The Problems Of Sudden Development

Sudden development? What is sudden development? And why is it such a problem, anyway?

Hey, I'm glad you asked those questions ;-) But before I get to that, let's discuss a few matters about roleplaying games.

Roleplaying games are best, in my personal opinion, when we adhere to certain roleplaying ideals. One of the primary roleplaying ideals is, in essence, to act the part of our characters, to think as they would think, feel as they would feel, and make decisions as they would make them, which often may be quite different from what we, the players, think, feel, or would decide, given all we know as players.

One of the largest differences between the character and player is they both know different things, have different skills, perhaps different beliefs, different desires or needs, and certainly different realities. Thus, to properly roleplay a character is to conform to the character's reality, move through that reality, and react to that reality as the character reasonably would, given what the character knows, thinks, sees, believes, etc.

Yet, the player and the character do, in all likelihood, have something in common. Curiosity. Both are often curious about the world around them, the world in which they find themselves immersed or curious about their own 'reality.' Both will probably question their own realities and seek answers to these questions as they present themselves. They may range from trivial questions to those of deeper and more philosophical significance. Anything a real person might question on Earth is at least as likely to be questioned in some fantasy world by some fantasy character, up to and including questioning WHY they exist and WHAT it's all about.

This is one of the fundamental differences between roleplaying games and more traditional board games or computer games. In most board games or most computer games, the game piece - a.k.a. your character, if it can be called that - isn't in a position to question their own reality. Who would they ask, anyway? You simply comply to the rules of the board game without question, or in a computer game you have no choice and probably no opportunity to ask questions that were not both considered beforehand and felt important enough to already be included by the programmers. This is quite limiting for one's imagination.

As such, most people tire relatively quickly of a board game if they play it too often, or feel quite finished with a computer game once they go through it once or twice. Roleplaying games, on the other hand, seem to have a life of their own, and may be played regularly and for many years. With so many extra avenues of exploration available to the characters, you never have to play the same thing twice.

True, one is not necessarily forced to have their characters regularly ask deep philosophical questions, but at least now they occasionally might, and while seeking answers to these questions, both trivial and deep, the game readily develops around them.

I mention this fact for one very good reason. Anytime you begin to treat a roleplaying game more like a board game, you take out a lot of the quality roleplaying games naturally have that make them both superior games, and fun for years and years, and you also introduce the qualities of more limited games that have proven themselves to quickly become boring. Thus, any practice that may make a roleplaying game more like a board game should be excised, taken out, discarded, and with all haste - I mean, if you want to enjoy this hobby for years to come, that is. If you don't, then it's no problem.

One way to make a roleplaying game more like a board game is to ignore too many aspects of the character's own reality. If one does not question it when certain 'anomalies' appear, or tends to ignore considerations of realism and common sense, or fails to have their characters question the world around them and even ask themselves if it makes sense, then the character takes on a stunning similarity to most tokens or game pieces found in more traditional board games or computer games. We want to avoid this. What good is it to be able to finally ask questions and pursue untold mysterious trails of exploration if you never rise to the occasion?

This brings us to the problem of 'Sudden Development.' Finally.

Sudden Development is one of the ways our characters are treated more like tokens or board game pieces since they fail to question certain things that almost magically seem to appear, despite all common sense that suggests they shouldn't do that. It may even be happening right under the character's very nose, but they either fail to ask or they fail to take notice, or worse, the game system may even suggest it's perfectly ok to ignore such things.

For example, your wizard character, Mialee, finds herself unexpectedly moving through a desert area that wasn't shown on her map, and she is unexpectedly beset by a group of orcs. Thankfully the wizard's talent and power were sufficient to overcome this little problem, and perhaps the game session comes to an end there. So the GM may award the character experience points.

What happens if the experience points are enough to go up a level? If one ignored the problems of sudden development, Mialee may now be more powerful, know more spells, have more skills, or similar benefits from advancing in level. This actually happens in a lot of computer games. Who cares? But it also frequently happens in many roleplaying games since too often some players feel it isn't worth their time to bother with common sense questions on this level, and they freely ignore any lack of realism such sudden development may bring. That is to say, they have brought the roleplaying game down to the level of a common computer game. Lethal? No, but certainly a step in the wrong direction.

