Implicit meaning of level titles

[rogatny]

I like level titles. Always have. They add a nice color to the game but are easily ignored if you don't like them.

One thing that I've always liked is that there's some implicit assumptions about what's going on in the campaign world in those titles.

Most famously, "veteran" as the title for a first level fighter implies that your first level fighter is a former soldier who's seen a fight or two. This was made explicit in the 1981 Basic rules' human "monster" of the same name.

Perhaps those 0-level men-at-arms should be given another pip to their hit points an treated like 1st level fighters once they've become seasoned campaigners.

Another one I've recently noticed is the first level thief title: "Rogue (Apprentice)." That's a curious one I've never thought much about. In Greyhawk/Holmes/Moldvay/Mentzer, the level title was Apprentice, which certainly implies that the first level thief was at the very least a trainee with a more seasoned thief, if not part of a larger guild. If you change the first level title to Rogue, that would seem to imply someone not a part of any organization. So I read the parenthetical to be an alternative... he's a "rogue" if he's a freelance thief and an apprentice if he's not. (Ditto for the "bravo (apprentice)" assassin.)

Some conclusions can be drawn from the cleric level titles and their meaning within traditional church hierarchies. (Can anyone remember the omitted 5th level title?)

A lot can be gleaned from the Hero-Superhero-Lord progression of fighters.

What else is in there?

[AxeMental]

What I like most about level titles is that it helps remove the gamy feel of level progression...its not just a numbers its a person (albeit make believe). Also the player gets a sense of accomplishment reaching each new title the way an athlete might get a rush from earning "most valuable player" title.
Its the one thing OSRIC is missing.

[James Maliszewski]

Its the one thing OSRIC is missing.

And while I fully understand why that is so, I lament the loss of level titles nonetheless.

In my own campaign, I've created world-specific level titles for most of the classes I allow and it goes a long way toward 1) placing characters within a broader "social" context from the get-go and 2) as Axe says, making leveling less about game mechanics and more about standing within a hierarchy associated with one's class.

[Joe Mac]

Some conclusions can be drawn from the cleric level titles and their meaning within traditional church hierarchies. (Can anyone remember the omitted 5th level title?)

It was supposed to be 'prefect', but the typo 'perfect' appeared in early printings; this was removed in later printings, but the correct title was omitted entirely.

My 3rd printing PHB still has 'perfect'. It also lacks gray shading on any of the tables, which is very disconcerting to my eye.

(I remember wondering, as a kid, how there could be levels above 'perfect'!)

[T. Foster]

Some conclusions can be drawn from the cleric level titles and their meaning within traditional church hierarchies. (Can anyone remember the omitted 5th level title?)

Perfect, which is generally assumed to have been a typo for Prefect

[rogatny]

I think I might like the OD&D/BD&D cleric list better than the AD&D...

OD&D - AD&D - BD&D

1st Acolyte - Acolyte - Acolyte
2nd Adept - Adept - Adept
3rd Village Priest - Priest - Priest
4th Vicar - Curate - Vicar
5th Curate - Prefect - Curate
6th Bishop - Canon - Elder
7th Lama - Lama - Bishop
8th Patriarch - Patriarch - Lama
9th Patriarch - High Priest - Patriarch

One could use these to make an extended list...

1st Acolyte
2nd Adept
3rd (Village) Priest
4th Vicar
5th Curate
6th Prefect
7th Canon
8th Elder
9th Bishop
10th Lama
11th Patriarch
12th High Priest

Bishop at 9th level really works.

[T. Foster]

Don't forget the OD&D anticleric titles!:D

1st - Evil Acolyte
2nd - Evil Adept
3rd - Shaman
4th - Evil Priest
5th - Evil Curate
6th - Evil Bishop
7th - Evil Lama
8th - Evil High Priest

[Ragnorakk]

ran across an interetsing thread at OD&D Discussion where snorri riffs on some possible assumptions/interpretations of cleric level titles
http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... 518&page=1

seems like he was trying to tease out the society clerics operated in based on level titles - some neat ideas.

[T. Foster]

Checking a Roget's Thesaurus makes it fairly obvious where most of the level titles came from

[BlackBat242]

Lama - Lama - Bishop
Patriarch - Patriarch - Lama

Now that ^%&%^$ kid's song is stuck in my head!!!

[rogatny]

Don't forget the OD&D anticleric titles!:D

1st - Evil Acolyte
2nd - Evil Adept
3rd - Shaman
4th - Evil Priest
5th - Evil Curate
6th - Evil Bishop
7th - Evil Lama
8th - Evil High Priest

The most interesting thing about that is the replacement of Priest with Shaman, which would seem to indicate Lawful clerics were crypto-Christian while Chaotic clerics were pagans.

[T. Foster]

I've always pictured anti-clerics as 1960s Anton LaVey/Rosemary's Baby-style Satanists (with shaved heads and goatees and lots of black leather and chrome and rituals that are an exact mirror-image perversion of traditional clerics (upside-down crosses, "unholy water," and such)), but I agree that the inclusion of "shaman" on the level-title list does seem to imply a pagan element as well (but then there's also the anomalous "lama" on the standard cleric list, a Buddhist intrusion into the otherwise crypto-Christian concept)...

[ThirstyStirge]

I never liked the lvl titles. It lead us early-teen players to believe that they were mandatory, and thus I felt they were restrictive. Now I know better, that they are merely casual recommendations.



(Gah, my eyes! This new forum is too bright! Argh! My precious! Must hide in the dark! Hide I must!! )

[BlackBat242]

(Gah, my eyes! This new forum is too bright! Argh! My precious! Must hide in the dark! Hide I must!! )

Pssst... click on "user control panel; board preferences; board style drop-down menu - *Black Pearl*".

That'll fix ya right up.

[sepulchre]

Here is some previous discussion on the topic:
http://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/view ... f=3&t=4122