Character improvement (split from older thread)

[Emmett]

Story models aside, (I don't agree that the intent of an RPG is to emulate a novel, although they have some simmilarities) without an advancement mechanic, or a overly limited advancement mechanic, I've simply put games down and never played them even after spending $25.

Is that shallow? Yeah probably, and I will tip my hat to the notion that a fast one or two shot game doesn't need advancement but as meaningless as anadvanced character is in real life, progress seems to justify the hours I spend getting there. Yes I had fun getting there, but I can have fun watching movies and I achive a knowledge of movie trivia.

In the end my opinion of advancement is it is desireable for campaign play. I do not like D&Ds shoot and loot methiod of xp award, it is partially valid, but not realistic and not productive to role playing. I think that an experiance system should reward growth behaviors successful or not. Such behavior would include but not be limited to heroisum, bravery, rational thinking, team effort, etc. Advancement along these lines are mentally developing but there are other aspects to a game that is overlooked here.

The events that the player is subjected to would be life altering experiances. Combat at the very least changes people. Having a frend die changes you.

Thats all mental and emotional I agree, but there is a physical aspect of the experiance. For example. I'm one of those geeks (I admit it) that engaged in mock swordplay. When we started, we all just banged away at each other. As we "practiced" beating the hell out of each other, we developed the ability to think inside of a "sword" swing and counter an opponent in the middle of a swing. We began to devide time into smaller increments while we focused. You could make tiny corrections that would change a strike to a parry or vice versa. We advanced our reflex.

Or were we advancing our sword skill? The answer is no. Not at that early stage. I can still notice the benifits of that advvancement in reflex in other parts of my life. Sword skill came later when we read books about sword fighting techniqes and tried to implement them. Things like it takes less energy to move the hilt of the sword than the tip, so you parry with the hilt. That doesn't translate to other aspects of my life (other than designing RPGs). It is a "Sword Skill" proper.

So by practice, we developed what is normally quantified as a attribute and a skill through practice.

The same can be applied to the mundane. I worked construction for several years and developed my strength and specific skills that enabled me to do my job.

Yes people advance. Can you just study for it? Yes and no, you also need to practice. The types of experiance that a character in an RPG regularly recive would advance them more rapidly than you or I experiance writting posts on a website and going to work.

RPGs are a simulation of life in an extrordinary setting. So are novels. Some RPGs are simulations of life in an extrordinary setting that do so by emulating novels, but not all. I think that people think of RPGs too often as Novels in progress. If you recorded a session or campaign as a novel, it would be terrible! A novels whole world changes around the characters where as a RPGs characters change around the world.

In LOTR or Star Wars, the heros are given a commision "Change the world(s)". RPGs rarely give the characters that charge, because as soon as you were finished the game ends, just like the novel/movie. There is less replayability to a game that would do so.

Back to advancement, I say that it happens at a slower pace in real life and therefore has a place in RPGs. If you simulated life perfectly in an RPG, It would be booring. Life is slow and if it wern't booring, we wouldn't need RPGs. With that argument, advancement is a fun part of a game even if slightly not realistic at times (I'm going to enhance my Beauty with experiance). After all fun is what we're here for.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The above post was split from an older thread called Character improvement, taken for granted?.

That's an interesting point, Emmet, and I'm sure some folks will comment on it here.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Sure, Ron punts.

Emmett, if you've read here that Advancement systems are bad, that's not part of the prevailing theory. If you've read that making RPGs more like novels is the best way to play, that's not part of the prevailing theory either.

That is, I, and a lot of other people here, agree with you totally that what you suggest is a completely valid way to play. Not only is there nothing wrong with it, it has all sorts of great advantages to it, many of which you list. We agree on that.

What the current theory says is that there are many ways to play, and they're all valid. That is, some individuals will like what you propose and others will not. Nobody is wrong, they just have their favorite way to play.

What I would say is that what you propose is not an easy design spec to get right. Do you have an example of a game that get's it right? If not, then why aren't you designing this game? If you are, then great.  :-)

Another caveat, however. There exist games that can produce bad play because they've got conflicting goals that aren't reconciled in the rules. What you propose is one part of an equation that often doesn't line up right. So if you do make a game like you propose, be careful that your priorities aren't tripping over each other.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

You are certainly correct that there's a difference between playing a game and writing a novel.