It may more easily be seen if the wizard's player conveniently had their PC pick up some handy skills which, only a hour before, they didn't have. For example, Mialee may suddenly acquire desert training or desert survival or desert lore, since she now feels it might come in handy. She didn't have these before finding the orcs or discovering the desert, but suddenly now she does? A happy coincidence? Did she learn them on her own just now? Maybe. What if she took a skill like ancient lore for that area? Is it reasonable to assume she picked that up on her own while in the desert? Hardly. Maybe she realizes this desert will be further orc infested and figures it would be quite handy to know the Orcish language. Now she knows Orcish. Reasonable? No. Suppose she wanted to learn how to swim this level. It's not handy to know right now, but she wanted to learn it nonetheless for later. Did she learn it just then, in the desert, and on her own? Probably not.

This is why most GMs will withhold awarding experience points until the characters are back in the relative safety of a more civilized environment. Even then, do these skills appear the moment one crosses into the city limits? Of course not. After a single day's rest? I doubt it. Therefore most GMs also require a fair amount of reasonable time to pass on the fantasy world. They may even have certain guidelines they follow for training requirements. Unfortunately, such things are often taken as merely optional. Are they? Yes, but so is the sort of realism necessary to make a game exciting and challenging and something worthy of one's time for years to come. But it's your choice, of course.

Surprisingly, the game system itself may even ignore these common sense considerations, perhaps even flippantly suggesting, 'It's perfectly ok to ignore this level of realism as quite unimportant, leaving it as unspoken background material.'

Yes. You can ignore it. You don't have to deal with it. That's a fact. But to do this introduces the flavor of limited board games, and it does run a higher risk of making the game become boring that much quicker. It lacks reality, it lacks depth, it lacks common sense, and it presents less of a challenge. Without realism, exactly what is one's PC supposed to base their decisions? Nonsense? Hardly. Garbage in, garbage out. You will reap what you sow.

Not to mention the fact it doesn't really contribute to the player's own development by teaching them the logistical skills often necessary in real life, assuming they are young enough for this to be a worthy consideration. Why not learn while we play? It's not a sin. If you can learn to plan ahead for your character, you can more likely plan ahead for yourself in your own life. Besides, it's sometimes fun to deal with the mistakes your PC accidentally makes, as well as it being more rewarding to avoid such mistakes in the first place if your talent and forethought are up to it. Any fool can claim to have a handy iron spike if it suddenly becomes important to have one, but not just any one can think ahead and bring one, even marking it down on their character sheet prior to leaning it would be nice to have one for a very specific task the GM just set before them. It takes skill, yes, but the reward and satisfaction is greater too.

Thus, any game system which ignores even this level of detail, or tends to suggest doing so is 'perfectly ok' to leave as 'unspoken' - as opposed to possible, but not recommended - isn't as good as it might be, in my honest opinion. It might suggest one could do that sort of thing but should at least recommend against it.

So, even with such a lack as the standard, they may 'suggest' guidelines the GM 'may' include to at least mitigate some of the problems of sudden development. Requiring fixed times to learn each skill, to learn each feat, and even better, to also learn anything within your new level, are all pretty good ideas. Hopefully, then, your favorite roleplaying game system does at least that much, but if not, I suggest you incorporate these considerations into your game.

Training To Go Up Levels In 3e. (What does it cost in time and money, and why?)

Unfortunately, one of the most widely played and popular games - third edition Dungeons & Dragons, or 3e for short - is more heavily built around a concept that seems only to work by ignoring the problems of sudden development.

3e's method of multiclassing is sort of bogus, and that's too bad. Now it isn't being multiclassed that's a problem. I wish to make this clear. It's the way they do it. It's a matter of sudden development. It's unrealistic.

Here we have a player who may suddenly decide upon a whim to become a whole new class - sometimes with no prior hint they ever wished to pursue such study. They might, for example, use previously gained experience points to 'buy' a level in a brand new class, without having ever done anything remotely resembling that new class. There are no requirements for previous study in that class in that system. No requirements for even knowing a member of that class are demanded, or having a party member already of the desired class to help your PC learn it. Sure, their example has this, but is it harder if such a friendly PC isn't handy? Not according to the rules. So WTF? True, your GM may require this stuff, but the system itself doesn't, and that's a bit of a problem. Well, it's certainly unfortunate.

