Mixed Level Parties

[hogarth]

You have to look at it from a bigger scale.

If you have multiple DMs and multiple players it's very hard to arbitrarily say everyone must have equal xp.

I agree that an organized play environment like Pathfinder Society or Living Greyhawk or whatever your campaign was called would end up having PCs of multiple levels. That doesn't mean you have to have XP, of course; Pathfinder Society has mostly done away with it using a "3 adventures = 1 level" formula. And that still doesn't mean that having multiple levels of PCs in a party is a great idea. On the contrary, from my Pathfinder Society experience, I think it kind of sucks.

[ishy]

The thing that this assumption is missing is that there are actual in-game things that cause level discrepancies -- e.g., Raise Dead, level drain, etc.

If you become weaker when you've died, you're more likely to die again => a vicious circle.

If you have multiple DMs and multiple players it's very hard to arbitrarily say everyone must have equal xp.

No it is not. It is easier than tracking different xp for everyone.

Not only that but you have to somehow keep track of who had the highest xp from the last game and then make sure everyone in future games starts at a higher level.

You don't have to, as long as everyone in the current party is the same level it should work out fine too.

You might even have games which supposed a lower level but the games right before it granted xp to its participants catapulting them to a higher level and the participants in the following game have to level up even though they didn't participate in the previous game.

Or you could temporarily downgrade the higher level characters, so they can't just walk over everything.

Moreover, sometimes DMs and players want lower level games while other DMs and players want higher level games. If you insist that everyone has the same xp, then you kill off a diversity of fun gaming.

Not everyone running D&D needs to have the same XP, just the people in the same party.

Secondly, if you insist that characters have the same xp, then you give no incentive for players to save or be efficient with their purchases. Essentially I should buy wands and metamagic overcharge all of them all the time and make a new character the next game. And why not? All characters start with the same xp.

That is how WBL works in D&D yes. If you spend a lot of wealth on wands etc. you are supposed to find more stuff to compensate.
Now sure, you could play say a wizard and when you've prepared the wrong spells / run out of spells kill off your wizard and bring in a new one.
Giving them less XP is a solution, but not a very good one. A wizard with less XP but more spells is still stronger at that moment.
I'd try to fix it with roleplaying, trying to get the player to care about her/his character. Or just talking to the player in question.

Thirdly, even ignoring the previous example, if there's no reward for sticking through with one character, it invites other characters to one-up the other characters at the final battle who haven't actually played through all of the campaign. They can just show up and win: essentially breaking the dramatic arc.

I guess we just have different views on gaming then. I want people to have fun in the game, and show up and play because they have fun. If someone missed a session I want their punishment to be that they missed the session. Not that they can never interact with the campaign ever again. Because why bother showing up for the next session if you can't actually do anything 'at the final battle' or other battles (or roleplay).

Fourthly, rewarding players who show up is an essential point in logic and contributes to the feeling of a better game. If people who don't show up for games get the same rewards as those who don't, then what's the use in trying to show up?

The reward of playing in a good game? Rewards that don't increase power? Should I pay people IRL money to reward them playing in a game?

[Red_Rob]

Or you could temporarily downgrade the higher level characters, so they can't just walk over everything.

While I agree with the sentiment in general, levelling characters up and down to play in different games is a pain in the ass.

Generally if you are playing a single group with a single DM I would aim for level parity wherever possible. In a Black Marches / West Marches style multi-gm multi-party game you need some way to account for differing player levels.

[hogarth]

Generally if you are playing a single group with a single DM I would aim for level parity wherever possible. In a Black Marches / West Marches style multi-gm multi-party game you need some way to account for differing player levels.

Specifically, you need to account for differing PC power levels; using PC character levels is a proxy (and not necessarily a good one).