When I sit down to write a novel, by the time I've written a couple thousand words I'd better have a pretty good idea of how it ends. Back in my creative writing fiction class decades ago stream of consciousness writing came up, and the insight was that it is not really written as a stream of consciousness; it's carefully and meticulously crafted to look like stream of consciousness, but before you put the pen to the paper you'd better know where that stream is supposed to carry you. If in writing you don't know the end from the beginning, you can't make it all fit together.

In a game, it's entirely different. Even playing Legends of Alyria, after three sessions of what I thought was going to be a very short game I don't know where it's going--and I'm the narrator.

However, I think that your concept of "improving your character" or "character advancement" is too narrow, and in two ways.

The one way is that you're thinking in terms of "getting better at doing things". That's certainly a real form of character improvement, and probably the one most emphasized by games (and easiest to do). But in books, characters "improve" in many ways. They gain moral insights; they come to understand people; they become better or worse as people, build relationships, make decisions--overall they become.

One of my novel characters starts as an automechanic with delusions that he's going to be a great warrior. By the end of the book, he is a great warrior; but he has also changed in his personality, seen his own courage and his own fears. Another starts as a soldier, but comes to take life very seriously--that is, the lives of others. He becomes a doctor, which is certainly skill improvement; but it's also the development of a particular attitude, the belief that it's important to protect the lives of others. It is the development in attitude and belief and understanding that we call "character development" in books; the fact that the one is now a great swordsman and the other a capable doctor is rather incidental, and would probably make for a fairly dull story without the personal issues raised along the way.

I'm not saying these kinds of changes don't happen in games, nor even in very gamist games like D&D. I'm saying that you can have an advancement "system" that focuses on this sort of thing instead of merely making characters better at beating the game. As Mike says, there's nothing wrong with a game that lets you do it or even that encourages it; but there's nothing wrong with a game that puts the emphasis elsewhere, either.

The other way in which your concept is too narrow is that it assumes all characters should advance. I've played games where I was indeed frustrated by the feeling that my character was terribly weak and could never get better; but there are also games in which the characters begin strong. If you're playing a supers game, is it really important to play that The Flash has to become faster, or Superman stronger? I think in games like that the best "advancement" comes from player understanding of what he can do. Can the flash sidestep a bullet? Easy for him, I suspect. Now, can he move so fast that he can not merely sidestep the bullet but grab something to absorb or deflect it? Can he tap it on the side as it flies, and knock it off course? In another vein, can he run so fast that he appears to be in several places at once, because he moves between them faster than you can see? These aren't improvements in his ability; they're improvements in the player's applications of that ability. The character is learning new tricks, but he's not gaining new abilities. I think that a system that says, you can't as the flash grab an object and use it to deflect a bullet because that's not one of the abilities you've learned is a poor system. The character doesn't need these as "abilities"; they're just applications of the ability he already has. He doesn't get better at what he does; he gets smarter at what he does with it.

Again, I like games where characters improve. Character improvement is a significant part of Multiverser play for many players (but not a necessary part of the game or the fun, most of the time). I don't think that it's necessary for all games; I don't even think it would make all games better. And I don't think that character improvement should always be linked to reward--it is not so linked in Multiverser (where it's linked to practice) or in Legends of Alyria (where it's story-driven), and neither of those games suffer for it.

--M. J. Young

[Emmett]

Did I break off this thread by accident, or was that done by the moderator?
If I screwed up, I apoligise. . .

Anyway, this new thread thing kind of throws my comment out of context. It looks very forceful on it's own, whereas in the origenal thread it was at the bottom of three pages and the preponderance of it was about if characters in novels advance and how to emulate that.

I agree that emulating that is not a bad idea but the converstion was becoming one sided. I was just mixing things up.

Let me clarify, even though I do not dislike RPGs that emulate novels or aspects thereof, I don't think that all RPGs should. I have myself tried to write games that do just that (and failed because it all seemed contrived and I'm not a literature major). The one challenge that RPGs that emulate novels/literature has is a goal and an end. I don't know of any that do although I haven't played every game out there.

