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Greetings!

My company has been developing a post-apocalyptic/cyberpunk game for about four months now called Decay (http://www.decayrpg.com (http://www.decayrpg.com)), and I've been mulling over the problem of Experience Levels for about three of those four months. So, I figured it was time to consult the forums.

Basically, instead of characters having a lot of numbered Levels to denote their relative power, there are five named Experience Levels that set the character's maximums for Skills and other game-related statistics.

They are:
Green
Regular (Default Starting Level)
Veteran
Elite
Legendary

Obviously, it takes a while (about 8-12 game sessions) to reach the next level, which is why there are only five of them. As characters gain Experience Points, they eventually reach the next benchmark which allows them to increase their skills and stats above the limit of their last Level. Also, when creating a character, the Arbiter (GM) can choose to allow the players to start at a higher or lower Experience Level to allow for "off-the-farm" characters (Green EL) and "badass-from-the-start" characters(Veteran EL).

My questions are: Do you forsee any issues with using a system like this? Does this seem like a viable way to temporarily limit characters from getting too powerful? Do I need to elaborate more for these questions to be answered?

Thanks in advance!

The idea that characters must spend a certain amount of time as scrubs before becoming "too" powerful has become a common trope in RPG design.  It's valuable in gamist situations where players conflict with other players and in simulationist situations where the setting is largely predefined (ie. lots of npc profiles) and required to be very robust (i.e. resistant to changes by players).  I'm not sure what your goals are in this game so I can't say if power levels make sense.  Since a portion of the game is online, I suspect you want power levels because of the latter reason. 

If this is so, and you're using the power levels to enforce a) realism and b) world robustness, it may be simply better to define different "starting points" akin to classes rather than arbitrary power levels.  For example if you were a vault dweller, you may be better versed in science and 50's era pop culture than a tribal, but worse in gecko-skinning.  The caps on science would be higher for a vault dweller.  This would enforce local robustness while maintaining global realism. 

In any case, what are your avowed goals in the game, and how to the power levels help deliver that experience to the players?

I'm not sure what you mean by "avowed goals".

There really isn't a central goal to the setting. There are a plethora of different archetypes for what a group's campaign could be centered around: from corporate sabatoge and gang/syndicate related wars in the Megaplex, to bitter survival and rebuilding in the Outlands, the players can choose what they want their game to be about.

For example, you might have one group whose campaign centers around street-mercenaries who do the Megacorporation's dirty work. Their characters would be a crew of highly trained covert-ops specialists who make their money by taking under-the-table contracts from whatever type of proprietor will pay the most.

On the other hand, another group might have a campaign centered around a group of wandering scavengers just trying to survive in the wasteland. Their characters would spend most of their time exploring the ruins of the old civilizations, encountering strange creatures, avoiding mutants and marauders, and doing their best to find enough food and water to make it through the next twenty-four hours.

Though there's no reason it can't be, the game isn't set up to be a deep study of character personality so much as an adventure game centered around realistic action and gritty (sometimes depressing) science-fiction. If I were to have to pin one of the three titled on it, I suppose it would be a 'simulationist' type of game, though I don't particularly agree with labeling games in such a way.

Is that what you're asking?

The Experience Levels, in my eyes, serve two functions:
1) To allow a GM to judge how powerful a character is in comparison to an enemy or situation or even another player's character. We plan on having printed adventures that use Experience Levels to give a benchmark for how powerful the characters should be if they plan to undertake the adventure. So, you might have an adventure designed for very experienced characters that's labeled "Best for 3-5 Characters of Veteran Level".

2) To prevent players from creating unbalanced characters by imposing limits on them based on how much action their character has seen. A sixteen-year-old momma's boy (a Green character) who gets thrust into living on the streets when his parents die obviously shouldn't be as well versed in the use of a fire arm as, say, a grissled mercenary whose seen more then his fair share of gun fights (a Veteran character).

I'd rather not use anything related to predefined sets of points based on what "class" or occupation your character has. I mean, if the player and game master can decide on a believable reason why it should be so, who are we to say that a tribal character cannot be as well versed in the use of a car as a cityslicker. As long as the Game Master sees it as a plausible situation, there's no reason we should impose limits of who can be good at what. However, to promote balance between different characters in a group, there has to be some limit to how good any character can be at any one thing.

Let me know if I want out on a tangent that didn't relate to your questions.

Hi!
Well, I think the big question is:
- Do your Skills rise depending on these Definitions (green...)
- Or do they rise and later you get this title (regular...)
If it is the later, then I think there is nothing wrong with it. But if your Players have to wait 8 Days to raise any Skill it would definitely be too long to wait.

What I would do:
If it is only a limit you want, you can use a Title-System like with my RPG. So a high level number will help your players feel, that they are advancing every evening, and a title will make them comparabel (especially in a forum). I have a Fantasy-RPG where this works great: 25 levels, where you advance every evening and titles for each guild that your Character can earn at a certain level (a Novice, an Apprentice, a Honourable Member, a Master and the Leader of the Guild). So you wouldn't say "a level 5 Hammerite" but "a Hammerite Apprentice" if you were an Apprentice in the Warrior-Order of the Hammerites. A player at a certain level can get these titles, and will have great advantages in his guild and in society. But it is not directly connected to your level, so that you can still spent points regularly. And for the limit, you can limit certain Abilities or level of Abilities to each Status.

Why I wouldn't pick Green, Regular, Veteran, Elite, Legendary:
I think these Names are not Colourful enough. An example: Who is a better fighter? The Regular Ninja or the Rugular Mech (I don't know if these Chars are even possible but I think you got my point). The Idea is to give them Names that express, what they are but still give each type an individual touch. For example this COULD be an idea: The Ninja: A FOLLOWER of the lightning path; The Mech: STANDARD Model 207d. These names could be extended to Novice, Follower, Master... or for the Mech: Old, Standard, Improved, Prototype...
A test: Who is better: The Master of the Lightning Path or the Improved Model 207d.

So, I hope I understood your questions, if not simply ask again.
Your Website looks great, anyway, even if I don't see the point in a forum based game.

Quote from: Sentience on March 29, 2007, 10:30:29 AMMy questions are: Do you forsee any issues with using a system like this? Does this seem like a viable way to temporarily limit characters from getting too powerful? Do I need to elaborate more for these questions to be answered?

I think I'll need some more elaboration on characters getting 'too powerful'

To frame my question: Some online MUD's seem to have a game progression where you start out just as a player, but once you get to the top level you become a 'wizard' and create some of the game world.

In my mind the point of that design is for the player to have to accept, internalise and agree with some of the game world designers concept of the world, before they make the world (which the designer then has to internalise himself).

If that made any sense, is that why you want to temporarily limit characters from getting too powerful? So when they are ass kicking, world changers they have absorbed how the game world works to some degree and will continue to shape the world with that foremost in mind?

I hope my question makes sense - sometimes I'm confusing!

Also - are you aware of stagnant power scaling? Take this example - a warrior does 1D6 plus his strength score of 3, to monsters who ignore an amount of damage equal to their constitution of three. Now a level 100 warrior has a strength of 300!! And monsters are soo tough at con 300!

But you can see the stagnancy - there was no point in higher numbers, nothings really changed. BTW, you find this in D&D 3.x to an extent (a rather heavily developed RPG) - its a common design redundancy.

Wow! Thanks for the replies! :)

Okay...

To explain the online portion: It's hard for me to get into too much detail (the rest of my company basically said: "Don't give away too much information!") but, I can tell you that Decay Online will be neither a MUD nor have a Play by Post format. Therefore, world changing ass kickers will only be affecting their local world (local meaning the Decay world that exists within one groups imagination, not the "official" world that everyone who plays the game experiences. We plan to have a section of the web site where players can submit their ideas of world-changing events and, subject to review, will actually become part of the official setting).

To Scrandy: To answer your question...

The GM will award experience points at the end of each play session. These XP translate to benefits that allow you to improve your character's skills and statistics. Once you've reached the next benchmark (Say a Green character reaching 100 XP), you ascend to the next Experience Level which raises the cap on how high your Skill levels can be, as well as a handfull of other things. So, your skills rise and later you get this title.

I see what you mean with Level - Title system, however I was attempting to stray away from the 'Level 4 Gunslinger' type of gig. Also, there are no classes. Each player basically comes up with an adjective/noun 'Concept' for their character (Grumpy Merchant, Sly Thief, Charming Reporter), so having specific names for each type of character is kind of impossible, unless I come up with a catagorization (class) system such as, Combat, Stealth, Negotiation, Psionics, etc etc.

While I do agree that the titles Green, Regular, Veteran, Elite, and Legendary are sort of bland, I can't seem to come up with anything else along those lines that doesn't sound too 'midieval'. It's pretty hard-edged sci-fi, so I can't see myself using terms like Apprentice and whatnot.

As far as who is better a fighter: a Regular Ninja and a STANDARD 207d? This is a tough one to answer... First of all (and I know you were just giving an example) comparing a human ninja to a ten ton mech is like apples an oranges. However, I think you were referring to the mech-pilot rather then the mech itself. But, if we trying to figure out who's a better 'fighter' between a Regular Ninja and a Regular Mechpilot, I'd have to say the Ninja's skills are more focused on combat, so he'd probably be the better 'fighter'. If we were comparing an abstract level of 'ability and prowess', these two character would be relatively equal, so long as both had the same number of Experience Points. But, once the Mechpilot gets seated in the cockpit of his STANDARD Model 207d Heavy Reconnaissance Walker (hehehe, I love technical names) all bets are off!

Thanks for the compliment on the website! But you don't see a point for it?

To Callan:

By 'too powerful', I mean when a particular character maxes out his Fire Arms skill to the point where he never misses things that the other characters in his crew have a hard time hitting. Basically, since there are no preset classes define how good your character can be in a Skill, we instill limits on the characters to keep them from becoming unbalanced (too powerful in particular area of expertise). Obviously, as a crew progresses together, the difficulty of the tasks they're challenged with can progress as well.

To keep the element of challenge in the game, it's important that the players don't (quickly) ascend to a level of ability that requires the GM to throw fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn at them just to ensure there's some excitement in the game. While the game allows for this (the Legendary Experience Level), it takes a long time to get to this point.

By 'stagnant power scaling' you mean assigning specific, unchangeable, score to characters based on what they are? Like how a Level 1 Fighter in D&D always has a +1 To Hit score?

If thats what you're referring to, it would be difficult to include an element like that into the game when it has a relatively abstract, open ended, classless system. Besides, not every brand new gunslinger has the same level of Skill in Fire Arms.

I continue to hear the terms: 'robustness' and 'redudancy'. Could you briefly explain these to me, if it's not too much trouble?

Anway, thanks again guys. Simply discussing the topic is sort of deepening my understanding of whats going on.

Quote from: Sentience on March 29, 2007, 02:57:27 PM
I'm not sure what you mean by "avowed goals".

By goals I mean: "What are the players of the game meant to enjoy about it?"  Are they going to fight other players or npc monsters to demonstrate that they have a sound understanding of tactics?  Are they going chat with their friends about what life would be like after the bomb? Are they going to explore a big sandbox?  Something else?  It helps to know how the game is supposed to be enjoyed before I make reccomendations on how to enjoy it.

From your posts it sounds like the game is designed to be a big sandbox world with lots of neat stuff in it to learn about and explore.  I'm sure people can find other ways to enjoy it, but that's what you're spending most of the time creating, and hopefully will be the source of most enjoyment.  In GNS slang we call this a "simulationist" impulse (you're simulating life after the bomb with as much attention to detail as possible).

Powerlevels as you've described seem to exist soley to prevent over-specialization.  Players have to spread points around until they reach a new plataeu when the hard caps on skill levels go up.  (Side note, what prevents me from saving my points until I attain a higher powerlevel and dumping them all into my gunnery skill?).  This is a mechanic used mostly to promote "balance" which is a concept more closely related to competative play (what we GNS geezers call "gamist play") rather than simulationist.  It serves to promote a level playing field between the players (note, the GM is a player. by limiting the other players power with powerlevels you are making the game easier for the gm in a competative framework), this is unnecessary if you're only going to explore a big sandbox. 

What I'm getting at here, is that there's a division between Setting--(post apocalypse wastes) and System--(power levels of characters).  If the goal of the game is to explore the wastes, it doesn't matter if the players choose to be 10000000th level mechwarriors or dirt farmers, they're just exploring different parts of your world.  In fact to enjoy all the work you put in, they must play both.  If they are meant to compete or prove themselves, then power levels are nessecary to ensure the playing field is level otherwise, they just serve to make it more difficult for a group to successfully explore the extent of what the world has to offer.  The only case in which you'd bother to include both is what Callan S. said, you want them to learn the world from the bottom up, so the changes they initially make are small, and by the time they make large ones, the changes will be in accord with your original vision.

In answer to questions:

1. Stagnant power scaling--
This refers to the ratio of power staying constant, while the absolute value changes.  If my character inflicts 10 damage at level 1 to monsters which have 100 hps it takes me 10 swings to kill a monster.  If my character inflicts 100 damage at level 10 to monsters with 1000hps it still takes 10 swings to kill a monster and I might as well not have bothered.  The only difference is that I get to see different monsters, which I could still do if all the monsters just had 100hps initially.  The point here is that increasing power serves no purpose except as a series of gates seperating your world into sections, you could just install the gates and get the same effect more easily and elegantly.

2.  Robustness--
Roughly, resistance to change. A robust game world will basically ignore the actions of the players.  There will always be more dungeons to clean out (hell sometimes it's the same dungeon over and over), the king will always be there.  Power levels are one way to accomplish this.  A non-robust world hinges on the actions of the players.  Players are intended to assassinate the king and clean up the dungeons.  Of course there are many points on this spectrum, but the question in design is "what do I want the players to be able to change and why?"

3. Redundancy
Doing something more than once.  Imagine your players are in Dirtville, USA.  To travel to Mudton, USA they will need to drive through a war zone.  If they are too weak to defeat the soldiers in the war zone they cannot make the trip.  If they are out of gas, they cannot make the trip.  It may seem like these are two different things, but the outcome (don't make it to Mudton) is identical so either powerlevels or gas could be removed without changing the game in any way (Alternatively, you could have both if you wanted to make it REALLY hard to get around). 

Hi!
I have something to add to my last post, because I think you missunderstood me in some way:

At first, yes your webside is great and I love the design and I think you are creating a very interesting mood with it. What I personally don't understand is, why I would want to play a non PC-RPG where I have to use a PC. You know what I mean. One of my main values of a RPG is meeting real friends in a real room. But this is only my personal thing and perhaps when your game is ready I change my mind about that.

So to the Ninja/Mech thing:
My point in this perhaps a bit crazy example was, that both are called regular (Regular Ninja/Regular Mech). By using that naming idea the two characters seem somewhat compatable, but as you saw for yourself they aren't. A Ninja has complete different Skills than a Mech and I think for that there should be different names. So i suggested the STANDARD 207d and the FOLLOWER of the lightning path, where the words standard and follower should simply stand for a regular Character and could be exchanged by other words for higher levels later. It is really the same like "REGULAR 207d" and "REGULAR of the lightning path" but it sounds more fitting.
But in the end it is not my game and as I don't know enough of your game and its goals and features it maybe is not that important thing that HAS to be changed.
For example, I don't find the need of stopping newbees to get a supermunchkin Stat at the beginning in my game, but in your game it could make sense (especially with the web part in it).

Which leads me to my final concern: Why do your people at your firm make such a hiding game out of your ideas? As I see it, your idea is allready in progress and not so far from launch, so who should be earlier with the same idea like you, even if some lame idiot would copy every idea from you. I think what is much better for your business is to shout it out! Let everybody know what you are doing! If it is good they will tell others and you will do more for your business then with hiding things, and if you are lucky they all await your game before it is even finished. And if you did bad, well, you get a chance to make it better before it is published. I don't think that anybody could steal your idea here, because even if you tell many details, there will still be much left that you can sell and it will never be enough material out here to make a copy of your game or your game idea. And instead of hiding things you should release more information at least about the basic idea, goals  and mechanics, because then we can help here improve it or at least give you the feedback you want.
But in the end it's your policy.

Hi Sentience,

I'm not sure I agree with Majidah's overall direction and I wont rush into GNS stuff and things yet.

QuoteTo keep the element of challenge in the game, it's important that the players don't (quickly) ascend to a level of ability that requires the GM to throw fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn at them just to ensure there's some excitement in the game. While the game allows for this (the Legendary Experience Level), it takes a long time to get to this point.

Taking an overview of the leveling process (which would take quite a few sessions), this is what I see:
At first PC's react to the GM's depiction of the world. They are going to raise the skills they need to live and get on with things, of course.

After leveling to a certain extent, the characters now have so much power that instead of PC's reacting to the world, the world reacts to the PC's power. This also includes funky demon mutants being created because of the players skill choices.

Basically I'm seeing a see-saw where at first players react to the GM's game world but over time that changes to the GM('s game world) reacting to the players characters.

Noting this because it may help with designing.

If it doesn't sound right, here's a question : Why couldn't the very first minute of play likely require the GM to throw in fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn? Ie, players can be at top level right at the start.

Is it because the fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn are only there because of numbers - the numbers the players pumped up to epic levels? Ie, a player pumps his resist damage skill to epic levels - that means the firebreather is only because player put resist damage ultra high. There's no game world reason for the firebreather to be there. Does that sound a bit right?

While if the players start off weaker, then their stats reflect the needs of the game world. That means when they do get to higher levels, their stats choices are very much about the game world - so if you were to use a firebreather, it's rooted in game world reasons. Ie a character is a beaten slave/fighter (bit like conan) when he was at weaker levels - he pumps up his resist damage as a reaction (so as to survive). Then at high levels, when you find he's got epic resist damage, bringing in the firebreather (to challenge that epic damage resist) works because it's foundation is in the game world. The epic damage resist skill exists for game world reasons. While in my example above, there are no game world reasons behind the damage resist, so bringing in the firebreather just seems pretty lame too.

