One of the things that bug me generally about level games is the generally ridiculously quick time-scales that PCs morph from sad-sacks who can't hit the side of a barn, to world-shattering heroes.
In March they're collecting goblin ears for a gp a piece, then by November, they're storming the gates of Hell.
Now, granted, you can put any time-breaks you like between adventures, encounters, or whatever, but even that seems a bit lame as a means of making advancement artificially slow. Collecting goblin ears in March...then you hang up your gear for 2 years before halting the Hobgoblin bandits...then 12 years later storm the gates of hell!
Yes, i think i'm all for slow advancement rates rather than an artificial inserting of time. The problem there is, that if you cram in as much adventure as you can during the year, but don't advance much, the characters can seem to be standing still for ages.
I guess the key is to have another economy other than extra powers/levels etc that you can utilise in the meanwhile, until you are able to improve your skill/level.
Like an xp economy, for example, whereby you can spend xps on certain effects that are independent of level, skill, or class. That way, the more you adventure, the more xps you earn and the more you can effect things without an increase in power level. Then, when a certain time period has elapsed, you rise in level/skill chance/whatever.
Thoughts?
Quote from: One Horse Town;884818One of the things that bug me generally about level games is the generally ridiculously quick time-scales that PCs morph from sad-sacks who can't hit the side of a barn, to world-shattering heroes.
In March they're collecting goblin ears for a gp a piece, then by November, they're storming the gates of Hell.
Now, granted, you can put any time-breaks you like between adventures, encounters, or whatever, but even that seems a bit lame as a means of making advancement artificially slow.
1: Rarely seen that.
2: Definitly not seen that. Depending on the version of D&D. What you usually get is a possibly quick few early levels. And then things slow down more and more.
3: Why would you? And even how without the players baulking? This seems a rather narrow minded statement.
Instead your slowdowns in levelling pre-5e came from overland travels and very possibly PCs spending recuperation time from being brought down to 0hp in AD&D. Theres also training time which may require more travel time.
Players may also want to spend time researching, or just enjoying the wealth as downtime.
5e though does have a quicker advancement. But the time frame is totally dependant on the action, the players, and the DM. Each group handles it differently.
This is a key feature of the Earthdawn "Legend Points" system. You spend points to increase Talent ranks, "leveling up" requires a certain # of Talents at a Rank equal to the next "level", and you track your lifetime total for a "Legendary Status" ranking.
Starting characters have very few things to spend Legend on, so the first few Circles tend to go by quickly. Middle tier characters have many more Talents to spend Legend on, and also pick up other things, like Legendary Weapons (spend Legend to increase how tied you are to the weapon, which unlocks a power-level but requires some secret knowledge from the item's history). So advancement tends to slow way down, but characters become much more versatile.
(shrugs) It's a part of the reason I've been GMing GURPS for several decades. Even if it takes a few years for someone to get to the point of beating down legends, there's still incremental, measurable, frequent advance.
I measured the actual time in a 3e game and we went from 1st to 10th level in a month. AD&D was slower because we needed natural healing.
Traveller has that too. After 16 years in the Army, the PC accumulates 10,000 credits and a coupon for cold sleep, but then in a couple weeks of play, that same PC makes an overnight fortune in crime...which he then spends on plasma weapons.
Quote from: Spinachcat;884912I measured the actual time in a 3e game and we went from 1st to 10th level in a month. AD&D was slower because we needed natural healing.
Yep.
How would you think if you only increased a level a year of game time but could spend the xps you earned on effecting play?
Say, spend xps to heal hps, improve an Initiative roll, cast a spell already faded from memory or improve your chances in a skill roll?
A lot of players get restless if they go for too many sessions without seeing some kind of mechanical improvement in their character. If you've got players like that, then slowing down the rate of advancement in terms of real-world time/play sessions is likely to be a non-starter.
Which means that the only reliable way of slowing down the rate of advancement in game-world time is to either increase the amount of game-world time that passes between sessions or increase the amount that passes within each session. And that generally means downtime.
I get the impression from the OP that you think inserting non-specific downtime (i.e., downtime where the PCs are "just living a normal life", rather than undertaking specific activities) feels artificial, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. If the PCs are reluctant heroes who do dangerous things out of necessity, rather than adrenaline junkies who seek out adventure in their free time, then this approach is quite plausible, IMO. I've often heard war described from the soldiers' point of view as "months of boredom punctuated by minutes of sheer terror" or the like. The same works fine for passive heroes - they finish off the goblins and then, unless they go out looking for trouble, it will be two years before the hobgoblin threat arises.