I'm just giving one big thumbs up to character advancement!

What I would say is that what you propose is not an easy design spec to get right. Do you have an example of a game that get's it right? If not, then why aren't you designing this game? If you are, then great. :-)

Of course the only way to get a game perfect to your specs is to write one yourself. The first game that I have made available to the public at //www.theartifact.net tries to reward growth behaviors with experiance points.

I go with a low number of points in The Artifact, but each point is effective (instead of five hundred you get five). While the system allows a GM to award points on different criteria that they deturmine, the following is what is suggested and it is what I stick to.

Did the player stay in character? +2
Did the player co-operate? +2
Did the player use their head? +1
Did the player avoid unnecessary violence? +1
Was the player good or noble? +1
Was the player brave or heroic? +2
Good humor award +1

I basically took the behaviors that I think are growth behaviors and encourage good role play instead of shoot and loot. I have seen divisive backstabbing players start to stick with the group and work with them. I have seen players that protect their favorite characters go out on a limb to be a hero/heroine.

Is this always benefica, l I think so. If a player truly wants to be a backstabber, then they will probably do it to gain power or treasure and that is their reward. In addition if that is how the character is supposed to behave then they get the points for staying in character. They can also get the avoid unnecessary violence if they use descresion.

I have also had it commented to me that if the character is brave and heroic, they get a double bonus. I have not changed that and even enforced it because that is what I want the players to be thinking about in this system. I may not reuse that mechanic in a different game with a darker slant.

I also like the idea of non-attribute advancement, but that is difficult to quantify. However many players probably wouldn't mind changing a cowardly character to a honorable one, or some such. I just haven't spent enough brain cells to figure a personality growth mechanic out.

If you can tell, I like mechanics. I like elegant systems that don't need a lot of math. I however often run afoul of calculator neccesitating formulas but they are at times difficult to avoid.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Did I break off this thread by accident, or was that done by the moderator?
If I screwed up, I apoligise. . .

See Ron's post above. The thread was split by the moderator. The rule of thumb is when the thread falls off the front page (or if the last post to a thread is several months old) start a new thread.

Let me clarify, even though I do not dislike RPGs that emulate novels or aspects thereof, I don't think that all RPGs should.

No one here is arguing against this. At least I don't think so. All RPGs shouldn't be anything but RPGs and that can mean many things.

Did the player stay in character? +2
Did the player co-operate? +2
Did the player use their head? +1
Did the player avoid unnecessary violence? +1
Was the player good or noble? +1
Was the player brave or heroic? +2
Good humor award +1

I basically took the behaviors that I think are growth behaviors and encourage good role play instead of shoot and loot. I have seen divisive backstabbing players start to stick with the group and work with them. I have seen players that protect their favorite characters go out on a limb to be a hero/heroine.

Interesting. Thing is, this list is open to wide, subjective interpretation. Also, it assume things are desirable behvior, like co-operating. BTW does this mean the players were cooperating or the characters were cooperating? There have a few games around here where the traditional notion of the party of characters and the mantra "don't split up the party" goes right out the window.

As a side note, my friend uses similar criteria for awarding bonus XP. He got that from Palladium, I think.

I have also had it commented to me that if the character is brave and heroic, they get a double bonus. I have not changed that and even enforced it because that is what I want the players to be thinking about in this system. I may not reuse that mechanic in a different game with a darker slant.

Yes. I was about to ask how you handle characters that are certainly not heroic.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Emmett,

I recommend checking out the essay "GNS and related matters of role-playing theory," which is more or less the foundation essay for most of the discussion in this forum. It brings up a lot of things that pertain to your post, especially the concept of what is "good" or "not good" role-playing relative to people's priorities. You'll also find some comments about reward systems that I think you'll like.

As far as realism or life-like play is concerned, the essay to look at is called "Simulationism: the right to dream." Both this and the more general essay are available through the Articles link at the top of this forum page.

Oh yes, and for an alternate or parallel set of vocabulary about these things, see the Scattershot forum here at the Forge, especially the threads called Emergent Techniques: Genre Expectations and Emergent Techniques: Just the Mechanix. You'll see how the author expects every group to develop kind of a local value system for what is and is not rewarded during play.

