95 Ordinary Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Important Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Hero, 96+ Epic Hero
[...]

Well, I am not much into random encounters, but... So you say that in your game worlds, 95% of the population are level 1-5, 4.8% are level 5-10, 0.19% are level 11-15, and 0.01% are level 16 or above? So if you have a large medieval town of 10,000 people (which is quite big for that period), you will have a total of 19 people in the 11-15 range, and only a single one above that?

Does this affect the type and number of magical items available in your game worlds in any way?

[Old Man]

[...]
Ordinary folk - levels 1-5
Important folk - levels 6-10
Heroes/Villains - levels 11-15
Epic Heroes/Epic Villains - levels 16+

Percent-wise, for the "adventuring" populace - those that PCs tended to run into in the field, I would use the following:

1d100: 1-95 Ordinary Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Important Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Hero, 96+ Epic Hero
[...]

Well, I am not much into random encounters, but... So you say that in your game worlds, 95% of the population are level 1-5, 4.8% are level 5-10, 0.19% are level 11-15, and 0.01% are level 16 or above? So if you have a large medieval town of 10,000 people (which is quite big for that period), you will have a total of 19 people in the 11-15 range, and only a single one above that?

Does this affect the type and number of magical items available in your game worlds in any way?

Thot, yeah, that would be the rough breakdown.

Item-wise, I have a method for doing items for unique NPCs and PCs. For each level, I gave a random roll to generate a number of "+5s" for the NPC. Those +5s could be allocated to gear (with no one piece having more than say a +15 or +20 - limited based on the PC/NPC levels). The +5s could be grouped to be turned in to be Adders/Multipliers/Special Abilities/etc. That allowed me to generate NPCs of X level with Y items. (I think ROCO IV or VII may have an example, but I'd need to check.)

So a level 1 has a chance of one +5 item. A level 5 likely has a couple +10s and perhaps a couple +5s. Etc.

[Cory Magel]

[...]
Ordinary folk - levels 1-5
Important folk - levels 6-10
Heroes/Villains - levels 11-15
Epic Heroes/Epic Villains - levels 16+

Percent-wise, for the "adventuring" populace - those that PCs tended to run into in the field, I would use the following:

1d100: 1-95 Ordinary Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Important Folk, 96+ roll again
1d100: 1-95 Hero, 96+ Epic Hero
[...]

Well, I am not much into random encounters, but... So you say that in your game worlds, 95% of the population are level 1-5, 4.8% are level 5-10, 0.19% are level 11-15, and 0.01% are level 16 or above? So if you have a large medieval town of 10,000 people (which is quite big for that period), you will have a total of 19 people in the 11-15 range, and only a single one above that?

Does this affect the type and number of magical items available in your game worlds in any way?

You need to remember that he's rolling for random encounters.  The players aren't just walking up to every manor/hall/castle they see to find out how powerful the residents are.

I don't know how most people do it, never really thought about it, but most magical items in my game are pre-existing and wouldn't really have anything to do with the current population so I wouldn't need to explain or figure out how many there are.  It's just not necessary in the first place however.

There are more basic alchemists who might make scrolls, potions, oils, basic stuff like that.  But you'd need to be in a very large population center to have a decent chance of finding someone like that.  As for full on magical items, there are rare alchemists who might make the players more powerful items, but that would pretty much entail at least one or two adventures to either gather up the needed stuff or do some serious favors for the alchemist.  They'd also need to be in an extremely specific place to find that alchemist - at the least in one of the worlds largest population centers, if not have to climb a monumental mountain to find the secret cave type deal.

[RandalThor]

Limiting spell users; Prime Stats of 90.  Like any rule, this can be ignored.  By DESIGN, it presents a very real limit.

The thing is, the prime stats are only for the profession, not for being able to learn and cast spells. While that does a good job of ensuring only the best get to be magicians, mentalists, sorcerers, etc... it does nothing to stop others from learning and casting spells.

... the thing is that PCs will rarely get to explore the whole world. Thus, as a lazy GM, I don't flesh out the complete world,

Yeah, and with the fact that none of my games have lasted more than 6 sessions in the last 8 to 10 years, neither do mine and neither do I.

[Cory Magel]

Item-wise, I have a method for doing items for unique NPCs and PCs. For each level, I gave a random roll to generate a number of "+5s" for the NPC. Those +5s could be allocated to gear (with no one piece having more than say a +15 or +20 - limited based on the PC/NPC levels). The +5s could be grouped to be turned in to be Adders/Multipliers/Special Abilities/etc. That allowed me to generate NPCs of X level with Y items. (I think ROCO IV or VII may have an example, but I'd need to check.)

