hello!

I have two other threads going(realms of adventuring), but I am getting off of that topic for a second to ask for some seasoned advise from anyone with a few moments to post.
If, when building a game, you decide not to have the characters "build levels with experience" , what other reasons would you have to run a character.
And part two would be;
list some game examples that have this type of settings, if possible, so that I could take a peek. I have never been exposed to any type of RPG that uses that type of game mechanics.
thanks for any help
Kevin Presley
p.s.
shameless plug below
(www.bloodandstone.com)

Are you talking about not advancing the characters at all or just not by level?

Truthfully, I've always hated level advancement as a rule. It's asinine that your character just spontaneously and randomly advances (before that last sword swing I was X, but now I'm Y!). I've also hated kill based advancement since it doesn't promote anything but slagging.

Thus, my favorite systems, and the one my new game uses, are all awards based with player controlled upgrading. Some good examples are (by system) Storyteller by White Wolf, Shadowrun by Fanpro, and the D6 system by Westend.

What these do, in short, is create a cost for each type of advancement (i.e. Stat, Skill, Powers, etc.) and have you spend award points earned per game session at your discretion. It not only works much better than levels, since players can totally customize their characters, but is also much more realistic.

Other than that, the only thing I've seen is the occasional game that says "advance what they do", in other words, as a Narrator (GM/DM) you should randomly advance the character based on their actions. I like it in theory, but it becomes a real hassle on a number of levels.

Building levels (or skills) with experience looks like a hamster wheel to me anymore. Kill monsters to kill bigger monsters to kill bigger monsters... Bleh. When I play a character, it's to find out what the character has to say about people.

Here's a tiny sample of free RPGs without that kind of character advancement:
Adventures in Space!
Bestial Acts
Kathanaksaya
Munchkins
My Love For You is Way Out Of Line
Nicotine Girls
Our Frustration
Shadows
Totem

All of which I pulled out of the free games section of the Forge's resource library. Look up at the top of this page!

-Vincent

"Level advancement" is not a reason to play a character. Maybe I'm misreading your post, but from your phrasing, it sounds like you view gaming as a long string of carrots in front of the bunny's nose, where, if you ever run out of carrots, bunny will smash head first into a brick wall and die (i.e., the game will stop).

The only reason to play a character, ever, is that you're interested in imagining what that character does, where he lives, what he thinks, how he feels, who he knows, etc. That said...

To really dig into this topic, you have to define a few things. Let's talk "character advancement." What does it mean for a character to "advance?" I mean, I could put a number on my character sheet, and just add one to it after every session and my character would be "advancing." But this advancement would have no effect on anything.

I think you're probably more interested in talking about accumulation of effectiveness, which does not have to be tied to character in any way at all. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

To talk about accumulation of effectiveness, you have to understand currency, and what it allows you to do. Currency is basically in-game resources that you, the player, manipulate to get what you want. Coins in Universalis are a pretty obvious example. These Coins are strictly meta-game. They belong to the player, they aren't tied to character (or anything else). A less obvious example are D&D spells. You accumulate them, you spend them, they regenerate. You, the player, have to manipulate them skillfully to get the results you want.

Let's say, for example, that in your game, the only time mechanics are used is when a character is trying to do something with magic. The rest of the time, the GM just decides what happens. In this game, you wouldn't need any kind of "levels" at all. Learning new spells, or making old spells more powerful, would be the only advancement system you'd need.

Of course, it's not required that you have *any* sort of accumulation of effectiveness, and therefore, the whole concept of "advancement system" is optional. Effectiveness can, for example, be distributed by means of a circulating economy. Check out Shadows at http://www.harlekin-maus.com for a great example.

It's not free, but the #1 game I can recommend to you is Trollbabe. This game will open your eyes to what a non-D&D-dreivative RPG can be. It doesn't have levels, or hit points, or increasing effectiveness, or classes. It also actually explains how to use the game system during play.

Trollbabe taught me more about good, concise game design than any other game text I've read.

Keep it coming!!
I also must explain myself a little more. I have the basic RPG moster games under my belt(D&D, rifts, marvel superheros, yadda yadda). Thus, all I have ever been exposed to are such increasing-effectiveness gaming. I am currently attempting to design an rpg, but I have been told by my peers that I need to expand my knowledge of various rpg styles.
This is the reason I have posted. Thanks for what has been posted, and keep them coming!!
thanks for the info,
kevin presley

GregS wrote:
Other than that, the only thing I've seen is the occasional game that says "advance what they do", in other words, as a Narrator (GM/DM) you should randomly advance the character based on their actions. I like it in theory, but it becomes a real hassle on a number of levels.

To summarize, there are really four major types of advancement mechanics (at least, that I can think of):

1. D&D style leveling. While it is easy in that it tells you when and how you may advance, and thus is more potentially game-balanced by the limits it puts on how much of what you can increase, many, myself included, feel this kind of advancement can be narrow, limiting and unrealistic.