Best,
Ron

[Emmett]

Just so everybody knows, I don't think the world should or would bend to my will, I am only stating what I like and I try to give a rational explination of why. I may say that something is "good" or "not-good", but thats from my perspective. I'm stuck in my ways.

Thing is, this list is open to wide, subjective interpretation. Also, it assume things are desirable behvior, like co-operating. BTW does this mean the players were cooperating or the characters were cooperating? There have a few games around here where the traditional notion of the party of characters and the mantra "don't split up the party" goes right out the window.

I think a good many rules can be subject to interperetation. Desireable bahaviors are (or should be) in my opinion defined in the game. A GM can however decide to run the game with a different slant and reward different behaviors.

One thing I left out in how I practice my list is I ask the Players why I should give them the points for each item. If they can give me a reason, and not one that is total BS, I will discuss it with them, but ultimately I make the decision.

For example in one game a PC saved a woman whose husband had been killed. I was ready to give him points for heroism and bravery, but later he left her in a life threatening situation when things got  more intense. I explained this to him and he agreed.

Co-operating can mean with the party or just not disrupting the game by arguing about trivial things with other players. Its a bit out of game, but I feel it is valid.

I usually stick to the experiance allocation that is defined in a game. I agree, in some games, sticking to the group is not a valid criteria. I do however like games that encourage team play because in my experiance, it reduces strife among the players. Strife in my opinion is not good, Players stop wanting to play and eventually everybody's angry at each other.

[M. J. Young]

I do however like games that encourage team play because in my experiance, it reduces strife among the players. Strife in my opinion is not good, Players stop wanting to play and eventually everybody's angry at each other.

Oh, now, that really depends on the game.

Sure, if you play any game in which players are competing against each other, you have the potential for strife. That's true of miniature golf, for goodness sake.  It's certainly true in games in which strategic options are wide open. Someone is going to feel as if someone else did something unfair at some point, and then you've got conflict.

But just because a game doesn't encourage party play doesn't mean it encourages competition.

Multiverser does absolutely nothing to encourage party play. It drops the characters, versions of the players, into the first world and lets them decide what to do about it. Then, as they take risks and get killed, it throws them around the multiverse seemingly at random so that they can't really have anything to do with each other as characters until they stumble back together again. At no time does this cause strife between the players. Even when they're together, if they want to do entirely different and unrelated things, that's fine--it just means a bit more juggling for the referee.

Sure, party play is fine; but even that can lead to strife, in many ways. Have you never been in a game in which one player said another was an idiot for not doing something that would have saved his character, or conversely for doing something that endangered the entire party? I've seen strife between players at a table because they had very different ideas of how to make the game more fun for themselves. Some want to stir up trouble so they can get into a fight. Some want to build up super characters so that they will be invincible. Some want to avoid trouble at every turn so they can keep their character alive and unharmed. Some are more interested in combat, others in puzzles, others in those quiet moments in the inn when characters let their hair down and talk about things. I've given nasty looks to players whose agendae went against what I was trying to achieve. I'm very much an avoid confrontation player, and have used the appearance of strength to convince potential adversaries not to attack, and then had it undermined by party members throwing insults or challenges. You can have player strife in a party situation, if the players don't all want the party to do the same thing. In that case, a game in which player characters are not joined at the hip and can go do whatever they want, completely ignoring each other if they so choose, is the less conflicted gaming group.

All generalities are false. Some games that don't encourage party play create player strife; some games do that anyway.

--M. J. Young

[Emmett]

Okay, now your just getting silly. I don't know of anybody that would want any game where all the players had to act with one accord all the time. It would be rediculus to think that players are not going to disagree. I realy don't know where you are getting the definition of "team play" that you are using.

To quote myself,

in my experiance, it reduces strife

I didn't say anything about eliminating strife.

I can best illustrate what I define as "team play" as what it is not.
It is not arguing the entire game over petty details.
It is not repeatedly threatening other PCs at the drop of a hat.
It is not trying to force all the players to do it your way (you can go off on your own if you like but nobody has to go with you).
It is not taking advantage of other PCs when they are down.