Well, if that was a bit obscure, just one question: Why couldn't the very first minute of play likely require the GM to throw in fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn? Ie, players can be at top level right at the start. Why wouldn't that be fun?

Callan S.  That's what I was getting at, but you've probably put it in clearer terms. 

I'm guessing here, but I suspect that Sentience & co. are going for an Legend of the 5 Rings or One World by Night thing with the website.  As individual players play, their submit their post-game transcripts to the website, some of which become cannonical events in the game world.  This is a faboo idea, it's quick content creation that's garunteed to appeal to the people who enjoy the game.  It allows people who play the game in different groups to still feel that they are part of a larger community of players as they would in an mmog.  Thus, powerlevels are an attempt to as Callan said, restrict the initial impact players can have.  If this is the case, then powerlevels are sort of unenforcable.  Different groups will just use different levels or claim they've worked their way up.  If there is an enforcement organization ah la OWBN, it'll be difficult for newer players to feel relevant since they lack the 'world reacts to me' level powers of older players (this got pretty absurd in OWBN, every Tom, Dick and Harry Wampire owned a multinational corporation or two).  I think it might be best to do away with power levels and just use a careful hand in the editting process for what becomes cannonical. 

Again, I'm quite impressed with the responses I'm getting. However, with such good responses, my post will be unfortunately be extremely long!

To Majidah: Thanks for the explanations. My GNS Skill Level is a bit low, but I think it just leveled up!

QuoteBy goals I mean: "What are the players of the game meant to enjoy about it?"  Are they going to fight other players or npc monsters to demonstrate that they have a sound understanding of tactics?  Are they going chat with their friends about what life would be like after the bomb? Are they going to explore a big sandbox?  Something else?  It helps to know how the game is supposed to be enjoyed before I make reccomendations on how to enjoy it.

Now that I understand your question a lot better, I suppose my avowed goal is a bit of a mixture of your examples. On one hand, the game includes alot of exploration of the setting, since survival in the wasteland involves alot of exploring the ruins of the old civilizations. However, there is also an element of 'corporate/street intrigue'  because of the existance of the Megacities that involves the players breaking into Megacorp research facilities and things like that, so tactics and planning play a big part as well. And of course, every game based on the end of the world involves alot of discussion on what life would be like after a nuclear winter. So, at the risk of making the game sound too convoluted, all of these elements play a role in the game, especially when you consider where in the setting the game takes place. (I hope that makes sense)

QuotePowerlevels as you've described seem to exist soley to prevent over-specialization

In essence, yes. My goal was to prevent, say, an Infiltrator character from raising her Stealth Skill to the point that she can sneak past just about every creature or person you throw at her.

QuoteSide note, what prevents me from saving my points until I attain a higher powerlevel and dumping them all into my gunnery skill?

While a player can store up as many points as they wish, you can only upgrade a character in between game sessions, and each skill can only be upgraded by one level at a time. So if you wanted to boost your Gunnery skill by six points when the cap has been increased, you'd have to improve the skill by one point over the next six gaming sessions. Does this seem like a good rule?

QuoteIf they are meant to compete or prove themselves, then power levels are nessecary to ensure the playing field is level otherwise, they just serve to make it more difficult for a group to successfully explore the extent of what the world has to offer

In effect, yes, this is one of the reason. Basically, as characters gain power, it essentially opens more dangerous areas to them. A 'Green' Level Scavenger would have an extremely tough time exploring the torid, intensely hot Southern Wastes, but once that Scavenger has reached Legendary status and has acquired the necessary skills and equipment, it may not seem like such a far fetched idea. Did I understand that correctly?

QuoteIn answer to questions:

1. Stagnant power scaling--
This refers to the ratio ...

Thank you! I was quite confused by those terms.

To Scrandy:

QuoteWhy do your people at your firm make such a hiding game out of your ideas?

Well, to put it bluntly, they're extremely paranoid that someone's going to try to rip the idea off. I'm not so paranoid myself, but just a wee-bit.

QuoteLet everybody know what you are doing! If it is good they will tell others and you will do more for your business then with hiding things, and if you are lucky they all await your game before it is even finished. And if you did bad, well, you get a chance to make it better before it is published

You make a good point. While we're quite dedicated to our project, we've already made significat strides in the online portion, and we're prepared to dump as much time, effort, blood, sweat, tears, and money to make the thing work, I'm still a bit worried that I may end up promising a piece of it that turns out to be impossible to deliver. However, I suppose there's no point in hiding it since it's been done before, just not to such a degree and not in the same fashion and level of quality.

With that said, we're working on an integrated "chatroom" type environment that allows people to play the game at a Virtual Table Top. While there are a few similar ideas out there, they're generic and quite clumsy (no offense), designed to work with just about any game you want to play. The one we're working on will be completely stream-lined and integrated with the game system to allow a nearly seemless transition between Physical (real life, in your living room) Table Tops and Virtual Tables Tops.

QuoteWhat I personally don't understand is, why I would want to play a non PC-RPG where I have to use a PC.

You don't have to use a PC to play the game. You're not required to even have an internet connection to play at home with your friends. However, there are alot of people who either don't have friends who want to play RPGs, would like to play RPGs more often then they do, or would like to play with someone in another city, state or even country. With Decay Online, the four of us in this discussion could, for all intents and purposes, play the game from hundreds or even thousands of miles away without having to rely on difficult forum dice rollers, lengthy downtime where your waiting for the other people to reply, or lacking the integration with the game your playing in some random yahoo chatroom. Knowing that much, we aren't presenting an online world, so much so as a method to play your own games without having to be sitting in the same room or even same hemisphere.

QuoteMy point in this perhaps a bit crazy example was, that both are called regular (Regular Ninja/Regular Mech). By using that naming idea the two characters seem somewhat compatable...

I see what your saying, but again that's a comparison between a character and what is essentially a prop in the setting. Machines and electronics will have a unique grading-system to differientiate between a hunk-of-junk and a top-of-the-line-prototype. And as far as naming the Experience Levels, I believe the correct way to explain it is, the names of Subjective, meaning no one in the game world would call you a 'regular' or 'elite' bartender. They're simply a (relatively) generic term used to describe whether your character is just starting his or  her career, or has been at it for years. There will, however, be 'in-game' titles that fit the setting, such as an "Arcodon of the Legion of Ash". But those in-game titles are more or less for vanity and don't have any statistical value for your character (aside from, perhaps, a Reputation bonus or something).

QuoteI don't think that anybody could steal your idea here, because even if you tell many details, there will still be much left that you can sell and it will never be enough material out here to make a copy of your game or your game idea. And instead of hiding things you should release more information at least about the basic idea, goals  and mechanics, because then we can help here improve it or at least give you the feedback you want.

I tend to agree with you, but I want to avoid any negative feelings from my co-workers. I hope you understand.

To Callan:

QuoteWhy couldn't the very first minute of play likely require the GM to throw in fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn? Ie, players can be at top level right at the start. Why wouldn't that be fun?

I suppose it could be fun, but then if the characters start out as 'the best of the best' right off the bat, where do they go from there? Part of the fun in an RPG, in my eyes, is advancement. Earning new skills and abilities is part of the experience. It keeps the players wanting more. I've GMed games many times where, after a night's gaming session, one of the players lacks just enough experience to level up, or just enough skill points to upgrade their favorite skill. This leaves the player yearning for more, asking me, "When are we gunna play next?!". That's a very satisfying feeling and let's you know your player(s) are eager to play again.

If every player starts out with full knowledge of every skill, where the only thing that can challenge them is, say, the Terrasque, and they've acquired every ability available, there's no sense of accomplishment because everything is handed to them without any work involved.

To put it in perspective, I HATE cheating in video games because once I've obtained all the weapons and abilities, there's nothing new to give me a feeling of achievement. There's no earning a new item or spell or whatever.

But, while the book doesn't give rules for starting out at Legendary Experience Level, it does give rules for starting with Elite characters, so at least the players still have one step before they become the creme of the crop. But, if the GM insists on starting the characters off as the guru's of their trades, there's nothing stopping them from awarding free Experience Points and letting them manually improve their characters to Legendary.

QuoteBasically I'm seeing a see-saw where at first players react to the GM's game world but over time that changes to the GM('s game world) reacting to the players characters.

This is a very interesting and thought provoking concept to me. I've never thought about it like that, but you're very right.

QuoteIs it because the fifty-foot, fire breathing, mutant-demon-dragon-spawn are only there because of numbers - the numbers the players pumped up to epic levels? Ie, a player pumps his resist damage skill to epic levels - that means the firebreather is only because player put resist damage ultra high. There's no game world reason for the firebreather to be there. Does that sound a bit right?

If I understand where you're going with this, then yes, the mutant-demon-dragon-spawn are only there because they represent a statistical challenge for a group of characters with really high skill levels. The reason I want to avoid this is because monsters of this stature should be a unique thing that fits the story and plays a role in the setting, rather then something that only exists because it's the only thing that still leaves a challange for the characters.

I'd probably sit here and type forever if I could, but it's getting late and my girlfriend wants to watch some silly movie that I'll probably fall asleep to. If there is something I misunderstood (which is likely since I tend to over-think things alot) please let me know and I'd be more then happy to re-evaluate my responses.

Thanks again guys! I appreciate the help immensely.

QuoteCallan S.  That's what I was getting at, but you've probably put it in clearer terms. 

I'm guessing here, but I suspect that Sentience & co. are going for an Legend of the 5 Rings or One World by Night thing with the website.  As individual players play, their submit their post-game transcripts to the website, some of which become cannonical events in the game world.  This is a faboo idea, it's quick content creation that's garunteed to appeal to the people who enjoy the game.  It allows people who play the game in different groups to still feel that they are part of a larger community of players as they would in an mmog.  Thus, powerlevels are an attempt to as Callan said, restrict the initial impact players can have.  If this is the case, then powerlevels are sort of unenforcable.  Different groups will just use different levels or claim they've worked their way up.  If there is an enforcement organization ah la OWBN, it'll be difficult for newer players to feel relevant since they lack the 'world reacts to me' level powers of older players (this got pretty absurd in OWBN, every Tom, Dick and Harry Wampire owned a multinational corporation or two).  I think it might be best to do away with power levels and just use a careful hand in the editting process for what becomes cannonical. 

Hehehe! You posted this as I was writing this insanely long post. While I'd like to respond this second, my g/f is becoming more and more rabid!

Hi Majidah (what's your real name, btw?),

QuoteThus, powerlevels are an attempt to as Callan said, restrict the initial impact players can have.

Basically we were saying something similar, but I disagree in terms of it being a restriction. It's basically a turn order - PC's react to the GM's world, then over time that switches until the PC's have their turn with the GM's world reacting to them.

Alot of the time you find these games never mature to that second turn though, so it seems purely restriction for no actual payoff. That's something we should talk about here - ensuring the game matures and gives both sides a turn.


Hi Sentience (what's your real name, btw? For more direct discussion we usually use real first names atleast),

Quote

Quote from: CallanBasically I'm seeing a see-saw where at first players react to the GM's game world but over time that changes to the GM('s game world) reacting to the players characters.

This is a very interesting and thought provoking concept to me. I've never thought about it like that, but you're very right.

I'm really glad we could arrive at this mutual ground :).  Thinking about the see-saw along with everything else will likely make alot of things fall into place, in terms of design.

QuoteIf I understand where you're going with this, then yes, the mutant-demon-dragon-spawn are only there because they represent a statistical challenge for a group of characters with really high skill levels. The reason I want to avoid this is because monsters of this stature should be a unique thing that fits the story and plays a role in the setting, rather then something that only exists because it's the only thing that still leaves a challange for the characters.

And I think we have mutual ground again (forge point for me thanks, Ron! hehe). :)

I'm just going to talk about this in terms of features: Think of a monster who has hugely damaging firebreathing, but the GM brought it in because at lower levels the players conan/slave fighter reacted to the GM's harsh damage dealing world by investing heavily in damage resist skills. Can you see a story there - how each element is dependent on the other? Also the unpredictability - who can guess where the story is going when both GM and player are in this tight story knot, aye?

As I said, just talking about features to think about - not really discussing anything there :)

What I do think needs to be discussed is ensuring the game matures and both sides have a turn reacting to the other. Also your idea of a community of players posting and how that would fit in such orders. Are you interested in a quick look into that? It doesn't have to be where the thread goes in general, just some quick ideas. :)

My name is Zack. :)


To Majidah:

QuoteI suspect that Sentience & co. are going for an Legend of the 5 Rings or One World by Night thing with the website.  As individual players play, their submit their post-game transcripts to the website, some of which become cannonical events in the game world

Fundementally yes. As well as new items, characters, places, adventures, ect ect. However, all of this will have to be heavily screened since we cannot allow anything that doesn't fit the tone, goes beyond set technology levels, conflicts with anything established or something we're planning to establish. But otherwise, I suppose alot of people will just start out at Elite and already be able to effect the GM's world. While not all of the effects will be seen in the official canon, those that have a place in the setting most definetely will.

QuoteIf there is an enforcement organization ah la OWBN, it'll be difficult for newer players to feel relevant since they lack the 'world reacts to me' level powers of older players (this got pretty absurd in OWBN, every Tom, Dick and Harry Wampire owned a multinational corporation or two).  I think it might be best to do away with power levels and just use a careful hand in the editting process for what becomes cannonical.

I'm not quite sure what OWBN is. As far as we're concerned, there's nothing wrong with allowing Tom, Dick, and Harry to own a Megacorp in a GM's local world. So long as the GM agrees, anything can happen in a group's individual game. But, if that was submited, it may have to be tweaked to fit into the setting, or it may just be too significant of a change to allow it to affect the canon.

If we were to do away with powerlevel, do you mean therefore making everyone start out as a novice? But as far as having a careful hand in the editting process for what becomes cannonical, this is a good idea and a must. Everything needs to be carefully considered before it's 'made official'.

To Callan:

QuoteI'm really glad we could arrive at this mutual ground :).  Thinking about the see-saw along with everything else will likely make alot of things fall into place, in terms of design.

I think you're right. But how would you suggest encorporating this concept into the design?

QuoteWhat I do think needs to be discussed is ensuring the game matures and both sides have a turn reacting to the other.

Would that be something that had to be interweaved into the mechanics of the game, something that just needs to be considered with the online portion, or just something that should be suggested to Game Masters in the book?

QuoteAlso your idea of a community of players posting and how that would fit in such orders. Are you interested in a quick look into that? It doesn't have to be where the thread goes in general, just some quick ideas. :)

Certainly! Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

Zack Wolf

Quote from: Callan S. on March 31, 2007, 01:52:18 AM
Hi Majidah (what's your real name, btw?),

QuoteThus, powerlevels are an attempt to as Callan said, restrict the initial impact players can have.

Basically we were saying something similar, but I disagree in terms of it being a restriction. It's basically a turn order - PC's react to the GM's world, then over time that switches until the PC's have their turn with the GM's world reacting to them.

Alot of the time you find these games never mature to that second turn though, so it seems purely restriction for no actual payoff. That's something we should talk about here - ensuring the game matures and gives both sides a turn.

It's Pat!  

Yess...... Restrictions are only so if one never reaches the second turn. Your wisdom is most enlightening, Callan Sensei.  Yours is a better way to think of it.  I humbly point out that power levels are simply one possible mechanic to implement the switching of impact from one player (usually GM) to the others (usually PCs).  The same could be accomplished with story techniques or competition between players.  However, I grant you the point, I made powerlevels sound overly negative, simply because they're out of fashion.  I'm glad you were around to remind me of the purpose.

Quote from: Sentience on March 30, 2007, 10:36:03 PM
Again, I'm quite impressed with the responses I'm getting. However, with such good responses, my post will be unfortunately be extremely long!

To Majidah: Thanks for the explanations. My GNS Skill Level is a bit low, but I think it just leveled up!

dadada-daaa-da-da-dun-dadada!

Quote
Now that I understand your question a lot better, I suppose my avowed goal is a bit of a mixture of your examples. On one hand, the game includes alot of exploration of the setting, since survival in the wasteland involves alot of exploring the ruins of the old civilizations. However, there is also an element of 'corporate/street intrigue'  because of the existance of the Megacities that involves the players breaking into Megacorp research facilities and things like that, so tactics and planning play a big part as well. And of course, every game based on the end of the world involves alot of discussion on what life would be like after a nuclear winter. So, at the risk of making the game sound too convoluted, all of these elements play a role in the game, especially when you consider where in the setting the game takes place. (I hope that makes sense)

It's good to see such ambitious undertakings.  One thing I've noticed when writting a system is that easy and tempting to put alot in.  In the setting and color catergories, more is almost always better.  When you have a lovely detailed system, you'll get a lot of different desires on the players part.  Some will want to do Shadowruns, others will want to be junk collectors fighting off rad scorpians.  The players will find a way to play the game they wish to play, and ideally the rules should aid them. I think what Callan and I are worried about with the powerlevels is that you've started with some ideas about mechanics and now you're filling in the stats of the world to match.  This is the thing about the fire-breathing-hellbeast.  Is it there because the ecology, history and plot of the game require fire-breathing-hellbeasts? Or is it just to provide high powerlevels with something to fight?  It can be both, but at least one of the things will likely feel a bit artificial.

QuotePart of the fun in an RPG, in my eyes, is advancement. Earning new skills and abilities is part of the experience. It keeps the players wanting more. I've GMed games many times where, after a night's gaming session, one of the players lacks just enough experience to level up, or just enough skill points to upgrade their favorite skill. This leaves the player yearning for more, asking me, "When are we gunna play next?!". That's a very satisfying feeling and let's you know your player(s) are eager to play again.