2. Award system based. The character earns points with which he may use to buy skills, attributes, traits, etc. Players are really free to build characters how they want on the positive side, but on the negative there is potential for abuse if a player concentrates all his points on one aspect without growing the rest of the character with abilities he'd probably use and realistically need. Good games for this are Vampire, Deadlands and Shadowrun. There is also a subset of this type where points used to build characters also have a mechanic allowing the points to be spent in-game for various effects such as re-rolling die rolls. This makes for an interesting resource management aspect, in that players must choose whether to spend a point for immediate effect in-game or save it for increasing the character's abilities. Good examples of this are WEG's D6 system and my own games over at www.happynebula.com (sorry, shameless plug there *g*).

3. Then there's the "you are what you do" (to quote a previous poster) system like in Chaosium's pre-D20 Call of Cthulhu system. Basically, every time you use a skill, you put a check-mark on that skill, and then after the game, there is a random chance that ability increases. While it's very realistic in theory in that you don't advance skills your character actively uses, in practice you end up with characters really good at combat skills and only mediocre at everything else, as chances to use many skills can be limited. It also completely ignores the concept of off-time practice.

4. Finally, there's systems out there where there is no advancement. I'm not sure if I personally like this way very much, because I've always felt increasing my character's stats was an integral part of the fun. Also, I've just recently had my eyes opened that this sort of thing even existed when I really started researching and trying out games I've found around the Forge. I particularly like InSpecters for this version of advancement so far, but I'm still looking at and learning about others.

Hope that helps... And, did I miss any?

Nobody has mentioned fixed advancement: a game can be designed such that characters advance through very limited paths in an almost automatic fashion. Usually this is more alike to development in general than advancement in particular.

Examples of this kind of game include
- My Life with Master: character statistics change according to strict rules. Usually they all go up in a predictable fashion.
- Polaris: the player decides himself when he wants his character to advance. Characters go through an arc of experience from novices all the way up to veterans, finally failing against the demons they battle. Although veterans are tougher, they are also closer to their final fate.
- Argonauts: from what Jonathan has told about his current plans, the characters will always get a level per adventure regardless of other considerations. Quite interesting for a near-D20 game.

Well, just for the hell of it, I might jump on the bandwagon and mention my game, Scarlet Wake. In my game, you advance your character in different areas by doing specific things which are relevant to the trait you wish to advance. For example, to increase your Grudge, you must face a Dilemma and win, meaning that your grudge is strong enough to overcome any emotional barriers the dillemma might have presented, and to increase your Style, you must use your wits and what's available to you to escape a Bind. Each trait has a different requirement for advancement, and my experience so far tells me this works pretty well in keeping sessions varied and interesting, and certainly fun.

So what's that now, 6 different ways to implement character advancement that don't rely on experience points? I wonder how many more there are... and then there are the myriad ways to not implement character advancement at all and still have a fun game.

-Ben

There is also the subset of "you are what you do" called "down time". Lots of games have rules for accumulating experience or training between adventures. I think GURPS lets you accumulate 1 point per month if you are training in something, for instance. I have a similar mechanic in most of my designs (in addition to generic experience for play), so if you have the money, you can hire a full-time trainer in "skill X" and gain some basic proficiency in several months.

Obviously, this only works for games where you can have months of down time between adventures, but it is "real world" at least.

IMHO, some form of "advancement" is always possible. How many of us would look forward to being no more skilled and experienced 5 years from now than we are now? If you're alive, you change with time.

Greg Porter
BTRC

There is also a school of thought that says that you don't need to accumulate power -- but the ability to change around the character is granted by some mechanism. My Cradle (not really yet fit for public consumption) is a little bit like this -- everyone has a pool of points that they can save or move around into different parts of their character (or even things external to the character.) There is a bit of advancement in Cradle, but it isn't really the point.

Kirt Dankyemeyer's Pretender (free online) uses a purely freeform method of advancement -- your character gets more powerful if he/she gets more powerful in game, and likewise can get weaker. Combined with Pretender's strong player narration mechanics, this is really fun -- you get to play exactly the character you want and, if you ever want to change things, you can. Check the game out (google for Pretender RPG, or buy the hardcopy in the No-Press RPG Anthology) because, hey, it's free.

A note about Polaris (also mine) -- Polaris has a very strange "advancement" mechanic, which you probably gathered from Eero. One thing that is important to note is that you never, mathematically speaking, get more powerful, even when your attributes go up. However, your character still accumulates things that are important to him, and changes over the course of his career. Polaris also ties advancement to character failure (either material or moral), which is similar in concept if not execution to Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard (soon the be available? GenCon?), where you advance and change via introducing complications into your life and, generally, "failing."

yrs--
--Ben

P.S. A draft of Polaris is free right now (see my sig) but pretty soon it won't be there, so read it quick if you're going to.

