Experience Points - what's the point? Alternatives?

[Daniel B]

Hi all,

in the system I'm designing with buddies, we had initially taken it as given that the PCs must adventure to gain experience points in order to facilitate character growth. However, in order to make sure we keep the system consistent with our design goals, I'm trying very hard to make sure all of our assumptions are brought to light. In that regard, I'm beginning to question whether Experience Points are what we want for our system.

I'm not familiar with a wide variety of games but it seems to me that the handing out of XP is virtually universal. Furthermore, ways that players go about earning this XP includes a finite number of avenues:
      - killing monsters (e.g. traditional D&D. Yeah, they vaguely mention other ways to get XP in the DM's Guide, but
                                 these are not a fundamental part of the system).
      - story awards
      - roleplaying awards

The problem with these methods is that each only supports a very specific way to play the game. If I'm playing a game of the first type, sure I could have fun acting in-character as much as possible, but the system would not support this type of fun and I'd risk being left behind in my power level. If I prefer hack 'n' slash, sure I could complete the story in order to level up my character, but combat would lose that visceral edge. Experience points do make sense the above three channels, but I claim that it is difficult or impossible to use them for all three simultaneously. (The hack'n'slasher will get jealous when the roleplayer earns XP outside of combat, and the roleplayer will get bored that the hack'n'slasher keeps searching for combat, given that it is the most efficient and least ambiguous way to earn XP.)

I know some of you are thinking at this point that I'm asking for too much: for people with different Creative Agendas to play the same game and still have fun. Maybe so, but I disagree, and it is the overriding design goal of our system to make it work. My questions are:

Is there another way to track character growth? Can character growth be tracked in a way that is independent of playstyle? Are there at least alternatives to the XP system that I'm not aware of? Are there any dangers inherent if I removed XP altogether in favour of another reward system?

Thanks in advance,
Dan Blain.

[Patrice]

Hi ShallowThoughts,

Most simulationist systems don't use experience points but reward sucess (or exceptional success). This creates a "the more you use it, the best you are at it" motto with a displeasing snowball effect that rule mechanics try to pan or to decrease in a few systems. You find systems in which failure is rewarded as well, for instance.

XP is not, it seems, so universal. It is widespread ok, but not universal. And even though, many XP systems include quite a few different notions as well such as success/failure, quest XP (a common pool for cooperative teamplay), etc.

So there already are alternatives. In my system-in-thinking (remember the initiative thread?), I'm trying to design a fair and square system within which each character has its own distinct experience/progression/evolution system. One has to gather that much resources whether another has to score that much critical hits, etc. It allows me to confuse, to meld into one the notion of Goal and the notion of Progression and to give the players something to compete about with different, and sometimes opposite aims. A thief has to steal, a wizard has to meddle with arcane and a fighter must fight (there are no wiz, thieves and fighters in my game, 'tis an example), each and everyone trying to curve the story in such way that it will eventually lead to the kind of events that would allow him to Progress. There are, in a way, XPs, but they are different for everyone. It is an alternative.

[David C]

Your problem is much deeper than "XP" I feel. What you're going to see from more knowledgeable rpg smiths is, great questions about how you're approaching your game in general. I'll answer what I can, though, and that's about XP game mechanics.

Off the top of my head...

Character points are similar to XP, but not exactly the same.  You get them as rewards occasionally, and you use them to improve your character.
Use to Improve is another alternative.  This involves improvement by using a skill. The more you use it, the higher it gets.  There are a LOT of variations on this, but here's some examples:
*Tickboxes, every several uses, it gets better.
*During use or after the game, roll a "chance" of improvement
*Skill Up when you fail
*Skill Up when you succeed
*Skill Down as you compromise your goals (combined with a general positive trend each session)
A multi-trek system.  This would involve different pools of XP for what you're doing (kill, story, rp).  If you do this, I suggest also having a "colorless" xp, where players can put xp into their favorite area.
*No character advancement at all
*No advancement that effects mechanics