Advancment works two ways, the first is stagnant power scaling, where your numbers scale up to meet those of higher threat levels, so you're essentially running on a treadmill, the second is diversification.  You never knew you'd need to wield a lighsaber when you created your whiny farmboy, now it's a good thing you've got those experience points cause people need slicin!  Think of it as depth vs. breadth of development.  Depth divides the world into "zones" that require different levels or types of characters to explore.  Width allows characters to react to moving between zones  that may or may not be specified by depth.

The appeal of advacement comes from the attachment players form with their characters, and thus (hopefully) the game.  This is like the see-saw effect Callan mentioned. At first characters have little impact, then they have larger and larger impact.  Eventually it feels to the player like the world (through their character) is somehow their's.  This attachment can also be fostered through good story telling, interesting adventures, competition etc.  

When you first discussed putting in powerlevels, why did it seem appealing?  Were there other ideas?  I'm trying to understand how the goals and premise of the game yielded the power level idea.


Dang you Zack and your postin durin mypost!

OWBN is one world by night, an organization that used to oversee a large national group of Vampire: the Masqurade games.  It maintained a cannonical world based on what individual players did.

QuoteWould that be something that had to be interweaved into the mechanics of the game, something that just needs to be considered with the online portion, or just something that should be suggested to Game Masters in the book?

mentioning it would be ideal!  It's always surpising how close to the vest so many games play with thier structural ideas.  You can avoid a lot of headaches by just saying "here's why we put this in." If it's something you'd like to have in your game, these powerlevel mechanics could be one of the ways to support it.  Also include some setting details about how the wastes might be changed by the players to give them a leg up.

Quote

Quote
Also your idea of a community of players posting and how that would fit in such orders. Are you interested in a quick look into that? It doesn't have to be where the thread goes in general, just some quick ideas. :)

Certainly! Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

One of the things the legend of the five rings guys did, was to write a big scenario that was supposedly going down.  A good example might be, two great powers go to war.  Then players play little vingettes each of which explores a small part of the great war.  Inspired by some of this input, designers write an event which takes place at a Con or a big online gathering.  This event decides the outcome of the original big scenario.  Rinse and repeat. It's a great way to give the players a kind of proprietary feeling.

Quotedadada-daaa-da-da-dun-dadada!

... The sad part is I know exactly what this is. Hehehe!

QuoteIt's good to see such ambitious undertakings.  One thing I've noticed when writting a system is that easy and tempting to put alot in.  In the setting and color catergories, more is almost always better.  When you have a lovely detailed system, you'll get a lot of different desires on the players part.  Some will want to do Shadowruns, others will want to be junk collectors fighting off rad scorpians.  The players will find a way to play the game they wish to play, and ideally the rules should aid them. I think what Callan and I are worried about with the powerlevels is that you've started with some ideas about mechanics and now you're filling in the stats of the world to match.  This is the thing about the fire-breathing-hellbeast.  Is it there because the ecology, history and plot of the game require fire-breathing-hellbeasts? Or is it just to provide high powerlevels with something to fight?  It can be both, but at least one of the things will likely feel a bit artificial.

Well, when I originally mentioned the uber-monster, I was explaining that I didn't want to the PCs to become too powerful right away, so that this creature was the only thing that still held a challenge for them in the combat department.

Part of the setting includes two features that give reason to why these gargantuan monstrosities exist. The first is the idea of adaptation, reactionary evolution, and the influence of radiation.

One of the stories I remember so vividly from 7th grade science class took place in the UK. There was a forest outside of a town, and the forest had nearly stark white barked trees. On these trees were thousands of white butterflies that used their camouflage to prevent from getting eaten by the birds that hunted overhead. Then, something changed. The people who lived in this town because to build factories, and the smoke from these factories drifted into the forest, turning all the trees black. Now, all the white butterflies began to get eaten. But, some of those white butterflies had offspring that were black. Pretty soon, the forest was covered in black butterflies! Low and behold, when England began to crack down on the pollution, and the trees slowly turned white again, the black butterflies disappeared and what was left was their white children.

The point of this story, for me, is the idea of forced adaptation and evolution, what I refer to in the book as "Reactionary Evolution". Though most perished, many of the creatures of the earth that endured this great holocaust were able to quickly evolve (over about 600 years) to completely new species that reflect their new planet. Here's an (abridged) example of one of these creatures, straight out of the book:

QuoteThe Burrowing Reaper: Standing about four-feet off the ground, these strange creatures resemble gangly, massively deformed, bipedal moles. Though they're completely blind, their ability to sense vibration is uncanny. They posses bony scoop-like appendages called 'scythes' that they use to burrow through the parched underground, creating vast networks of warrens that interconnect with natural caverns and caves as well as manmade tunnels, shafts, and even into the basements of ruined buildings. Though they meet once a year to mate (they are hermaphrodites, but they still require a mate), they are solitary creatures by nature. This doesn't stop them from using each other's tunnel networks and even building on them. When they do occasionally bump into one another in the darkness, they seldom turn violent, most of the time stopping for an inspection before moving on. These creatures generally feed off decaying plant matter, but their favorite food is the plump, juicy larvae of the giant insect species known as the Lokust. They pose little threat to humans, but if they feel cornered or otherwise threatened, they respond by viciously thrashing with their scythes.

While this creature doesn't represent an 'uber-monster', I was just giving an example of how Reactionary Evolution has given rise to some outlandish and strange creatures, some of which could be seen as uber-monsters.

The second idea that helps support why these hellbeasts exist is something we've dubbed the Revenance. When the bombs dropped, and 90% of life on earth was obliterated, something awakened. An ancient evil of such magnitude that it's presence manifests constantly, in eerie and often demonic forms. Think HP Lovecraft a bit. Anyway, some of these manifested creatures are small, relatively insignificant beings like Firebrands (something like a troublemaking imp) and Whisperers (spirit-type beings that enjoy planting negative thoughts into people's heads). However, some of these manifestations are insidious, gargantuan, and powerful, such as Abominations (large, ghastly monstrocities that range from things that resemble undead, demonic elephant-like creatures, to something more along the lines of a grotesque humanoid whose bones jut out from it's leathery, burnt skin that's clad in sharp metal scrap armor).

So, to conclude, these uber-monsters exist for both reasons, but primarily because the setting requires them. The Revenance provides a deep mystery for players to investigate and ponder on. It also serves as venue to bring a 'horror' element into a game that is essentially based on 'shadowruns' and 'wastelanders'. Lastly, it provides a host of particularly tough opponents for more powerful characters to encounter and (hopefully) defeat.

Basically, as a designer, I'd like the Revenance and these uber-monsters to be something unique and important in the game; something the players have to work at before they can hope to encounter something of this nature. The Revenance isn't something the Crew should encounter every adventure. It should be a mysterious element to the campaign that's always just out of the player's grasp. Something they're confused about and they don't quite understand why it's there, if it's following them, if it wants to kill them, or just watch them.

But, when designing the stats for these uber-monsters, I do intend to keep an eye on the Experience Levels, so that they can provide the duel purpose of being both an integral (albiet enigmatic) element to the setting, and also provide a statistical challenge for Crews that have ascended beyond the normal scope of play.

Does it seem like one of these sides will be artificial?

QuoteAdvancment works two ways, the first is stagnant power scaling, where your numbers scale up to meet those of higher threat levels, so you're essentially running on a treadmill, the second is diversification.  You never knew you'd need to wield a lighsaber when you created your whiny farmboy, now it's a good thing you've got those experience points cause people need slicin!  Think of it as depth vs. breadth of development.  Depth divides the world into "zones" that require different levels or types of characters to explore.  Width allows characters to react to moving between zones  that may or may not be specified by depth.

Although I didn't intend for it to be this way, now that you mention it, regions of the setting are kind of set up into 'zones'. Some areas have harsher climates or suffer from varying degrees of radioactivity. These places will obviously be harded to survive in, as well has playing host to much more vicious and nasty (and powerful) creatures. Likewise, these areas will probably have a plethora of choice 'treasure' to locate as well, since humans don't usually scavenge places that are too dangerous to go into.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Width allows characters to react to moving between zones that may or may not be specified by depth."
Could you explain that a bit better, my friend? :)

QuoteOWBN is one world by night, an organization that used to oversee a large national group of Vampire: the Masqurade games.  It maintained a cannonical world based on what individual players did.

Wish I knew about that when I was in to V:TM!

Quotementioning it would be ideal!  It's always surpising how close to the vest so many games play with thier structural ideas.  You can avoid a lot of headaches by just saying "here's why we put this in." If it's something you'd like to have in your game, these powerlevel mechanics could be one of the ways to support it.  Also include some setting details about how the wastes might be changed by the players to give them a leg up.

I see what you mean. With the help you guys have given me, I'd like to include that idea as a core feature of the game (if you don't mind!). So what you're suggesting is when writing the Game Master section of the book, I should explain the 'see-saw' of power and how at lower levels, the characters will be reacting to the GM's world, while at higher levels the GM will be reacting to the players choices. Should I, then, also explain that both sides of the spectrum should certainly be explored?

QuoteOne of the things the legend of the five rings guys did, was to write a big scenario that was supposedly going down.  A good example might be, two great powers go to war.  Then players play little vingettes each of which explores a small part of the great war.  Inspired by some of this input, designers write an event which takes place at a Con or a big online gathering.  This event decides the outcome of the original big scenario.  Rinse and repeat. It's a great way to give the players a kind of proprietary feeling.

L5R was probably one of my favorite games, and I'm not surprised that they came up with such a sweet idea. We have already been planning a free (free to those who purchase the game) set of adventures that makes up a campaign wherein the players choices have a significant effect on the canonical setting. We would suggest that everyone who runs the campaign submit their session transcripts, and the most popular outcome would become set in stone (thereby literally putting the fate of the official setting into the hands of the people playing the game).

Does this seem like a good idea?

Thanks alot Pat! I'm loving this discussion!

Hi Zack,

Okay what I'm going to suggest is going to be ass backwards at first - because it wont be about story first, it'll be about looking after players first (ie, making sure they get their turn at the high end of the see saw)

This is it: Have smaller experence levels inside the larger one, ones which can be met in a single session.

These experience levels would revolve around a cluster of skills, rather than covering the characters entire capacity (as your XP levels cover that now).

Okay, in play they can be raised rapidly during play. Not at the end, right during play - preferably right when the GM has presented some (to him) significant part of the game world (well work on how to ensure this). The players choose which skill (out of the cluster in question) are raised and play goes on.

I think for your purposes the raising is some sort of 'insight' mechanism - the skill raises, but not permanently - only for the particulars of the current adventure does the character have his insight.

Finally, the insight raising can go right up to legendary. Yup, in one session! ONE session!

Essentially you already have a see-saw that shifts over many sessions. Here there's a smaller see-saw shifts over one session, but it doesn't involve the whole character (just a cluster of skills) and isn't permanent.

I'm not pitching this in terms of it fitting genre somehow or fitting the feel of a game world. It's there to ensure players get their turn at the high end of the see-saw. I'm guessing this could seem 'off' because without any game world/story reason for it, it's hard to internalise. What do you think?

QuoteSo, to conclude, these uber-monsters exist for both reasons, but primarily because the setting requires them. The Revenance provides a deep mystery for players to investigate and ponder on. It also serves as venue to bring a 'horror' element into a game that is essentially based on 'shadowruns' and 'wastelanders'. Lastly, it provides a host of particularly tough opponents for more powerful characters to encounter and (hopefully) defeat...But, when designing the stats for these uber-monsters, I do intend to keep an eye on the Experience Levels, so that they can provide the duel purpose of being both an integral (albiet enigmatic) element to the setting, and also provide a statistical challenge for Crews that have ascended beyond the normal scope of play.

Does it seem like one of these sides will be artificial?

nope, this is more or less the response I was hoping for.  It's a great setting that's deep enough to have all kinds of interesting critters, but it's important to design in the direction you're going, which is roughly.  1. We want people to explore and learn about the world -->2.  We create an interesting world-->3. We design the content of the world based on the interesting principals from which it was made.   It's not as good to start from the idea of power levels and then try to create content that will simply serve as a statistical challenge.  My final question about powerlevels is specifically about what differentiates one zone from another, which coincidentally goes straight to the heart of your next question!

QuoteI'm not quite sure what you mean by "Width allows characters to react to moving between zones that may or may not be specified by depth."
Could you explain that a bit better, my friend? :)

Imagine 3 villages: Townsville, Scorch and Radiatia.  Townsville is mild and safe.  Scorch is very hot, characters need Cool skill at 10 to survive.  Radeiatia is full of radiation, characters must have Radaway skill at 15 to survive.  At "green" power level, skills only go to 5, so players cannot possibly explore either Scorch or Radeiatia.  Finally the characters reach "Veteran" level, and thus can get skills up to 10.  Now they can explore Scorch.  However, there is a side effect, since all the characters skills can reach 10, Scorch must contain statistical challenges (tasks and monsters) which are twice as high as they were in Townsville to be equivalent to the element of uncertainty present in townsville.  Similarly, Radeiatia will be 3x townsville. 

Width refers to players raising their Cool and Radaway skills.  These skills were unessecary in Townsville but upon moving to a new zone, became valuable.  Players could not have forseen this at character creation, so the advancement and power level mechanic exists to allow them to adapt.

Depth refers to players raising OTHER skills.  It's the treadmill effect, players power up, and the world gets more difficult to match them.  Here the advancement mechanic is only necessary because of the advancement mechanic.  The world is responding to more powerful characters, who in turn try to grow more powerful and...treadmill.

The only danger of Depth is that now the characters who've advanced to Radentia cannot have meaningful adventures in townsville because it is scaled improperly for them. 

It's also important to point out that width and depth don't have to be shackled to statistical advancement.  In a previous example, suppose players could spend experience points on a car (odd yes, but  they can now define the kind of equipment they'll find while scavenging), now they can reach a distant village without dying of dehydration.  You've allowed them to move through width, without adding depth. 

QuoteI see what you mean. With the help you guys have given me, I'd like to include that idea as a core feature of the game (if you don't mind!). So what you're suggesting is when writing the Game Master section of the book, I should explain the 'see-saw' of power and how at lower levels, the characters will be reacting to the GM's world, while at higher levels the GM will be reacting to the players choices. Should I, then, also explain that both sides of the spectrum should certainly be explored?

Emphatically yes!

Quote from: Callan S. on April 02, 2007, 04:08:12 AM
Hi Zack,

Okay what I'm going to suggest is going to be ass backwards at first - because it wont be about story first, it'll be about looking after players first (ie, making sure they get their turn at the high end of the see saw)

This is it: Have smaller experence levels inside the larger one, ones which can be met in a single session.

These experience levels would revolve around a cluster of skills, rather than covering the characters entire capacity (as your XP levels cover that now).

Okay, in play they can be raised rapidly during play. Not at the end, right during play - preferably right when the GM has presented some (to him) significant part of the game world (well work on how to ensure this). The players choose which skill (out of the cluster in question) are raised and play goes on.

I think for your purposes the raising is some sort of 'insight' mechanism - the skill raises, but not permanently - only for the particulars of the current adventure does the character have his insight.

Finally, the insight raising can go right up to legendary. Yup, in one session! ONE session!

Essentially you already have a see-saw that shifts over many sessions. Here there's a smaller see-saw shifts over one session, but it doesn't involve the whole character (just a cluster of skills) and isn't permanent.

I'm not pitching this in terms of it fitting genre somehow or fitting the feel of a game world. It's there to ensure players get their turn at the high end of the see-saw. I'm guessing this could seem 'off' because without any game world/story reason for it, it's hard to internalise. What do you think?

I likes it.  Somehow it reminds me of the Riddle of Steel, where characters had certain axioms they lived by that would dump gartantuan numbers of dice into their pools when it was dramatically appropriate.  I think a sufficient game/story reason for this advancement would simply be "your character is getting really familiar with fixing the protomechanicaldingbat." Doesn't mean his "dingbat-repair" skill is going to be huge for every subsequent dingbat he encounters.  Of course, you don't always need one.  Shadowrun allows you to destroy a tank with a .22 caliber pistol by testing damage up sufficiently.  It leaves the justification for the GM/players to come up with after the fact. 

Dude...it just ate a huge post...

*shakes his fist at the Forge*

I'll post again later...

I was able to salvage a bit of the post I lost...Whew!

Okay...


Hi Callan,

I must admit, I'm slightly confused about your suggestion.

Here's what I think:

QuoteOkay what I'm going to suggest is going to be ass backwards at first - because it wont be about story first, it'll be about looking after players first (ie, making sure they get their turn at the high end of the see saw)

Part of my original goal with the XP Levels was the idea that the players could create brand new characters that were already at the top of their game (starting out at the Veteran or Elite Level), in other words, they're at the top of the seesaw from the beginning of the campaign.

QuoteThis is it: Have smaller experience levels inside the larger one, ones which can be met in a single session.

I think I'm having trouble connecting this with what you said after that. To me, allowing players to ascend a level in a single session seems to serve the purpose of giving them an immediate sense of accomplishment, rather then ensuring they get their turn controlling the game world.

QuoteThese experience levels would revolve around a cluster of skills, rather than covering the characters entire capacity (as your XP levels cover that now).

So you're suggesting that these 'mini-levels' reflect a character's prowess in a handful of skills, while the larger Experience Levels reflect their entire repertoire of abilities? If so, who chooses the handful of skills, since there are no classes that would set 'skill-groups'?

QuoteOkay, in play they can be raised rapidly during play. Not at the end, right during play - preferably right when the GM has presented some (to him) significant part of the game world (well work on how to ensure this). The players choose which skill (out of the cluster in question) are raised and play goes on.

I'm not sure I like the idea of players being able to increase their skills in the middle of play. To me, this seems like something that would create a distraction or otherwise prevent the game from going smoothly, as well as giving the players an unbalanced advantage when the GM is about to challenge them in some way.