First off, once again the discussion here is wonderful, and I feel like every post is adding to my education. Thank you.

My thirst for knowledge on the subject of RPGs seems bottomless, and I have yet one more question.
As far as my knowledge of the subject goes(and that is not very deep) it seems that most of the "mass publication" games are designed around the building experience/gain level type.
Is the average joe/jane rpg buyer ready for that type of change? Is it time to challenge what most people consider "standard" role playing game rules? Would a non-level based game appeal to the average person in the market to buy this type of fantasy game? could this type of game be "translated" to someone who has no clue how to play an RPG?
The main problem I have had in past experience with gamers is the lingo sounds like a different language to someone who is not involved in the gaming world.
I know there are several questions here. Anyone who wants to post, pick one, or answer them all, the more answers I get, the more questions I have,
thanks!!!
Kevin Presley

kevin_presley wrote: As far as my knowledge of the subject goes(and that is not very deep) it seems that most of the "mass publication" games are designed around the building experience/gain level type.

Is the average joe/jane rpg buyer ready for that type of change?

Is it time to challenge what most people consider "standard" role playing game rules?

Would a non-level based game appeal to the average person in the market to buy this type of fantasy game?

could this type of game be "translated" to someone who has no clue how to play an RPG?

The main problem I have had in past experience with gamers is the lingo sounds like a different language to someone who is not involved in the gaming world.

kevin_presley wrote: As far as my knowledge of the subject goes(and that is not very deep) it seems that most of the "mass publication" games are designed around the building experience/gain level type.

kevin_presley wrote: Would a non-level based game appeal to the average person in the market to buy this type of fantasy game?

kevin_presley wrote: could this type of game be "translated" to someone who has no clue how to play an RPG?

Kevin,

I've been looking at games from a similar point of view. For most of the genres and styles of games I'm interested in playing, character 'advancement' just distracts from gameplay rather than complementing it. The question is, why has advancement become the status quo in the first place? I'm working on the assumption that it provides something to gamers that makes it worth while, and I'm not just talking about munchkins chasing levels.

I think character advancement gives players a sense of creation, as in the second half of recreation. It is satisfying in somewhat the same way that building up an complex and realisitic model train might be. Part of the satisfaction in this sense comes after the game session is over. A player can consider recent changes and peruse their character sheet, tinkering with ways they might improve their character. They feel like they're more part of the process, building something as a creative part of campaign.

If we're going to replace 'advancement' with something I think we should keep in mind what needs we're neglecting and try to fill them in another way. For players with a taste for a narrativist games, this isn't much of a problem. A lot of narrativist games solve this problem by rewarding skillful, creative gaming with a greater say in how the story goes. Simulationist games usually lean more heavily on character advancement to keep players involved, especially given that players of sim games aren't generally as interested in assuming director's stance.

I'm wondering if their aren't ways to allow players to be more a part of campaign creation, without pushing them into a sort of part time GM role. Can we parcel GM responsibilies in such a way that player can contribute, but still not have this conflict with their sense of seeing the game world through the character's eyes..

In my favorite campaigns, my players did these things without prompting. They designed buildings for their holdings, created henchmen (supporting cast) characters, and took an interest in helping to flesh out the shared imagined world. I wonder if we couldn't incorporate that kind of activity into the rules structure as a replacement for inflated character advancement?

Sergeant, already been done. See games like The Pool, InSpectres, COTEC, Puppetland, My Life With Master, and many others.

The reason for the popularity and continued play of games that include "advancement" is because it's an addictive model. You hit the nail on the head, it's about "creation" or having a sense of accomplishment. Of having survived to the next level, and having gotten that magic item that makes the character that much more powerful.

Don't get us wrong, here. There's nothing wrong at all with the D&D Leveling up model in terms of potential fun. It's just one method that supports one sort of play very well. There are other ways to support that sort of play, and there are other sorts of play to support, as well, however. So it's just one model that works.

Trying to beat D&D at this model, however, when using other methods that are similar, is just not a formula for success. The Fantasy Heartbreaker (see the Essays) is a game that will have ten fans who think that they're special because they found the game first and think that they see something in it that nobody else does. And then the game will have ten more people who play (mostly because of the ten fans). And that's all the play that the game will see other than that of the designer.

Beause, truth be told, D&D does a fairly good job at the whole level model. The third edition really cleaned up a lot of residual problems, and now the game does pretty well what it's designed to do. If you think it doesn't, then that's a sign that you really want to play something else entirely than a level based experience model game.

