Gamist Article-inspired character advancement: SCORE!

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Thoughts on Gamist character advancement. I can't help but note that in  RPG that character advancement is taken, more or less, as read or necessary. Consider other games with a similat Step On Up factor which do not have anything much like this. They have a score instead, a simple tally tracking in-game performance. The closest thing in RPG is experience point, but that is actually a resource. In some games the points are actually spent to gain more effectiveness. A score has no other function then a tally.

Has anyone encontered or attempted a game with just a Score?

[John Harper]

Early versions of Danger Patrol had a score tally called the "danger meter." When your character did crazy, over-the-top, dangerous stuff, your meter went up. The player with the highest meter at the end of the session got to be the "most dangerous" player, which simply meant you got to strut around and talk trash about how the other players were wimps. The meter had no mechanical in-game effect, nor was it a spendable resource. Later revisions of the game changed this drastically, though. The current incarnation (thanks to Sorcerer) is all about Currency and Rewards.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Interesting. Focusing on Danger Patrol for a moment before getting back to the thread at large, would you say that tying the Danger Meter into the currency into a better game?

[John Harper]

Well, only playtesting will say for sure... but yes, I feel that the new mechanic is a better fit for the game. I don't think I can fully articulate why it's "better", though. I think in this case, "better" simply means "more like what John wants during play." What I wanted was a way to encourage Danger Patrol style play (which is fast-paced, action-first, and heroic). The currency/reward system seems to facilitate this better than the simple score-tally did.

[Mike Holmes]

It's better than simple bragging rights because there's a reward that's tangible in terms of being useful in the future in the game. Any reward of this sort is going to have the social aspect to it. But it can have an additional aspect of being useful in-game. Meaning that the reward creates a feedback loop. Very powerful in terms of reinforcement.

Nothing wrong with a simple score. Or win conditions either, BTW. See Rune. But the feedback loop is very cool as well.

Mike

[John Harper]

Yeah, Mike. That's it exactly. The feedback loop is what I want. "Keeping score" has been dropped entirely as a desirable design feature, for this game.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Ah, feedback loop. Interesting. I had been thinking about other games and had decided that there is a feedback loop involved in most of them.

In Chess, Checkers, Go etc., with each piece you take, the game becomes a little easier because the other gu has less pieces on the board.

In video game, especially older ones, when you get a certain number of points, you get an extra "life."

In a sports tournament, it's usually a series of games with elimination of losing teams.

But then, most feedback in RPGs seems to be geared toward character improvement with only a handful in comparason that use a different sort of feedback loop. I guess I'm wondering what else could work here.

[Lxndr]

Why not an extra life of some sort?

[Paul Czege]

Hey Jack,

In Chess, Checkers, Go etc., with each piece you take, the game becomes a little easier...
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But then, most feedback in RPGs seems to be geared toward character improvement...

My first, thought on this was that these two things are the same. I moved on to reading other threads. And then I did a double-take. They aren't the same at all. Experience Point driven games like AD&D don't get easier over the course of play. All the Challenge Rating stuff in D&D3e is about maintaining the level of difficulty.

So thinking on it, I decided that what Experience Points do in these games is scale the setting. Difficulty is maintained, while complexity and options are expanded. Experience points don't actually deliver improvement as effectiveness, but improvement as technicolor.

And then I did another double-take. That's not true either, exactly. Experience points don't drive that scaling. The world scales up independent of the characters, through the actions of the GM. The player's job is to work hard to maybe just barely outpace that scaling. Experience points are the gamism. Right now, I'm not even thinking "feedback loop" is an accurate assessment. They don't incentivize anything. You're running a foot race with the GM, and they're the fuel.

Paul

[Valamir]

I think you scaling idea is closer to the reality of most groups.  I've never been in a group where the GM scales up difficulty at a certain set rate and the players have either to little, the right amount, or more xps relative to that challenge.  In fact, 3E provides some actual mechanical tools for GMs to intentionally scale to the characters.  i.e. the GM knows he wants zombies...how many...crunch some Challenge Rating numbers to find out how many would be a good threat for the party.

I think the reward in D&D and its derivatives is not character improvement, because as you say the characters never really improve relative to the challenge.  The reward is in fact derived from the difficulty of the game itself as measured by the complexity of the options that increase dramatically as levels increase.  So dramatically that I've read threads on RPG.net where certain groups routinely end their campaign and start a new one at certain levels because its just gotten too hard to keep things straight at that point.

As options increase PLAYER skill becomes more and more important to the success of the character and hense individual PLAYERS become more important to the success of the party.  Give a 15th level Wizard to a player whose a Magic-User master and give the exact same character to me (who hasn't played a Magic User in D&D in about 15 years) and it will be clear which one is a bigger asset to the party.

At first level, you have few feats, few spells, few attacks, few magic items.  At higher levels you have many feats which begin to interact with each other and with the feats of other party members and even begin to match up differently against different enemies.  You have many spells to choose from an memorize in different combinations and use at different times against different enemies.  Fighters start to get multiple attacks and everyones carrying around a golf bag full of magic with its own effects to be called upon or not.  

At first level everyone is in the same boat, simple fragile characters where luck is a huge factor in survival.  At high level, you've seperated the master D&D players from the casual D&D players with an ever escalating web of option complexity.

This is pure Step On Up.  D&D3E is a design which completely and utterly facilitates Step On Up.  Leveling is the ultimate filter of player ability.  "your character just leveled, are you good enough to continue to play it well?"  That's the question at the heart of 3E.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Hey, Paul, Ralph.

You know what it is? It's school. It's growing up. It's going from grammar school to junior high and then from high school to college. It's an allegory for growing up. It's getting to play with the big kids.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

This is pure Step On Up.  D&D3E is a design which completely and utterly facilitates Step On Up.  Leveling is the ultimate filter of player ability.  "your character just leveled, are you good enough to continue to play it well?"  That's the question at the heart of 3E.

It's also a matter of making the right choices when those options open up. Not all 20th level wizards are alike thanks to the choices of their player. Additional Step On Up: Can you make the right choices when advancing your character?

[Thierry Michel]

Has anyone encontered or attempted a game with just a Score?

It's been a long time, but wouldn't that be Glory in Pendragon ?

[Jack Aidley]

It's been a long time, but wouldn't that be Glory in Pendragon ?

Nope. Glory allows you character improvement benefits. Not a whole lot of them though.