Now, I think your problem isn't so much with XP, but with making sure everybody feels like they *can* alter the course of events, even when doing activities they do not enjoy.  My one suggestion is to make sure everybody has at least a support role when determining other missions.. for example:

In this sample, everybody is rewarded a "bonus die" for doing well in their "Job." (Kill, story discovery, RPing)  Those dice come in 3 colors. Red for killing, blue for story discovery, and yellow for RPing.  With those dice, they can use them as bonuses for a skill attempt, but under two conditions.  1) They can only use those dice on another player 2) they can only use dice for tasks outside their color (red killing dice can only be used to boost story discovery or rping attempts.)

This way, my character, Killslaughter AcmeAssassin, who gets lots of red dice, can help Sara Silvertongue's attempt to sway the guards into letting us into the city. Or, he might use his red dice to help Max McSleuth find clues to discover who the REAL killer was. 

This is only a starting point, and if there's one thing nobody has been able to do, it's to make a game where players, of the most extreme liking/disliking of each of the creative agendas, can sit down and enjoy the same game. However, I think most players have GNS *preferences* and can enjoy different styles of games. For example, someone might be 70/30 Gamist/Narrativist.  They'd prefer to sit down and play a Gamist game, but they will still enjoy a good Narrativist game. What is widely agreed upon on the Forge, however, is that game designers are much more successful when they target one of the GNS branches and design their game with those goals.

[Daniel B]

Hello,

thanks for the replies.

Patrice, is my RPG greenness showing? The improvement-with-use method is something we're seriously considering, since it only makes perfect sense that the more you use a skill, the better you'd become at it. However .. see my response to David. (Incidentally, what you've hinted at and said about your game so far sounds very entertaining. I look forward to reading more about it as it comes up.)


David, you're right that my question is deeper than XP, and I believe your post has allowed me to clear up in my head what, exactly, I'm asking. I won't argue the CA's point; you're right that those players of the more extreme GNS preferences will dislike, possibly hate, the game we're building. (I suppose you could say I'm just aiming our game towards a "generalist" design that is as generalist as possible.)

Indeed, I'm not asking about XP so much as "rewards" in the general sense. Regardless of the activity, people grant rewards with the express purpose of encouraging a particular behaviour. A's in school, trophies in bowling and sports, ribbons in fairs. The alternatives you mentioned encourage a particular type of behaviour within an RPG. Even the LACK of a reward (i.e. lack of character advancement, no advancement that effects mechanics) says something to the players, even if what it says is subconscious.

However, I believe the real questions are: what kind of behaviours do I want to encourage, what form should rewards take to best support those behaviours, and how best are these kinds of rewards meted out. I haven't yet discussed this my partners but I ultimately want to reward nothing less (and, importantly, nothing more) than "cohesive play". Oy!!  That is a rather lofty goal!

Thanks again for the posts, Patrice, David. I'll keep an eye on the post but I've uncovered what it is I was looking for, with your help.

[Daniel B]

Dang it, that was meant to be a smilie, not a newspaper icon.

[greyorm]

Un-experience points: if you don't do something, you become less capable!

But anyways, as David C enumerates, there are clearly numerous methods of reward-based advancement available in RPGs, whether they are experience-point based or something else.

But as for what the point of "XP" is?

Whatever its form, "XP" does one thing: it changes the game. It opens up new possibilities, tactics, and options to the players to use in the game. This is important in holding long-term play interest, because nobody wants to go from having the very cool "super-sweep" attack to the very boring "this is all I ever do: super-sweep" attack.

This is true from D&D-style leveling via XP, opening up new potential resources and combat options, to Sorcerer-style change-your-character moments, making old scores feel new and changing the underlying story dynamic so there is something new-and-important for the character to pursue.

And it looks to me as though the real problem you're running into in trying to decide what gets changed and how is having only half the picture and assuming that just making some new type of reward system will solve the problem of rewarding players with widely divergent priorities.