If I understand correctly, then let's say a GM was about to have the Crew get dumped into a situation where they have to survive in the ruins of Houston for a few days. To this GM, this is a huge part of his planned adventure. The challenges the players would face would probably involve the Survival Skill and a handful of combat skills, assuming there are some nasties in the ruins that they have to fight. Now that they players have an idea of what they're up against, why would the players increase anything but their combat and survival skills, which are now too overpowered for the preestablished adventure the GM had planned. Not to mention, it may take up to 15 minutes for all the players in the group to increase their skills if it's a large group of players. So now, the GM just presented a significant plot thread of his adventure, but there's a 15 minute interlude that basically interrupts his flow of the story.

Did I not understand this correctly?

QuoteI think for your purposes the raising is some sort of 'insight' mechanism - the skill raises, but not permanently - only for the particulars of the current adventure does the character have his insight.

So now, it would seem like the idea is to temporarily allow the players to buff the skills they need for the situation that's going to occur. So how then does the GM plan a balanced challenge? If every session, the player's characters become 'Legendary' in what ever skills they need for the particular challenge, does the concept of 'challenge' still hold true?

QuoteEssentially you already have a seesaw that shifts over many sessions. Here there's a smaller seesaw shifts over one session, but it doesn't involve the whole character (just a cluster of skills) and isn't permanent.

I thought the seesaw was meant to be a gradual thing; something that could be anticipated by the GM whose players were being conditioned to change the world in a way that reflected the GM's ideals.

To me, the seesaw took a form that was more fused with the individual character and his/her story. Such as, a Green street thug starts out doing menial tasks and legwork, reporting to a low-boss of the gang. As the character gains power, eventually becoming a 'legendary street thug', he earns new ranks until he becomes the big boss of the gang. Now instead of reacting the GM's world, he now has enough power to make significant changes and the GM is now reacting to him.

The idea that the seesaw effect could take place within a single session, in my opinion, is rushing it a little. Unless the entire group (including the GM) decide that they want to skip to the chase and start out the players as Elite, then the GM doesn't really have a chance to set the tone for the players.

QuoteFinally, the insight raising can go right up to legendary. Yup, in one session! ONE session!

I'm not sure why we'd want to allow a character to temporarily raise a skill up to a level that (in my opinion) should be earned by dedication to the game. The idea for the Experience Levels were to prevent players from raising a single skill to Legendary status so that a brand new negotiator's Diplomacy Skill wasn't maxed out from the get go.

QuoteI'm not pitching this in terms of it fitting genre somehow or fitting the feel of a game world. It's there to ensure players get their turn at the high end of the seesaw.

To me, the responsibility of ensuring the players get their turn at the high end of the seesaw is ultimately up to the GM and the players themselves. Some GM's may not want the Players to ever be able to control the world. There are also players who prefer the comfort of not being in control. Then again, there are GM's who want the Players to be in control right off the bat, and likewise players who only want to play if their characters are shaping the world from square one.

In my opinion, I think the seesaw theory should be presented as a tool for GM's to implement when creating a campaign, not necessarily something that needs to be ingrained in the mechanics of the game. My thoughts on how to present this was to explain to the GM that it may be a worth while en devour to ensure that in the beginning, the Players react to the Gm's world. Once the character have been introduced to the setting and understand how things work, and once their characters have ascended to a high level of power, then the scale falls in their favor, allowing the Players to have a much more significant impact on how the plot of the story evolves.

QuoteWhat do you think?

I think we were on the same page, but I got lost somewhere in the implementation.

I think I could use some elaboration. I may not be grasping the idea fully or understanding the scope of your ideas.

To Pat:

We have made a habit posting while the other is writing their post, haven't we? Hehehe!

Quotenope, this is more or less the response I was hoping for.  It's a great setting that's deep enough to have all kinds of interesting critters, but it's important to design in the direction you're going, which is roughly.  1. We want people to explore and learn about the world -->2.  We create an interesting world-->3. We design the content of the world based on the interesting principals from which it was made.

That's the idea! We're seeing eye to eye now.

QuoteImagine 3 villages: Townsville, Scorch and Radiatia.  Townsville is mild and safe.  Scorch is very hot, characters need Cool skill at 10 to survive.  Radeiatia is full of radiation, characters must have Radaway skill at 15 to survive.  At "green" power level, skills only go to 5, so players cannot possibly explore either Scorch or Radeiatia.  Finally the characters reach "Veteran" level, and thus can get skills up to 10.  Now they can explore Scorch.  However, there is a side effect, since all the characters skills can reach 10, Scorch must contain statistical challenges (tasks and monsters) which are twice as high as they were in Townsville to be equivalent to the element of uncertainty present in townsville.  Similarly, Radeiatia will be 3x townsville.

Interesting example. Vaguely reminds me of MMO style 'zones'.

QuoteWidth refers to players raising their Cool and Radaway skills.  These skills were unessecary in Townsville but upon moving to a new zone, became valuable.  Players could not have forseen this at character creation, so the advancement and power level mechanic exists to allow them to adapt.

Depth refers to players raising OTHER skills.  It's the treadmill effect, players power up, and the world gets more difficult to match them.  Here the advancement mechanic is only necessary because of the advancement mechanic.  The world is responding to more powerful characters, who in turn try to grow more powerful and...treadmill.

The only danger of Depth is that now the characters who've advanced to Radentia cannot have meaningful adventures in townsville because it is scaled improperly for them. 

So, then am I correct in saying that when Width is concerned, Players advance to different areas of the world once they've achieved a high enough level to survive, while Depth describes a setting where the entire world evolves along with the characters?

If this is the case, then these two concepts can be seen in the games World of Warcraft and TES: Oblivion. In WoW, a Level 1 character cannot survive in the next area until he reaches level 10. So, in order to get to the next zone, the player must advance his character up to an appropriate level to be able to meet the challenges of that area. In Oblivion, the character can go where ever he wants right from the start, and the world scales to always keep a relative level of challenge no matter where he goes.


Is this correct?

If so then, I believe when you said:

QuoteThe only danger of Depth is that now the characters who've advanced to Radentia cannot have meaningful adventures in townsville because it is scaled improperly for them.

- you mean "Width", rather then "Depth", because with Width, Townsville is permanently set for Green characters, and Radentia is set up for Elite characters, so an Elite character would not be challenged by the content of Townsville?

QuoteIt's also important to point out that width and depth don't have to be shackled to statistical advancement.  In a previous example, suppose players could spend experience points on a car (odd yes, but  they can now define the kind of equipment they'll find while scavenging), now they can reach a distant village without dying of dehydration.  You've allowed them to move through width, without adding depth.

QuoteMy final question about powerlevels is specifically about what differentiates one zone from another

If I were to have to decide on Width or Depth, I think the game primarily relies on Width, with a small amount of Depth that's largely up to the GM to manage.
To answer this better, I think I'll need to explain what the areas of setting are. I'll try to be brief.

The Aeon Megaplex: One of three giant metropolises that were born from the ARC (Assurance for the Restoration of Civilization) Complexes (think noah's 'ark', or the Vaults from Fallout, but this time the whole vault is one big GECK). After hundreds of years, these cities are enormous, ruled by monolithic Megacorporations who all make up the largest form of organized goverment in the world: The TCC (Terran Corporate Commonwealth). This is where the 'shadowrun' type of stuff happens. The Megaplex offers a wide spectrum challenges, from ones appropriate for Green characters (such as breaking into a very low-security soda-pop factory) to ones that are more appropriate for Elite characters (planting false evidence in a black-security MobiusCorp Weapons Division Research and Development installation located twenty stories underground). This isn't to say that shadowruns and breaking and entering are the only things to do there, I was just using that as an example.

The Sprawls: Outside of the Borderwall of the Megaplex lie miles of ruined city inhabited by people so lost in poverty and oppression, that the term 'slum' is an understatement. Here, people are ruled over by vicious Sprawl Lords that war with each other for power and resources. Most of the people here subsist off of castoff garbage and resources from the Megaplex. This is a very tough place to live, which represents a much more difficult area to survive in then the Megaplex, though the difficulty can always be scaled to meet a challenge for Green characters.

The Central Barrens: Just outside the Sprawls and the Megaplex is the area of the Outlands that was once the heartland, the breadbasket of the United States. What consists mostly of the remnants of old farms and what are now skeletal forests, the Barrens are a parched and relatively desolate wilderness. However, this area enjoys the most influence from the TCC of any other part of the Outlands, with many outposts, towns, and settlements that rely on protection from TCC Border Patrol and Megacorp Rangers. Trade is a big part of this area, since the roads are generally safe enough to allow for caravans and traveling merchants. However, lots of merchants means lots of bandits. This area represents one step up from the Sprawls, but again, the difficulty can be scaled back for younger characters.

The Western Badlands: This region is what remains of the western territories of the US. Rocky flats, arid deserts, and trecherous mountain ranges make up the bulk of the features of the Badlands, making this an even tougher place to survive in. With only a handful of settlements, the majority of the inhabitants of this area are tribal peoples, cut off from any form of civilization for hundreds of years. Again, this one step up in difficulty from the Central Outlands.

The Eastern Ruins: The east coast of the US was once the most populated and developed, which means it also saw the brunt of the nuclear blasts. What remains are the hollow ruins of old cities and many Emission Zones (blast sites laden with radiation). This area is mostly inhabited by marauders and mutants, with very few settlements. This area is one step up in difficulty from the Badlands.

The Northern Drifts: When the earth suffered from the decade long nuclear winter that followed the apocalypse, the tempertures of the planet dropped tremendously. The areas that were once the northern border of the US and Canada are now frozen, icy tundra too cold for much to survive. The only semblance of civilization are a handful of TCC mining and research installations that rely heavily on constant supply shipments from the Megaplex. The only other thing are a few species of creature that are hardy enough to survive the frigid climate. Again, one step up from the Ruins.

The Southern Wastes: Finally, we have the areas that were once Texas, Mexico, and Central America. These areas are blistering hot and torid beyond belief. Water is extremely scarce, so the only things that exist here are creatures that have adapted to the extremely hot, extremely dry climate. This represents the most difficult terrain characters might encounter.

Of course, all these area could be scaled to represent challenges for different levels of Crews. For example, the Central Barrens are a tame place compared to the Southern Wastes, but the GM could place a mutant stronghold somewhere on the borders of the Barrens that could represent a challenge big enough for Elite characters.

I hope I didn't go into too much detail and bore the heck out of you guys. I just thought by giving some specifics, it would help bring to light the ideas I'm working with.

As you can see, it's largely based on width. As characters gain abilities and skills, they make their chances to survive in some areas more reasonable. Also, as characters get more powerful, they also get their hands on more sufisticated equipment that might allow them to survive in the Southern Wastes and the Northern Drifts.

QuoteQuote from: Callan S. on Today at 12:08:12 AM
Hi Zack,

Okay what I'm going to suggest is going to be ass backwards at first - because it wont be about story first, it'll be about looking after players first (ie, making sure they get their turn at the high end of the see saw)

This is it: Have smaller experence levels inside the larger one, ones which can be met in a single session.

These experience levels would revolve around a cluster of skills, rather than covering the characters entire capacity (as your XP levels cover that now).

Okay, in play they can be raised rapidly during play. Not at the end, right during play - preferably right when the GM has presented some (to him) significant part of the game world (well work on how to ensure this). The players choose which skill (out of the cluster in question) are raised and play goes on.

I think for your purposes the raising is some sort of 'insight' mechanism - the skill raises, but not permanently - only for the particulars of the current adventure does the character have his insight.

Finally, the insight raising can go right up to legendary. Yup, in one session! ONE session!

Essentially you already have a see-saw that shifts over many sessions. Here there's a smaller see-saw shifts over one session, but it doesn't involve the whole character (just a cluster of skills) and isn't permanent.

I'm not pitching this in terms of it fitting genre somehow or fitting the feel of a game world. It's there to ensure players get their turn at the high end of the see-saw. I'm guessing this could seem 'off' because without any game world/story reason for it, it's hard to internalise. What do you think?


I likes it.  Somehow it reminds me of the Riddle of Steel, where characters had certain axioms they lived by that would dump gartantuan numbers of dice into their pools when it was dramatically appropriate.  I think a sufficient game/story reason for this advancement would simply be "your character is getting really familiar with fixing the protomechanicaldingbat." Doesn't mean his "dingbat-repair" skill is going to be huge for every subsequent dingbat he encounters.  Of course, you don't always need one.  Shadowrun allows you to destroy a tank with a .22 caliber pistol by testing damage up sufficiently.  It leaves the justification for the GM/players to come up with after the fact. 

Hmm...

Perhaps this could relate. In the game, we've got this mechanic called 'Focus'. As characters earn Experience Points, they attain Focus Points. These work similarly to 'Character Points' in D20, and 'Karma Points' in Shadowrun. Basically, Focus represents the characters ability to achieve success in the face of colossal odds. By calling forth their focus, they can pull off heroic acts of impossibility that normal people can't. How this works is: When a player spends a Focus Point, they can add a die (based on their Experience Level) to their roll, adding that to the result to get a higher roll in hopes of hitting the target number.

Was this the idea, or am I missing the point entirely?

Hi Zack,

Okay, you've seen merit in some of my ideas, so you know I'm not completely off base in my understanding.

I'll say this : the see-saw is utter bullshit if both sides don't get their turn. And in my opinion, having it take multiple sessions to get to the other other side of a see-saw (any see-saw, small or big), simply threatens those equal turns.

You've raised alot of good questions that I could get into, but it'd all be useless to answer unless I know you want to protect the players right to his turn at the high end of the see-saw. Everything I've suggested hinges on the idea that "Protect the players right to his turn at the high end" comes before "Get the players clued into the world" with you.

Here's a difficult question: It's always possible to get the players a little bit more clued into the game world, a little more in sync with it, a little more in the flow with it.

Given that, are you ever actually prepared to give up your turn GM'ing at the high end of the see-saw?

The fact is, while the mechanics in my example might seem to intrude, they actually stop...well, to put it roughly, someone extending their turn forever.

It is uncomfortable to not have the players clued in as much as you want - it takes your out of your comfort zone. But why invite them to play if you don't want to exit your comfort zone to some degree? You could imagine it by yourself if you wanted it to stay safe.

Basically, if you don't want to leave your comfort zone at some point, get rid of these damn levels. They seem to offer a turn at the high end of the see-saw, but frankly they dont (including starting at elite - that's just a two step see-saw, rather than a five step/level see-saw). They are a false promise. Because if you were willing to ever exit your comfort zone at all, you could handle it happening in just one session - waiting fifty sessions isn't going to make any difference.

If your not prepared to leave your comfort zone now, you wont be in fifty sessions time!

I think it's fine if you want to stay in a comfortable place in terms of gaming (go for it, it's valid design and I might even have ideas to aid that) - but on one hand these levels suggest that you don't want to just remain safe. And on the other hand you don't want it to happen in one session. But on the third(!) hand, as I said, if your not ready for it to happen right here, right now, right this session, man, your not going to be ready in twenty, fifty or a hundred sessions. It's time to decide. And I mean that in a healthy, looking towards a bright future way (whichever choice you take!) :)

Umm, also try not to single line quote if you want to quote me, it gets a bit messy (it's also a no-no at the forge). I know I've been hard hitting and now it sounds like I'm modding you, however my intent is for a clear thread which can help out both of us. Please don't hit me! :(

Sorry about the forge no-nos. I'm still pretty new here, and I'm not fully educated on Forge etiquette. My apologies.
The reason I did so was to clearify which part of your post I was responding to.

There seems to be a recurring idea of 'my comfort zone'. Allowing the players to have their turn at the high end of the seesaw isn't out of my comfort zone, hence why I found the idea of the seesaw a good idea in the first place. What I'd rather not do is create a system which promotes 'battling' over whose at the top of the seesaw. If the power shifts multiple times during a single session, someone (the GM, or the players) is going to feel like they're getting a raw deal, because just when they thought something was established, the power shifts back and the other side could negate that establishment.

In answer to your difficult question, are you're asking if I (me personally, zack) am ready to give up my spot GMing at the high end of the seesaw? If so, then I thought the apparent answer was yes. I personally enjoy games where the characters are powerful enough to make significant changes to the game I've established. Again, I wouldn't have embraced the idea of the power seesaw to begin with, had I not enjoyed the idea of giving players their turn.

If that question is directed at GMs in general, then I don't have an answer. Like I said, some GMs don't want to give up their spot at the top of the seesaw because it's going beyond their personal comfort zone, and I'm not sure as a designer if it's a good idea to force them to. Then again, if they are enthusiastic about the idea of letting the players control the flow of the game, I'd like to make sure they can do that, and I think you can help. However, forcing a the Game Masters out there to leave their comfort zone is not something I want my game to do. Perhaps we could talk about an optional game mechanic that could be used, rather then something that ingrained into the rules of the game?

You say I should be ready to leave 'my comfort zone' in a single session. I think we have to politely disagree. I understood the seesaw to be something that tipped from one side to the other smoothly, to allow the story to flow without conflict between what the GM had already established, and what the players planned to do (which, in my experience is almost always more radical and extreme then what the GM has in mind). The way I see it, flipflopping the power from left to right in such a short span of time is like dropping a cinderblock on one side of the seesaw, when no one is sitting on the otherside. It's going to make a loud noise and send sand flying all over the place. I cannot fathom how such a sudden and massive change of power could maintain equilibrium in a game session.

Maybe I'm old fashioned and I missed the new wave of RPG theory, but the role of the Game Master was not only to referee the rule system, but also to be the storyteller and the one who maintains a semblance of control over what could ultimately become a very chaotic scene. To allow the players to take control of the flow of the story whenever they please seems to defete the purpose of the GM. Again, maybe I'm narrowminded, but if they players can take control of the game whenever they see fit, what's the point of having a GM?

To say that starting the characters out one step below Legendary gives a false promise of a transition of power doesn't seem like a valid statement. At that point, like I said before, they're already in the position to takes the reigns and start manipulating the game world. Going one step up to Legendary doesn't grant them some great power and give them the green light to be at the high end of the seesaw. Ultimately, it's the individual GM's world (not mine, me, zack) and it's up to him or her to allow the transition of power to take place.

