How do you level up?

[DerVVulfman]

I've been thinking about Experience Points and leveling in RPGs recently. How many types of leveling systems there have been...

In the original Dungeons and Dragons, you get points for killing monsters of course. But you can be awarded points by the Dungeon Master (or Game Master/Referee) for solving puzzles. And depending on which edition, the treasure you find may also get tallied with your points. Get enough and you increase your level and your Stats like Strength, Intelligence and Charisma increase. This is known as an advancement system.

Supposedly, the gold that was tallied for your experience would be spent on training for the next level. It's not like you would just go *BAM* and be stronger all of a sudden. That was the theory at the time

Once the PC system came out, most games followed this model; Wizardry, Telengard, Might and Magic, Ultima. Most of the time, these are really just dungeon crawls and the only experience you get is from combat. Unlike the originator, Dungeons and Dragons, you likely did not get any bonus points for finishing a quest or solving a riddle.

The GOLD BOX Dungeons and Dragons games for the PC were recreations of classic Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance campaigns; Pool of Radiance, Champions of Krynn and Gateway to the Savage Frontier being select titles. Unfortunately, they had a lack of points awarded except for combat.

Still, all of these used the advancement system modeled after the classic Dungeons and Dragons design where your experience points dictated your hero's level gain. At the same time, your statistics of Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom and the like were increased with each level gain based on predefined criteria. A warrior's strength increases faster than a Wizards, though a Wizard's intelligence increases quite rapidly.

With the advent of the Quake engine, some developers decided to try to adapt first person shooters to use the principles of RPG games. Most notable were System Shock and Arena by Bethesda Softworks, and then more fluid games like Hexen. Of these, Bethesda Softworks worked to keep the RPG storyarc flare going.

But let's look at the second Elder Scrolls game: Daggerfall. It decided to have a totally different mechanic. Rather than using the default advancement system which relied on experience points, you instead had special skills such as running, long sword, blocking, climbing and others which you could increase with every action. And if certain ones attained a high enough score, your character's Level would rise. In this manner, your hero could actually become more skillful as a thief by actual pick-pocketing or steal tactics. Obviously, this is not what one would call a standard system.

It was also at this point the advancement system would change even further and stray away from strict Stat Increases. In the action RPG game, Diablo, you still earned experience points as before. But with each level gain, the player chose which stat were to be increased. If he wanted to increase his strength time and time again, he could. If he wished to be more balanced, he could work on increasing his dexterity and intelligence just as much. Likewise, so did Daggerfall and the Elder Scroll games that followed.

However, not all RPG-like games use anything resembling the advancement system. As an example, the first person Star Wars game, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, had you earn force powers in a manner akin to Fable. You didn't actually increase your level of experience as you had no level at all. Instead of that... your decisions, good or bad, dictated if you earned more powers belonging to Jedi or Sith.

While most RPGs use some measure of advancement to increase your strength, dexterity or the like, others don't. One could look back to the late 1970s where a game known as Runequest allowed your character to work on one's stats, though this done so by paying a fair amount of cash for the training. This heralds back to what I said about leveling with the earlier Dungeons and Dragons.

Alas, there are many ways to strengthen your character. You can fall upon the classic method of experience points, or look around to change the game mechanics for your heroes.

How do YOU level up?