In the
role-playing entertainment genre, in both
pen and pencil and
video games, a
level is a concrete point of
character advancement. One gains levels by accumulating higher and higher amounts of
xp.
Gaining a level is usually accompanied by an increase in the
character's capacity to break things and take the damage of being broken- in systems that use
hit points, they often increase as well as your
stats; when you use X amount of
skill points to permanently gain
a new way to deal death, you often get a number of skill points to use, in other systems, gaining a level often accompanies getting new weapons and armor, and so onward. Thus, a
character who is third or fourth level is likely to be able to
beat the snot out of a first level character, and depending on the system itself, might be able to take on five or six first level characters before they have any
worries about their own safety.
The
level style of character advancement is most popular in
fantasy-style games, due to the common ideas behind character advancement. The
D&D computer games,
Diablo,
Everquest and
Asheron's Call are the best-known of these kinds. In
other genres, though, the
level system is almost universally absent; most others use an
XP system (whether they call it
Karma, skill points, or whatever) that is designed for more individualized character development.
Being the owner of a
high-level character is a point of pride among
gamers, and some of them will go to great lengths to tell other people (especially
non-gamers) about how their character,
Bongdingus the eighteenth level assassin/psionic/mageand how he got his favorite sword from the dark, dank caverns of the dragon
Grishnakh and slew the dark god
Set with it, usually prompting the listener to open up with an
automatic weapon or induce a neural aneurysm in themselves to avoid having to hear about their exploits.