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You've worked the farm almost all your life, tending to the fields, raising and taking care of livestock, all to help keep your small village going. You are strong in arm and show promise for jobs in physical labor, but you do not have the money to buy your own set of adventuring equipment or items to become a soldier!

Living in the streets and alleys of the portside fishing settlement, you are a street urchin that begs during the day and steals by night. Your items of interest are but food and other necessities to keep you going, but you tire of the hum-drum boring days of this life and seek more excitement! Perhaps you should talk to that group of shady men who always hang out near the docks, or maybe check the local bulletin board for any odd jobs to undertake...

You are an apprentice storeclerk who is learning the ins and outs of your master's trade. You have a good head on your shoulders and show promise in your bookkeeping skills, but your attention lies elsewhere, finding the street performer and his fanciful tricks much more interesting. You ask around town and learn that he is actually an acolyte from the Mage's Guild of a nearby city. Your parents think that a life in the general store will be much more financially stable, and perhaps they are right, but then your mind wanders again, and you think about learning about magic...

The average npc in any campaign world has much potential, but this is rarely considered when you play as an established hero. Well, you weren't born with the ability to swing that sword, right? And once upon a time, the realms of magic was incredibly confusing, the words in that spellbook hard to read and dicipher. You had to learn to do all these things. You did oddjobs around your hometown, earned that beginning coin that bought you that helm which saved your head from all those attempts at tree climbing. All heroes and legends in history started somewhere.

Imagine playing as that farmer, that street urchin, that bored shopkeeper's apprentice, and becoming something greater over time! Breaking the boundaries of a fixed level 1 class and building a character as you see fit, starting him or her off in a way that makes sense in a fantasy realm! This is a system that I would eventually like to try out in a 2e format, and I wish to talk about it with you guys.

I realize that there is a lot to this when considering running such a game, but my experience so far as a DM has been very rewarding, and I think that with a little patience, I can put together a system that will prove both exciting to dive into and intuitive in its gameplay application. This topic is not so much a question as it is a conversation starter/ brainstorming session.

Well this sounds similar to how things are started out in a game of Ravencrowking over on goodman-games DDC we all start with 4 level 0 classless townsfolk. I started with a servant, farmer, animal trainer and chest maker. Also seen this in yes I know video games like Dungeon Siege. It's do able and makes sense as we don't all start out in life as experienced fighters, mages, thieves, clerics and so forth. I'm a level 0 computer tech.

Yeah, what you're describing already exists. I wouldn't put any time at all into trying to come up with a system for this without first looking at the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules.

One of my RL DM's actually does this for all of his games, you start out as a level 0 classless person, rolling stats and picking a class that you want to be in the future but at the moment not having a class so no starting class skills, just you and a weapon. Starting HP is 10 and upon reaching first level you get to pick your class as well as roll that classes HP dice once to add to the initial 10.

May seem like a lot of health considering some of the dice rolls, mage being 1d4, but he also throws a ton of stuff at you

Well, my age really does show... Thanks for pointing this out. I guess there is a few decades of catching up to do before I start talking about any ideas floating around in my head Dungeon Crawl Classics huh? Will have to look into it more when I'm finished with my other campaigns.

I imagine you can apply the same system for level 0 into a D&D system Ruk just look into how DCC does it and apply to whatever system you want. Also located this perhaps you can check these out for ideas as well.

Player Characters never had a 0 level to start from, except that goofy Cavalier stuff in the UA and module N4 and the Greyhawk Adventures hardback. UA also discusses 0-level magic-users (in the section discussing cantrips).

Don't sweat it Ruk DCC is actually a relatively new system when were talking D&D systems. It will probably be the easiest to just hop into though because the game is built around 0th level characters going through what they call a funnel which is basically a nice way of saying a meat grinder. The end goal is to have a smaller group of PC's who can level up and any other excess survivors end up as hirelings. Its a cool system though I do believe there are also 1E and 2E systems for peasant characters as well.

Here's an alternative take, with a slightly different purpose: The Youngest Son/Daughter character class.

The idea was to model sort of a super-zero, an untrained but promising non-classed person that could join a party of classed characters and discover what their own class was going to be over the course of play. The innocent farmboy who finds themselves thrust into adventure with a colorful band of grizzled veterans. You know, like every fantasy story ever.

Rukellian wrote:Breaking the boundaries of a fixed level 1 class and building a character as you see fit, starting him or her off in a way that makes sense in a fantasy realm! This is a system that I would eventually like to try out in a 2e format, and I wish to talk about it with you guys.

Ruk, you may be interested in taking a look at a 1E module, Treasure Hunt (N4).