Mike

Kevin:
One of my ideas about enriching your character's personality as a form of advancement goes like this:

- At character creation each player can add a set number (let's say 3) of personality traits to the character. After each scene the group decides who incorporated their personality traits in the scene. Let's suppose player A incorporated 2 of the 3, then player A gets 2 booster points (BP).
- Anyone can use any number of booster points in an action, to make it more likely to succeed.
- After a scene, a player may use 5 booster points to add another personality trait to the character, thus adding more opportunity to gain booster points.
- So, the character develops, because it gets more and more detailed and also provides more and more ways to get those booster points. Still, there's no statistic that increases.
- And, other than this, characters usually stay with the same stats (attributes, skills, whatever). When someone feels so, they can increase any stats if the group (not just the GM!) approves.
- This all gives a well-defined method of character development without XP or XP-like points.



As an aside, what do veteran Forgers say to this?

Well, somewhat lately I realised that my last question is offtopic, so please answer to it in private message. Thanks.

Mike,

I guess I wasn't clear because what I have in mind isn't really represented in the games you quoted (although I admit I haven't seen COTEC). What I have in mind is replacing the reward mechanic with something that allows players to retain a sense of creation, but doesn't ask them to take responsibility for the 'story'. It seems there ought to be some ways to abstract the process and represent it in game rules.

I should be clear here. I have no problem with narrativist games that include player narration and plot contribution; I quite like them. But in a casual survey, I've found that many players don't like breaking out of their character POV as often as those types of games require.

What I'm talking about are clear cut rules that offer options for players to contribute to different elements of the game world between game sessions - something to replace the sort of constructive fiddling that character advancement offers. I'd like to see rules every bit as crunchy as task resolution that guide this. Player could choose from options including NPC creation, equipment creation, history writeups - those are the kinds of things I'm thinking of. I'm curious whether we could expand this list enough to come up with a 'shopping list' that would entice players to see this as an actual reward for playing well.

If "...already been done..." means the issue has been disussed to death and I should be quiet, I'll happily do that, but I do feel the original question of the thread is worth a thorough exploration.

This made me think of the quote "a soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon." It's attributed to Napoleon, though I don't know if it's been authenticated. Maybe your setting won't work with this, but providing this kind of social and merit based reward can be very effective. Titles, rank, resources and decorations are all useful if you have some kind of semi-organizational hierarchy in which to apply them. This applies in both modern and primitive societies (look at the brouhaha over Sen. Kerry's medals) and could be a good way of keeping your players motivated.

The "Bughunters" RPG (now out of print) had a pretty standard point based advancement system, but it also had a system of Rank Points. Rank points didn't do anything for you except get promotions (which increased pay). You got rank points for increasing some stats, but also for getting decorations, medals, letters of commendation and so forth.

It might be better for a system where the player characters are much more powerful than ordinary people, but not in an obvious visible way. I could see this for a lot of pulpy action games. Your stats are a lot better than Joe Average, but until you have the battle scars, the sergeant major's chevrons, the Sword's Point First Class (with palm frond in lieu of a second award) and so forth there's no way for people to distinguish you. That kind of reputational increase is probably enough to motivate a player where simple power increase isn't available.

Here's an idea that might make the game a bit too Gamist but might be all right for the right group: make the ranks power within the group. Perhaps the player who makes sergeant (or Loyalty Officer) can, to a limited degree, order the other players around. Perhaps different decorations give different metagame powers: an award for tactical excellence might give scene-framing powers, the aformentioned Sword's Point First Class might allow the player to determine NPC reactions (within reason, although modified by the number of fronds), perhaps Security Clearence will allow the player to suggest the next mission. To make it more Gamist: limit the number of decorations and make explicit the steps necessary to earn them. Less Gamist, you can toss 'em around like party favors, asshole GMs can give their girlfriends extra rank or manipulate the players by promising them brass. Social Engineer wannabe DMs can give timid or overshadowed players Stripes (and the respect they demand).

Perhaps it would work to completely separate "rewards" for playing/roleplaying from the concept of characters getting better.

Realistically speaking, there has to be some way that characters improve/learn new skills, etc. I have just learned how to grout tiles--I didn't know how yesterday--I bought a book, got the tools and materials and practiced on my bathroom until it looked OK. Next time, I will do a better job yet--pretty exciting, huh?

I do agree that character improvement/leveling up should not be the purpose of a RPG--I tend to believe that building a story and a campaign are more rewarding than learning FIREBALL (I was one of Sgt. X's old campaign players).

To be honest, one game that I've played and run that did some of this well was Senzar, a munchkin's dream if ever there was one. However, there was a gem hidden in the midden-- the concept of training time and skills. My players liked to level up, but the most precious reward that I would give them was time off for training to learn new skills, abilities, etc. A boatload of experience points was nice, but they'd flip over a year off to learn and improve themselves. I realize that other games also used this mechanic-- Runequest allowed you to train to learn new skills, for example.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that rewards and improvement should coexist, but separately. One learns to handle a blade by studying from a master and practicing, not by stabbing an orc. Use a rank/kudo system to reward play and a learning system to improve characters.

Luck to all.