Note that a reward system, by nature, is tied to the type of play that occurs and what the mechanics encourage. Lots of rules for combat? Combat is clearly important. Lots of rules for political maneuvering? Politics is clearly important. Lots of rules for personality and story-choices? That is what is clearly important. Etc. And then the reward system rewards the players for engaging in those activities.

Simplistically: if you have a political game, you gain rewards for making and breaking deals, increasing your social power and influence, and avoiding assassination attempts. Logically, your character sheet should be full of attributes and stats related to those actions and behaviors, so you would gain and spend points on or increase the value of those things.

But if you have a combat game, you gain rewards for fighting and defeating armed opponents, avoiding death in duels and other combat situations, winning battles, and using flashy swordplay. Logically, your character sheet should be full of attributes and stats related to those actions and behaviors, so you would gain and spend points on or increase the value of those things.

So this is your first problem, which isn't even a play-style problem, just an expected-game-scenario problem:

Take a look at D&D: XP in D&D increases your level, which increases your ability to be effective in combat and other physically dangerous situations. Further, for politicians, political adventures gain players no real rewards through the gain of XP, because effective political maneuvering is not achieved through bonus points in to-hit, reflex saves, armor class, or etc. XP is combat-oriented, because the character sheet is combat-oriented; rewards are combat oriented, so the game is combat oriented, and the so the character sheet is combat oriented.

A completely open reward system would first require a system that is capable of catering to any type of scenario equally well, and rewarding for that type of scenario and not some other. There are some games out there designed to do this, usually considered "generic" rule-set games, which usually involve skill-point improvement rather than experience-point gain, and which are also often "level-less, class-less" character systems.

The functional difference here is "how" and "to what" rewards are applied: "class-and-level" games tend to increase a specific across-the-board set of resources upon leveling up (like hit points, saving throws, combat ability), whereas classless skill-based games tend to spread out rewards without specifically increasing any given/assumed set of resources.

In the first case, the player gains rewards mandated by the rules which are known to be valuable to only specific game scenarios; in the latter case, the player gains rewards in a fashion consistent with the events of scenarios he has participated in, or consistent with his own desires, and none of which may be valuable to any future or specific game scenario (mandated or otherwise).

Still, even a supposedly generic game may encourage specific game-scenarios and common game-threats dependent on what is found on the general character sheet: consider a GURPs-style game (a generic rule set) that lists "Political Influence" as a score against one that doesn't list such, or any game that lists "hit points" or some similar measure of physical well-being. By their inclusion, the sheet suggests these will be points-of-conflict in play and subtly encourages their use, even if they are never used in play.

Consider also how those scores are viewed and used in play: class-based and classless systems as described above are still very similar designs due the ways the rewards are used and what they mean/how they are used in play. They both increase available resources to increase the chances of succeeding against particular threats in particular scenarios.

This is the second problem in designing an all-inclusive reward-system: you're also talking about different styles/priorities/desires of play entirely (perhaps best thought of for you as a metaplay focus to differentiate it from scenario-focuses). This is simply thought of as when there is a player focused on the tactical and strategic options of play and their character, versus a different player who is focused on the story-potentials and theatrical options of play and their character.

A game-tactics oriented player might be very happy with rewards that increase or influence numbers on the character sheet--whatever numbers are important to play of scenarios he cares about, not necessarily just combat, as he might be playing a politically-oriented character and not care about combat (or vice versa)--while a story-oriented player might not give a fig about making his character more tactically adept, as much as he cares about his character's thematic bangs being driven further towards resolution, or creating new and interesting thematic bangs to play with.

Simplistically, in the former case, the player wants to see numbers go up so the character is better at meeting some obstacle; in the latter, the numbers could go up or down depending on what interesting options either choice opened in play.