But that doesn't work so well with more active heroes, I agree. In that case, you need to insert downtime with specific reasons behind it:
- You need to consult a sage in a town that takes a month of travel to reach.
- When you level up, you have to spend a number of weeks training equal to your new level.
- Nobody will sell you a Fireball scroll, so you need to do three months of research to invent your own version.
- You were badly injured while fighting some ogres and need several weeks to fully recover from your wounds.
- The Evil Underlord has magical protection granting immunity to any weapon not crafted via a specific process, so you need to spend a couple months creating such a weapon.
- Wiping out the hobgoblin threat will require an army to be gathered, but it's October and the snow will fall before enough troops can arrive. Best to just hole up for the winter, then gather the army in the spring for a summer assault.
Etc. There are all kinds of things that can happen in-game to force the PCs to wait for before they can proceed. This waiting time can be quickly skipped over at the table, so that it doesn't affect the real-world time that passes, even as it greatly lengthens the game-world time needed for them to rise in power.
Quote from: One Horse Town;884919Yep.
How would you think if you only increased a level a year of game time but could spend the xps you earned on effecting play?
Say, spend xps to heal hps, improve an Initiative roll, cast a spell already faded from memory or improve your chances in a skill roll?
As an idea, it seems like the concept might be worth a try. In practice, creating this huge menu board of cool shit to spend XP on then keeping up with who is spending how much on what will come to dominate play. Players will spend more time checking out the menu trying to see what gives them more bang for their buck and will be paying less attention to whats going on.
Its the magic item shop principle in action. Let players buy magic items and when you get to the store play slows to a crawl and becomes a shopping clusterfuck.
This issue illustrates why the old TSR D&D system was so awesome. Treasure for XP means that the DM can easily control the advancement rate via the amount of treasure available. Seriously battered and wounded characters took time to recover.
The players have the option of slower but safer advancement or a quicker path to power at great risk by adventuring in places highly likely to kill them.
nDervish got it in one where you either have to expand "downtime" in-session or between sessions.
And there's already names for values "purchased" with XP but don't go towards increasing your character sheet widgets. They're called things like wealth, property, relationships, favors, reputation, and the like.
The big challenge is managing player expectations for slower campaign pacing. And for that there's really no substitute for putting away game mechanics and asking players to invest in their character's lives in the world, in setting. You have to decouple "adventure!" as the prime source of XP and other awards, and even flirt with meaningful caps to experiential learning. (i.e. First lvl flunkie amid 15th lvl avg party that slays a dragon doesn't rocket 1d6 levels overnight.)
Ravenswing's campaign sounds like that where play longevity and setting integration is more the reward than system widgetry. (Not that GURPS doesn't have incremental widgetry purchases to spare...)
• If players only see might making right, a la prone and prostrate society desperate for mercenary saviors, then it feeds attitudes about who are the sole actors of power.
• If power is, almost to exclusion then, expressed outside setting purview into system mastery, then world interaction means little beyond what feeds system power.
Given those two conceits low level setting adventures and relations may then be seen as expendable (ignorable) stepping stones to greater system widgetry and thus setting power.
To stop that, destroy those two conceits; make a living, breathing world where the setting actually matters.
Once the setting and its manifold opportunities holds prominence then system widgetry no longer retains stranglehold to the means of power. And thus the thousand flowers bloom...
I will add that this is where the tightly bound metaphysics/mechanics relationship in the Earthdawn rules really shines.
Increasing a Talent Rank? Meditate for 8 hours away from your party on how you have used the Talent (many parties set a side a week or two so everyone has a chance to do this with a couple of Talents). Everyone in the party (&GM) gets an in-game narrative cue as to what changed when you spent your Legend ("Oh, yah, I saw Thrand the Warrior adept out in the orchard practicing his Air Dance yesterday.").
Skills take days of learning and weeks of practice, depending on the Rank increased to. This usually requires NPC relationships, which allows the character to influence and gain insights into the world.
Have enough Talents to go up a Circle ("level")? Go find a higher Circle member of your secret society and convince them to initiate you into the next inner circle. That is where you get a new Discipline Talent from the core Talent list, and then get to choose 1 optional Talent from a pool of options based on how far you've come in your Discipline.
Other expenditures of Legend are always accompanied by in-game actions. You must hold this secret knowledge to weave a new Thread to your sword, or you must posses an item linked to your party member's "astral-pattern" in order to weave a thread to his Physical Defense to give it a bonus (if, for example, the Warrior wanted to teach the Wizard how to dodge a bit better - the Wizard would lend him his Spellbook to hold while they were discussing the bio-mechanics of avoiding sword-thrusts to the guts, then the Warrior would spend LP to lock in that bonus).