To sum it up, as a Game Master, allowing the players to have their turn at the high end of the seesaw is not out of my comfort zone as should be noted by my enthusiam behind the idea. However, as a game designer, forcing every GM out there to go beyond what could be their comfort level by ingraining a mechanic in the system that allows for a sudden and violent change of power is going beyond my comfort level.

I apologize if my last post was not receptive to your suggestions, but assuming things about when and if I would be ready to leave my safety zone doesn't seem like a productive way to discuss things.

I'd like to add something:

Yes, I do have the interest to protect the players by providing the information necessary to ensure they have the opportunity to be at the high end of the seesaw. However, I don't have the interest of forcing every GM who runs a Decay game to give up their right to stay at the high end of the seesaw, if that's how they feel.

Further more, from a business perspective, that seems like a wrong choice since it's usually the GM's who purchase the book and supplemental material.

If the GM wants to stay at the top of the seesaw, that's his prerogative, and if the players don't think this is fair, maybe they should find a new GM. I don't believe it's wise to say "Hey, as a Game Master in Decay, expect to have the Players take control of your game on a regular basis."

I'm not looking at this with bias for either the GM or the Players. I'm trying to protect both the GM and Players and make sure both parties can stay in their respective comfort zones, if they so choose.

Does this make sense?

The discussion over who's got their turn on the high end of the see-saw is related to "the impossible thing to do before breakfast"  which is discussed here:

http://ptgptb.org/0027/theory101-02.html

The basic upshot is, that it is paradoxical for one player to control the world and another to control a character within the world.  Since the character is part of the world, the former player has complete executive control over the latter.  This is because the rules apportion final executive credibilty to the GM.  Which is what vincent is discussing here in Roleplay's fundamental act: http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html

What Callan and I are hoping the intent of the power levels system is, is to encode in the game rules some way that players can get the authority to make changes to the game world, in a sense to make the GM's role more like bass playing and less like straight illusionism.  It's important to note that if the game doesn't last a long time, the see-saw never swings and most people won't get to experience being in charge.  So adding a see-saw mechanic to individual games is critical if you want the see-saw to actually happen.  Giving long term power levels will just allow a GM to kill off players who are about to take over, it should be clearer that this is ok.  Alternatively if you don't want to give players the hotseat, remove the power level rules, because they introduce that possiblity given enough time.  In either case you MUST NEEDS explain which of these you chose and why, or you risk building a conflict in to the game.

A related question is: How often and for how long do you expect people to play the game and with whom?  The answer is usually "As often as possible, as long as possible, with anyone interested." Which is a poor answer.  Imagine if we played frisbee like this, we'd be exhausted with a lot of sketchy strangers, and we'd burn out quick.  Long-term powerlevels serve the eternal campaign= good agenda, it's often better to put in smaller benchmarks to hit, so that players don't get bored waiting for the game to start.

On a different note, I think you've mistaken my point on Depth v. Width as a world property, I meant it more as a character development property.  Depth refers to skills that are useful in any context (eg. shootiness), width refers to skills that are useful in only specific contexts (eg. radaway).  The term Depth means that the character is just powerful in any context, while Width enables specific changes to respond to new things.  If characters just get wider, and cannot upgrade skills that will always be useful, every part of your world can be used at every level of character because the statistical challenges all work.  If you let your characters get deeper, statistical challenges will either disapear or have to increase to keep the characters on the edge.  This means that only SOME of your world is accessable to higher level characters.  It's the difference between having access to MORE of the world when you level up (width) and having access to DIFFERENT PARTS of the world when you level up (depth).

Anyway I'm curious to see how the see-saw debate comes out.  I'm hoping callan and I can peer pressure you into tossing it in =O!

Well, I understand what's being talked about in both of those links. But...I suppose it will do my credibility no good by admitting that things like this are a bit beyond my scope of thinking. I'm incredibly frustrated by deep study of RPG theory. To me, these things overcomplicate a pretty simple concept. Perhaps I'm looking for advise in the wrong place.

If I'm understanding correctly, my opinion is: why attempt to force the GMs to play bass instead of create illusions? The responsibility to transition the power between the GM and the Players should fall on the group playing the game, not the rules of the game their playing. Who am I to say, "Hey Joe, you can't run an illusionist game. You gotta play bass if wanna play Decay, buddy."?

For simplicity, let's look at this idea applied to a good old fashioned game of D&D. I can't image there being a rule in the game that says a Level 4 Mage can, at will, function like a Level 25 Mage so that the player gets a turn controlling the story for a few minutes in a session. This wouldn't work, because now the DM's dragon, that was supposed to prevent the PCs from just waltzing in and scooping up ungodly amounts of treasure, just got fried by a magic missile.

To be quite frankly honest (and you guys will probably hate me for this), I don't care if the seesaw effect takes place in Joe's game. I think it should take place, since it will allow the players to really become part of the story, but that's for Joe and his friends to sort out. Like I said, I'm not comfortable forcing Joe to run his game the way you, or I, or anyone else thinks it should be ran. 

If the game doesn't last long enough for the seesaw to take effect and for power to transition, then some where along the lines, something else failed. Either the game's rules didn't work for the group playing it, or the setting wasn't interesting enough for the group to keep with it, or the players got distracted and wanted to try something else, or the GM ran a boring adventure that left the players indifferent to playing again. If the group decides that they want the players to be in control of the game, there's nothing stopping them. The Experience Levels provide a statistical benchmark for players to create brand new characters that possess everything they need to make the world react to them, rather then them reacting to the world.

If Joe decides to kill off players that are about to take over, then Joe decided from the get-go that he was going to maintain control throughout the entire campaign. If this is the case, then forcing it into the rules that the players will take control, whether he likes it or not, means Joe isn't going to play this game to begin with. Why would Joe play a game that forces him to relinquish control, if he doesn't want to?

From what it seems like, you guys are saying that I either:

A) Need to force the seesaw to take effect quickly and often by ingraining a mechanic into the game that says "The seesaw will happen, and it will happen every single session, whenever the players feel like it, and since it's part of the established rules, the Game Master can't do a thing about it."

or...

B) Get rid of the Experience Levels completely because they allow the seesaw to either take effect over a short or long period of time, or even right from the beginning of the campaign, and that's not good because if (A) isn't true, then there should be no seesaw at all.

To me, this seems to be constraining my options a bit. It would seem like you guys don't think all the GM's out there will ever give up their turn at being at the top of the seesaw, so I need to design the game to make them give up the power. I don't think you guys give them enough credit. A respectable, intellegent GM knows that his world wouldn't exist without the Players. He knows he has to make sure the players are having fun, otherwise what's the point of them playing?

I LOVE the idea of the seesaw. I'm ecstatic that you guys have brought it infront of my eyes and let me mull over it for a while. But I (and I hate to use such a strong word) refuse to force it to take effect in the game. The players are already supplied with opportunity to be at the high end of the seesaw. I see no reason create a mechanic that basically gives the group no choice but to have this happen rapidly and all the time.

Like I said before, I feel the best way to bring the seesaw idea into Joe's game is to suggest it when explaining the ways a campaign can be set up. I'd like to explain the pro's and con's of using the seesaw idea, and the pro's and con's of not using it. I'd like to let him know that by allowing the players a turn at being at the top of the seesaw, it could add a new element of fun for both the GM and the players. But, by shoving the idea in the face of the GM and saying "Here, you have to use this. You don't have a choice. Live with it, or don't play the game." seems to me like a 'fuckyou, this is how it is' type of thing. I'm not interested in forcing the idea on the GM.

On the Depth vs. Width aspect, I have a vague understanding. It still seems a bit fuzzy to me, but again, these intricately detailed studies of RPG theory and content often go right over my head.

Great, this time my post got eaten!

Hi Zack, thanks for not hitting me! :)

I'm going to ask about this because it relates to intial buy in to the game

QuoteLike I said before, I feel the best way to bring the seesaw idea into Joe's game is to suggest it when explaining the ways a campaign can be set up. I'd like to explain the pro's and con's of using the seesaw idea, and the pro's and con's of not using it. I'd like to let him know that by allowing the players a turn at being at the top of the seesaw, it could add a new element of fun for both the GM and the players. But, by shoving the idea in the face of the GM and saying "Here, you have to use this. You don't have a choice. Live with it, or don't play the game." seems to me like a 'fuckyou, this is how it is' type of thing. I'm not interested in forcing the idea on the GM.

I don't quite understand this - doesn't your game force a post apocalypse setting on a player who wants fantasy with elves?

I do understand the fiscal aspect - GM's buy the books. But I don't understand the 'GM is forced' level - if a GM reads the book in the store, knows what he's in for and buys it and uses the rules, then obviously he mustn't feel he's being forced. I understand the fiscal aspect that GM's who feel forced wont buy the book, but I don't understand the 'forcing the GM is bad' part. I can't see how the GM is being forced to buy the book/forced to accept anything. Is it really a problem?

QuoteIf I'm understanding correctly, my opinion is: why attempt to force the GMs to play bass instead of create illusions? The responsibility to transition the power between the GM and the Players should fall on the group playing the game, not the rules of the game their playing. Who am I to say, "Hey Joe, you can't run an illusionist game. You gotta play bass if wanna play Decay, buddy."?

Absolutely. But there are illusionist games and there are participationist games. Participationism is almost exactly the same, except the players KNOW they don't have control over stuff. Participationist games can and do rock out and are cool! They are an entirely valid approach and are very healthy play, in my mind.

But...illusionism. The forge glossary doesn't connotate illusionism with any negative context. I do. The players are led to believe they have/will have some control, but that is not how it is.

I could get into a can of worms on what I think about that and how you should treat other people. BUT! Lets just say I strongly, strongly advise against using mechanics that support illusionism.

With that in mind, if you want to drive toward a participationist design, avoid anything that gives players power. Your giving them skill points right now - don't. Give them something else, like points that they can spend to describe how their trenchcoat flaps in the wind as they crouch on the church steeples peek, or spend points to describe how a sultry temptress smoulders when she looks at the hero PC. That sort of thing. That's a rough idea just there to suggest the direction I'm talking about.

But right now, it could go a seesaw game, but I think it's most likely going to go illusionist because while it offers power, it's terribly easy for an illusionist GM to screw up access to it. I guess I don't want you to help illusionist GM's with a system that, in my opinion, facilitates what they want to do. I'm very biased on this, and might not be of further help because of it. Participationism is much cooler and rocks out!

QuoteMaybe I'm old fashioned and I missed the new wave of RPG theory, but the role of the Game Master was not only to referee the rule system, but also to be the storyteller and the one who maintains a semblance of control over what could ultimately become a very chaotic scene. To allow the players to take control of the flow of the story whenever they please seems to defete the purpose of the GM. Again, maybe I'm narrowminded, but if they players can take control of the game whenever they see fit, what's the point of having a GM?

Just on this, I'm pretty sure I didn't state they get control whenever they want. It'd be spread out, rigged say to a certain session length. So if you wanted session length to be five hours, they'd only be legendary in the last hour of play, for example. The rules can say, after five hours the skills reset back to their normal levels.

I think the conflict is over the word "forced."  Simply put you cannot "force" any group of players to play a specific way, they will decide what kind of game they want to enjoy and change any and all rules of your game accordingly to allow themselves to play it.  The goal of a game is to allow players to have an enjoyable time while changing as few rules as possible. The rules  thus "support" a certain kind of play rather than "force" a certain kind of play.  You should try to avoid internally conflicting rules where possible and describe exactly what kind of game your trying to create so the players know what's up, rather than make them guess what you're trying to show them, but in either case, the social contract (how the players are related to one another) will work out the bugs as you've pointed out.

It sounds like the see-saw is in, so let's talk about that for a minute.  The see-saw means shifting from illusionism/participationism modes of play to bass playing.  At first the GM is telling the story so that the players get a crash course in decay-ology.  Like actors reading literature that pertains to their parts so they can play the part more accurately, the players get steeped in the setting.  Then the see-saw flips over and the players get a chance to dictate what happens while the GM just maintains the world and updates it according to what they do.  They get to have greater impact.  Another way to say this is that in the book "Player's journey in the wastes" the GM writes chapter 1, and the players write the rest. 

So in sum:
GM's turn
1. Describe the setting
2. Begin the storyline
3. Players learn to work together and to work with the world

Player's turn.
1. Modify the setting
2. Continue the story line
3. Work together with the GM

Now onto power levels.  Currently, your powerlevels are a bit confusing to me.  If statistical challenges rise to meet the players, then they don't really get their turn in the drivers seat unless they stay in safer areas.  This conflicts with the avowed aim of "explore the wastes."  If statistical challenges are more-or-less the same everywhere, then the players will get to explore, but they will almost immediately be in the  driver seat due  to their great personal power (since the entire world is balanced to a new character).  I think this is the paradox that Callan and I are discussing.   Callan's proposed solution is that there be incongrous statistical challenges, but player's statistics can rise to meet them.  This means that the players still explore, and still are challenged, but get to write a few changes in each game by hulking out.  An alternative is to do away with the powerlevels completely and have the world be statistically flat, so that players simply explore, and impact the game by amassing great wealth and prestige (but not high skills or deadly weapons). 

(aside: I think you've got the width/depth distinction, but here's one more analogy I thought of.  Imagine your world is divided into zones by high walls.  Width means giving your characters keys to get through.  Depth means letting them get strong enough to jump over.  Adding width to a character ONLY changes the zones they have access too, depth changes the zones, AND the kind of challenges you must offer).

QuoteI don't quite understand this - doesn't your game force a post apocalypse setting on a player who wants fantasy with elves?

Getting into technicalities isn't going to serve for any progress in the discussion, but I'll humor you.

Yes, we're essentially providing them with a setting, and if they play Decay, they're forced to use the setting. By buying a book that says "Post-Apocalyptic Cyberpunk Adventure" on the cover, the GM knows what the setting is all about. If the GM wants to play a fantasy game with elves and dragons, he's going to know right away that this isn't the game for him. But, without reading through the insides of the book and looking carefully, he won't know that we've set it up so that he has no other choice but to GM this game in a certain way.

The way I see it, I'm prepared to force certain aspects of the game on the people who play, but I'm not prepared to force them to play it a certain way. Sounds hypocritical, I know, but I guess there are just certain things that I'd like to "establish" and certain things I don't want to "force".

I guess what it comes down to is, while the seesaw is an awesome concept and as a designer, I highly reccomend the people who play the game embrace it, I'm not prepared to say "You have to use this idea of the seesaw" in the same way I'm prepared to say "This is the setting of the game, this is how you create a character, these are the rules for using guns, blah blah blah"

Does that make sense?

QuoteBut there are illusionist games and there are participationist games. Participationism is almost exactly the same, except the players KNOW they don't have control over stuff. Participationist games can and do rock out and are cool! They are an entirely valid approach and are very healthy play, in my mind.

But...illusionism. The forge glossary doesn't connotate illusionism with any negative context. I do. The players are led to believe they have/will have some control, but that is not how it is.

I could get into a can of worms on what I think about that and how you should treat other people. BUT! Lets just say I strongly, strongly advise against using mechanics that support illusionism.

I completely agree. Participationism is one thing, but illusionism is not the way I personally believe people should run their game. In my mind, if Joe is running a illusionism game, he's basically invited people over his house to play the game, and then lied to them.

However, I don't see how the Experience Levels encourage illusionism. By not forcing them to play bass, I leave the option of a participationism game as well. While the option is still there to run an illusionist game, I don't believe the mechanics support or encourage someone to run their game that way.

Again, the argument of how a GM should ideally run his game, in my opinion, should be discussed in the GM's guide to Decay, not something that's forced on them by the rules. I'd like to encourage them to play bass or run a participationism game, and discourage them from creating the illusionism game, but I don't want MAKE them play bass or run a participationism game.

QuoteBut right now, it could go a seesaw game, but I think it's most likely going to go illusionist because while it offers power, it's terribly easy for an illusionist GM to screw up access to it. I guess I don't want you to help illusionist GM's with a system that, in my opinion, facilitates what they want to do. I'm very biased on this, and might not be of further help because of it. Participationism is much cooler and rocks out!

An illusionist GM is going to run an illusionist game no matter how the game is set up. If he wants to prevent the players from having power, he'll ditch any rules, or twist the story around, or otherwise make sure that no matter what the players do, the story that he's decided upon will enevitably happen. Such is the nature of a selfish GM. Getting rid of Experience Levels and the ability to start a brand new Elite character takes the knowledge away from the players that they can achieve Legendary status, that such thing exists.

Just on this, I'm pretty sure I didn't state they get control whenever they want. It'd be spread out, rigged say to a certain session length. So if you wanted session length to be five hours, they'd only be legendary in the last hour of play, for example. The rules can say, after five hours the skills reset back to their normal levels.

Perhaps I misunderstood, which is why I was looking for more elaboration. However, when looking at the system we've already established, the Focus system, we achieve something similar, but slightly scaled back. I'll elaborate.

Normally, when a player is using a skill, they roll the die and their skill adjustment to the die, trying to meet or exceed the target number. Occasionally, failure is not an option. The hero absolutely must shoot the rope that's going to hang the sheriff of the town, who is the only person who can prove that the heroes are innocent and didn't kill that girl. So the player decides to use a Focus Point. Instead of just rolling the Control Die plus his Fire Arms Skill Adjustment, he now gets to add an additional D8 to his roll. He rolls the die, and gets 15, plus 6 for his Skill, making the total 21. He then rolls his D8 Focus die and gets a 7, making his total now 28! He fires his revolved and the bullet splits the rope, saving the sheriff!