Now, the game-oriented player looks at the latter idea and thinks, "What? Down? But then you'd be more likely to fail. Death-spiral. That's bad. No fun. You can't succeed/win!" because that's what he likes and because the games he plays (or at least enjoys playing) make probability of success the most important factor in the resolution engine, thus the possible increased chances of failure would make such a game a terrible experience for him.

For the story-oriented system, success and failure are story options, neither more optimal than the other, driving the story one way or another, rather than functioning as resources used to overcome obstacles or face failure. So we have resources used to develop the story versus resources used to overcome obstacles. And these games--probability-of-success engines versus story-development engines--play very differently and are designed differently, because what the character's resources are used to do in play, and what's important, are very different.

To create a completely open reward system, you would need to develop a game system that caters to either (or more) in terms of its mechanical design (what it supports and produces in terms of style and play choices), including creating a reward system that somehow responds to and encourages each very different style and their differing play-approach priorities.

(And we've only discussed story-oriented games and game-tactics oriented games!)

I don't think that it is necessarily impossible (though I doubt it would be easy, even for a skillful, experienced designer), but moreseo, I don't think it's desirable or necessary.

My suggestion is that if you already have a system, and you've stated you do, your best bet is instead to look at what your system already does--not only what sorts of scenarios it encourages, but what sorts of play styles it encourages and supports (both of which can be derived via the important mechanics, which is the stuff on the character sheets and how those items are used/approached in play)--and derive its reward system from that.

Or more easily: from what events and choices you and your design group want the reward system to reward.

Otherwise, chances are that you would be rewriting your system from the ground up, rather than just adding a "rules module" for rewards.

Also, I know none of that is "an answer" of the straight-forward sort, but hopefully it provides some food for thought, as you stated one of your goals is challenging all your existing assumptions about the way you and your group plays its games. Let me know if I was unclear at all in my meanings or examples and we can try to clarify it between us.

On second thought, really understanding and hashing out some of the above may not be at all important to coming up with a functional reward system for your game, which is probably the better issue to focus on, with all the above concepts left in the back of your head during that development (rather than trying to hash it all out now and flailing about without concrete real-life examples relevant to your game and playing it).

(And if you stuck with me through all that, you get a design-cookie!)

[Patrice]

Sure not, I wasn't hinting anything like that (your greenness), I just took the XP expression in its narrow meaning: Points. Now I understand a little better what is it that you wish and... A whole blatant analysis of the contradiction between rewarding cohesive play and allowing individual rewards initially followed, with the conclusion that maybe designing a team character sheet and rewarding the team first and the characters second would be a solution but I've then read Greyorm's post and sighed and decided I had nothing to add really, because it's packed with common sense and I love the "it changes the game part" so that's why (or what) I won't finally post what I had decided.

Cheers

[Daniel B]

Greyorm:

I think I deserve a design cookie.

I can't thank you enough!! Yes, these are EXACTLY the issues I'm running into, and you've stated them clearly and elegantly (all the better for tackling them). My favourite quotes from your post:

Whatever its form, "XP" does one thing: it changes the game.

Indeed. I'd NEVER thought of xp, or in fact, any RPGs rewards that way (at least consciously), but it's oh-so-true. I guess you could call this... Greyorm's "Principle of Uncertainty"? You can't reward behaviour without changing behaviour. LOL, apologies to Mr. Heisenberg.

And it looks to me as though the real problem you're running into in trying to decide what gets changed and how is having only half the picture and assuming that just making some new type of reward system will solve the problem of rewarding players with widely divergent priorities.
<snip>
So this is your first problem, which isn't even a play-style problem, just an expected-game-scenario problem:

Possibly, yes, but my first thought was that in designing a generalist system, it would be the users of the game themselves who would control the "what" of change, so that we, the designers, would not expect any particular scenarios, and that my reward system would solve the "how" to reward .... however .....

To create a completely open reward system, you would need to develop a game system that caters to either (or more) in terms of its mechanical design (what it supports and produces in terms of style and play choices), including creating a reward system that somehow responds to and encourages each very different style and their differing play-approach priorities.