Andy

Andy I think you're really onto something there. A system of social rewards for in character adventuring does a great job of motivating players to go out and do more. A system of training time and mentoring is realistic. Combine the two and you get the best of all possible worlds.

I've spent time in games where training time was considered more important than even adventuring. Months of in game time had to be tracked and dealt with (and all the associated accounting) while nothing much happened. In this particular game, hit points, THAC0, saves and spells only went up with levelling. Skills, however, were so much more important that it didn't really matter.

A split system like this would have been much more handy.

Several games I can think of have systems like this. GURPS, for instance, has an alternate "training time" system of development, and actual rules for learning on the job, etc. Interestingly, I've never seen it used in play of GURPS (other than accidentally as a result of playing out employment).

While it sounds good, in theory, the problem is that providing such an activity often ends up substituting for more interesting play. That is, players seeing a way to power-up without jeopardizing their characters take this easy "win," instead of persuing the action of the game. That is, let's say that the premise of the game in question is "Black Ops." The players, instead of going after the bad guys, instead just do nothing but train, train, train. It then becomes the GM's job entirely to interject with missions or the like.

The problem then becomes that training time is entirely a matter of GM fiat. That is, he can say that lots of time passes between missions, or very little. Basically the GM decides just how much the players advance by this method. So, what's the difference between this, and just awarding EXP? That is, what's attractive about playing the training part of play? What's the end result? Does the player feel a sense of accomplishment?

So, while this sounds good in theory, the few times I've seen it in action it hasn't turned out so well.

Now, if all we're talking about is directing where EXP can be used, dividing things up into two categories, then there are tons and tons of systems that support that already. To take an early one, Champions always has had a rule that says that the GM can give EXP only to be used for this or that. And has always been pretty ambiguous on what they can be given for - making awarding like you're describing pretty easy.

Mike

I feel like I have read, and understood what you all have been trying to convey to me. The bottom line seems to be that all of this has been done before. Everyone that has posted here has had some experience(please excuse the pun) in these types of games.
So now, the big question is this; If our game was re-vamped a little in the weak areas(story, and character) would using the XP system actually be so bad? Gaining points to get rewards(either to get skills, or any other type of additions to the character) is still advancement of character. So, isn't a horse of a different color still a horse? if you set a game for characters to build "ranks" what is the different than that same character building "levels" through points? I understand "kill an orc, get an xp award" has been done to death. What if the system only rewards [part] of its points through battle. For instance, battle would be 20% of XP, completing the adventure would be another portion of the points, and working as a team in play would get the group another portion of the points.
I say all that to say this;
Does this truly affect the decision of a person to buy/not buy a RPG game? or does this affect a person in the long run of playing the system, and buying more supplements of that game later?
yet another question in search of an answer
thanks
Kevin

Well, Kevin, consider this: of those people I know who don't care for D&D and prefer other game systems, one of their core complaints is the XP/Level system, and I count myself as one of them.

I personally hate XP/Levels, I feel it stratifies characters too much by power level. It limits my choice in how I want to develop my character and always feels artificial and forced. XP/Levels, along with the hit points/Armor Class system, were the two major reasons I stopped playing. In D&D, the difference between a 1st and 5th level character is so enormous that you couldn't have two characters at those developmental levels in the same party and be fair to both players. Mr. 1st Level would get trounced by anything even remotely challeging to Mr. 5th. Players can always meta-game what creatures they are capable of defeating -- Personally, I like games where I can face a dragon as a starting character yet still find orcs challenging after having been around a while. Of course, maybe this is just D&D and there's a way to redo the XP system so it doesn't stratify and herd players so much.

Those complaints aside, if you're looking to make a game that ventures into D&D's genre of fantasy, you're going to want to try and attract those players who are dissatisfied with the way D&D does things. Which means you should probably try to avoid mechanics such as AC, levels, and hit points that most cite as their problems with the system.

On the other hand, if you really have your heart set on XP/Levels, go for it, and find something else to change. In the end, it's your game.

I'd think getting rid of, or vastly de-emphasizing character 'advancement' (power increases of some form) would turn a lot of people off. Especially if you didn't replace it with something as compelling. I've been trying to replace it and most players balk. They're ok with additional roleplaying related rewards, but they seem to want to keep the improvement ladder in one form or another. That's just my casually observation, however. I'm sure there's a lot of variance in playgroups.

What this topic really boils down to is the question of what really motivates players. For example, Mike is correct when he writes:

While it sounds good, in theory, the problem is that providing such an activity often ends up substituting for more interesting play. That is, players seeing a way to power-up without jeopardizing their characters take this easy "win," instead of persuing the action of the game. That is, let's say that the premise of the game in question is "Black Ops." The players, instead of going after the bad guys, instead just do nothing but train, train, train. It then becomes the GM's job entirely to interject with missions or the like.