This avoids those "options-paralysis" moments where the game's "play" has become all about deciding what to get from the Menu next - as Exploderwizard mentioned. (This is actually what killed 3/3.5e D&D for me as a fun game.)
Quote from: One Horse Town;884919How would you think if you only increased a level a year of game time but could spend the xps you earned on effecting play?
That could be interesting.
However, level advancement in RPGs doesn't really make any sense, so whatever method is going to be unrealistic. I like levels as a game tool, but the incremental skill advances and dependence on training of RQ makes far more sense. Wanna +1 CON? Great, seek a guru, pay the gold, spend the months, and get your bonus. Use that Stealth skill? Great, maybe you might learn something to do it better next time.
Levels? Great game idea, terrible to match against reality.
I had one D&D DM who went all Highlander on us. XP was only from monster's slain and XP was their essence. We became more badass (gained levels) because we absorbed more power by killing bigger and nastier foes.
How about a Pendragon-style Winter Phase? Adventuring is something you during the Spring-Summer, when the weather allows it. In the Winter, you stay put by necessity.
In Pendragon that was when you looked after your manor. There were a lot of tables to roll against to simulate downtime events (horse survival table being the one our group was most nervous about!). For a more generic fantasy you you may want to have other kinds of events.
Quote from: Soylent Green;885055How about a Pendragon-style Winter Phase? Adventuring is something you during the Spring-Summer, when the weather allows it. In the Winter, you stay put by necessity.
In Pendragon that was when you looked after your manor. There were a lot of tables to roll against to simulate downtime events (horse survival table being the one our group was most nervous about!). For a more generic fantasy you you may want to have other kinds of events.
Yeah, that's pretty much what i'm aiming and providing for.
Quote from: Soylent Green;885055How about a Pendragon-style Winter Phase? Adventuring is something you during the Spring-Summer, when the weather allows it. In the Winter, you stay put by necessity.
I've actually been thinking about starting up a Mythus/RQ6 campaign that works like that. 1-2 adventures per year, then all advancement happens at the end of the year (Winter Phase). With a traditional BRP check-based advancement system, it seems like a good way of curing players of any obsession with having their characters spend every waking moment adventuring.
Quote from: Opaopajr;884956Ravenswing's campaign sounds like that where play longevity and setting integration is more the reward than system widgetry.
I like to think so; thanks!
Quote from: One Horse Town;884818One of the things that bug me generally about level games is the generally ridiculously quick time-scales that PCs morph from sad-sacks who can't hit the side of a barn, to world-shattering heroes.
In March they're collecting goblin ears for a gp a piece, then by November, they're storming the gates of Hell.
Now, granted, you can put any time-breaks you like between adventures, encounters, or whatever, but even that seems a bit lame as a means of making advancement artificially slow. Collecting goblin ears in March...then you hang up your gear for 2 years before halting the Hobgoblin bandits...then 12 years later storm the gates of hell!
Yes, i think i'm all for slow advancement rates rather than an artificial inserting of time. The problem there is, that if you cram in as much adventure as you can during the year, but don't advance much, the characters can seem to be standing still for ages.
I guess the key is to have another economy other than extra powers/levels etc that you can utilise in the meanwhile, until you are able to improve your skill/level.
Like an xp economy, for example, whereby you can spend xps on certain effects that are independent of level, skill, or class. That way, the more you adventure, the more xps you earn and the more you can effect things without an increase in power level. Then, when a certain time period has elapsed, you rise in level/skill chance/whatever.
Thoughts?
What you're talking about here is not about time spent adventuring, it's about tiers of power. The passing from one tier to the next should be marked, and explained, by a specific event, kinda like an initiation ritual, which should require a teacher most of the time.
Otherwise yes, it tends to be jarring.
Quote from: AsenRG;885207What you're talking about here is not about time spent adventuring, it's about tiers of power. The passing from one tier to the next should be marked, and explained, by a specific event, kinda like an initiation ritual, which should require a teacher most of the time.
Otherwise yes, it tends to be jarring.
Whether the tiers are marked or not, it can still be quite jarring to see a bunch of peasants go from barely knowing which end of a pitchfork to stick in the enemy to being demigods capable of single-handedly slaughtering armies in the span of 8 months (the OP's "collecting goblin ears in March, storming the gates of hell in November" scenario).
