The Business: The Death Grip of the RPG Design Cargo Cult (Part 4)

Levels are an overused design element.

When D&D first arose, Gary & Dave--as they tinkered their way from Chainmail to D&D--organically used Levels for three things: Unit Power, Ability Power, Threat Rating. Unit Power equals Character Level. Ability Power equals Spell Level. Threat Rating equals Hit Dice (monsters), Character Level (NPCs), or Dungeon Level (location). Some derivatives would add Treasure Level, and so on.

There is no need to use Levels for these functions, especially in videogames.

• Levels are used to keep players from accessing content. This is unnecessary. "You must have the (X) Achievement", "You must spend (X) amount of (currency)", and so on work just fine and have the added benefit of making content access into treasure (and thus part of the Dopamine Drive) via being rewards earned through gameplay.
• Levels are used to rank things. Also unnecessary. You have a Thesaurus, so use the proper word for the thing you're overusing "level" for.
• Levels are used to to measure power. This is the most useful element, and a key contributor to why levels persist. Being able to measure, at a glance, power levels is a boon to normie-friendly game design; it's also not necessary to put this on "character level", especially in games where gear matters as much or more than the unit using it.

I say again: you want what Levels do, not Levels themselves.

You win by (a) putting that function into your design and (b) explaining in crystal clear language--appropriate for a child in elementary school, not an adult in a technical college--what that is, how it works, and how he can use it. For that aforementioned dopamine-driving gameplay loop, you want to tell the player what he needs to do to get that "DING!" moment. For the Game Master, you want to tell him how to build gameplay scenarios using the structural tools that you provide to keep that loop running.

You must tell those players. You must tell them in crystal-clear language. You must walk them through step-by-step how it is done. This is where videogames shine, as you can turn that tutorial into actual gameplay- now standard practice.

Tabletop is slowly catching up, but (yet again) we see that it was always there- just not where it was expected. Author and gamer Jeffro Johnson (of Appendix N) has done extensive rediscovery of this with regards to AD&D's 1st edition and the Basic/Expert forms of D&D, among others, and published those findings to Twitter and his blog.

Now, should you use Levels and Leveling?

Are you making a D&D game or a D&D clone (ala Lion & Dragon)? Go right ahead. Otherwise? Nope. You will stand out by not doing this. You will win by not doing this, and yet delivering on what the players want--crave--from a game.

Tomorrow, I'll add a few other critical errors that wreck would-be competitors and put down a Conclusion.