The question that we as GMs must ask ourselves is WHY? Why is training more interesting than adventiring? Is it more fun? Is it more important to the players to cause their characters to get better than it is to adventure/go on missions, etc.? In real life, our Special Forces train a lot more than they go on missions, and they do so for one reason--training improves their skills and improved skills increase their chances of success and survival.

When I ran Senzar (an experience deserving of a thread of its own), the sessions did devolve into training sessions until I broke the monotony with two separate approaches-- first, we did our training out of game via blue booking, and second, I regularly railroaded them into missions (which fit the campaign).

Sgt. X's approach, which essentially involves substituting plot control as the primary player motivator, provides a viable answer IMHO. As long as it's sufficiently crunchy (to satisfy gamists), not too unrealistic (to make the simulationists happy), the enhanced plot control should please narrativists. And if a game can make the players AND the GM happy, it has accomplished my goal for gaming.

'nuff said.

Andy

First, there's no problem, again, with retaining an advancement scheme. Almost all games have it to some extent, even if it's a light touch. (This is not to say that you can't take away development - many games have done so successfully).

That said, there's a general axiom that we apply here that applies to this part of the discussion: reward systems come in two parts - what's rewarded, and the form of the reward.

For instance, consider D&D. You are rewarded for killing things, and good thinking, etc. Most versions also say that you are rewarded for "good roleplaying" in some way, but usually fail to say what that means. The rewards, however, are for powering up, only, and only in ways that are directly involved with being able to kill things more effectively. To be precise, hit points, ability to hit and do damage, most special abilities like feats, and the vast majority of spells, are all involved with being able to kill stuff.

So, while a GM could really emphasize "roleplaying" by giving out lots of EXP for it, players will still be informed that what they're supposed to be doing is killing things, and taking their stuff (I'm particularly fond of the old one EXP per GP conversion that makes stuff and rewards directly convertible). So, while you might get more roleplaying, you won't ever get rid of combat in that game. Because there's really nothing more to be done with the points that you get.

So, D&D is a great model for promoting hack n' slash, but not a lot of good for anything else.

Basically, the reward system you set up works as part of the game as a whole. Looking at it in part will not give you an idea of what the system will do. So I'm dubious as to what effect splitting up what you give rewards for will have. In D&D the "roleplaying" awards are often forgotten entirely.


Do these things have an effect on whether people will play the game. Definitely yes. Not as to whether they'll buy the game off the shelf without having heard about it at all - but this is rare in any case. What happens is that a game gets played, and people say stuff about it. Then others pick up on what sort of play the game supports. Then, if it sounds like what they're intrested in, then they buy. One thing that really hurts a game is if the word of mouth is bad. One thing that really affects quality of play is what we call coherence around here, and it's very possible to make bad games if you're not careful by putting in reward systems that say incoherent things to the players. So, yes, this is a critical part of the game. In fact, some say it's more important in terms of good play than any other part of the game.

Mike

Now,

I have a question for those of you who prefer to run and play in non-level advancement games. This type of rpg does more to emphasize on role-playing itself, or is there just as much combat-involved gaming? Is the majority of the game designed with building skills, or some other type of underlying goal.
I know my questions tell the story of my rpg life. I have had "0" time at a non-level advancement game, and I am just looking for a "cliff notes" of what the bulk of the game is doing to drive the players.
Do these type of games still have the epic-style save the world type game possibilities of say, D&D, or is it more of a role-playing in a local game world environment?
To all that wish to help me out the mists of stupidity,
Post away!!!

kevin_presley wrote: Now,

I have a question for those of you who prefer to run and play in non-level advancement games. This type of rpg does more to emphasize on role-playing itself, or is there just as much combat-involved gaming? Is the majority of the game designed with building skills, or some other type of underlying goal.
I know my questions tell the story of my rpg life. I have had "0" time at a non-level advancement game, and I am just looking for a "cliff notes" of what the bulk of the game is doing to drive the players.
Do these type of games still have the epic-style save the world type game possibilities of say, D&D, or is it more of a role-playing in a local game world environment?
To all that wish to help me out the mists of stupidity,
Post away!!!

What Sergeant said. Or, rather, each game promotes something different. Sergeant's example is classic. Looking at Traveller at first, you might think that play would end up being about fighting aliens, and saving the universe or something, but the material presented always ends up getting played the same way. That is, a lot of the Traveller mechanics end up dealing with economics, and how to circumvent legalities. So most games end up being about the PCs owning (or trying to own) a starship, and then making money trading amongst the stars, doing illegal actions related to trading (like smuggling contraband), and doing cons and odd jobs on planets while waiting to take off.

Have you read the System Does Matter essay in the essay section linked to above? Basically, the system that the game in question puts forward has a strong effect on what people do with the game. This should be obvious, but people always make the opposite claim. That you might as well play Traveller with D&D rules, and vice versa.