If you really can get that powerful (and that rich!) so quickly, then why aren't there more demigods striding the earth? Sure, we can stipulate that only "chosen ones" are capable of that kind of growth, but why isn't every chosen one taking a year off from whatever else they're doing to become a walking force of nature?
Quote from: AsenRG;885207What you're talking about here is not about time spent adventuring, it's about tiers of power. The passing from one tier to the next should be marked, and explained, by a specific event, kinda like an initiation ritual, which should require a teacher most of the time.
Otherwise yes, it tends to be jarring.
I think where possible it is a good idea to have time jumps marking the tier breaks, eg my tabletop 5e campaign had a 1-year time jump at the end of Novice (1-4) tier. I'll look to do the same for the end of Heroic (5-10) and Paragon (11-16) tiers. That would add 3 years to the campaign time scale which should make it feel better; advancement will feel more credible and the duration of the campaign in-world should map closer to real time spent - I'm aiming for roughly a 4 year campaign of fortnightly play.
I think the whole area of character advancement and what causes it is quite important and often overlooked. There's a balance between the fun of improving one's character, and the un-fun of too much improvement turning the characters into superheroes and removing interesting challenges and considerations from play.
As with so many things, there are many different tastes. Some players like starting out incompetent and quickly progressing to be better than anyone in their world. Some prefer to start out fairly powerful based on being a talented adult with a lifetime of training. Some want to remain mortal and vulnerable even to moderately-skilled foes, while others prefer to not be vulnerable to one degree or another.
Quote from: nDervish;885220Whether the tiers are marked or not, it can still be quite jarring to see a bunch of peasants go from barely knowing which end of a pitchfork to stick in the enemy to being demigods capable of single-handedly slaughtering armies in the span of 8 months (the OP's "collecting goblin ears in March, storming the gates of hell in November" scenario).
I feel the concept wasn't clearly communicated. Sorry for that, I was on the phone:).
And now I'm going to explain in a bit more detail.
QuoteIf you really can get that powerful (and that rich!) so quickly, then why aren't there more demigods striding the earth? Sure, we can stipulate that only "chosen ones" are capable of that kind of growth, but why isn't every chosen one taking a year off from whatever else they're doing to become a walking force of nature?
Would you enter a DCC funnel knowing that you'd level up and be rich if you get out alive;)?
Quote from: S'mon;885223I think where possible it is a good idea to have time jumps marking the tier breaks, eg my tabletop 5e campaign had a 1-year time jump at the end of Novice (1-4) tier. I'll look to do the same for the end of Heroic (5-10) and Paragon (11-16) tiers. That would add 3 years to the campaign time scale which should make it feel better; advancement will feel more credible and the duration of the campaign in-world should map closer to real time spent - I'm aiming for roughly a 4 year campaign of fortnightly play.
Well, 3 years of normal training are frankly not enough to explain this.
Really, guys, I'm not talking about simple things like "I trained for one year". I'm talking about life-changing events here!
If it's going to be training, let them be trained by the witch-warrior Scatha, and fight her sworn enemy.
If it's going to be an event as part of the campaign, let them bathe in the blood of a dying dragon, or eat his heart. Or let them become chosens of a god or goddess, getting part of his or her power.
If you want it item-based, let them find the sword of a legendary hero.
Yes, I do mean Exalting or becoming a Godbound is a suitable power bump for passing into a new tier:D!
Quote from: nDervish;884931- The Evil Underlord has magical protection granting immunity to any weapon not crafted via a specific process, so you need to spend a couple months creating such a weapon.
You just divulged the premise for the current story arc of the campaign I'm running... Minor difference is that the PCs are reassembling pieces of the original weapon, which takes travel time, completing quests, etc.
I think the main issue here comes from reconciling power level differences from 1st level to Nth level, knowing only a little bit of time has technically passed.
If it's consistent with the system, then that is just how the game world progresses as a whole, as well. Meaning that in order for the lowly farm kid to become a powerful adventurer, he needs to leave the family farm, and the local hamlet.
After dealing with local threats, they would end up powerful enough that a local patron pays them to go on quests, therefore they deal with a whole new tier of play, and they are less likely to deal with small village issues.
Then as the PC progresses, they would be tasked with harder challenges, by more influential NPCs (or against more influential NPCs).
To me it's more of a scope thing than a time thing. I'm not a D&D expert or anything, but if I understand correctly, a PC goes up a level every half dozen game session or less, right? How hard is it for the world to make sense by inserting time lapses between adventures?
How do they get so good so quickly? They had the potential, but didn't have the opportunities until they presented themselves.