(And we've only discussed story-oriented games and game-tactics oriented games!)

I don't think that it is necessarily impossible (though I doubt it would be easy, even for a skillful, experienced designer), but moreseo, I don't think it's desirable or necessary.

Hrm .. very, very tricky indeed. Now that I have a better idea of what we're facing, I think our group is on the right track. (I discuss a bit of our game's mechanics thus far below.) As for desirability, I believe it would be inherently desirable. Wouldn't it be nice to play with your friends in a functional, coherent manner, regardless of their playstyle? This may be an impossible goal, but I can't help it, I want to shoot for it.

My suggestion is that if you already have a system, and you've stated you do, your best bet is instead to look at what your system already does--not only what sorts of scenarios it encourages, but what sorts of play styles it encourages and supports (both of which can be derived via the important mechanics, which is the stuff on the character sheets and how those items are used/approached in play)--and derive its reward system from that.

Our system started out following in the footsteps of GURPS, but in reading your post I've started to think that this necessarily means bias has already crept into our system. (Funnily enough we had no knowledge of GURPS before we started.) Fortunately, since I've been pushing for the previously-mentioned design goal from the beginning, it also includes some vast differences that resist bias. For example, it includes a functional ability to zoom, which means that the players can focus as much (or as little) attention on a given aspect of the game as they want to. This can be done mid-game: a combat between a 20th-level fighter and two 1st-level goblins can be done in a single roll, while the epic battle between the PC group and the Hyper-Intelligent DragonGod can be done in very gritty detail. This can also be done concurrently. One PC could be running the general in a large war, while another PC could be heading up a squad of fighters. This is just an example of combat-zooming, but I've been working towards doing this with the mental and social domains too, although we haven't had nearly as much success here. (That social domain is a tough one to deal with.)

Also, I know none of that is "an answer" of the straight-forward sort, but hopefully it provides some food for thought, as you stated one of your goals is challenging all your existing assumptions about the way you and your group plays its games.

Quite so! Again, you have my thanks, Greyorm. I think our probability of success wouldn't have been even half or a tenth as great otherwise.  I'm going to be copy/pasting this chat to my personal records, and sharing it with my group.

Dan Blain.

[dindenver]

Dan,
  Have you seen Solar System/Shadow of Yesterday? Players pick the source of XPs for their characters. That source can be based on money, combat or even RP concerns. And players can set up comboes (you can have more than one Key, the way characters get XPs).
  Also, Dogs in the Vineyard has an unusual advancement system. You can only advance if you push a conflict enough to ge fallout, but but get a lucky roll on the fallout die (a 1). This has the effect of forcing players to push their luck when they are ready for their characters to change.
  As to why it exists, yeah, it is one way that players can affect a real change in the game world. The characters "should" be able to change the game world in other ways, but usually that is a matter of GM fiat or group consensus.

[David C]

I want to emphasize something.

A completely open reward system would first require a system that is capable of catering to any type of scenario equally well, and rewarding for that type of scenario and not some other. There are some games out there designed to do this, usually considered "generic" rule-set games, which usually involve skill-point improvement rather than experience-point gain, and which are also often "level-less, class-less" character systems.

Gurps might be one of the systems referred to in this, BUT it still has a huge bias towards combat.  Why? Because most games have at least a little combat, and to do *any* combat in Gurps requires knowledge of a detailed, complex system.  If you want to de-emphasize combat and encourage everything-ness, you need to have simple combat rules, preferably rules that work identically to any other type of combat resolution. 

The games Dindenver mentioned are this way.  (Thank you for bringing that up, btw.)  In those games, you could have a +3 sword that kills monsters better. Or you could have a +3 letter of estate that helps make agreements better. 

[Creatures of Destiny]

The open system should somehow be fixed for the campaign, the scenario or the character.

For example for a Robin Hood style campaign then every shiling or gold coin that goes to the Saxon peasantry and every peasant saved from oppression gains XP.If the GM stats that then the players will quickyl start acting like Merry Men.