Team play is but does not neccarily include. . .
Building a consensus.
Working toward a common goal.
Enjoying the company of other PCs by laughing, joking, etc.
Respecting the wishes of the other PCs.

If a player thinks something is unfair, they look to the GM to arbitrate. Just because a PC is not physically present with the other PCs does not mean they are not being a team player. Also wanting to do someting different does not mean you are not a team player. When you want to do some thing different and you start threatening Players or PCs to get your way, that is not being a team player.

The thing that is most vexing to me is two players that threaten each others PCs because they had a minor disagreement. For one, you would have to be nearly psycotic to try to kill someone for the issues I have seen PCs killed over. That is simply not good role playing and most definately not being a team player.

On the other hand if there was something that was between PCs that was really signifigant and nobody questions why they are at each others necks, then I do not think I would penalize them for fighting.

The kind of fighing I am talking about is for tiny percived slights where everybody in the group is either shaking their heads walking away and saying "what is that all about" or trying to stop the fight and the players lash out at them because "you touched my character".

Yes strife does pop up, especally with young gamers, and I just experianced an example of it a few weeks ago but that doesn't mean I like it or encourage it.

Compatition is fine, strife between players is not.

[Balbinus]

Emmett,

How do you feel about games like Paranoia and Dying Earth where intra-party conflict is normal and encouraged by both rules and setting?

My impression is that you'd be fine where the competition (even if frequent and extremely hostile) between the characters makes sense in terms of the characters and the setting.  Your concern is with conflicts between players, and avoiding those.

Is that right?

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, to reiterate Max's excellent point, it seems that you're confusing players and characters a bit.

But even then, do you like Chess? Isn't that the players striving against each other?

What you're talking about is the social contract level. That is, what you have a problem with (guessing a little) is with players who do things that go against the group's social contract. And everyone agrees that this is dysfunctional.

The thing is that one can separate oneself from one's character, and even compete in friendly manners. Thus we can have fun playing chess, or play a game like Paranoia or Sorcerer (where I played one game all about our characters doing nothing but trying to kill one another, essentially).'

See what we're getting at? Team Play is only one of many ways to assure that the social contract get's broken. My guess is that you've not seen much in the way of functional competitive or character dissociated play.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

I want to apologize to Emmett for the apparent confusion.

I do however like games that encourage team play because in my experiance, it reduces strife among the players. Strife in my opinion is not good, Players stop wanting to play and eventually everybody's angry at each other.

I certainly did not mean that all team play games were strife-ridden; all I meant was that I did not see cooperative play as the only functional approach to games that are strife-free.

I agree that games which set player against player can cause strife; Emmett appears to agree that strife can spring up in games in which players are encouraged to work together as a team. My primary example (Multiverser) was of a game in which players are neither encouraged to work together nor placed at odds with each other, but merely exist within the same game and may interact in whatever ways they wish--or not, if that is what they prefer.

I do think Emmett should clarify, at least in his own mind, the difference between game designs which encourage team play and game sessions in which it does or does not happen.

I also agree with Mike that we seem to be looking at a social contract issue.

I ran a game for a batch of teenagers some decade or so ago. It did sometimes happen that the players brought their interpersonal problems to the table. I didn't know them well enough to be on the inside of who was mad at whom, but sometimes during play there would be passing comments and asides that suggested one player was frustrated with another for out-of-game reasons.

In fact, I was in a game once in which the referee was in essence forced to bring the rather bratty little munchkin pre-teen son of his fiance if he was going to play, and I really did not like this kid or the way he approached play. Being the sort of level-headed individual I usually was, I created a sheet in my character folder on which I proceeded to record character reactions to in play events for all of the characters in the party--to note when my character would be impressed and pleased with another's actions, and when he would be annoyed or distressed by them. The point was to have some objective basis for spotting (and perhaps justifying) my charater's subjective reactions to the other members of his party--a rather important bit, since my character was the party leader and used a heirarchical leadership structure through which he placed leadership responsibility in the hands of those characters he regarded trustworthy and capable. (In fairness, there were other players whose style was also a bit annoying--at least one guy whose enjoyment seemed to come from trying to do something absurd enough that the referee couldn't handle it, who got the party into a fair amount of trouble from time to time that way.)