Quote from: Spinachcat;884912I measured the actual time in a 3e game and we went from 1st to 10th level in a month. AD&D was slower because we needed natural healing.
One month of game time? That IS crazy! Is that really typical for D&D?
I can see why the game time spent versus the power level differences could be really weird.
I mean, if a character's older brother goes adventuring for a year and comes back, he'd be a powerful hero who could retire on the riches he hoarded, if he doesn't die, of course. In such a setting, everyone has that powerful family member who went off for a year, maybe two, and hung up their sword, coming back richer and more powerful than ever. Every minor lord might have been an adventurer at one time or another, and could in theory take care of their own issues. Then there would be the cemeteries filled with young hopeful adventurers who just failed their saves. I can see the epitaph now... "Here lies Billy Former PC. He didn't make his save vs thing roll." Hehe
D&D really depends on the edition and what recommendations were heeded. On the long end AD&D 2e DMG recommends not getting more than 10% XP of what it takes between start of current level and start of next. So a Fighter needing 2000 XP wouldn't exceed 200 XP/session, excess spilling off and leveling up taking at least 10 or more sessions.
Most GMs didn't and do not use that slow of progression. However, returning to the game I am trying some of these overlooked rules and recommendations. I found this recommendation having some potential; I may adjust it faster, but its speed really changes expectations more like OHT and I seem to enjoy.
Didn't 13th Age assume 4 sessions per level? That seemed to be the most popular option in the 3.5 groups that I know, too.
Of course, systems without a level progression seldom suffer from this problem.
Quote from: AsenRG;885467Didn't 13th Age assume 4 sessions per level? That seemed to be the most popular option in the 3.5 groups that I know, too.
Of course, systems without a level progression seldom suffer from this problem.
IIRC, that is the 13th Age default. But then you're looking at characters who already begin as heroes and not zeroes. So the gap doesn't seem as immense.
In my Conan d20 game, where I implemented a few rules to frontload things like hp for low level characters (including NPCs; you got maximum hp or maybe even one or two extra at first level, then gradually lower fixed amounts until you had exactly average hp at level 10) and slow down advancement considerably, I also broke all the class/level features into discrete elements that were individually purchased with XP, so that while advancement overall was quite slow, PCs were regularly getting small incremental improvements.
Off the top of my head, the features available for purchase were:
- Skill points (probably purchased by the point, although I don't recall for sure)
- Attack bonus
- Defense bonus (parry and dodge as separate purchases)
- Feat, if available
- Class feature, if available
IIRC, the costs varied depending on the usefulness/versatility of the feature (eg, a feat or powerful class feature generally cost more XP than a +1 parry).
You had to purchase everything available for a given level before moving onto the next, and it actually worked very well.
Quote from: One Horse Town;884818One of the things that bug me generally about level games is the generally ridiculously quick time-scales that PCs morph from sad-sacks who can't hit the side of a barn, to world-shattering heroes.
While I'm not a huge fan of the system because it seems to reward players just for showing up, one of friends used this experience system. It takes as many game sessions (minimum of 4 hours of play to count as one session) to advance a level as your current level. That is, a first level character plays for one session and starts the next session as second level. That seconf level character needs to play for two more sessions, then starts the next (4th session of the campaign) as a third level character. Etc.
With this system, it takes about 50 sessions of play to reach 10th level and over 200 sessions of play to reach 20th level. If some of this adventuring includes traveling long distances, exploring, and other things that make a session last more than a day or two of campaign time, more game time passes fairly naturally. Especially if you have to take two to fourth weeks campaign time between at least some adventure sessions to heal, research legends, etc.
I guess it's because of the way I GM my sandboxes... I usually force time between "adventures" to be ate up with projects each character is working on. I also use the environment and seasons to help dictate this.
Players may go tomb-robbing and get a bunch of XP, but I will tell the fighters learning feat/skill whatever - might take a few months. And that might entail a lot of RP montage etc. (which can by itself lead to adventures), some PC's are trying to learn more about historical shit in game to further plot-points, others might be working around the town/city just to keep busy - but this is generally rare. Others might be entrenched with city politics.
When winter/summer comes - the season might be too extreme to do anything, depending on where they are.
I think in my last big Pathfinder game - level 10 took at least 7-8 years of pretty hard adventuring, where the PC's fought in some gigantic conflicts etc.
XP has remained incidental of "time" in my games. Or maybe a corollary at best.
Some things I try to keep in mind, which seem important to me, but many progression systems don't seem to say much about, are:
1) Who besides the PCs does the progression system apply to? Everyone? Only the PCs? Or only people with certain qualities? I ask this about both the rate of ability gain, and the maximum potential ability.