So a level 1 has a chance of one +5 item. A level 5 likely has a couple +10s and perhaps a couple +5s. Etc.

That's something I keep fairly strict control over myself.  When characters are created they have a chance of getting something, but after than I want to control the power and pace of the game, so they only get what I allow.  I'm not stingy mind you, but I don't want it to be random.  I can also intentionally tailor items that pop up to certain players, especially if it draws on their character history.  The players divvy up loot, but it's usually going to be obvious when something should go to someone and I've picked my group from people I know won't have greed conflicts about treasure.  One of my pet peeves has always been someone who insists on 'dicing' for loot even when it's damn obvious where certain items should go (i.e. a bow that should obviously go to the Ranger who has no magical weapon and the Mage, with a crappy bow skill, wants to roll for it).

[Old Man]

...
I don't know how most people do it, never really thought about it, but most magical items in my game are pre-existing and wouldn't really have anything to do with the current population so I wouldn't need to explain or figure out how many there are.  It's just not necessary in the first place however.
...

I was considering everything including things like +5N or +5M items/tools/swords which could be heirlooms or come from talented crafters from craft guilds. (That was one thing I forgot in my reply to Zut, the +5s are +5N to start and you trade 2 to get a +5M for example.)

[Cory Magel]

Ah, yeah, I didn't think about the fact that a lot of my lower end 'magic' items are really just master-crafted or material based bonuses.  +5 will almost always be like that.  +10 might be a master-crafted unusual material.  +15 might be a combination of those, but to work the material would likely still require an alchemist to work with the crafter (if they are not the same person).

[Thot]

[...]
Item-wise, I have a method for doing items for unique NPCs and PCs. For each level, I gave a random roll to generate a number of "+5s" for the NPC. Those +5s could be allocated to gear (with no one piece having more than say a +15 or +20 - limited based on the PC/NPC levels). The +5s could be grouped to be turned in to be Adders/Multipliers/Special Abilities/etc. That allowed me to generate NPCs of X level with Y items. (I think ROCO IV or VII may have an example, but I'd need to check.)

So a level 1 has a chance of one +5 item. A level 5 likely has a couple +10s and perhaps a couple +5s. Etc.

Ah, I was asking more from a simulating point of view. Because, well... with only so many level 10+ people in your world... are there even any high-level alchemists and other artifact-crafting spellcasters to make all the stuff you roll for?

In other words... it seems to me that by basically using only the lower third of the level scale, you throw a way a lot of interesting, player-affecting spells and abilities.

[Thot]

Ah, yeah, I didn't think about the fact that a lot of my lower end 'magic' items are really just master-crafted or material based bonuses. [...]

What level would the master crafter be?

[Old Man]

...
Ah, I was asking more from a simulating point of view. Because, well... with only so many level 10+ people in your world... are there even any high-level alchemists and other artifact-crafting spellcasters to make all the stuff you roll for?

In other words... it seems to me that by basically using only the lower third of the level scale, you throw a way a lot of interesting, player-affecting spells and abilities.

Ah I see. Well, there doesn't have to currently be lots of 10th level alchemists, but they just have to have existed across the world since the beginning of time.

Also, consider the affect if you use Ritual Magics to allow multiple alchemists to collaborate.

[Old Man]

Ah, yeah, I didn't think about the fact that a lot of my lower end 'magic' items are really just master-crafted or material based bonuses. [...]

What level would the master crafter be?

(I'd ask how ranks they'd require, especially if ranks can be acquired by working w/o level gain, to be considered a master. 10? 20?)
There's a good question there - what bonus or # of ranks do you need to succeed at making a +5 or +10 item? (Apologies if I've forgotten that one of the earlier Laws covered such ... )

[Thot]

Ah I see. Well, there doesn't have to currently be lots of 10th level alchemists, but they just have to have existed across the world since the beginning of time.

Well, most will be lost after some time - lost at sea, destroyed by violence or accident, buried with the honored dead, buried under a volcano eruption... even if you assume all magical items are immune to the forces of time (which even bronze swords are not, much less those made from iron or steel that isn't covered in crome or something like that), you will need a steady influx of new stuff to replace the lost ones.

And remember, the same forces that inhibit leveling up in NPC's now will have done that at all times, so the overall rarity of magical or even just masterfully crafted items will be comparatively higher than on worlds that regularily see higher levels.

Low level NPC populations and high level magical items... they just don't seem to fit each other in my view.

Also, consider the affect if you use Ritual Magics to allow multiple alchemists to collaborate.

That would imply that there are enough of them at high enough level to meet each other and having time to do the stuff together.

[Old Man]

Ah I see. Well, there doesn't have to currently be lots of 10th level alchemists, but they just have to have existed across the world since the beginning of time.