What happen, was the play's Fire Arms Skill essentially became legendary for that one, single roll. Instead of just having a 6 in Fire Arms, he got to add a D8 to his Skill Adjustment, so his Fire Arms Skill became 13 for that one shot. In this fashion, we've achieved what you were suggesting, just on a smaller, more controlled scale. Am I wrong?

Hehehe! Majidah, you did it again! Time for lunch though. I'll repy after I stuffed my face!

I can tell we should play something by post, it would involved unheard of hilarity.

One more note to my above post, Could you give us a little taste of the possible see-saw mechanics (sort of as you did above, but more)? We may be to the point where we've agreed to the idea, but implementing it is causing conflict.

Wow, my last post had A LOT of typos. Sorry

QuoteI think the conflict is over the word "forced."  Simply put you cannot "force" any group of players to play a specific way, they will decide what kind of game they want to enjoy and change any and all rules of your game accordingly to allow themselves to play it.  The goal of a game is to allow players to have an enjoyable time while changing as few rules as possible. The rules  thus "support" a certain kind of play rather than "force" a certain kind of play.  You should try to avoid internally conflicting rules where possible and describe exactly what kind of game your trying to create so the players know what's up, rather than make them guess what you're trying to show them, but in either case, the social contract (how the players are related to one another) will work out the bugs as you've pointed out.

You've brought up a great point. As a designer, I can't truly "force" anyone to play the game a certain way, just like I can't "force" them to play it at all. I'm not holding a gun to their head, which means they can change anything about the setting, the rules, or the way the it's set up to be played. But when I hear "we want to ensure blah blah happens", it makes me think that we're looking to design the game to make it impossible (so long as they follow the rules to some degree) for a GM to run a game sans 'blah blah'. So when we talk about "ensuring the players get their turn", we're therefore making sure the seesaw effect takes place, meaning we're 'forcing' the seesaw on them.

QuoteIt sounds like the see-saw is in, so let's talk about that for a minute.  The see-saw means shifting from illusionism/participationism modes of play to bass playing.  At first the GM is telling the story so that the players get a crash course in decay-ology.  Like actors reading literature that pertains to their parts so they can play the part more accurately, the players get steeped in the setting.  Then the see-saw flips over and the players get a chance to dictate what happens while the GM just maintains the world and updates it according to what they do.  They get to have greater impact.  Another way to say this is that in the book "Player's journey in the wastes" the GM writes chapter 1, and the players write the rest. 

So in sum:
GM's turn
1. Describe the setting
2. Begin the storyline
3. Players learn to work together and to work with the world

Player's turn.
1. Modify the setting
2. Continue the story line
3. Work together with the GM

Is it not possible to find find a happy medium between bass playing and participationism? Such as (fallout stylie) an adventure where the characters are sent out of their home in search of a piece of technology that ensure the survival of the town. The GM knows where they can find this piece technology from square one. He knows the trail they have to follow in order to find it. He knows what will happen if they don't find it in time, and what will happen if they successfuly attain the item and save the town. However, how the players go about following the trail, and what happens during their adventures outside of the town is largely up the players. Perhaps the characters find the item, but decide to sell it to a merchant instead of returning it to the town. Maybe the characters hold some deep grudge against their home and ransome the item to the officials of the town. Maybe they decide not to bother to look for the item at all. The players can inherantly control the story in this fashion.

Further more, the players can make significant changes to the setting of the game with the same set of scenarios. If the players fail, or otherwise don't bring the item to the town, then they've affected the setting in a tremendous way. The town is unable to make clean water, and it's inhabitants die. Maybe the town sends another group out into the wasteland who are able to find the item, and in the process learn that the players have forsaken the town that trusted them with their lives. Now that town sends bounty hunters after the players. Perhaps along the way, the players find some explosive and blow up part of a TCC outpost. They've demonstrated their ability to make significant changes to the game world.

The more I think about it, the more I begin to believe that the seesaw is a bad thing. If you look at it like that, then in each extreme (either the GM in command, or the players in control) one side or the other is playing a background role. If the seesaw exists at all, why shouldn't it be always at an equal level, where both the GM and the Players are working together, both making significant changes to the game world with their own respective tools (GM governed the world and the NPCs, Players govern the most important and significant characters in the story)? If the seesaw is at equilibrium (I love that word) then there exists a happy medium between participationism and bass playing.

QuoteNow onto power levels.  Currently, your powerlevels are a bit confusing to me.  If statistical challenges rise to meet the players, then they don't really get their turn in the drivers seat unless they stay in safer areas.  This conflicts with the avowed aim of "explore the wastes."  If statistical challenges are more-or-less the same everywhere, then the players will get to explore, but they will almost immediately be in the  driver seat due  to their great personal power (since the entire world is balanced to a new character).  I think this is the paradox that Callan and I are discussing.   Callan's proposed solution is that there be incongrous statistical challenges, but player's statistics can rise to meet them.  This means that the players still explore, and still are challenged, but get to write a few changes in each game by hulking out.  An alternative is to do away with the powerlevels completely and have the world be statistically flat, so that players simply explore, and impact the game by amassing great wealth and prestige (but not high skills or deadly weapons). 

If the players are not looking to be challenged by the setting, what exactly is the point of playing? If it's easy to survive no matter where they go, regardless of climate and the ability to find food, water, and shelter, what's the point of having skills at all? Why have a fire arms skill if you can shoot nearly impossible targets when failure actually counts?

The avowed goal of "exploring the wastes" doesn't conflict with the idea of "certain parts of the wasteland are more difficult to survive in than others". To me it supports it. As characters grow in power, it opens up new areas for them to explore. Infact, I don't see how the avowed goals relate to the topic of the seesaw at all. Exploring the wastelands should be a challenge that scales upwards as they grow in power and in turn explore new areas. What fun is exploring the wastelands if it's easy?

To put it in perspective, let's look at this is terms of a video game. Lets say theres a game where you start off with a pistol, and level 1 in gun skills. The world is set up so that it's not easy for you to shoot the bad guys, and when you hit them, it takes a few bullets to kill them. You play and play, and eventually you have a minigun that fires rockets and your gun skill 1,000,000. Sounds cool right? Well what if, even though you've attained this great power, everything in the game was still oriented towards when you had a pistol and a skill of 1. You can smoke every bad guy in your way without blinking an eye. Sure you've got the power now, and you no longer have to worry about the challenges set up by the game, but where's the fun? If there is no place to go in the game that's set up to be difficult for you, why play at all?

I'm not sure how being able to turn Legendary for a little while allows the players to make significant changes to the setting, rather then just eliminate the challenge of the obstacles in their way. The ability to make significant changes to the setting is always, and will always be up to the GM. There's nothing stopping a Green character who never gets the ability to turn Legendary at the drop of a hat from making significant changes to the story and the setting, but the GM.

In my eyes, statistics serve to provide challenges that support the story, not run it. Having high statistics doesn't open a door that says "Okay, now you can participate in creating the story." Having low statistics doesn't mean "The GM is in control, because statistically, he can kill off your character." If the GM wants to let the Green characters have impact on the setting, he'll do so. If he doesn't want the Legendary characters to have an impact, he'll prevent it.

QuoteOne more note to my above post, Could you give us a little taste of the possible see-saw mechanics (sort of as you did above, but more)? We may be to the point where we've agreed to the idea, but implementing it is causing conflict.

I'm guessing your talking about the Focus Dice? I'm not really sure...

QuoteLets say theres a game where you start off with a pistol, and level 1 in gun skills. The world is set up so that it's not easy for you to shoot the bad guys, and when you hit them, it takes a few bullets to kill them. You play and play, and eventually you have a minigun that fires rockets and your gun skill 1,000,000. Sounds cool right? Well what if, even though you've attained this great power, everything in the game was still oriented towards when you had a pistol and a skill of 1. You can smoke every bad guy in your way without blinking an eye. Sure you've got the power now, and you no longer have to worry about the challenges set up by the game, but where's the fun? If there is no place to go in the game that's set up to be difficult for you, why play at all?

Essentially my best answer is, not everyone enjoys the same thing.  Some people enjoy winning more than challenge, and will happily cheat.  Others are un-interested in slogging through the challenges just to test powerful gadgets and would rather start straight out with them.  It's impossible to produce a game that's always fun for everyone.  It's more likely you'll produce a game that's simply rarely fun for anyone.  The worry here is that you'll get a group that enjoys different aspects of the game.  If only one person enjoys combat, then any time they spend in combat is an example of that one person wasting everyone else's time.  During combat all but one of the players would be having a better time if they were doing something other than playing your game. 

The design goal is to get the players on the same page and help them do the thing on that page really really well.  This way everyone is enjoying themselves as much as possible as often as possible.  There's no perfect solution to this one either, but it helps if you're thinking about the goal of every piece you put in the game. 

What do power levels do?  If the goal is: We want players to explore the world.  Then powerlevels just dictate the order in which they must explore it (from lowest challenge to highest).  If the goal is for players to compete, either with each other or the world, then the power levels are the score. 

QuoteIn my eyes, statistics serve to provide challenges that support the story, not run it. Having high statistics doesn't open a door that says "Okay, now you can participate in creating the story." Having low statistics doesn't mean "The GM is in control, because statistically, he can kill off your character." If the GM wants to let the Green characters have impact on the setting, he'll do so. If he doesn't want the Legendary characters to have an impact, he'll prevent it.

To me, this is a problem.  Remeber the GM is just a player with a funny screen in front of him.  Imagine if the rules of chess said "The player of white decides the winner." All other rules seem sort of trivial don't they?  Apportioning this much power to the GM is likely to produce conflict between the have and the have nots.  I'd sort of hoped that the power mechanics would provide the players not the GM with a way to create their own story, not just follow his.

QuoteIs it not possible to find find a happy medium between bass playing and participationism? Such as (fallout stylie) an adventure where the characters are sent out of their home in search of a piece of technology that ensure the survival of the town. The GM knows where they can find this piece technology from square one. He knows the trail they have to follow in order to find it. He knows what will happen if they don't find it in time, and what will happen if they successfuly attain the item and save the town. However, how the players go about following the trail, and what happens during their adventures outside of the town is largely up the players. Perhaps the characters find the item, but decide to sell it to a merchant instead of returning it to the town. Maybe the characters hold some deep grudge against their home and ransome the item to the officials of the town. Maybe they decide not to bother to look for the item at all. The players can inherantly control the story in this fashion.

Quote

I think this is a hybrid of participationism and bass playing, but I think that depending on the choices of the players the game will be one or the other.  Essentially, if they go after the chip, the players are doing participationism, or maybe module play, following the trail of bread crumbs the GM is leaving.  They cannot produce a story that is not in accord with the basics of what the GM has laid down.  They only alter the how the preset events happen.  The details change, but not the substance. If the players decide to ignore the chip and explore the world on their own, then it's bass playing.  They create their own motivation and story for exploring the waste and the water chip was just their long forgotten starting point.  Sure it may bob back up, but they can just move on, there's no game over screen.  So, Either the players are participating in the GM's pre-planned story, or they're writting their own story about the waste, but not both. 

Well, then I guess my avowed goal of "exploring the wastes" should be changed to "exploring the harsh, brutal, challenging wastes".

QuoteEssentially my best answer is, not everyone enjoys the same thing.  Some people enjoy winning more than challenge, and will happily cheat.  Others are un-interested in slogging through the challenges just to test powerful gadgets and would rather start straight out with them.  It's impossible to produce a game that's always fun for everyone.  It's more likely you'll produce a game that's simply rarely fun for anyone.  The worry here is that you'll get a group that enjoys different aspects of the game.  If only one person enjoys combat, then any time they spend in combat is an example of that one person wasting everyone else's time.  During combat all but one of the players would be having a better time if they were doing something other than playing your game. 

Let's face it. Living in a post-apoc world isn't a walk in the park. The characters in the story realistically have to worry about surviving in inhospitable places, which means finding food, water, shelter, and things like that while dodging nasties that they can't just blow away without breaking a sweat. I'm not going to sacrafice some form of realism and throw the idea of challenges out the window just so the players can pwn the setting and do whatever they want with it. Sure, they can have very significant affect on it, but I'm not creating a game where the players are overlords who bend the world to their wims.

I'm creating an adventure game, along the same lines as D&D. It's supposed to set challenges for the players, so when they overcome these challenges they get a sense of accomplishment. It's not going to be set up as a game for 'cheaters' and people who want WIN (not just succeed, but WIN) every single time. I'm prepared to eliminate people from the audience who want a game where their characters are ultrapowerful world-changing ass kickers always and forever. That's not the game we've producing. Simply put, it's impossible to create anything (not just a game) that everyone is interested in. From the get go, it's established that I'm not making a game for the masses.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that Decay will rarely be fun for anyone because it's not set up to be easy and unchallenging. Sure, it's not going to be fun everyone all the time, but then what RPG is? But I think it will appeal to people who enjoy post-apoc and cyberpunk settings, people who enjoy setting up challenges and overcoming them, and people who enjoy working with each other to create the game together. I don't think it will appeal to people who are uninterested in science fiction, who don't like games that aren't easy for their characters to be powerful, and people who want either the players and the GM to run the show.

The game isn't centered around combat. There are basically three styles of play: Tactical (lots of combat and challenges), Social (not alot of combat, lots of role-playing), and Balanced (mix of Tactical and Social).
If the group unanimously decides that Tactical or Social is the way for them, then hurray, problem solved. If not, the Balanced style will usually make everyone happy. But again, it's impossible to create anything that everyone loves.

QuoteWhat do power levels do?  If the goal is: We want players to explore the world.  Then powerlevels just dictate the order in which they must explore it (from lowest challenge to highest).  If the goal is for players to compete, either with each other or the world, then the power levels are the score.

The goal is: We want players to explore the world, but not without facing some difficult challenges along the way. It could be said that they're competing against the world, but I think it's better said that they're being 'challenged' by the world. The GM (the world) isn't trying to kill them, he's trying to challenge them so exploring the world isn't a walk in the park. If you want a walk in the park, then don't buy Decay.

QuoteTo me, this is a problem.  Remeber the GM is just a player with a funny screen in front of him.  Imagine if the rules of chess said "The player of white decides the winner." All other rules seem sort of trivial don't they?  Apportioning this much power to the GM is likely to produce conflict between the have and the have nots.  I'd sort of hoped that the power mechanics would provide the players not the GM with a way to create their own story, not just follow his.

I understand what you're saying, but I think chess is a bad example. Chess is inherantly a competition. Decay is not a competition. It's an exercise in story telling where everyone should play an equal role. I wasn't trying to say that the rules support this:

QuoteIf the GM wants to let the Green characters have impact on the setting, he'll do so. If he doesn't want the Legendary characters to have an impact, he'll prevent it.

All I'm saying is that if the GM wants to run an Illusionism game, that's what he's going to run and the book isn't there to stop him, just discourage him from doing so.

But ultimately, the GM has the final word. He's not just a player behind a funny screen. His role is much different then a Player, hence why he's called the GM, not a Player. Other games might blur the line between GM and Player, but this one sits with the traditional idea that the GM A) Provides the story (while working with the Players), B) Governs the use of the rules, and C) Decides the outcome of dice rolls and certain events.

The Power Levels provide a way to prevent players from maxing out their skills. They serve as a benchmark to determine the relative power of new or evolving characters. They allow the GM and the Players to create a campaign based around inexperienced characters, or elite ones. They don't prevent the Players from creating stories along with the GM or having affect on the world, no matter what Experience Level the characters are. The only thing that can prevent the players from having affect on the world is the GM's own stubborn selfishness. However, it isn't our job to stop him from being stubborn and selfish. The best we can do is express that stubborn selfishness in GMing is a sure-fire way to prevent the players from having fun and truly feeling that the world is as much theirs as it is the GMs.

QuoteI think this is a hybrid of participationism and bass playing, but I think that depending on the choices of the players the game will be one or the other.  Essentially, if they go after the chip, the players are doing participationism, or maybe module play, following the trail of bread crumbs the GM is leaving.  They cannot produce a story that is not in accord with the basics of what the GM has laid down.  They only alter the how the preset events happen.  The details change, but not the substance. If the players decide to ignore the chip and explore the world on their own, then it's bass playing.  They create their own motivation and story for exploring the waste and the water chip was just their long forgotten starting point.  Sure it may bob back up, but they can just move on, there's no game over screen.  So, Either the players are participating in the GM's pre-planned story, or they're writting their own story about the waste, but not both. 

I believe that saying "depending on the choices of the players, the game will be one or the other" firmly expresses that the players have a choice in the matter, so they've succeeded in writing the story. Just because one of their choices involves "scripted" events, doesn't mean they aren't writing their own story. Some scripted events may never take place, or may take on a different form, or maybe the Players will create new events. They've chosen to follow the trail of bread crumbs, which is just as good as if they went off on their own. The only difference is the GM already knows the bread crumbs are all about, but he'd be making stuff up off the top of his head otherwise. As long as those bread crumbs can be morphed and twisted to meet the choices of the players, then I don't see a problem with this.

QuoteI understand what you're saying, but I think chess is a bad example. Chess is inherantly a competition. Decay is not a competition. It's an exercise in story telling where everyone should play an equal role. I wasn't trying to say that the rules support this:

I'm sorry, I fudged the words up there. It should read:

"It's an exercise is story telling where everyone creates the story together."

Obviously, the GM plays a bigger role is decision making, but thats neither here nor there.

Hi Zack,

I'm not sure I like where were going with the tone of speach ("but I'll humor you"). In the end it's not so much about a reason, you just don't want to force the seesaw? That's cool, I respect your choice - I'm hoping the tone is because on other boards theirs often a lack of respect for personal.

However, here's something to consider about 'forcing'

QuoteYou've brought up a great point. As a designer, I can't truly "force" anyone to play the game a certain way, just like I can't "force" them to play it at all. I'm not holding a gun to their head, which means they can change anything about the setting, the rules, or the way the it's set up to be played. But when I hear "we want to ensure blah blah happens", it makes me think that we're looking to design the game to make it impossible (so long as they follow the rules to some degree) for a GM to run a game sans 'blah blah'. So when we talk about "ensuring the players get their turn", we're therefore making sure the seesaw effect takes place, meaning we're 'forcing' the seesaw on them.

