alternate hero advancement

[Fredrik S]

A very interesting system.
I'm tempted to use it for my newly started game.

[Vaxalon]

We have used this system now for two sessions, which in IRC don't involve TOO many conflicts, maybe ten all together.

It looks like it's working well, people are taking to it quickly.  Deciding what to boost after a conflict is not turning out to be difficult most of the time, from my POV.

An interesting question has popped up in my mind...

Should NPC's get the same advancement when they win and lose conflicts?

[Vaxalon]

Oh, and another question...

What happens when several characters are cooperating, but only one of them has a primary attribute in the conflict?

Here's my first-blush answer: Don't.  Give each character their own conflict, which (if they win) adds an augment to the final resolution, which belongs to the primary PC.  That way everyone gets an equal chance to get bennies out of the overall conflict.

[soviet]

What happens when several characters are cooperating, but only one of them has a primary attribute in the conflict?

Maybe when players augment other players they can choose whether or not they are invested in the conflict? If they're not invested, they provide the augment bonus but that's it. If they are invested, they provide the bonus AND get affected by the result: if the contest is lost, they get a 'wound' at one level less than the primary character (exactly like followers are supposed to work), and if the contest is won they get to pick off a lesser version of the 'cool stuff' list.

Mark

[joshua neff]

An interesting question has popped up in my mind...

Should NPC's get the same advancement when they win and lose conflicts?

NPC advancement? I've never had an NPC advance at anything. Not formally, anyway. NPCs have whatever scores the GM gives them. I tend to be like Mike in that regard--NPCs have whatever scores I think are appropriate for challenging the PCs.

[joshua neff]

Oh, and another question...

What happens when several characters are cooperating, but only one of them has a primary attribute in the conflict?

Wow, I hadn't thought of that.

Further cogitation is required.

[Vaxalon]

If lending augments works like community support, so that assistants suffer a similar penalty for a loss, then they should share in the gain.

[Vaxalon]

So far, this hasn't been a problem in the current game, but here's a proposal:

If you lend more than one augment to a conflict, then if your side wins, you may add 1 to one of the attributes.  If you lose, you may add 2 to one of the attributes, and you suffer a penalty for losing similar to the main character's penalty.

[Mike Holmes]

I think this is good in principle, but why, if the negative stakes are equal to full participation, shouldn't the positive stakes be the same? That is, why not get the normal choice for participating? The only difference is that you're hitching your wagon to the other player's fortune and potential HP expenditure. Which is interesting in and of itself.

That said, I could see an argument where you said that it's because you don't want to distract from the main character's spotlight. So I think that it's sensible as you have it that it's possible to contribute and not get rewards. But would it work to simply make it player choice on both ends? That is, the player augmenting, regardless of number of augments, gets to ask to be "staked"? And the primary player then gets to accept or reject the offer?

What might be interesting is to allow the offering player to base his offer on acceptance as having a stake. That is, he can say, "If you want my augments, you have to let me in on the stakes." Or he can choose to offer augments without stakes. Or let the primary player decide.

Lots of potential options here. Interesting stuff.

Yes, if you don't have multiple augments, then you have the problem that the augment reward isn't fully available. But that's something I've been meaning to ask for a while now about single characters, too. If I only augment with two abilities, then can I select bumping the augmenting abilities? If so, do I simply lose the point for the third ability?

In any case, if you allow an augmenter the full range of rewards, he can always choose a new ability or something.

Hmm. Something occurs to me, we assume he can't raise up the ability level of a primary ability, because, of course, he's not contributing one. But there are several options with regards to this. For one, you could have the player declare one augment "primary" for this purpose. This is cool because you can accellerate the rate at which an ability - which may be one of those that tends to always be used to augment - can be raised.

Or you could also say that if the player has a similar ability to the primary one that he can raise it as though it were primary, based on learning from the events happening to the character with the Primary ability.

I'm sure there are other permutations as well.

BTW, this has gotten me thinking about some things regarding HP and bumping that I'm going to bring up in another thread.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

If a participant wants to participate "fully" then he can initiate a whole new conflict to attempt to resolve a part of the greater conflict, like in Brand's houserule.

[Mike Holmes]

Well, you can always run simultaneous contests. That's not even a house rule. But that's somewhat what I fear...that players, if they're going to go in on a contest in any case, will always ask for their own contest, and never augment each other. Why should I accept the lower reward if I'm risking the same amount, and there's another rout that gets me the higher reward?

In fact, I think people should be rewarded for taking a back seat when appropriate, and having their character help out instead of grabbing the limelight.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

Hm.  Indeed.

"Share in the risk, share in the reward" seems to be the best rule there, and the share of reward should be comparable to the share in the risk.

[sebastianz]

Not to interrupt this discussion, but what exactly is the benefit of the list method here. I mean, why not just say, on a victory you get 1 HP and on a defeat 2 HPs? Without changing HPs otherwise, so they still function the same as before. This also solves the problem with multiple traits, though the differentiation between augmenting abilities and main traits is lost. As I see it, this is the main difference between the lists and the normal way to improve. Am I missing something?

Sebastian.

[Doyce]

Well, mechanically, if you lose, your main attribute could be raised by 2.  Getting 2 HP you can then use to raise attributes wouldn't net you the same thing, simply because of the limitations on how many times (or how much, efficiently) you can raise an attribute in a session.

[sebastianz]

Well, of course. The lists get rid of this rule, limiting number of increases based on the number of contests. And I don't use it in my group, either.
The numbers I used are arbitrary anyway. I just took them from the lists. You could also say, a victory is its own reward and on a failure you receive one HP. Or 2 and 3. After all, on a defeat new abilities start on a higher level. Not to forget the ratio between bumping and advancing. On a success it's 2:1 (or 3:1 considering augment abilities) as you can choose between a +2 increase to the main ability or 1 HP, on a defeat 3:2 (or 4:2) respectively. So the lists put a higher emphasis on character development than the normal dual use rules. This is probably another advantage of the lists albeit a small one. So I see two so far.

1) Better differentiation between traits. Not only between main ability and augmenting traits but also stressing the importance of certain kinds of traits, like relationships.
2) Levelling of differences between using a HP for bumping and advancement.
But perhaps I ask the wrong thing. The question cannot be, which method is better. It can only be, which method is better suited for achieving a certain goal. So, what kind of play is promoted by the lists which cannot be as easily achieved by just giving out a different number of HPs.

Both methods differentiate between victory and defeat and give a higher mechanical reward for failure. The lists also change the relation between bumping and advancement. Just giving out HP cannot accomplish this. Also deep and broad development are possible alternatively for the same cost with the lists. With HPs one would have to keep the limit on increases per adventure to incentivize a broadening of abilities.
Are there more things I missed?
So, in the end, the main feature of the lists is not simply to make failure more attractive, but to make small adjustments to other parts of the mechanics as well, right? Of course, having a list to choose from could be a reward of its own.

Sebastian.