N4: "Treasure Hunt" (1987) is the fourth adventure in the novice (N-) series for AD&D. It was published in January 1987.

A 0th-Level Adventure. "Treasure Hunt" was commissioned specifically as a 0-level adventure. It was the first AD&D adventure ever to present general rules for 0-level characters. Uniquely, the GM assignments classes and alignments to characters at the end of the adventure, based on their actions.

Even if you're not interested in actually running it, it will present at least one potential framework, already in the AD&D system, for handling zero-level characters and is probably worth checking out.

I don't have any first hand experience with it, but know that I know I've been intrigued by it since I first learned of it (apparently, sometime in late-2012).

I actually own the darn thing (having purchased the 'N1-N4 Novice Series (1e) [BUNDLE]' collection) a while back, but aside from skimming the "front" material, I haven't really looked into it to closely. Yet. I'd like to think that I'll actually run it someday, but we'll see.

I'll be interested in seeing what you end up doing along these lines.

Also, if you're interested, this is just starting to ramp up:

viewforum.php?f=95

Don't know if we can call them zero-level characters, but they are essentially undeveloped characters that were established with base values and random rolls that will grow over time. My plan is to push it in a certain direction, but keep a bit of random activity involved, as well.

It might not exactly be the way you want to set things up, but it is always good to watch something play out. Gives you ideas and shows you what works and what doesn't work in a home brew campaign.

Hey Ruk,

It's been a few days since we've talked I guess. I had to take a wee bit of time off. I am a big fan of the level 0 characters. When I started reading your initial post it brought me back to an intro I wrote for my custom house rules campaign that MonkeyWrench is now playing in on another site (I'm in the process of moving it here to The Unseen Servant). Here is the intro:

"You have spent your life dreaming of this day. As a child you spent every free minute playing in the fields with a stick for your mighty sword and a rotten bucket as your Helm of Might. You saved every copper piece form every filthy godforsaken job you could find. Scraping together the barest of essentials and kissing your mother goodbye, you step across the threshold of your childhood home determined to become the greatest adventurer ever to live. Your father, smoking his morning pipe in the rickety old rocking chair on the front porch, glances at your humble belongings and scoffs at your determination. With a lump in your throat and a burning desire to prove him wrong, you stride across the yard, with head high, and begin the ten-mile journey to town.

You make it to the city of Dragons Belch by nightfall. Exhausted and questioning your decision to leave home, you rent a room at the Red Ale Inn. You are determined to see what tomorrow brings. Going back and facing your father is not an option. You must follow through with your plan regardless of the consequences. You sleep fitfully and wake to the dingy light of morning and the fetid smells of sweat from those who slept before you in their alcohol-addled stupor. You splash your face with cold water form the basin in the corner and step into the dust-choked street.

The street vendors are busy preparing their wares, the people of Dragons Belch have begun their daily routine. A thick, pale, rough looking man steps in front of your gaze. Looking you up and down he steps to one side, makes a short circle, and comes around to face you. He is extremely close, too close. You can smell the pungent aroma of pipe tobacco. His garb is clean but worn. There is determination in his eyes as his lips part to speak. He pauses a moment, steps back a pace, and considers you once more.

“I might be wrong about you. But I think not. You appear to be at the doorstep of a journey, a journey you fear to take but must. Your heart is big and your desire even bigger. Though you may fail, I fear you will try nonetheless. Today is your lucky day young lad. For I will help you become a man or die trying. What say you?”"

MonkeyWrench had the pleasure of playing his first Zero-Level character in the town of Dragons Belch. I have since ran a tabletop game and that same campaign above off and on for over a year testing my House Rules Core Rule Set. I could give advice all day as to how this game or that game does it. But what I'd rather do is tell you to look around a bit, get a feel for what others are doing. The greatest literary writers of all time did exactly this, begged, borrowed, outright stole everything and everything they could. Often times they were outright blatant about it. My point is create something that feels right to you. You have an idea that feels good to you, and most likely that idea will feel good to others as well. Not everyone, and some of those in that other category will hate on you and bash your idea. But don't fret the small stuff.

I would love to talk to you more about this idea and even share ideas. Either here or in private. I myself am considering adding a thread concerning my house Core Rule Set, which I am not afraid to say has had negative feedback form the Rules Lawyers time and time again. But I have play tested my rough draft. It works and it feels good. We were never meant to follow the rules as they were laid out by Gary, Dave, and friends. Their ideas were starting points to kickstart the imagination engine within you. Rules are for sissies.

Your opening argument was lucid and eloquent. Continue down that road and you cannot help but succeed. Thanks for being brave and voicing your opinion and idea.

"I realize that there is a lot to this when considering running such a game"

It will only be as complicated and complex as you allow it to be.