I think your seeing 'force' rather than actual fact. If you pull out your chess set but play with some really different movement rules for the queen, you are not playing chess. It's a variant, but the actual fact is, you are not playing chess.

Another example - if there is a mountain in front of you, your not being forced to see it - it's just a fact. There is no force involved - it's just reality.

Here when I talked about making it impossible to run a game sans X, it's making it impossible to play without X - if you do, its just a variant of the game. That isn't forcing anyone - it's just a stone cold reality, just like the mountain in front of you.

HOWEVER, roleplay actually has a long history of 'creative denial' - there's a thread where Ron talks about creative denial better than I can (search is broken right now, it seems). It's essentially a conceit - say a group is playing star trek - they are adamant that the way they play is by the book. But you'll also find a second group who SWEARS the same, but neither group is compatable with each other and would even get catty with each other. Both are playing variants of the one game, but the creative denial is that the changes they added are cannon and real and concrete, because they don't see themselves as having made any changes. That's what makes the game world so concrete for them (the idea they didn't add changes), yet so close to the heart as well (the fact that they did make the changes they dearly wanted). NOTE: The word 'denial' often connotates a negative context - I'm not suggesting creative denial is negative here, I'm just describing the procress.

However, I'm drifting here - I should really write up an article with these concepts.

QuoteHowever, I don't see how the Experience Levels encourage illusionism. By not forcing them to play bass, I leave the option of a participationism game as well.

Well, a player who wants participationism doesn't want power - these levels start giving him power. He's going to be "What, what am I supposed to do with what I've been given? If I roll a skill, I'll be wielding in game power and I said I didn't want that"

Perhaps there could be some notes on how to correctly use the skills in a participationist game - like the gun skill isn't used so much to shoot, but roll it and if you pass you describe how cooly your character holds it and how graceful he is in its use? How would GM/player advice for a participationist game sound to you?

QuoteAn illusionist GM is going to run an illusionist game no matter how the game is set up. If he wants to prevent the players from having power, he'll ditch any rules, or twist the story around, or otherwise make sure that no matter what the players do, the story that he's decided upon will enevitably happen. Such is the nature of a selfish GM.

I agree. But in a horrible validation of system matters, a game system can be designed to help ensure he doesn't have to twist as much story, or ditch as many rules or whatever to get illusionism.

Look, I'm probably a bit of a burned out player. But if your customers are a 'flock' I think your building in more room for 'wolves' to sneak in than you'd want. You were interested if there were any probs with the level system, so I thought I'd say that.

QuoteNormally, when a player is using a skill, they roll the die and their skill adjustment to the die, trying to meet or exceed the target number. Occasionally, failure is not an option. The hero absolutely must shoot the rope that's going to hang the sheriff of the town, who is the only person who can prove that the heroes are innocent and didn't kill that girl. So the player decides to use a Focus Point. Instead of just rolling the Control Die plus his Fire Arms Skill Adjustment, he now gets to add an additional D8 to his roll. He rolls the die, and gets 15, plus 6 for his Skill, making the total 21. He then rolls his D8 Focus die and gets a 7, making his total now 28! He fires his revolved and the bullet splits the rope, saving the sheriff!

What happen, was the play's Fire Arms Skill essentially became legendary for that one, single roll. Instead of just having a 6 in Fire Arms, he got to add a D8 to his Skill Adjustment, so his Fire Arms Skill became 13 for that one shot. In this fashion, we've achieved what you were suggesting, just on a smaller, more controlled scale. Am I wrong?

Sorry. Imagine that a NPC had to prove his innocence to the PC's by shooting the rope to save the sheriff, and the reason he's proving himself is because of the players 'hunt men down' skill is at legendary - there's no escape, he must save the sheriff! That's the players at the high end of the seesaw.

QuoteThe more I think about it, the more I begin to believe that the seesaw is a bad thing. If you look at it like that, then in each extreme (either the GM in command, or the players in control) one side or the other is playing a background role. If the seesaw exists at all, why shouldn't it be always at an equal level

When I mentioned the seesaw, it wasn't my recommendation, just seemed to fit what you were doing. I wasn't interested in pushing you away from the seesaw idea, even if I don't favour it. There are other options - would you like to discuss them? If so, start off a new thread (I think that fits the forum policy - it helps keep threads neat and focused. You can link to this thread from the new one anyway :) ). I'd love to talk about the two paragraphs before the quote :)

Hi Callan,

QuoteI'm not sure I like where were going with the tone of speach ("but I'll humor you"). In the end it's not so much about a reason, you just don't want to force the seesaw? That's cool, I respect your choice - I'm hoping the tone is because on other boards theirs often a lack of respect for personal.

Looking back, I see the disrespect in the tone, and I apologize. I meant no offence. To be quite honest, I felt that was a technicality, and technicalities are a tremendous pet peeve of mine. I know you didn't mean any harm, and I think you know I didn't mean any either.

I think in some respects, we've reached an impass, since you've demonstrated your concern that, if the seesaw exists, there needs to be a way to make the players have their turn. My opinion is that it should be up to the group to make sure there's transfer of power, or, in an ideal situation, the seesaw is at a constant equilibrium. I'm not sure there's much more to dicuss about that, though I respect your comments and have given them much thought.

QuoteAnother example - if there is a mountain in front of you, your not being forced to see it - it's just a fact. There is no force involved - it's just reality

(Sorry for the one-line-quote, but that's a one line comment)

To me, reality is essentially forced on us. I have no choice but to see the mountain because that's how reality is set up. Unless I close my eyes and pretend it's not there, I'm forced to see it.

In the same sense, if we set the book up to make the transfer of power a reality, the group has no choice but use it, less they close their eyes and pretend it's not there.

QuoteWell, a player who wants participationism doesn't want power - these levels start giving him power. He's going to be "What, what am I supposed to do with what I've been given? If I roll a skill, I'll be wielding in game power and I said I didn't want that"

Perhaps there could be some notes on how to correctly use the skills in a participationist game - like the gun skill isn't used so much to shoot, but roll it and if you pass you describe how cooly your character holds it and how graceful he is in its use? How would GM/player advice for a participationist game sound to you?

Now I think we've reached the same page again. Assuming the ideas of Illusionist/Participationist/Bass Playing aren't copy written and are able to be talked about in the book (are they?), I think I would start by explaining the theory behind those three principles. Following the descriptions of each type of game, I would give suggestions on how different aspects of the game would function (being sure to discourage the Illusionist game, since you're basically lying to the other people playing the game).

In the case of how to interpret skill rolls and the task/resolution system in a Participationist game, I think there can be varying degrees of how much the outcomes of roles take affect on the game.

For example, the GM may already know that the players are going to successfully defeat the mutant horde attacking the city of New Atlanta. However, he can still allow the dice rolls to dictate the course of combat, fudging outcomes here and there to ensure that the players are victorious. Alternatively, he can do as you said and allow the dice rolls to determine the particular amount of cinimatic drama that occurs with each action, while the outcomes are completely controlled by the ideals of the GM.

I think it would be wise to explain the types of games to the Players as well, to educate them on the existance of Illusionist GMs, so that the group can establish what kind of game their playing, and it's not a secret. This alone might allow peer pressure to drive GM's away from Illusionist styles of running the game, to narrow the scope to Participationism and Bass Playing, thereby giving the group the ability to choose how the game should be ran, without us forcing a particular style on them

QuoteI agree. But in a horrible validation of system matters, a game system can be designed to help ensure he doesn't have to twist as much story, or ditch as many rules or whatever to get illusionism.

I believe educating the players on the types of games can help ensure that they won't suffer from a selfish GM. Is there a specific element of the Experience Level system that supports Illusionism? From what I can see, the existance of a task/resolution system to decide the outcome of certain situations helps to drive groups towards Bass Playing as it is.

QuoteLook, I'm probably a bit of a burned out player. But if your customers are a 'flock' I think your building in more room for 'wolves' to sneak in than you'd want. You were interested if there were any probs with the level system, so I thought I'd say that.

I was getting the feeling that you've suffered from having a selfish GM in the past. I suppose it's difficult for me to understand some of the concerns you have since I've almost always been a GM, whose almost always had a group of Players whose biggest pleasure in playing was getting me frustrated and playing their characters in such a way that the session turned into one big joke. I learned to deal with that, eliminating players who didn't really want to cooperate, instead playing with people who were interested in group-story telling, and not group-makezackfrustrated.

Care to explain how I'm building room for wolves to prey on my flock?

QuoteSorry. Imagine that a NPC had to prove his innocence to the PC's by shooting the rope to save the sheriff, and the reason he's proving himself is because of the players 'hunt men down' skill is at legendary - there's no escape, he must save the sheriff! That's the players at the high end of the seesaw.

Why must the 'hunt men down' skill be at a legendary level in order for this to take place?

QuoteWhen I mentioned the seesaw, it wasn't my recommendation, just seemed to fit what you were doing. I wasn't interested in pushing you away from the seesaw idea, even if I don't favour it. There are other options - would you like to discuss them? If so, start off a new thread (I think that fits the forum policy - it helps keep threads neat and focused. You can link to this thread from the new one anyway :) ). I'd love to talk about the two paragraphs before the quote :)

I too would like to discuss it, though I'm not sure where I'd begin. Any suggestions my friend? :)

That was good discussion, I think we've sort of split into two parallel discussions, one is about power levels which are an "ephemera" a tiny aspect of the game that serves to implement the designers vision, the other is about player empowerment which is a choice at the level of the shared imaginary space.  Maybe Callan's right and we should start a second thread about player empowerment in Decay, so for now I'll just stick to discussing the ephemera.  It's a little difficult since the player empowerment decision is sort of above the ephemera, choices you make there will basically decide for you what technical rules you should put in the game.

One of the things Callan brought up was the old forge saying "system does matter."  A lot of roleplayers claim the system doesn't matter and that people will just change the rules to match what they want to play.  There's a little mistake in that line, system refers to how the players actually play, rules just refers to what the designer writes down.  If the players modify the game they are now playing with a variant of the desingers intended system.  A worthy design goal is to forsee the ways people might want to play the game and write the rules so they don't have to change them.  The other common meme is to think that players changing rules means something like, "this group rolls 4d6 drop the lowest instead of 3d6 for attributes."  This is certainly a rules change, but so is "once, just once, the GM fudged a roll to save my character," and "the rules don't say whether your supposed to share in character observations, but our group has decided it's not fair," or even "we use in character and out of character voices." A good set of rules is very self-aware, it was written with experience as to what happens during a game, and covers the eventualities. 

So lets talk about powerlevels.

1. Power levels empower players--
First the GM writes a couple of adventures that the players participate in.  Then the GM writes no more adventures, the players now have enough power and knowledge to decide what they want to do in the setting on their own.  They choose where to go, and the GM just rolls for the setting, he doesn't plan a story, the other players are already writting a story about their characters that needs no input from him.  The GM just uses the detailed setting to react to what they are doing.

Things to think about:
How many hours of play before the switch and how much advancement?
Will new characters start at the bottom, or at the previous level (ie. if you start a new set of characters will they have to work their way up seeing the parts of the game they've already explored)?
How will players learn about the setting? Will the GM just hand them the book to represent the players in game knowledge?

2.  Power levels divide the world into zones--
Certain areas are more confusing for players who haven't learned enough about the game.  Since the setting is shared among many groups, it is also important that certain areas be resistant to change.  Power levels are used to divide the world into certain areas with similar statistical challenges.

Things to think about:
Are there better ways to divide the world into zones? eg. lack of vehicals, radiation storms etc.
What will be the consequences of high level characters in low level zones, what will be the consequences of low level characters in high level zones?
What will be the consequences of players choosing to play high level characters from the outset?

3.  Power levels allow the players to impact the GM's story--
Not to be confused with 1, in this case players can rewrite the planned adventure if their power level is high enough to ignore obstacles the GM might deploy.  This may either arise from excessive player power or low GM power.

Things to think about:
Will this cause conflict?
If the players leave the GM's planned adventure, what will they do?
Why must the GM generate an adventure?

4.  Power levels are inheriently enjoyable--
Players gain a sense of accomplishment by becoming more powerful, even in cases where statistically, challenges remains the same.  In essence, higher numbers are preferable to lower numbers, and growing numbers are best.

Things to think about:
Does this hold true for everyone?  What about players who just want to explore?
Will this encourage competition between players?
Will the game be able to focus on other modes of fun if the players are constatnly striving for advancement?
http://www.progressquest.com/

5.  Power levels are realistic--
Observations of our world tell us that certain skills are not evenly distributed and that skills can be improved with time and effort.  The imaginary space of the game should reflect this.

Things to think about:
How does realism make the game more fun?
Can this be implemented without power benchmarks, just different starting points?

6.  Power levels are in most RPGs.
Power levels are extremely common in RPGs, therefore must be valuable to a game.

TtTA:
Why should something that worked elsewhere work in your game since your game is different in other respects?
Do powerlevels work in other games, or are they only doing it because of number 6 as well?

Fantastic post Majidah, I hope you don't mind if link to and re-post it often. You summed up the "loot and level" issue thoroughly. (I'm playing ProgressQuest for the first time as I type this and laughing my ass off. Sweet parody.)

Zack:

Straight, simple answer to your original question: Yes, using power-levels as a cap to force PCs to diversify sounds like a good idea. However ...


Honestly, I have a big chip on my shoulder right now. I've spent many an hour in MMOs frustrated because they offer little but "loot and level". The designer part of my brain can't get around the idea that the *last* thing one should do as a designer of an MMO is partition players into little boxes. I know you're not building an MMO, just letting you know to take what I write with a big grain of salt.

As a tabletop (or chat-based) RPG designer, you will provide a large chunk of the content players and GMs will use in their adventures. Level-based systems should be careful to avoid a common pitfall: PC's should never out-level content. You're just shooting yourself in the foot. If you have the resources to create, say, 100 monsters, why would you divide them into 5 sets so that players can only choose from 20 at a time? Won't your game be less rich?

Further, one of the reasons for using power-levels is "the sense of advancement," last week I could only defeat X ... now I can defeat X+1. Yay me! I rock! Except that implies I'm still fighting X today (so I can see how easy it has become) and that last week I at least got a taste of X+1 such that I knew it was out-of-my-league. In my book, this requires having all of the content available all of the time, else you lose the sense of empowerment and it just becomes a grind. Caveat emptor.

The solution of course is to make sure that for Green PCs fighting a Green rad-scorp hatchling is a "hard" challenge and for Legendary PCs fighting 10 rad-scorp hatchlings is an "easy" challenge. All content is available, all the time. This implies a fairly shallow power-curve. Easier said than done, and the more complex your combat system, the more difficult it will be. Are power-levels worth the effort for your game? What are you giving up by devoting dev-cycles to make all this work?

Also consider: You want exciting challenges for your players. You also want variety, with some "easy" challenges, some "moderate" and some "hard". All of this takes a lot of planning and play-testing, hopefully with real players bent on "breaking" your system and exposing any flaws or loopholes. As soon as you introduce power levels, you *multiply* the effort needed to create all of this content. Please, please don't assume it will all just "scale". In practice, it very seldom does. (And the very options and tweaks that make a game interesting are the ones which scale poorly.) Again, is it worth it? what are you gaining and what are you giving up?

I really like the direction the discussion has turned. I've been thinking about how to start a thread for the idea of player empowerment, and I'm getting there.

On the topic of power levels:

I'm going to answer your TtTA with my own ideas and opinions. I would really like to hear everyone elses opinions as well, if only to see where we agree and where we disagree.

I'll start with the first three, since my time is kind of limited at the moment.


1. Power Levels Empower the Players:

How many hours of play before the switch and how much advancement?

Answer: At the current design juncture, characters recieve about 12-16 XP per middle length (about two hours) moderately difficult (involved a significant amount of challenges) adventure in which the Crew was largely successful. If the Crew failed in their goals, the XP award will be more along the lines of 6-8. If they achieved extraordinary success, 17-20. Assuming they always achieve modest success, that means they'll reach the next Experience Level (each EL takes 100 XP to level up) after approximately 12 hours of play. The Arbiter (GM) can speed up, or slow down this process by awarding more or less XP respectively.

From our point of view, statistical advancement has no concrete influence on when the Arbiter can hand the reigns to the Players and let them begin controlling the path of the story.

Question: Do you feel that the standard amount of time is too short, or too long to make a significant jump?

Personal Note: Most of the games I've GMed, the session lasted anywhere from 2-4 hours, making ascending an EL possible within three sessions. Originally, the intent of each EL was to represent a very significant jump in power, possibly the equivilent of 4-5 levels in D&D. 

Will new characters start at the bottom, or at the previous level (ie. if you start a new set of characters will they have to work their way up seeing the parts of the game they've already explored)?

Answer: In some cases, groups who start with Elite characters, played for a while, then decided to create new characters, they may choose to start the new characters off at the Green EL. In other cases, people who started with Regular character, played for a while, then decided to create new characters may start at the Elite EL. The choice is up to them. They may create less experienced, more experienced, or equally experienced new characters.

As far as how the exploration of the world will play out, ideally they'll be inclined to explore completely new areas, never explored by their previous characters. Alternatively, they may choose to create a Crew that centers around a different aspect of the game, such as going from a Crew who was based in the Outlands to a Crew who lives in the Megaplex, or going from street thugs to corporate special forces, or other changes along those lines. They might create a group of psionic characters as opposed to mundane characters, or perhaps they make evil characters instead of do-gooders.

The 'zones' that I described above are enormous. It's impossible for a Crew to explore every inch of every zone. Therefore, a group of new characters exploring the Western Badlands will have just as much to discover, even if this is their second set of characters exploring this zone. At least, thats the way we're trying to design it.