Well, most will be lost after some time - lost at sea, destroyed by violence or accident, buried with the honored dead, buried under a volcano eruption... even if you assume all magical items are immune to the forces of time (which even bronze swords are not, much less those made from iron or steel that isn't covered in crome or something like that), you will need a steady influx of new stuff to replace the lost ones.

And remember, the same forces that inhibit leveling up in NPC's now will have done that at all times, so the overall rarity of magical or even just masterfully crafted items will be comparatively higher than on worlds that regularily see higher levels.

Low level NPC populations and high level magical items... they just don't seem to fit each other in my view.

Also, consider the affect if you use Ritual Magics to allow multiple alchemists to collaborate.

That would imply that there are enough of them at high enough level to meet each other and having time to do the stuff together.

All the items are in crypts. Actually I would posit that the higher level bonus items (15/20/++) are less likely to suffer from the elements and hence can be found intact (as usually happens in literature of all sorts).

The level spread of the population wouldn't necessarily be the same across the history of the world. So the current level spread in a specific place/time would not apply elsewhere (say for even for example long-lived races vs. short-lived races or peaceful vs. violent cultures or one plane(t) vs. another).

Given the business of alchemy, I could see an Arcane Guild (or a country and/or business) actively assembling Alchemical teams to build items. (The ROCO III Ritual rules work well with casters swapping out - on-shift/off-shift - plus Alchemical rituals can be suspended easily.) Actually, if I recall correctly, a 10th level Alchemist with 10-20 ranks in Alchemical Ritual, probably can easily do a 20th level spell via ritual. So +20 bonuses are not out of reach.

But, as usual, YMMV - you can always expand the level ranges and/or raise/lower percentages to your liking.

[yammahoper]

Limiting spell users; Prime Stats of 90.  Like any rule, this can be ignored.  By DESIGN, it presents a very real limit.

The thing is, the prime stats are only for the profession, not for being able to learn and cast spells. While that does a good job of ensuring only the best get to be magicians, mentalists, sorcerers, etc... it does nothing to stop others from learning and casting spells.

... the thing is that PCs will rarely get to explore the whole world. Thus, as a lazy GM, I don'tpot flesh out the complete world,

Yeah, and with the fact that none of my games have lasted more than 6 sessions in the last 8 to 10 years, neither do mine and neither do I.

In my game a 90 or higher stat is required, or perhaps a +5 mod if I feel generous.  Note that a bg option can buy 20 points in  potential stat gains, so a mixed man can always increase a realm stat pot to 90 at level one.   If an evil mentalist drains a realm stat below 90, the spell user loses the ability to cast spells until the stat is healed/recovered.  Note that there are no stat requirements to use magic items (unless keyed to demand them).

OTOH, opinions will vary.

[Hurin]

You underestimate. At 50 experience points per day, 10th level is achieved in 8 years. Even 10 experience points per day makes 10th level after 40 years of adulthood. As for elves and the like, after 1000 years, even 1 experience per day is level 16; 2 per day reaches Lord level (20) in 700 years.

(If it hadn't been for the emergence of the RMU project, I'd have been writing a GC article on the implications of the RM rules for levels for NPCs. The more narrative experience rules of RMU are looser and make it easier for a 10,000 year old elf to not have a triple-digit level, but everyone is the hero of his own story. Anyone not in a coma is gathering experience at some pace.)

I agree wholeheartedly. Level 0 seems to be for adolescents; the first few levels for young adults who are just starting out. Average people, whose daily lives don't provide much experience, I still put in the 3-5 range. Mundane leaders and master crafters might be in th 5-10 range. Higher leaders, like a town's council or captains of the military or heads of organizations might be normally in the 10-15 range. Above 15 I do reserve for unusual individuals, but even there, you are going to have quite a few if your society involves immortals or creatures that can live for hundreds of years. The basic math to me dictates that there are a lot more high level people running around than other games (e.g. DnD) seem to expect. This seems a bit more realistic to me. Just my 2 cents though.

[markc]

Note: for RM2/C you need 90's+ to have any power points in RMSS/FRP you do not.


  As for population level density affecting magic items yes it does in my game. Now there is a big difference in material having a "bonus" and an item having a magic bonus. The magic bonus as well as any magic items would have to be enchanted by an alchemist. Note I have decided in my new game to have magic items created differently then in the books as they are written, I would like to move away from the spell list idea of creating magic items to something different.
  The same thing goes for smiths trying to work with materials providing higher bonuses they need to have specific skill ranks to work the material (or a specific skill bonus with out special items helping). Now there will be some concentration of these skilled workers in some areas as they tend to go where the material is to work or where people will pay a lot to have them around.


MDC