2) What does the answer to 1) mean in terms of the game universe? If the PCs, or people with certain qualities advance faster and/or have more potential for ability than everyone else, what causes that? Is it divine favor? Is it because we just want them to be powerful heroes? Do they each have some explanation why they are special this way? What holds other people back, and is it possible for others to gain superior learning or potential, and how?
3) Based on 1) and 2), how many NPCs will be at what levels in each place or group in the campaign world?
These seem important because I like to try to understand and have things be logical and consistent, and if I and/or the system ignore these points, then things start to not make sense, and eventually break down or cause issues.
One common issue I see is the desire for a long-term campaign, and for PCs to frequently show improvement, can lead to very powerful characters, which can start to make the not-so-powerful elements (both NPCs and other challenges) of the game world become irrelevant. Often there's no reason for this, and the world often doesn't keep pace and wasn't really designed as if a few years of experience would make anyone else super powerful, so things tend to get weird and uninteresting, or at least comic-book like.
Quote from: Skarg;885608Some things I try to keep in mind, which seem important to me, but many progression systems don't seem to say much about, are:
1) Who besides the PCs does the progression system apply to? Everyone? Only the PCs? Or only people with certain qualities? I ask this about both the rate of ability gain, and the maximum potential ability.
2) What does the answer to 1) mean in terms of the game universe? If the PCs, or people with certain qualities advance faster and/or have more potential for ability than everyone else, what causes that? Is it divine favor? Is it because we just want them to be powerful heroes? Do they each have some explanation why they are special this way? What holds other people back, and is it possible for others to gain superior learning or potential, and how?
3) Based on 1) and 2), how many NPCs will be at what levels in each place or group in the campaign world?
These seem important because I like to try to understand and have things be logical and consistent, and if I and/or the system ignore these points, then things start to not make sense, and eventually break down or cause issues.
One common issue I see is the desire for a long-term campaign, and for PCs to frequently show improvement, can lead to very powerful characters, which can start to make the not-so-powerful elements (both NPCs and other challenges) of the game world become irrelevant. Often there's no reason for this, and the world often doesn't keep pace and wasn't really designed as if a few years of experience would make anyone else super powerful, so things tend to get weird and uninteresting, or at least comic-book like.
And again, all of these questions have an evident in-universe answer if you go for the option where different tiers of ability are separated by life events. How many people could get the blessing of a dying dragon, steal a magic sword from an invisible demon guardian, become the best student of a warrior-witch, be the sons of cheating gods, or anything of the sort?
The answer is probably going to be obvious in the setting, and so will the consequences.
Quote from: tenbones;885604I guess it's because of the way I GM my sandboxes... I usually force time between "adventures" to be ate up with projects each character is working on. I also use the environment and seasons to help dictate this.
I was gonna add something similar. I assume down time between arcs, and simply throw it up the time passage. During the last, big, successful campaign I ran, there was a 5-year in-game gap between adventures. By the time the game wrapped up, with 9th level PCs, we'd seen something like 20 years of game time. Really added to the characterization of the survivors, going from neophytes to scarred and grizzled vets (with a great deal of baggage).
Good questions to ask oneself, Skarg. My own answers:
1) To a limited degree, I apply periodic XP to certain NPCs. NPCs that regularly travel with the group (as sidekicks, hired hands or Allies) gain half the XP of their associated PCs. For NPCs generally, I don't worry about it. The challenges are what the challenges are, and I've never seen a need for the PCs to have any clue -- beyond empirical observation -- about NPC stats or abilities.
2) This is eased by the relatively slow advancement of my PCs, and I believe by the GURPS system itself. With level-based systems, you have a large, overriding metric that says Character A is plainly superior to Character B ... A is 6th level, B is 4th level! QED! Players often also are well aware that a percentage to hit of X or a trap disarming skill of Y means Z level.
With GURPS (and point-based systems generally), it's much tougher. It's perfectly easy for a low-point character to have a single key, obvious skill at a high level, and easy for a high-point character to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, and all manner of combinations in-between.
As such, that PCs advance faster than others isn't as apparent and isn't as much of an issue. I don't worry about it metaphysically; some people do rise faster and higher than others.
Quote from: AsenRG;885617And again, all of these questions have an evident in-universe answer if you go for the option where different tiers of ability are separated by life events. How many people could get the blessing of a dying dragon, steal a magic sword from an invisible demon guardian, become the best student of a warrior-witch, be the sons of cheating gods, or anything of the sort?