Even between editions of D&D the shift from OD&D/ 1E's 1 GP= 1 Xp to later editions mostly monster killing based XP changed even dungeon delves from stealthy raids where players tried to loot the dungeon avoiding combat where possible to kick down the door slugfests (there was also a change in design so that kicking don the door became a viable option - in OD&D it led to a grisly death).

The idea of "keys" set by players also sounds interesting.

Two games I played a lot that made me thing about this were Pendragon and TSR's old Marvel Super Heroes. In the first experience checks like the ones in Runequast improved abilities but the players were rewarded with Glory and they got Glory by acting like Arthurian Knights. In MSHs plaers got Karma for acting like super heroes and for example killing someone - even a villain - lost ALL karma. So like Spidey they don't go round offing hoodlums (the game desoigners rightly pointed out that the Punisher doesn't change much)..

So maybe there could be both Keys and Taboos. A Key is something you gain XP/Glory/Karma for, while a Taboo is something you lose it for. These could either be campaign specific (set by the GM and the setting) or character specific (set by the player). They could also be group keys and taboos (set by teh players but applied to all characters). Having group/campaign keys and taboos would keep play more cohesive. All three kinds could be in play in the same game though.

[Erudite]

There are a lot of good thoughts here for sure. I think to help ShallowThoughts, we should try to really define the phenomenon of advancement points. If there is a definition somewhere in these forums or the articles I apologies, I have so far missed it.

Whatever the guise, it seems almost all games have some mechanism for advancing/changing the characters. And, growth or change is needed in any game from all areas including the setting, the story, and the characters. If any of these don't change, then the changes in the others are basically moot. So, it is necessary for there to be a change mechanism for the characters. And, in most implementations the players have a good bit of influence in this mechanic. Let's see if we can broadly define the basics of these mechanisms to fit as many implementations as possible.

I think it would be relatively safe to simply reference this as the Experience Mechanism. Although many label this as some other type of points, almost everyone recognizes the intent of the mechanism labeled "Experience".
Definition: The Experience Mechanism is a way in role-playing games to facilitate change in what a character can do, how a character can do things, how a character behaves, and to what degree a character can influence the story and setting. (Simple, broad, clear?)
Components of the Experience Mechanism:
1.   Rewards or penalties that can change a character
2.   Trigger for allocating the rewards or penalties
3.   Timing of allocating rewards or penalties
4.   Application of rewards and penalties
Going with the above pretense, the definition should be good enough for most games and this discussion.  And the 4 four components should be general enough. Of course how each of the components will vary greatly based on the games design and author's intended CA.

Let's look at each of these components further. In most cases I would agree that looking at the character sheet to see what is stated should help point these components in the right direction. Note, the GNS model and its definitions are still somewhat new to me, so if these ideas are off base, please help me understand where and how.
1.   Rewards and Penalties: based on the definition these would most likely be attribute or skill modifications for a gamist to effect what and who a character can do to include how well; for a narrativist this would more likely be modifications to how greatly the character can affect the story or setting; for simulationist games, I would think modifications to the way the character is expected to behave or react would be the norm.
2.   Trigger for allocation of rewards or penalties: for a gamist view I think what is most common and appropriate is to give out rewards for combat; for narrativist view I would think the trigger would be based on using skills or traits to effect the story or setting; from a simulationist view the trigger would be from the character acting based on his traits/story.
3.   Timing of allocating rewards or penalties; It seems in most systems leaning toward gamism rewards for play are given during play or at the end of a session; for a narrativist game the rewards seem to most often given based on completion of story segments, which may or may not coincide with game sessions; for the simulationist it seems it be that skills and abilities change directly as they are used.
4.   Application of rewards and penalties: in gamist systems the rewards tend to be experience points to advance in level, and the level advancement provides bonuses and advancement in skill/abilities; in narrativist games the rewards seem to be some type of points directly used to improve or change the character; and in simulationist systems the character changes tend to be applied directly to the traits used to earn the reward. Another aspect to consider for the application of the experience mechanism is whether the player, GM, or game text dictates how the changes are applied. In Gamist systems a lot of the when and how changes are applied are dictated by the structure of the leveling systems, which sometimes completely dictates the advancement. In simulationist system the advance is applied in direct relation to the traits that were used to earn the change.
I think that kind of sums it all up. I have mostly played gamist type systems with a relatively even mix of the other types of games sprinkled in over the years. So, my perception of the above may be off a little especially considering I am new to using the GNS to define game aspects.

