[DitV] Stillwater Branch

[Darren Hill]

Thanks, Eric. Good luck with your run :)

[Darren Hill]

<my Group's Experience Rules>

This seems really kookball to me.

It's statements like this which made me say earlier (in this thread in case you hadn't noticed) that I wasn't going to respond to comments about experience, but since the discussion about the game has run its natural course, I will respond to specific points.

You're removing authorial power of the player over their characters,

yes, but this was something the players specifically asked me too. We have no played it twice as written - no changes: once before we changed the rules, and once since. None of my players like the experience rules, and they don't think this change goes far enough. That ought to be enough of an explanation.

you're making it so character development in social situations is slower (which doesn't make sense)

How is this different from making character development in social situations faster - that is the Dogs norm, and also doesn't make sense. But it doesn't matter whether it makes sense or not - it's a game. What matters is whether the rule does the job its supposed to, and does so in a way that meets the groups approval.

while removing an incentive for taking the blow (thereby reducing the value of playing for fallout and experience, which is a fun way to play a character),

My experience is that this simply isn't true. My players have frequently taken the blow in purely social conflicts (and we've had as many pure social conflicts than any other type of conflict). People want to get rid of those low dice at a moment of the conflict where they can afford to do so - so they choose Raises where they don't mind conceding something, and keep the higher dice against Raises they don't want to concede something. There is still an incentive to Take The Blow. (Besides, if all they were motivated by was lust for experience, they can hope for two 4's on the dice - that's not that uncommon if you roll enough d4's and gives a fine form of advancement).

and then you're hobbling together a solution to both problems you've wrought when the solution was already there.

I disagree, since my group and I don't see the problems you describe. The experience system in general is one of the Three Big Problems my group has with this game. I'm hoping we can get over the other two problems, but this one is one that I think - for my group - is insurmountable with an even more radical hatchet job. And we have no incentive to do that just yet, since we don't know if the group will want to play again once this min-campaign is over.