Quote Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese) View Post
So, time for another one of Craft's crazy ideas: Advancement-less play. Characters don't get stronger over the course of the adventure. The DM just picks a power level and everyone stays there, unless there's very good reason to bring characters up or down. Characters can change over the course of the adventure by shuffling their abilities around to become better in some areas while also becoming worse in others, but strictly speaking advancement is subject to DM fiat and is not something the players should expect as a regular reward.


Now, I know what you're thinking: "But Craft, if you want to play that way, just don't give out XP for anything!" but it really isn't that simple. I've been playing advancement-free games for a while and the way you structure the game is completely different. Many things, including lots of things core to D&D's design in other areas, just flat-out stop making sense, or even worse become a direct hindrance to play.
For the record that sort of advancement-free play is the one major qualm most of my group has with Shadowrun.