The answer is probably going to be obvious in the setting, and so will the consequences.
I agree those are pretty interesting ways to have characters advance, especially if the other abilities are all logical (from training, upbringing, etc), and the abilities make sense, and there are not big generic advances added at inflated rates just for showing up, because players like to have their characters advance.
Like, if you actually have to do something that really involves earning the blessing of a dragon, and the result is that you have a specific blessing effect and possible related consequences. And the magic sword is a magic sword that does what it does, not a +1 Level. And the warrior-witch teaches you specific skills.
I also think that remarkable experiences should give improvements to some character abilities, but I like it when they can have effects that are like experience, giving more intangible but important benefits rather than raw increases to power, or abilities that aren't really related to the nature of the experience.
Quote from: Ravenswing;885694...
2) This is eased by the relatively slow advancement of my PCs, and I believe by the GURPS system itself. With level-based systems, you have a large, overriding metric that says Character A is plainly superior to Character B ... A is 6th level, B is 4th level! QED! Players often also are well aware that a percentage to hit of X or a trap disarming skill of Y means Z level.
With GURPS (and point-based systems generally), it's much tougher. It's perfectly easy for a low-point character to have a single key, obvious skill at a high level, and easy for a high-point character to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, and all manner of combinations in-between.
As such, that PCs advance faster than others isn't as apparent and isn't as much of an issue. I don't worry about it metaphysically; some people do rise faster and higher than others.
As a GURPS fan, I understand and largely agree. Each level advancement in a game like D&D is a significant overall increase in power. In GURPS, advances can be a small increase in a specific skill, like Axe Throwing or Gambling (Poker) or Hiking or Fast Talk. Also the combat systems keeps everyone mortal, there are generally no hitpoint-piles, and a 200-point non-fighter can be overpowered by a 30-point fighter, etc.
Though I have seen the same sort of problems in some GURPS games, depending on how the GM awards points for experience. For example, I played in a game where we started as 25-point peasants, which was pretty challenging and interesting. The GM however would give out several points per session, even when we just did good roleplaying but our characters weren't really doing anything particularly educational. We even had a fairly involved system where we were not allowed to use points without relating them to something we'd done, and we had to tally how many hours and times in play we used each skill. But in spite of that fairly cool limiting system, after the campaign had run for some years, the large number of points added up. It was too many points, and by the end the surviving characters had hundreds of points, fairly high attributes and broad and deep skills, so we were very competent in many things, and masters of several things too, and while the characters were still interesting and fun and had weaknesses, it transformed the nature of the challenges, and sometimes overpowered what would otherwise be significant obstacles or opponents. The GM had a D&D background and cinematic tastes, and seemed to be pseudo-rationalizing the power levels as divine favor and/or OK for heroic expectations. I'd run things differently, but it actually didn't break down as much as I might fear because we had to put points into things we used or studied, so even though our point totals were 300-400 points, it was nothing like you could build if you were going for power and able to just choose what to get.
Good questions, Skarg! Thinking about one's campaign, system, and their relation to setting is a good idea for consciously establishing conceits. Better to be conscious of your conceits than being unconsciously pulled by them.
Quote from: Skarg;885608Some things I try to keep in mind, which seem important to me, but many progression systems don't seem to say much about, are:
1) Who besides the PCs does the progression system apply to? Everyone? Only the PCs? Or only people with certain qualities? I ask this about both the rate of ability gain, and the maximum potential ability.
I always apply the progression system to everyone.
This does not prevent starting characters from being considerably better than their average NPC, as some games are built on that conceit (a la vampires, angels, or other beings more powerful than average humanity).
This also does not mean I am spending ages recalculating NPC XP for everyone in a sort of massive clockwork setting.
Quote from: Skarg;8856082) What does the answer to 1) mean in terms of the game universe? If the PCs, or people with certain qualities advance faster and/or have more potential for ability than everyone else, what causes that? Is it divine favor? Is it because we just want them to be powerful heroes? Do they each have some explanation why they are special this way? What holds other people back, and is it possible for others to gain superior learning or potential, and how?
Since my answer is the PCs are not special statistically from everyone else — the only special advantage they have is my GM attention — all those other questions wash irrelevantly away...
That means each NPC gains an equal share of XP of any shared task. Some players balk at this and try to then lowball assistance, risking death for greater XP rewards. However since using Session XP Maximums, and alternate XP rewards (including individual XP ones), the onus to rank up levels ASAP tends to get sidelined.
For players the pressure to power level their PCs gives way to just being present and making their own meaning in the fictive world.