Anyhow, the point is that there are so many non-level games (if I had to guess, I'd say about ten times as many as have levels), hundreds of games if not thousands, that you really can't say what they tend to produce as a whole. This is what you're not wrapping your head around here.

Analogy time again: It's like you're asking, "How do cars with automatic transmissions handle? I've only seen standard transmissions." We can make generalities about how you don't have to shift, of course, but other than that, each car will be very different.

Some are very, very combat oriented - see Feng Shui, Phoenix Comand, or Riddle of Steel for three completely different takes on combat in a non-level RPG. Many are less about the fighting, and more about some other element, Call of Cthulhu (horror), Unknown Armies (weird psychology), Over the Edge (surrealism), Dust Devils (western themes). Some have no particular prediliction towards combat at all, like Inspectres, The Pool, Nobillis.

As to the power level of PCs, interestingly these games have a lot more of the "save the world" stuff than non-level games do. That is, your assumption is that, because in level-based games, you have to start out a pipsqueak, you have to in all games. But you can see that's obviously not true, right? In Nobilis, for instance, you play characters that are akin to gods. There are other games where you do nothing but actually play gods. There are RPGs where you create the universe as part of play. And every power level in between.

Unknown Armies, again, has three power levels that you can play at, one at "Street Level" where the characters are "norma", another at a level where characters possess strong supernatural powers, and another where they can bend reality to their will with ease. In Ars Magica, similarly, a fantasy game set on mythical Earth, you can play normal folks who hang out with wizards, heroes who are pals with wizards, or wizards who kick all ass over anyone else but other wizards. These are not "levels" that one can progress through in Ars (in UA, you can go from one to the other, but characters advance within the levels separately, and it's really a different game from one "level" to the next), a character at one power level can never become a higher level. Players rotate through who gets to play the more powerful characters, or some players just accept playing much weaker characters. And it all works fine.

There are superhero games where the GM gives out points and the characters can be anywhere from diabled incompetents with hardly any points, to characters with godlike powers depending on where the GM sets the power levels. In Champions, for instance, a character with about 250 points will be about like a character in Marvel comics. One with 400 or so will be more like a DC character (though they vary in power level more). Using the generic version of the system, there are stats for this system for a setting called Shadow World where the gods are rated around 2000 points each or so.

I could go on and on and on. Put it this way, if you can imagine it, it's probably already been done in RPGs in terms of things like power levels, and what characters do. There are games where characters can't be said to be rataeble in terms of power. Further, just to give more perspective, some people play what's sometimes called "freeform" where there are no rules, you just make up what happens. These can be anything at all with characters of any power level.

To give you an idea of the range of subject matter in RPGs, take the game Puppetland, where you play a puppet in a puppet-show trying to save the world from the evil Punch. In the hilarious game Paranioa, you are troubleshooters for a computer that rules over a dysfunctional underground domed society, in which you're likely to go through three or more characters per session of play (the idea of power in this game is just ridiculous). In My Life with Master, you play deformed minions of an evil master who must obey his commands until they gain enough love to become brave enough to kill him. In Over the Edge, your character might meet you, the player. In the World of Darkness games, you play either a party of Vampires, Werewolves, Fairies, Ghosts, Mummies, Demons, or various other types of monsters (note these usually don't mix, the party is supposed to be all Vampires, or all Werewolves, in most cases), in modern day Earth, where normal humans tend to be way below your level of power. In Teenagers From Outer Space, you play, well teenagers from outer space who go to shcool together and have wacky adventures. In Little Fears, you play children between the ages of 4 and 13 who are beset upon by a real boogeyman, and other monsters.

To give you an idea of how many games have actually been created to hit any one potential genre, in genre of "Players represent multiple facets of the same character's personality" I can think of three games off the top of my head that fall into this tiny niche. I can think of four Harry Potter knockoffs (despite Rowling saying that she won't authorize one), and there must be more. Four different takes on playing kids at a magical school.

There's a game called HOL where... I can't even describe HOL.

Getting the picture? There are games that have been succefully designed to promote just about any sort of play. That's not to say that everything has been done, just that anything can be done.

Mike

Kevin:

The fact that your game is going to be non-level based is OK, but that does not make a great difference among existing games. Basically no difference.

Also, there are truckloads of universal systems out there, so that's again a niche which is quite crowded.

Where you can really create something new is the setting. And once you have the setting, you can build the game mechanics serving that particular setting. Why should you do that in this order? I can point in the same direction as Mike Holmes did: System Does Matter.

If you still have capacity for new RPGs, and if you are willing to download lots of interesting settings and systems from the net for free, check this link. Many are really short, so you won't need months to read them. Have a fruitful reading.

A bit of an off-topic post, I know, so you might want to answer it in PMs and keep the thread focused in level/non-level character advancement.

Mike Holmes wrote:
To give you an idea of how many games have actually been created to hit any one potential genre, in genre of "Players represent multiple facets of the same character's personality" I can think of three games off the top of my head that fall into this tiny niche.

