I'm trying to make head or tails with the D&D mentality, that has what seems to be absolute beginners travel to the most dangerous of adventures equipped only with sticks.

Is it actually a clock? They are still heroes, still better than the average joe in the area, but they've just started the current adventure. Possibly they go back to 1 after every final boss? :P

Level 1 are for characters who start out adventuring. Any level higher is people who have experience on what they do; Example: Magi would have experience with magic with or without fighting experience, Training the use of swords though the guard would give experience, stealing an item inside a house would give experience.

Though, most of D&D computer games give XP though battles and quests.

I'm not sure what the issue is. The player characters in D&D are supposed to be above average, so who do people call on when there's trouble brewing? Average Joe? No, they call on the extraordinary people that are available.

See, the impression I get from these games is that a world-ranging quest is performed by level 1 newbies. Who consequently level up, alright, but should have probably stayed home exercising. So my escape route of thought was that yes, they are 1-young, but damn gifted.

Altough it might be an impression I receive from my WOW experience. Over there, adventures aren't held from 1 to 30: you would only cast end game, lvl 30 people for your mad world-saving quests.

These are concerns about rping, mostly. It has been difficult to reconcile the notion that a world weary adventurer with divine vengeance was just a newbie lvl 1.

The world population consists mainly of level 1 commoners, adventurers with class levels are a very rare exception and hardly anyone survives the first levels.
There just aren't any high level characters walking around who you can ask to do the quests, even characters with only 1 class level (they gained it by training) are considerably more powerful than the commoners.

Sounds good for a t-shirt: "we are all level 1 commoners".

Correction: in Dungeons & Dragons commoners are level 0: they might be experienced in being farmer, merchant, smith, carpenter etc. but don't have any adventuring skills. Being level 1 is already exceptional. And as said, higher level adventurers are rare in Faerun. It's not without reason really high level characters like Drizzt and Elminster are famous - there's very few of them.

Level 1 is not young but inexperience in adventuring. Look at BG series for example, BG 1 you're level 1 because your character has never left Candlekeep and has no experience in adventures. BG 2 you start level 7 or 8 depending on the class (Correct me if I'm wrong) because is supposed to be the continuation of the adventures of your character of BG 1 who has experience in adventures.

Level 1 is pretty weak in D&D sense, which is why most D&D based games have your first adventures be pretty low key. In BG1, you start out lost in the world, and tag along with other adventurers to investigate the problems at an iron mine. In IWD1, you're part of a large expedition when you get separated by an avalanche. IWD2, you're just mercenaries fresh off the boat.

No it isn`t a must.
Lets say you are a 40 years old farmer whose daughter has been kidnapped. So to rescue your daughter you start adventuring and fighter carier as lvl 1.
This can even apply to classes which are related to birth such as sorceror. In that case lets say you are an old merchant traveling on long routes for good profit. You never had to fight as you have guards to protect you. But one day your caravan gets ambushed and all your guards get killed by atackers. As they aproach, you panic and your hands begin to burn releasing a wave of fire killing 2 of bandits. The rest fearing that you are a powerfull mage runs away. So you realize that you are a sorceror of some kind and begin to practise magic.

So as you can see low level character doesnt need to be young. You are actualy trying to make head or tails with the mentality of pc games using D&D rules as in table top D&D thats not the case generaly.

Thanks again.