How will players learn about the setting? Will the GM just hand them the book to represent the players in game knowledge?

Answer: Handing them the book is one option to get the acquainted with the setting, though probably not the most enjoyable. One possible way to introduce new players to the setting is to create the first adventure around the "new guy" or "amnesia" principle. This is, the characters that they are playing are just as clueless about where they are as the Players themselves. This gives the Arbiter a good reason to explain things, in game, to the characters that will educate the players about the setting.

Question: In what other ways could the Players learn about the setting?

2.  Power levels divide the world into zones

Are there better ways to divide the world into zones? eg. lack of vehicals, radiation storms etc.


Answer: The regions of the setting aren't completely designed to force the players to level up before they're able to explore there. The biggest thing that's stopping them is the difficulty of their Survival Skill checks. Naturally, some areas are just more difficult to survive in than others, and this is illustrated by preset Target Numbers designated for each region. This can worked around by supplying the Crew with the things they need to negate the difficulties, or at least help them deal with them. For example, transversing an Emission Zone is extremely difficult, what with all the radiation, lack of clean water and food, and the mutated creatures that don't take kindly to strangers. If the Arbiter's story supplies the Crew with a dune buggy, RadSuits, some decent weaponry, and a trunk full of pure water and uncontimated food, the players can explore this area with relatively little difficulty.

Question: How would you suggest seperating the zones better?

What will be the consequences of high level characters in low level zones, what will be the consequences of low level characters in high level zones?

Answer: I'm not exactly sure what kind of adverse effects can happen.

Question: Have you thought of any?

What will be the consequences of players choosing to play high level characters from the outset?

Answer: The only forseen side effect of players starting with high level characters is the idea that they won't have as much room to advance, but on the other hand, they'll be able to experience more of the high level content right away, sort of balancing out the equation. Other than that, there's the risk that the players will become "spoiled" and only want to play high level characters from then on, never taking the opportunity to experience being the low-man on the totem pole.

3. Power levels allow the players to impact the GM's story

Will this cause conflict?

Answer: In most cases, the GM will have designed the challenges within the adventure to reflect the character's high level of power. If for some reason this isn't the case, and the Crew breezes by all the obstacles in their way, the only conflict is perhaps that they'll reach the end of the GM's planned adventure far too quickly and easily, in which case the GM will need to either elaborate, or the session might be cut short. If the adventure is too easy, this will award the players less XP, who might feel they're getting jipped out of "advancement juice".

Question: Is this the type conflict you're referring to?

If the players leave the GM's planned adventure, what will they do?

Answer: If they leave the preset scenarios, the GM's goal is to either subtley nudge them back on track, or to "play bass" and let the players decide where to go and what to do.

Why must the GM generate an adventure?

Answer: In the case of very independant players, creating an adventure may not be neccesary. Simply giving them a starting point is enough for them to get their footing and starting creating their own adventure, with the GM just reacting to what they do. On the other hand, some players rely on the GM to supply the story, preferring to follow along with something that seems more tailored and 'scripted', rather then random and off the top of the group's head.

Question: What are your thoughts on this question?

While I'd like to continue, I've got some friends coming over and my time is short. I'll try to finish some time tonight though. Thanks for the insight Majidah!

Whew! Finally, I have some time to finish what I'd started.

4.  Power levels are inheriently enjoyable

Does this hold true for everyone?  What about players who just want to explore?

Answer: In the case of players who don't enjoy advancing, and would rather simply explore the setting without having to worry about being challenged and overcoming obstacles, the best way to supply them with the experience they're looking for is to explain to the GM that he should be sensitive to what the Players are looking for in a game and design the adventures in the campaign with this idea in mind. The GM can then spend the majority of his preparation time worrying about what sort of places and people the Players can discover, rather then having to think about obstacles and enemies for them to defeat.

Question: Does anyone have a better suggestion on how to do this?

Will this encourage competition between players?

Answer: In most cases no. One of the established ideas is that each character in the group should specialize in a different area then the other characters in the group, to encourage team work and diversity, rather then having six guys walking around with identicle skill sets. Having a diverse group allows them to overcome more diverse obstacles, and also allows the GM to plan adventures that will challenge the players in a variety of ways. Of course, some people are more competitive then others, and competition is unavoidable in some cases, regardless of the existance of Experience Levels. Any game that use statistics at all runs the risk of having competition between players. Even games that lack character statistics can host competition, when one player wants to have better equipment, or a more famous character, or wants to accomplish more or discover more.

Will the game be able to focus on other modes of fun if the players are constatnly striving for advancement?


Answer: Of course! The are no limits on where the fun starts and where it ends. One set of Players might be a group of superstar musicians, where the game focuses on the toils and tribulations of being super famous in the materialistic, consumer world of the megaplex. Their adventures may be the experiences they have on tour, while never having to worry about XP or Experience Levels. The existance of Experience Levels doesn't produce the need to 'strive' for advancement.The Players can't really try harder to advance quicker. The rate of advancement is up to the GM, and it could be a slow, or a fast road.

Question: If there were no experience levels and just statistics ungoverned by a system that limits how high a particular skill can be raised to based on relative experience, would urge to advance not be there still?

5.  Power levels are realistic

How does realism make the game more fun?


Answer: Decay isn't hard set in realism, as the setting and the content of the setting illustrates. However, providing a sense of realism gives the players and the GM a feeling that the world they're dedicating themselves to for a few hours every weekend is living and breathing place, not a cartoon or a fairy tail. Realism adds to the tone of dark, gritty, opressive horror, because what's scarier then the feeling that your character is vulnerable? Does it make it more fun? Well, we hope. It's hard to say. On one hand, some players may not like the sense of realism, wishing their characters were a little more larger then life, and not so vulnerable. However, we feel that those players may enjoy playing a different game then Decay. On the other hand, some players may be intrigued by the idea that their characters are more along the lines of batman then superman (this is a very loose analogy). Of course, the element of realism can be tweaked easily by nudging the difficulty of certain obstables up or down (down being less realistic, and up being more realistic).

Question: How do you make a game both realistic and unrealistic at the same time, to appeal to both types of players?

Can this be implemented without power benchmarks, just different starting points?

Answer: Sure, but Power Levels serve other functions than adding to the sense of realism. I'll talk about this in a moment.

6.  Power levels are in most RPGs.

Why should something that worked elsewhere work in your game since your game is different in other respects?


Answer: While there are a plethora of new-age RPGs out there that explore alternate ways to handle the issues brought about by a role-playing environment, Decay is fundamentally a traditional adventure game. The question of why do Power Levels have a place in Decay is almost the same as why do dice have a place in Decay. They serve a purpose that's common in RPGs. Dice serve the purpose of creating random numbers that represent the natural idea of chance. While there are other ways to come up with random numbers, none are as familiar or effective. So too, there are other ways to judge a character's power relative to the setting and other characters in the setting, but none are as simple and effective.

Do powerlevels work in other games, or are they only doing it because of number 6 as well?


Answer: From my experiences with P&P RPGs and Videogame RPGs, achievement and leveling has always given me a personal sense of accomplishment. Take Oblivion and the new computer game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Both have similar modes of play: You start out a novice in a big giant world where you explore and take jobs, gaining reputation as a hero and so on. While Stalker's atmosphere is far superior to Oblivion, the only sense of accomplishment I get from it is attaining a new gun, artifact, or suit of armor. There is no advancement what-so-ever. On the hand, while Oblivion isn't as 'cool' (IMO) as Stalker, I do get a feeling of accomplishment when my Blades Skill reaches the next level, and now I can do a cool new move.

Perhaps some games are doing it 'because everybody else is too'. However, we're doing it because it serves a function that we feel needs to be served.

Okay, so here's something else to think about.

As of right now, Experience Levels serve these functions:
1) Set a limit on how high a character's skill can be, to prevent 'maxing out' and allow for a sense of accomplishment when you level up and the cap is raised.
2) Give Players and the GM starting benchmarks or packages, to provide a simple way to make very experienced and well equipped characters right off the bat without 'leveling' them manually.
3) Provide a discription has to how powerful the characters are, so Official Prewritten adventures can be tailored to varying degrees of character expertise (ie, "This Adventure is Best Suited to Character of the Veteran Experience Level").
4) Offer a relative benchmark for online characters, so GMs can run adventures for "Green" or "Elite" Crews and keep track of the relative power of their online players.

If we were to eliminate Function 1, how would that effect the game?


To John

I'm glade to see some one new join the discussion. I was beginning to think that the thread was too voluminous for people to bother reading and posting their opinions.

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Honestly, I have a big chip on my shoulder right now. I've spent many an hour in MMOs frustrated because they offer little but "loot and level". The designer part of my brain can't get around the idea that the *last* thing one should do as a designer of an MMO is partition players into little boxes. I know you're not building an MMO, just letting you know to take what I write with a big grain of salt.

I hear you. I played World of Warcraft for loooong time before I realised how much of a waste of time it was for me. Leveling up and getting new gear was fun for a while, but in the end, it left me feeling kind of empty.

QuoteAs a tabletop (or chat-based) RPG designer, you will provide a large chunk of the content players and GMs will use in their adventures. Level-based systems should be careful to avoid a common pitfall: PC's should never out-level content. You're just shooting yourself in the foot. If you have the resources to create, say, 100 monsters, why would you divide them into 5 sets so that players can only choose from 20 at a time? Won't your game be less rich?

I see what you mean, but take for example a monster called the Steam Drake. A Steam Drake is a particularly brutish, hulking lizard that can spew searing hot steam from a gland in it's mouth. This monster is a particularly deady enemy, something that shouldn't be conquered by "Green" characters. A group of four "Veteran" characters, however, would find this to be challenging, but able to be accomplished. How can I realistically say that this monster is as much a challenge for Green characters as it is for Veteran characters? Likewise, take the Siltling. Siltlings are small, goblinish creatures that are more suited for Green and Regular Level characters. How can a Siltling then pose the same level of threat to an Elite character?

QuoteFurther, one of the reasons for using power-levels is "the sense of advancement," last week I could only defeat X ... now I can defeat X+1. Yay me! I rock! Except that implies I'm still fighting X today (so I can see how easy it has become) and that last week I at least got a taste of X+1 such that I knew it was out-of-my-league. In my book, this requires having all of the content available all of the time, else you lose the sense of empowerment and it just becomes a grind. Caveat emptor.

Some creatures are simply incapable of posing a serious threat to high level characters. However, many enemies are scaleable, especially human enemies.

QuoteThe solution of course is to make sure that for Green PCs fighting a Green rad-scorp hatchling is a "hard" challenge and for Legendary PCs fighting 10 rad-scorp hatchlings is an "easy" challenge. All content is available, all the time. This implies a fairly shallow power-curve. Easier said than done, and the more complex your combat system, the more difficult it will be. Are power-levels worth the effort for your game? What are you giving up by devoting dev-cycles to make all this work?

Also consider: You want exciting challenges for your players. You also want variety, with some "easy" challenges, some "moderate" and some "hard". All of this takes a lot of planning and play-testing, hopefully with real players bent on "breaking" your system and exposing any flaws or loopholes. As soon as you introduce power levels, you *multiply* the effort needed to create all of this content. Please, please don't assume it will all just "scale". In practice, it very seldom does. (And the very options and tweaks that make a game interesting are the ones which scale poorly.) Again, is it worth it? what are you gaining and what are you giving up?

This is an interesting series of questions. Luckily, the combat system is decidedly simple. Designing challenges and enemies is sort of a daunting task, but fortunately I have a group of playtesters on hand who LOVE to try to break the system. How would doing away with power levels make thet ask any easier?

Time for a mighty answering.   I think we're both pretty much on the same page, and it's a good page, but I'll itemize before I discuss big stuff.

Quote from: Sentience on April 06, 2007, 05:06:07 PM
1. Power Levels Empower the Players:

How many hours of play before the switch and how much advancement?


From our point of view, statistical advancement has no concrete influence on when the Arbiter can hand the reigns to the Players and let them begin controlling the path of the story.


Question: Do you feel that the standard amount of time is too short, or too long to make a significant jump?

I agree, statistical advancement does not, in itself provide a rubric for handing over the reins.  However, every time they play, your players are learning to run the game independantly.  I don't think it would take 12 hours of gaming for them to have a pretty good handle on what they should be doing, and where they should be going, 4-6 should be plenty, especially if you allow them to read the game books(what's your position on that by the way?).  As you've said, this need not have any bearing on advancement, but you could decide to link the two if you wished.

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How will players learn about the setting? Will the GM just hand them the book to represent the players in game knowledge?

Answer: Handing them the book is one option to get the acquainted with the setting, though probably not the most enjoyable. One possible way to introduce new players to the setting is to create the first adventure around the "new guy" or "amnesia" principle. This is, the characters that they are playing are just as clueless about where they are as the Players themselves. This gives the Arbiter a good reason to explain things, in game, to the characters that will educate the players about the setting.

Question: In what other ways could the Players learn about the setting?

Reading, playing and discussing pretty much some it up.  What I'm really driving at here is where you draw the player/character distinction.  Lots of people get huffy if a player reads the GM's manual, although both are just players.  Sometimes it bothers people if someone explains things that "your character wouldn't know." I'm not a big fan of this, I think that one of the main reason people are playing is to learn new things about the game world, and putting up these imaginary boundries to knowledge sort of inhibits that.

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2.  Power levels divide the world into zones

Are there better ways to divide the world into zones? eg. lack of vehicals, radiation storms etc.


Question: How would you suggest seperating the zones better?[/i][/color]

This is what I was going for with my depth/width thing.  The goal is to make it interesting to play in every zone at every level.  Think of zone specific and mobile challenges.  The mobile challenges can be stasticially graded because they can move between zones, like big monsters and such.  The Zone specific challenges just require a certiain piece of equipment or skill, like radiation protection.  This gives people more freedom to choose where they will go exploring instead of just moving from one set of statistically difficult challenges to the next.  Instead, the statistical challenges follow the players while they explore the scenery, which they can plan for.

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What will be the consequences of high level characters in low level zones, what will be the consequences of low level characters in high level zones?

Question: Have you thought of any?[/color][/i]

My example is from a deadlands game I played a while back.  The GM planned an elaborate adventure with trials and tribulations for us to face that ranged all over the weird west.  It started in a sleepy little town in the wilderness.  After 8 sessions, we were still in that town, my character had successfully run for sheriff, our mad scientist had set up shop building defenses, and our group just patrolled the area keeping it safe.  People there loved us since the old power brokers in the town were real jerks.  The GM eventually just sent overwhelming forces to force us to abandon the town, and we died fighting there rather than leave.  The point here is, if powerful characters to decide to run low level zones, they need not explore new zones.  If they decide to explore new zones they won't be able to explore what it would be like to run a low level zone.  As long as everyone is on the same page, fine, but if you don't point out which kind of game this will be, some players might have thought it was the other kind of exploration and get angry.

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3. Power levels allow the players to impact the GM's story

Will this cause conflict?

Answer: In most cases, the GM will have designed the challenges within the adventure to reflect the character's high level of power. If for some reason this isn't the case, and the Crew breezes by all the obstacles in their way, the only conflict is perhaps that they'll reach the end of the GM's planned adventure far too quickly and easily, in which case the GM will need to either elaborate, or the session might be cut short. If the adventure is too easy, this will award the players less XP, who might feel they're getting jipped out of "advancement juice".

Question: Is this the type conflict you're referring to?

actually, I think I covered this in the last question.  That's the kind of conflict I'm refering too, where people have different ideas of what the game is about because of their different characters.

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Why must the GM generate an adventure?

Answer: In the case of very independant players, creating an adventure may not be neccesary. Simply giving them a starting point is enough for them to get their footing and starting creating their own adventure, with the GM just reacting to what they do. On the other hand, some players rely on the GM to supply the story, preferring to follow along with something that seems more tailored and 'scripted', rather then random and off the top of the group's head.

Question: What are your thoughts on this question?

I think this may be the place for a choice. Many, many, many RPGs put tremendous strain on the GM for content creation.  The game essentially runs only as fast or as often as the GM can create a story, and if the story is to be any good it's going to take more work than if the story is poor.  Most games end not because they aren't fun but because the GM simply gets tired of doing so much work so they can enjoy themselves.  I think a good design decision is to seperate the idea in your mind of "GM-referee" and "GM-storyteller."   A GM's not necessarily a bad idea to watch for mistakes and settle disputes, but it's a lot to ask of one player to do that AND make up a story for everyone every week.  By seperating the rolls, the GM becomes the player who exchanges a character for executive decisions, but is simply a particpant in the same fiction creation as everyone else.  The adversarial nature of the relationship is gone, which is a good thing. 


So to sum it all up from post #1

Make sure you explain how the players are supposed to learn about the world.

I reccomend "any means possible."  The more they learn, the easier it will be for them to bear some of the storytelling load.  This also avoids the unnecessary disagreements over whether its "fair" to read the GM's manual. 

Make sure you explain who writes the story

I reccomend you tell the GM to write a 2-3 adventure story and let the players take it from there.  If one of them gets a really good idea, let him write another 2-3 adventure module involving the characters.  This is sort of the method used to write a comic book, conserve the characters, rotate the authors. 

Have the players decide what kind of game they are playing before they start to play

I reccomend the above story telling method, but whatever you decide is optimum be good and sure everyone knows what is going on.  Write it in bold font on the first page and tell the GM that if he does not explain the premise of the game before hand, the players may not play that game and a good time will be difficult to have do to internal struggles for control.

This last item is actually bigger than just this.  Put your intent in the manual.  Lots of game disputes consist of "how is this mechanic supposed to work?"  If you don't explain your intent, there's only the letter of the law and none of the spirit.  The letter can be derived from the spirit but not the other way around.

Thanks for the advice Pat! I appreciate it.

I've started a new thread focusing on the seesaw, shown here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23685.0 (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23685.0).

Please post your comments!