That was one that I was thinking of. Can be found here: http://wso.williams.edu/~msulliva/campaigns/john/

I miss Mike Sullivan (AKA Epoch).

Jason Blair had Insects of God: http://www.key20.com/insectsofgod/
(this may be the one you're looking for, Elkin).

There was the game Khaotic, where the PCs were psychics controling a monster in another dimension.

Here's one developed here called Shattered Spirits: http://machmoth.tripod.com/rpg/shattered_spirits_beta01.pdf

There've been other discussions of "Herman's Head" style games, too. I"m sure I'm forgetting others.

Oh, and there was an Over the Edge adventure in Sylvan Pines, IIRC, in which the players wake up in the asylum with amnesia (I made a whole game off of this) where one of the PCs is played by two players who have to vye for control.

This theme seems to come up regularly. In any case, to get back to the topic of the thread, one can see how very narrow realms of subject matter can have very different treatments.

Mike

I'm a newbie poster to this forum, so please let me know if I'm off-topic or stating the obvious.

Usually, in a story-driven campaign, character advancement is necessary (a hero should be changed by their experiences and adventures) but secondary to the the achievement of story goals.

Also, in most well-paced campaigns, the characters have something that they need to achieve urgently at least 80-90% of the time, which is why they aren't sitting at home training their skills.

For example, if my character's loved one has been kidnapped by bandits, I'm not going to spend 1 month training up my combat skills before rescuing her.

I agree that this can lead to undue focus on certain abilities, especially combat/conflict type skills. This can be addressed in-game through giving characters a variety of challenges which will test their other faculties.

Also, a well-developed character history or lifepath helps. This helps to give starting characters a broader base of skills which they are more inclined to use, and therefore develop.

In my experience, most point-based (as opposed to level-based) systems have more focus on initial character concept. Although I admit that I'm mainly thinking of D&D/D20 here as an example of 'level-based' play.

-Tetsuki

Usually, in a story-driven campaign, character advancement is necessary (a hero should be changed by their experiences and adventures) but secondary to the the achievement of story goals.

Mike,

I bow to your superior insight - I guess I'm over-used to the 'advancement treadmill' myself!

(I hope the rest of my post stands as an example of how to transfer from level-based to point-based systems.)

Certainly, the 'hero's journey' is much more important than how powerful the hero is at the start and end of that journey.

I guess that Call of Cthulhu is a good example - the gradual erosion of Sanity representing a downward trend in character 'power'.

Cheers,

- Tetsuki

Hello together,

I really don't wanna hijack this thread, so if you think this belongs into a seperate thread, please tell me and I'll be happy to oblige. I just thought that it might fit, since this is about advancement mechanics anyways...

Since I've grown dissatisfied with Shadowrun and most other RPGs out there lately I have decided to design my own one.
I'm pretty new to this whole game designing business (and not a native english speaker) so please forgive my inadvertible misuse of terms, vocabulary and the english language.

I'm currently very intrigued about the advancement mechanic around training time. My original idea was to give the points to those skills/attributes that are used often, resulting in something that has been called "you are what you do" (or something like that) earlier in this post. However, I dropped this idea since it occured to me that you'd end up with characters that are very good at a certain thing (whatever they do most) but totally lousy at everything else. Also, as someone already stated, it's rarely the case that you get substantialy better at something in the stressful situations that usually happen during RPG sessions.

So I now switched to an approach (which has also mentioned in this thread, I think) which is solely focused on training time. This means no experience points whatsoever, the only resource you have to get better at something is time and money. Time for actual training and money for life support during that time (rent, food, heating, etc.) and to buy books, pay the fees for the shooting range, pay a teacher/trainer of some sort, etc.

However, I'm not quite sure about the consequences of this. Does it encourage characters to neglect the "real" roleplaying in order to have more time for training? Is it really possible to specificaly train such things like charisma, wisdom, sprituality or dexterity? Has anybody had any experience with a mechanic like this one? What is its overall effect on gameplay?

Hi Sandman, welcome to The Forge.

However, I'm not quite sure about the consequences of this. Does it encourage characters to neglect the "real" roleplaying in order to have more time for training?

Is it really possible to specificaly train such things like charisma, wisdom, sprituality or dexterity?

Has anybody had any experience with a mechanic like this one? What is its overall effect on gameplay?

The real question about a "training only" mechanic for advancement is where you see it fitting in with the other parts of play. What is the rest of the game like? Without that context, without knowing what you intend to do with the game, we really can't tell you anything about how your intended mechanic will fit in.

That is, other than Ravien pointed out, that, yeah, it will get players to play out more training, probably, it's hard to say what other effects it might have.

So, given that, I do suggest that you start a new thread about your game, to discuss this there.

Mike

Ok, this will go into a new thread then. Thanks for the help so far. I hope to see some of you people in the new thread...