Not all players can come to the table and set aside the fact that some other player did him dirt earlier in the week; that's particularly true with teens, in part because they're less mature, and in part because unlike most of us in the adult world they spend a lot more of their time together during the week and have far more intricate relationships (when's the last time you had lunch with the same guys five days a week and met them on at least three afternoons to go do something?).

Yeah, if you've got guys who are already itching for an excuse to kill each other, you want to avoid giving them game excuses to do so. But that doesn't mean that either cooperation-favoring or conflict-favoring or neutral game systems are less likely to do so.

No game can make the players get along.

--M. J. Young

[arxhon]

Ugh...

I remember many, many years ago a magic user killed a fighter over a crossbow. Never mind that the magic user couldn't use the crossbow, he wanted it. This was Basic D&D btw, and i was in junior high.

Back on topic:

I have also had it commented to me that if the character is brave and heroic, they get a double bonus

These systems have always bothered me. I tired of playing 'brave and heroic" characters many, many years ago, and don't feel i should be "punished" for playing, for example, the Dark Noble Power of Suicide who encourages humans to destroy themselves, and will even hand them the knife, rope or needle to do it with. No matter how well i play my Dark Noble Power of Suicide, he will always be penalized by this system. You do state that in a game with a darker slant you wouldn't use that particular mechanic.

Personally, these days, i would be happy to play in a game that has no advancement mechanic in it at all. I feel that the elimination of an advancement mechanic would probably serve Narrativist goals that much better by eliminating the innate drive to 'shoot and loot' for it's own sake, for example.

I recently had a conversation with someone who plays Everquest and claims it to be the 'best RPG ever". I asked him what his character's motivation was and he said "To advance". In other words, to be the best, have the most stuff, etc. etc. etc. When buddy couldn't advance anymore (before they released their latest expansion, you couldn't do anything past level 60 in terms of advancement), he once turned to me and exclaimed "I am so BORED!"

To him this is fine. I respect this desire of his to play in such a fashion, but to me, it is dull, dull, dull.

I don't find such things to be bad, per se. Many times, they are logical and fit the vision of the game. Frequently, however, i have found that the entire point of play in a RPG for a great many players is advancement. As someone previously mentioned in this thread, he has passed on games that do not have an advancement mechanic.

Examples:

In the ancient versions of D&D, the only advancement given was from killing and looting.Someone who wanted to run a politician was boned. Even in the most modern version of the game, killing things and taking their stuff is the standard mode of play that enables advancement.

TRoS: Playing in character is awarded, but for example, in a game i had recently, one of my players went for "extra color" by dismounting from his horse to fight Cut and Thrust style and sacrificed the extra dice one normally gains from fighting mounted. I wanted to award him a bonus for of some sort "playing in character" , but i couldn't. Perhaps i should have given him a point of Luck, i don't know.

In Twilight 2000, the only advancement available is for skills. You could be a hardcore steroid juicepig (well, not really because of the setting, but you get the idea) but your strength would never change.

Ultimately, an advancement mechanic will only reward those behaviors that the game is designed to award, and penalize those who have a concept that fits outside the vision of the designer. Some things are worth rewarding, some things are their own reward, and many things fall through the cracks.

Chances are, this has already been hashed over by minds finer than my own, but i wanted to throw my hat into the arena. :-)

[Mike Holmes]

Arx,
Yeah, it's a given around here that this is a GNS issue of the first order. In more general terms we're talking reward systems here. And it's handled in simple terms by looking at two things. First, what behaviour is rewarded? Reward what you want to see happen. Second, what is the reward? Make the reward something that will drive play in the direction you want it to go.

So, yeah, if you don't want player motivation to be killin and lootin, don't reward it. And for sure, don't reward it with more ability to kill and loot. There are about a metric butload of other options.

For example, some game out there now have no advancement mechanics as you suggest. Rewards are given only for meeting goals, or good portrayal, or, whatever. And the rewards themselves can be anything, including things as abstract as ability to be GM for a while.

In Sorcerer, if the player get's off his horse to duel the GM is informed to give bonus dice for that. Not penalize. So games like you're looking for do exist.

Mike