There even aren't any demands on one's roleplaying to emulate that class for awhile before being allowed to learn it. Or worse, one may 'suddenly' decide they have draconic lineage and thus qualify as a sorcerer, or may decide "God" has chosen them to be a paladin, or feel a streak of barbarism coming on so they can suddenly be a barbarian now, or an NPC ranger or an NPC druid has accepted them as students, or other such suspicious occurrences. Players really don't have that sort of control over their PC's lives. It's unrealistic.

Naturally, as players we realize we have the right to make some of these decisions for our characters before the campaign really starts. The GM and player will agree upon certain backgrounds that justify the kind of character the player wants to play and the GM feels will make a good addition to his or her campaign. This is fine and reasonable. A GM may surprise you by informing you your PC has draconic lineage later, but that's not the point. The point is a player cannot unilaterally make such decisions for their PC.

Thus, after the game starts, after character generation is over, a player should no longer feel as free to make up any old thing about their PC any old time they want. The GM may, probably will, and in my opinion, certainly should severely limit major retroactive adjustments to the PCs. If they don't, the roleplaying game is again brought down to a level of a board game, and an entire level of challenge and reward is eliminated.

Sadly, many feel D&D third edition's new system is great for that very reason - the flexibility to become anything you want, anytime you want, without any advanced notice. Now I'm not suggesting one should absolutely be limited in one's choices. Not really. Second edition was too rigid, never really spelling out how to learn things outside one's normal class. Though one could get such training, the GM had to make up such rules. But 3e went too far in relaxing this limitation. However, I'm only suggesting the method 3e used for multiclassing needs adjustment. Sudden development of a new class in next to no time is a very bad thing. It's unrealistic.

Their best suggestion of one 'level's notice' is better, certainly, but still suggests what normally takes years and years of study can now be miraculously accomplished in a scant few weeks. It, too, is unrealistic. And any suggestion picking up a whole new class shouldn't take a great deal of time is sort of short sighted, if you ask me.

Unless the acquisition of a class's skills are both relatively difficult and time consuming, everyone and his brother would likely become an adventurer. Even if relative few have the nerve to subsequently go adventuring and become high level, there is a lot to be said for having that sort of power in one's back pocket - even just that of a 1st level adventurer, and if it's easy, many will do it, not just a few. And you'll notice it does take years to acquire one's first class, and most suggestions surrounding this issue usually speak of many, many years. True, most of that could be spent growing up, but few adults walk into a class in a scant few weeks or months. It takes a great deal of time, probably, and it should. Otherwise it isn't very special, is it?

Realistically, if it's easy to do and takes next to no time to acquire a new class, far too many will do it. Thus, to avoid this staggering bit of unrealistic world background, becoming an adventurer must be rather difficult to accomplish for any number of reasons. Money, yes; opportunity, certainly; talent, naturally. But we should never discount time and effort, which in this case must be considerable.

Now it's probably the case most PCs have backgrounds, or at least assumed backgrounds, where they have acquired their skills after years of training or apprenticeship under a master. How they came to be in that position can take on countless forms, but in most D&D games, for example, I feel this occurs in small numbers where each master will have few students over their entire life time, and this master probably does more than just teach as a full time job as well.

It's far less common to have actual schools set up where dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of students file through, and adventurers are churned out like mass-produced commodities. Unless a significant percentage of the general population is engaged in this sort of activity, permanent large schools and colleges would never be viable. One way they might pay, however, is if mass transit existed on a world, then enough students might be shipped, bused, or flown in, or perhaps some magical teleportation network can carry them all to school. In any event, without mass travel and/or without a significant percentage of the population engaging in such things, these schools wouldn't be likely. Most often it's a simple question of economics. They wouldn't pay.

