Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1138450I see that a lot. Is there any society, real or fictional, where most rulers got their position through puissance at arms?

Plenty of societies where the ruler is expected to be a capable warrior - including pretty well all of Europe until at least the 19th century. Rarely have they been expected to be the best warrior, though.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1138361True, but any skill-based system gets you that without having to deal with all the weird stuff that goes into GURPS points.

Not just that, but AD&D1e with the right bunch of house rules, and/or the right setting assumptions. For example, if the world were pre-Norman England, then there are no monsters and treasures are not very great. A Common Man isn't worth much XP. This means that going up levels is very slow indeed. A 3rd level character might be someone who'd defeated one hundred men!

Or you can do it very high fantasy indeed. A page of house rules here, a few pages removed from the books there...

Quote from: VisionStorm;1138362But their chances are still not good and every successful hit from a large monster (like dragons or giants) is pretty much guaranteed to kill a 1 HD creature (often on STR modifiers alone), making that one less creature that'll might get a chance to maybe damage them the following round. And any area effects are guaranteed to kill several (perhaps dozens) more. And that's not even taking into account multiple monsters and tactics.

You seem to be implying this is a bug, rather than a feature. The feature being an explanation for both why monsters don't completely overrun the world (i.e. enough common soldiers CAN bring down even the mightiest dragon... though as I said in my initial post the losses would be horrific) AND why it's preferable for communities to hire adventurers to deal with these type of threats when the arise (i.e. a group of just 4-6 PCs can take out the dragon without risking horrific losses to the community) while also explaining why the PCs who can kill said dragon also can't just take over everything (i.e. enough common soldiers can take them out too).

It's very convenient for world-building in my experience because you can keep your civilizations functioning more or less normally while still having a place for both PC adventurers and monsters in it that doesn't see both become essentially superheroes/villains in an otherwise medieval fantasy setting.

PCs fill the role of elite experts who travel to where their services are in demand. Just as a ruler would commission a famous architect to design his palace and a famous painter to compose the murals of its walls, so too do they commission adventurers to deal with the Manticore slaughtering livestock in his lands or to remove the threat of the ogres massing in the hills near a critical trade town (better to save his own knights and troops for the summer campaign against the rival kingdom to the East... in large part because those knights and troops are actually trained for such things, not how to take down flying fire breathing reptiles of unusual size).

Quote from: Chris24601;1138464You seem to be implying this is a bug, rather than a feature. The feature being an explanation for both why monsters don't completely overrun the world (i.e. enough common soldiers CAN bring down even the mightiest dragon... though as I said in my initial post the losses would be horrific) AND why it's preferable for communities to hire adventurers to deal with these type of threats when the arise (i.e. a group of just 4-6 PCs can take out the dragon without risking horrific losses to the community) while also explaining why the PCs who can kill said dragon also can't just take over everything (i.e. enough common soldiers can take them out too).

It's very convenient for world-building in my experience because you can keep your civilizations functioning more or less normally while still having a place for both PC adventurers and monsters in it that doesn't see both become essentially superheroes/villains in an otherwise medieval fantasy setting.

PCs fill the role of elite experts who travel to where their services are in demand. Just as a ruler would commission a famous architect to design his palace and a famous painter to compose the murals of its walls, so too do they commission adventurers to deal with the Manticore slaughtering livestock in his lands or to remove the threat of the ogres massing in the hills near a critical trade town (better to save his own knights and troops for the summer campaign against the rival kingdom to the East... in large part because those knights and troops are actually trained for such things, not how to take down flying fire breathing reptiles of unusual size).

Yes.  The question here applies to any system design:  How much do numbers matter when it comes to fights relative to how much does skill matter?  Every system is going to answer that question a little differently, and how they answer it is of course has a strong effect on how some fights will go.

Usually 1-20. Except for Traveller.

Going over the NPC ruler levels in my 1e AD&D campaign this morning, I came up with the following. It's for generating rulers in civilised territory, not isolated wilderness fortresses (who will typically be Level 8+ Superheroes, Patriarchs et al). I like Moldvay Basic D&D's suggestion that the typical noble is a Fighter-3, so I somewhat based around that.

NPC Ruler Demographics (d20)

Level 1 - 1-2

Level 2 - 3-4

Level 3 - 5-10

Level 4 - 11-14

Level 5 - 15-16

Level 6 - 17

Level 7 - 18

Level 8 - 19

Level 9+ - 20

Rulers are around 20% sedentary aristocrat (d4 hd, including an occasional Sage), 45% Fighter, 15% Cleric, 10% Thief, 5% Magic-User, 5% Other Class (Illusionist, Ranger, Paladin, Monk, etc).

0-level for most NPCs. They're not adventurers, but they're mostly the faceless NPCs. NPCs who matter could have any level.  My NPCs who are major forces in the world are 9th-11th level (in S&W:WB where PCs max at 10th).

I like the concept of PCs capable of wiping out the city watch, but in 0e, that's not a big concern because a bunch of zero level dudes are dangerous in large groups. Don't be the mage who loses initiative and gets 6 javelins thrown at him!

In OD&D, the mage probably has AC 10-12 and the 0 level guards have +0 attack, so the mage is probably taking 3 hits at 1D6 each or 10 hit points damage. That's gonna toast a 3rd level mage, and severely wound even a 6th level mage.

Quote from: S'mon;1138804Going over the NPC ruler levels in my 1e AD&D campaign this morning, I came up with the following. It's for generating rulers in civilised territory, not isolated wilderness fortresses (who will typically be Level 8+ Superheroes, Patriarchs et al). I like Moldvay Basic D&D's suggestion that the typical noble is a Fighter-3, so I somewhat based around that.

NPC Ruler Demographics (d20)

Level 1 - 1-2

Level 2 - 3-4

Level 3 - 5-10

Level 4 - 11-14

Level 5 - 15-16

Level 6 - 17

Level 7 - 18

Level 8 - 19

Level 9+ - 20

Rulers are around 20% sedentary aristocrat (d4 hd, including an occasional Sage), 45% Fighter, 15% Cleric, 10% Thief, 5% Magic-User, 5% Other Class (Illusionist, Ranger, Paladin, Monk, etc).

Or you could use this experience/gold piece table for level advancement:
Level : experience or gold pieces
1 : 0
2 : 1,000
3 : 2,000
4 : 4,000
5 : 8,000
6 : 16,000
7 : 32,000
8 : 64,000
9 : 125,000
10 :  250,000
11 : 500,000
12 : 1,000,000
13 : 2,000,000
14 : 4,000,000
15 : 8,000,000
16 : 16,000,000
17 : 32,000,000
18 : 64,000,000
19 : 125,000,000
20 : 250,000,000

First you figure out the total assets of the community divide that by 5 and look at the chart above, and that is the level of the ruler, or you could start with the ruler and multiply his experience points by 5 to determine the total assets of the community he rules.

Did this table today.

Captains, Castellans & Stewards (d6)
These are normally experienced Fighters. The same table may be used for Magists (MU) and Court Chaplains (Cleric).
Level 4: 1
Level 5: 2-3
Level 6: 4
Level 7: 5
Level 8: 6