Level Up Review

 

I thought long and hard about backing this project while it was on Kickstarter.It looked interesting, sure, and I liked the fact that they had gone back to Tome of Battle over giving everyone their own powers (a move I'll get back to later). But the books were expensive, and they'd gone with the three book model, and I just didn't want to shell out a bunch of money for something I didn't know I'd be using or not. So I wished them well in their development of a game system and moved on.

Six months passed and I forgot about Level Up.

And then one day Marty contacted me completely out of the blue. "CHECK OUT THIS GAME SYSTEM, IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD." 

Three guesses as to what the game was.

Now, Marty is stupidly picky with his games. Like, really really picky. He has the one thing he wants a game to do, and will GM the hell out of that one thing. And he really GMs the hell out of it. Marty could pick a bad game and I'd play in that campaign, because he'd do such amazing things with that game that I'd not care otherwise. But that doesn't mean I don't have to call the system good, right?

Spoiler: this is a really good game.

Now, let's get this out of the way: this is not a "light" game. It's quite crunchy. There's bits and bobs and crazy things in here. You could pull 5e characters into this campaign in the same way you could attach a tricycle to a car and go on the freeway with your child. Sure, you  could do it, and sure the child may be able to hang on and maybe even have a good time... but you know where it's going, at the end. On this count I think Level Up fails: while you technically can bring in 5e stuff, I don't think you should.

But what Level Up does I’ve not really seen another game do: the modern combat system known as DnD WELL. There is nary an original idea in this whole game. I can find the progenitors for all these ideas in not just DnD but several systems. So Level Up isn’t an original game by a very long stretch. You won’t find any flashy new ideas in here. What you will find is that each and every idea adapted to perfection and integrated into a holistic engine. It all flows. It works. My herald (paladin) feels just right: part spellcaster, warrior, Charisma skill monster… and none of it feels like anything got shafted to do it. I’m not super specialized but I didn’t want to be, that’s why I picked herald! Instead I can flit betwixt the tricks in my bag with ease.  Taking a look at the rest of the book the same level of care is everywhere. Everything is tweaked just on this side of right. Even the fighter (my least favorite class) has been made into something with care and love in it. Heck, I’d venture that you’d find more love and care in the first level of a level one Level Up fighter than the entirety of 5e’s Player’s Handbook.

Not that that’s a terribly high bar.

Running the game is easy: if you need to set up a fight there’s a chart that literally tells you exactly how it all breaks down. That… technically makes it easier to run than 4e? I feel grumpy about admitting that. But I mean, there’s the chart folks! What else am I going to do? Lie and pretend they didn’t make the system the simplest it’s ever been???

I wish.

Oh well.

Look folks, I don’t particularly care if Level Up is compatible to one of the most underwhelming games ever made. The game itself is amazing. Character creation and options are legion. Setting up encounters is literally not going to get easier. Yeah it’s crunchy but that really works in its favor here. I’ve been having fun since I opened the PDF.

And I freaking hate PDFs.

Initiative is Badly Handled

 

The other day I was playing in my weekly Level Up game, and it went particularly well: I almost drowned. The previous session I was almost eaten by zombies. And the session before that I did actually die. And was then brought back to life by the god of justice, cause as it turns out Sir Solomon the Ugly is too cool for school, nevermind death. I have a habit of throwing characters into certain death with an aplomb that's a bit unnerving at times. This time we had some creatures coming up and out of the ground... so I asked Marty the GM if we were gonna roll initiative. And Marty said no. I raised an eyebrow.

And I charged.

Marty was surprised. 

The warlock facepalmed. "Oh God, not again".

What followed was essentially a puzzle as we tried to figure out the weird creature I'd managed to piss off was. It got... really intense. Like I said, I almost drowned, after reducing the creature to 1 hp underwater... and then passing out first. The warlock pulled me out of the water, none too happy about having to save my fanatical ass, yet again. We exchanged the usual pleasantries over a warlock having to save a paladin. For the third time in as many sessions.

Later on Marty asked me what I thought about the session. I told him that I had a great time and that that particular session had felt pretty unique. I wasn't even sure why. Marty's encounter design is absolutely pristine. There is literally nobody else I trust to run a trad game, because Marty's got a good enough head on his shoulders to handle the normal awfulness that is trad design. But this was particularly good, even for Marty. We fought a goopy tentacle monster with a gigantic-ass skull for a head. It had eight legs I think? Took a long time to find the head, and then killing it was... it was something. I got stuck when I hit it, and couldn't get out, and we spent all our resources to figure out that it hated radiant and necrotic damage... and then realized we couldn't do any more of either of those types to the stupid thing. So we had to brute force it into oblivion.

Like I may have pointed out, I almost died.

Anyways.

It felt different this time, a fact that I pointed out to Marty. I couldn't really figure out why the fight was so much fun. I mean, it was a good design on Marty's part, but he's done a lot better. So we talked it over. And for a few minutes I just couldn't figure it out.

But then I literally started shouting on the phone, causing poor Marty to wince. He asked me to calm down and explain. 

See, the thing that people don't understand is that special modes inside of RPGs are... well... special. You have to treat them differently. During playtesting of Crescendo I found that if each scene was ended formally players made the transfer to the myriad game scenes that Crescendo has pretty easily. Because of that formal ending to scenes players were able to handle multiple game modes. Their concerns were tied up, debriefing happened, and they were able to move on with a clear head. Clear demarcations helped a lot, specifically ending the scene. In fact I'd argue that doing different sub-mechanics should have some form of debrief before, simply to get everyone's head in the game.

See, the thing is that, without the initiative, there wasn't the muscle response to "combat". Sure, we were using attacks and whatnot, but there was a definite feeling that was not there from not rolling initiative. Had we had an opportunity to book it for the hills after my charge we would have. And it was specifically because we didn't have this klaxon going off in the back of our heads going "KILL. MONSTER."

Instead it was just a puzzle. With swords.

We didn't have to fight. Heck we didn't have to do anything other than just get around it. 

I commanded Marty to try a few more encounters with us that didn't involve initiative, to see if it stuck. We'll see.

But going from one mode of play to another suddenly may not work out. We'll see.