Be that as it may, since it's practically assumed to be difficult and rare, and somewhat epic to be an adventurer, the notion it takes time, money, opportunity, etc. comes into play in such a way that to pick up a new class - after character generation - is problematic. 3e's new multiclassing system suggests it can be done with ridiculous ease, and that's a thorn in realism's side. It's not only risky to accept that lack of realism, but to rely upon it as well is just too much, and quite a poor foundation for a game system, in my honest opinion. But it can be fixed, if you care about this sort of thing. I can only hope you do.

One way to avoid the problem of sudden development, and thus introduce a bit of badly needed realism, is to simply make such choices during character generation. One may decide, for example, their PC will be class A and class B throughout their lifetime. This way, it is assumed they have acquired the appropriate background to support both classes, including NPC contacts and acquaintances, and be of the appropriate advanced age to accommodate two or more class's worth of learning.

No, this doesn't mean they can't change their minds once the game begins. It only means, like in life, changing your mind often has consequences. In this case, if one wanted to acquire a new and unplanned for class after character generation, it should take years of game time - or at least far more than a scant few weeks or months, and even considerably more than one level's notice.

Another solution to this problem is the N level rule. Simply put, this is N level's notice - where N > 1 and determined by the GM - where is it assumed your PC's background time - often not roleplayed, but considered and taken into account - is used to mostly acquire this new class. This will take time - N level's worth in your previously held classes once your PC makes the decision to acquire a new class - while your PC continues to adventure in their old class or classes.

For example, as a 3rd level mage, Mialee decides she wants to become a ranger. It would be unrealistic for her player to assume she controlled an NPC ranger who automatically both appeared and agreed to train her PC. Such control is only within the purview of the GM. But the GM may agree, and probably would unless they had cause not to want this to happen.

But even with the GM's approval, it should take game world time and might require some roleplaying. This assumes, of course, Mialee's players hadn't already aged her PC far enough ahead during character generation and mapped out, with the GM's blessing, his or her plans to have Mialee be a wizard/ranger in the first place. Thus the time must be taken during the game, and it must be accounted for after character generation. In this example, then, if Mialee made this decision at 3rd level, she would be assumed to be using most of her free time for the next N levels, until she reached (3+N)th level wizard, and then she could take ranger levels as well. Unless this is done, this is again bringing the roleplaying game down to the level of a common computer game.

The N Level Rule (How To Fix 3e's Biggest Problem. The N Level Rule Helps Prevent Abuse Of 3e's Multiclass System.)

Again, you may ask why this is important, or feel I'm just going way too far. Perhaps so. It's a choice. I don't, nor ever will deny this fact.

But I wish to make two things perfectly clear:

First, many of those I've met who have played roleplaying games but no longer do so often tell me why, and that, sadly, is they found them to be unrealistic, dull, uninspired, trite, and meaningless repetitive exercises in 'kill the monster, collect the treasure, advance in level, blah, blah, blah.' They make it sound EXACTLY like those who have burned out on a computer game and no longer enjoy it since it was so limited and they've done it all, already.

And second, many I've met who have not really played, but only observed, strongly feel all roleplaying would have to offer is: 'sit around, roll dice, kill the monster, collect the treasure, advance in level, blah, blah, blah.' They make it sound EXACTLY like they saw what it was all about, and knew it would quickly become repetitive and lack challenge. These people are sadly missing out on the best hobby ever invented. Oh well.

So in the final analysis all I can do is reiterate my feelings. We must avoid this awful tendency to ignore the game setting's realism. Of course, when it happens, it happens, as it must. Nothing is perfect. But to build a new system upon a foundation of sudden development is too much. It's going too far. It's unrealistic, and if one is not careful, such acceptance erodes away at the foundation of good roleplaying. But it's your choice. Always, it's your choice. So while I do not doubt one may be having fun now, even steeped in the mire of sudden development, I must question them. How LONG will you enjoy it?

So, gentle players, be advised to question things, to shun sudden development, to embrace realism where you can find it, and use it in your game, even expect it from your GM and his or her world, and I think you'll find yourselves on a much more enjoyable playground that will have some substance and staying power for years to come. Fail to do this, and well, there are always other hobbies you may find if you quickly tire of this one. I hope you'll like them better.

Good luck, and as always, Happy Gaming ;-)

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