OK, so, a lot of RPGs, you advance in power or station over time. Your in-game token becomes more impressive in comparison to other in-game tokens.

In terms of long-term play, there's a reward from this that has nothing to do with character effectiveness - it's just seeing your character grow over time. That it's growth from a tadpole to a big ol' bullfrog is cool, but also just the fact that there is growth is cool.

So what are other ways you could do this?

One thing that you could do that would be sort of interesting would be in terms of opening or closing doors in your life. Decisions to go or not to go here, to have or not to have kids, to gain or lose faith, whatever. So that your character's life is sort of like, well, real life: you're a kid, there are all these options, they narrow down one by one, and at the end there are things you did and things you didn't do, and then it's over.

I'd be interested in how to do this without making it into boring suckassitudinous Dragonlance "stations of the cross" type play.

But I'm interested in other things too. Like, how can you benchmark a character's life as the character goes on? Being marked by experiences is another that could be kind of cool: at the end of each adventure, you could decide what the adventure meant to your character somehow, and change one thing about him or her on that basis. That seems pretty promising too, if handled right.

Also recs for games that do something like this already much appreciated.

Burning Wheel's Beliefs, Instincts, and Traits mechanic do that to an extent.  Your characters are designed with a number of personal goals within the premise of the game.  Through game play the GM challenges them and they may change based on the outcome.  The change can be suggested from any of the playing group based on consensus.  Their are definitely people that could explain it better than me though.

Completely outside of mechanics, all games do this where the players are interested in having their character change and grow.

Within mechanics, this is exactly what Shadow of Yesterday's Key system does.  You get XP for roleplaying with an eye towards your beliefs, but can lose them and get new ones over time.  Very cool stuff.

Quote from: C.W.RichesonCompletely outside of mechanics, all games do this where the players are interested in having their character change and grow.

IMO some things should not be handled by mechanics. This is one of them. Interest in a character which has nothing to do with rules, is what I'm aiming for in all my games.

Edit: Just to add something productive, I've found the Honor & Practicality rules of IHW, to be useful in a character benchmark kind of way (although this may not be th purpose of the rules). The mechanic has an in game effect but the decisions the players make which influence Honor & Practicality are sort of benchmarks which the players refer to, when discussing how their characters have grown over the course of the campaign. It's an elegant mechanic and one that I'm esp fond of, even though Honor is most often used as a sword in my campaign.

Regards,
David R

I've got players in my game whose characters are getting engage, getting married, and buying/building houses.
One player's character is 7 months pregnant within the  fiction of our storyline.  
 They are also still fighting space pirates and having barfights and adventures galore.

- Ed C.

Fate handles this quite well with its descriptive "Aspects". Any point-buy rpg with dis/advantages can handle it if the GM encourages it.

So for example, "your character gets married, yeah? So there's your husband. If he always helps you and you never need to help him, he's an Ally worth X points. If he's never any help and you always have to help him, he's a Dependent worth Y points. If he sometimes helps you, and sometimes needs your help, then the cost is X+Y points, for a total of Z."

You can do it in many game systems, the players and GM just have to think to do it, rather than just spending xp on more k3w1 pw0rz or whatever.

Quote from: KoltarI've got players in my game whose characters are getting engage, getting married, and buying/building houses.
One player's character is 7 months pregnant within the  fiction of our storyline.  

In almost 18 years of roleplaying, I think I've only ever had ONE character that was married.  Some have been divorced and some have been widowed.  Mostly, it just serves the purpose of providing some colour and background for the character.  The prospect of playing out a marriage doesn't strike me as much fun.  But buying a house and raising kids too?  Fuck that for a joke!  I have to deal with that shit in real life, I don't want to have to worry about those things in my games too. :eek:

Quote from: Tyberious FunkIn almost 18 years of roleplaying, I think I've only ever had ONE character that was married.  Some have been divorced and some have been widowed.  Mostly, it just serves the purpose of providing some colour and background for the character.  The prospect of playing out a marriage doesn't strike me as much fun.  But buying a house and raising kids too?  Fuck that for a joke!  I have to deal with that shit in real life, I don't want to have to worry about those things in my games too. :eek:

 Hey - it was the player's idea.

 She has a pregnant  married character who likes really BIG guns that make loud noises.

  In game her character and an NPC got married - we even had a dramatic fight scene almost break up the ceremony.  Her husband plays a character that doesn't even  "like" his wife's charater.  This couple has been playing in my game for two years now - and they never tell each other what their respective characters are going to do. Its been pretty interesting being the GM with those two in my campaign.

 They are STILL having adventures tho, even with character pregnancies and engagements....

- Ed

In my gorup, I've had characters who fell in love, got married, had kids, and those kids grew up to be characters, fall in love.... etc. Heck, one of my player characters got married last session. It helps when your group has a lot of women in it - it breaks you out of the locker room/barracks mentality. No game mechanics for this, but I prefer it that way.

-clash

I'd like that for my character in flyingmice's game, but given that we have fortnightly sessions which are sometimes cancelled, and the overall game time on average goes as fast as real time, I think it'll be a while before my 12 year old character has a wife and children

Quote from: JimBobOzI'd like that for my character in flyingmice's game, but given that we have fortnightly sessions which are sometimes cancelled, and the overall game time on average goes as fast as real time, I think it'll be a while before my 12 year old character has a wife and children

It also helps if your character is an adult!

-clash