As with most aspects of game design it will be import to determine which direction your game is leaning. If the basic mechanics are leaning gamist, then most of the above should help show how your experience system might work.

I do think it would be possible to use the four components to help drift you system a little from one of the GNS perspective to another. For example, in a gamist system you could reward play that encourages the characters to use the skills they are good at to advance the story a little more than other actions. This could easily include combat skills for characters that specialize in combat, or magic for characters that specialize in magic. I think as long as the general feel is kept a small shift in the Experience Mechanic shouldn't undermine or subvert the rest of the gaming experience.

I've been struggling with these ideas and aspects for my game system as well.

[greyorm]

Thanks for the high praise, Dan, but I'm pretty sure someone far more clever and insightful than I came up with the idea of XP = changing the game! Not that I won't take a momentary bit of undeserved ego-stroking, mind you. But seriously, I'm glad I could help and that it proved useful to you.

Hrm .. very, very tricky indeed. Now that I have a better idea of what we're facing, I think our group is on the right track. (I discuss a bit of our game's mechanics thus far below.) As for desirability, I believe it would be inherently desirable. Wouldn't it be nice to play with your friends in a functional, coherent manner, regardless of their playstyle? This may be an impossible goal, but I can't help it, I want to shoot for it.

Please don't construe the following as an argument that you shouldn't under any circumstances try to do so because it's some kind of religious taboo or sin, but let me play Devil's Advocate momentarily: when you and your friends go out and do something other than gaming, what do you do? It probably "depends", right? Watch a baseball game, take in a movie, go bowling, take the boat out fishing, sit around and discuss the economic crisis in the Third World and the unacceptable nonchalance of the First in regards to preventable human suffering? (*ahem*)

Here's the thing: none of those activities are really at all that similar. And what's more, everyone has a preferred one. But you don't get together for "baseball-movie-pop.economics", because even though one person prefers one thing over the other, they do the thing they don't prefer anyways and have fun, because they don't hate it, and also knowing that some other time you'll probably all do the thing they like.

You don't say to yourself if you go fishing, "Gee, we're fishing, and Joe really loves fishing, but I wish Gareth could play baseball right now, too, because he really loves baseball," because that's a bit nutty. It gets even more nutty when you try to add watching a movie and bowling at the same time.

That's the same sort of issue you'll run into regarding trying to please everyone's style with one design: it's like trying to mash-up baseball-poker-theater into one activity, so everyone is doing all of them at the same time in order to try and please everyone. Chances are very, very good that overall it isn't going to please anyone, or at least not as much doing just one of those activities would be fun and pleasing for everyone.

Of course, sometimes it can be done: you can go fishing and discuss economic philosophy at the same time quite well, with neither really interfering with the other. Sometimes it's a bust: it would be very hard to discuss economic philosophy while boxing, because you'd be more concerned about one or the other and the other would interfere with that focus, let alone allowing any stable focus on it.

Our system started out following in the footsteps of GURPS, but in reading your post I've started to think that this necessarily means bias has already crept into our system.

Note that I don't necessarily think bias is a bad thing; I don't think it is completely and utterly avoidable, either. There's good bias and bad bias, and which is which can be quite subjective to any given play group.

For example, it includes a functional ability to zoom, which means that the players can focus as much (or as little) attention on a given aspect of the game as they want to.