Also for NPCs that means you never know exactly who you are dealing with. Oh you can make assumptions about greater tier management meaning likely greater relevant experience, but there are no guarantees. Obvious social status grants organizational cooperation benefits, which is often a power far greater than mere character sheet widgets.
Quote from: Skarg;8856083) Based on 1) and 2), how many NPCs will be at what levels in each place or group in the campaign world?
Power tiers will for the most part be present, so greater experience confers greater minion followers. However setting is as equal, if not greater, force of power. So NPC cooperation from organizations can often be far greater, yet still be managed by lower "system level" characters.
A captain of the guard will
likely have higher Skill ranks, more widgets, or higher level, due to the experience needed to stay in the field and rise up the ranks.
However, a captain of the guard
could be appointed beyond their capacity due to setting pressures. That means the NPC will have less system widgets on their side.
But!, that does not mean he or she is no longer a threat, as social organization confers power projection, and there is no guarantee underlings will be less competent.
-- This makes my worlds far harder to metagame through game systems and forces players to focus on knowledge gleaned through setting. --
Quote from: Skarg;885754I agree those are pretty interesting ways to have characters advance, especially if the other abilities are all logical (from training, upbringing, etc), and the abilities make sense, and there are not big generic advances added at inflated rates just for showing up, because players like to have their characters advance.
Like, if you actually have to do something that really involves earning the blessing of a dragon, and the result is that you have a specific blessing effect and possible related consequences. And the magic sword is a magic sword that does what it does, not a +1 Level. And the warrior-witch teaches you specific skills.
I also think that remarkable experiences should give improvements to some character abilities, but I like it when they can have effects that are like experience, giving more intangible but important benefits rather than raw increases to power, or abilities that aren't really related to the nature of the experience.
Yeah, that's more or less what I'm thinking about:). In the right campaign, it can even replace XP.
Or in a level-based campaign, it can be used instead of "required training times". Only after you've achieved this kind of things can you get to the next power tier, and then such things become your new default that you have to beat again to progress to the next tier:D!
Quote from: Skarg;885763As a GURPS fan, I understand and largely agree. Each level advancement in a game like D&D is a significant overall increase in power. In GURPS, advances can be a small increase in a specific skill, like Axe Throwing or Gambling (Poker) or Hiking or Fast Talk. Also the combat systems keeps everyone mortal, there are generally no hitpoint-piles, and a 200-point non-fighter can be overpowered by a 30-point fighter, etc.
Though I have seen the same sort of problems in some GURPS games, depending on how the GM awards points for experience. For example, I played in a game where we started as 25-point peasants, which was pretty challenging and interesting. The GM however would give out several points per session, even when we just did good roleplaying but our characters weren't really doing anything particularly educational. We even had a fairly involved system where we were not allowed to use points without relating them to something we'd done, and we had to tally how many hours and times in play we used each skill. But in spite of that fairly cool limiting system, after the campaign had run for some years, the large number of points added up. It was too many points, and by the end the surviving characters had hundreds of points, fairly high attributes and broad and deep skills, so we were very competent in many things, and masters of several things too, and while the characters were still interesting and fun and had weaknesses, it transformed the nature of the challenges, and sometimes overpowered what would otherwise be significant obstacles or opponents. The GM had a D&D background and cinematic tastes, and seemed to be pseudo-rationalizing the power levels as divine favor and/or OK for heroic expectations. I'd run things differently, but it actually didn't break down as much as I might fear because we had to put points into things we used or studied, so even though our point totals were 300-400 points, it was nothing like you could build if you were going for power and able to just choose what to get.
Well, a campaign running for some years is probably still in the same tier. You're just moving to the top of it;).
(nods to Skarg) Oh, sure. No system's immune to Monty Haul GMs: it sure isn't the fault of the D&D system that the DM Spinachcat mentioned handed out an absurd 1st-to-10th in a month advancement. It's not that GURPS is any better at controlling Monty Haulism if the GM's determined to ignore the suggested XP/session guidelines.
Don't skip along in time, and you end up with players who become powerful very fast for apparently no reason. Skip ahead in time and you have the problem of why there's so much downtime (not a problem in some campaigns, a problem in others). Make skipping ahead in time obligatory to level gain and you get the problem of PCs either never having a spare moment to level up, or wanting to stop in mid-quest for three months to be able to level up (sometimes having no alternative to do so if they want to survive Mt.Doom or wherever the quest is leading them to).
So, why not cut the Gordian knot and just give less XP, until the rate of advancement fits what you actually want from your game?