That sounds very cool and I definitely look forward to seeing you post more of your game mechanics.

This can be done mid-game: a combat between a 20th-level fighter and two 1st-level goblins can be done in a single roll, while the epic battle between the PC group and the Hyper-Intelligent DragonGod can be done in very gritty detail.

Curiosity compels me to ask: how do the chances of success align when you zoom in or out? I ask because repeated rolls to determine the outcome of an action can change the margin of success, or at least the perception of the margin, because being able to roll ten times before determining the outcome compared to rolling once and being stuck with the outcome can have a huge effect on both the perception of player-control and investment in the outcome and on the actual chance of success overall.

Also, longer series of rolls tend to utilize and use up more character resources, with a wider variation in usage results the more rolls there are. How are those expenditures/losses balanced out in your system? Or is this something that your players don't mind, or some of them do and others don't, and how has it worked out in play? What have the players done with it when given the option?

(That social domain is a tough one to deal with.)

How so? (I'm imagining in terms of making social actions more complex and providing mechanical consequences to the results, but please correct me if I am mistaken.)

Hrm...actually, I'm thinking the above two discussions are better off as their own threads rather than being continued in this one (we like to keep topics clearly separated at the Forge: makes for easier reading, discussion, and referencing). Feel free to write up responses to the above in further posts about your game's mechanics if you discuss those issues.

Quite so! Again, you have my thanks, Greyorm. I think our probability of success wouldn't have been even half or a tenth as great otherwise.  I'm going to be copy/pasting this chat to my personal records, and sharing it with my group.

Again, glad I could help, Dan. Keep us up to date on your group's game development!

[Daniel B]

Greyorm, I agree that it might be best to continue those topics in new threads, so I've done so and allowed this thread to continue under it's original theme.

Dindenver and David C, I'll check out the games you mentioned. (I like the idea of a +3 letter of estate).  David, I'm hoping to have as many as four zoom-scales for combat that will increase in complexity like a telescope. For people that don't really care about the combat side of things, they can put combat on the lowest level and forget the details. For people who revel in combat, they'll want to pump it up to the fourth level.

Creatures of Destiny & Erudite .. yes, the reward system would have to be fixed during a game. There's too much chance of a hole opening up in the system and swallowing any given game, otherwise. Actually, since these discussions on the Forge, I'm beginning to have doubts about the standard trigger-timing-application method of controlling character growth. That system is really rather like a mouse maze. The GM rewards players for successfully navigating a maze (or killing a beastie).

I'm thinking out loud now: is this really necessary? The characters certainly don't need nor deserve rewards since they're just sheets of paper. It's the players who deserve rewards.. but do they get them? I know two members of my gaming group who do; they are gamists through and through, preferring to hack things to death. Yes, here the mouse-maze is appropriate, because they need to feel like they won, and they feel cheated if they "win" but don't get a reward. "Hah, I beat your stupid maze! What do I win?!"

But not all players are like this. Narrativists are simply emotionally rewarded when the game is thick with tension. And me, I suppose a simulationist (I think?), I'm happy just playing the game, immersing myself in the fictional universe. The mouse-maze rewards are rather inappropriate here; with such rewards, it's far too easy for the tension to disappear and have the RPG become a video game, disappointing Narrativists, or have the game focus solely on dry combat, disappointing simulationists.

Hmm..

Dan Blain

[Erudite]

ShallowThoughts, your point about the rewards being for the player is very true. And, as long as the rewards are in alignment with the type of GNS play, the player should find it rewarding.

In my definition I above mentioned that all of the components should be different for each type of the GNS play types and I tried to give examples.

Is it really necessary? I think it is as long as all four of the components align with the GNS in use. I'm going to quote myself (is that okay?).

growth or change is needed in any game from all areas including the setting, the story, and the characters. If any of these don't change, then the changes in the others are basically moot. So, it is necessary for there to be a change mechanism for the characters.