Hello all,

I know I haven't posted in the "current games" section, that's mostly because I am not currently in a position to have a regular playgroup.  I have previously played, DMd and organised a convention-sized group in the D&D3.5E system.  I dislike the logical disconnects found in 4E (ie. Mechanics seem to be disconnected from the "in story" events such as Marks) and I've been working on building a System for the last year or so.  I will have a link to a downloadable copy below.

I've reached a point where I am questioning running this system under the basic premise of a Level-Based System.  Instead I am thinking of creating a Point-Purchase system, similar to the Old World of Darkness system by WhiteWolf.

I'm sure you all know Level/Class-based systems, I've been playing in them for ages and I feel comfortable and confident on their structure, ensuring all characters gain worthwhile bonuses at each level, ensuring that all classes can contribute to events the majority of the time, etc.

I'm out of my depth with Point-Purchase Systems.  The immediate problems I can see would be:
- How do you rate Encounters (fights, solving social situations, bypassing traps, successfully investigating crimes) in these systems so that the players are not likely to be killed and have the level of skills/abilities/talents to succeed?

- How would you go about creating such a system while including Magic (Magic Points, Spells available, power ratings of spells,etc)?

- Can you do reliable Point-Purchase Systems that still have Class-Niches? I still want Wizards to be the magic guys and Fighters to be the Sword & Board guys... I don't want the Fighter to swing his sword and create fireballs unless they are really heading down a road of "specialisation".

- Are there articles or threads here that could guide me and that come from respected/eputatble authors?

Thanks for whatever help you can give me.  I know that this change could mean rewriting nearly 100,000 words of text.

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1839126

Thanks for your help.
Andrew

Hi,

Well, you have to consider that if you want to make sure they aren't likely to be killed and have the skills to suceed, your disempowering their choices - specifically in terms of disempowering their ability to have made a mistake.

What I'd suggest is keeping the point buy to a relatively short range (like up to five points or such) and still have levels, where the skill goes up by level and then also has any points spent on it. This keeps the character either at their level mark or slightly above it. Then just set fights and traps etc to match levels.

See I'm looking to potentially replace a level system with a point buy system.  I'm just not sure how feasible it will be.

For example, instead of choosing a level of "Wizard", a player may be able to spend 50XP to buy +1 Spellcaster, spend 1XP to get +1 to Skill X, spend 5XP to buy +1 Save A, spend 5XP to buy +1 Save B, etc.

Hope that makes a bit more sense.

Well, you can't really get away from levels or some underlying set of points that'll make sure they have the skills to pass. Otherwise you get some guy who has 50 in shooting a bow and 0 in pick locks, and he just can't pick the difficulty 20 lock, or suchlike. You have to artificially bump lock picks and every other skill up so it's around the difficulty of fights and traps.

Perhaps there's another way of bumping the skill up sans level, but it's probably going to look similar to levels.

Okay, here is the idea potentially more fleshed out.  I remove the "D&D Level" (gain XXX XP to add 1 level which gives me this list of bonuses/skills/feats/improvements).  Instead, I accrue XP which I then use to purchase upgrades to my Character.

Add a "Class Level" - 50XP (this would let Wizards gain more spells/MPs, Fighters may gain bonus feats, etc)
Increase my Attack (or defence?) - 25XP
Increase my Abilities (Str, Con Dex, etc) - 50XP (this is because so many other things are impacted by the change)
Buy a Feat/Trick/Talent - 15XP
Buy a "Saving Throw" bonus - 10XP
Buy a "Class Skill" - 2XP
Buy an "Out of Class Skill" - 4XP

XP Cost would then be a way to measure monsters, (and some kind of abstracted scale to make that process simpler) and then could be compared to the PCs. XP would get awarded at a rate of about +2XP per 'matching' encounter.  A 50XP party vs a 50XP monster would result in +2XP for each player.

C&C?

Look into Legend of the Five Rings, which is a point-buy system that answers your questions about Magic and Class Niches. If you're just looking for inspiration, one of the older editions (4th is about to come out) will do fine and shouldn't cost too much second-hand or in a stock-clearance.

As for encounters, it's pretty much the same as with levels. If you have a level 10 party, you give them a level 10 encounter. If you have a level 10 party but none of them is trained in picking locks, then you have to take into account that a level 10 lock will more than likely be an obstacle they cannot get past. If your party has earned 100 Points, give them an encounter that's equivalent. For monsters, just take base stats and give the monster 100 points to spend. For locks and such, look at the base skill level. Based on that, you can make difficulties for locks that an apprentice can pick on the first try, locks that require some training and a few tries, and locks that require years of expertise.

As a rough idea, characters could have some sort of man of all trades points, that, if the GM grants it, can be used to boost a skill like the crappy lock pick. These points are used up when used as a boost and regained in small amounts at latter times, so they aren't always a get out of jail free card.

I personally went with a level based character advancement system because of one reason.
Fun for the players or more accurately - more fun at one. Leveling is more exciting than spending ___ xp on 1 or maybe 2 things.
with leveling - you get to have that rush of "YES! finally! what did i Get. -- better at fighting!, Saving throws Improved! More Hitpoints!, learned a new skill! etc, etc) instead of "Sweet now I can finally up my characters crappy marksmanship to decent and I can make use of that bow we found" and thats it.
granted you get stuff like that a lot more often but .. wheres the rush? a man that gets a delicious chicken biscuit every morning soon looses that "this is the best chicken biscuit ever" feeling.

Know what I mean.

That said I still enjoy playing point/experience buy games.

That is only the reason I decided to go with Leveling.

Hope that adds some weight to one side of the scale or the other.

Goodluck.

You may want to have a look at Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader by Fantasy Flight Games; they have something if a half-way house between the two. You buy individual powers/skills with XP at the rate you want, but after you spend a certain amount you advance to the next rank, which gives you more options. Adding in some benefits each 'rank' could also give that 'rush of achievment' that Necromantis mentioned. In Dark Heresy, this also means that characters of the same Career could go down diverging routes whiel still both being 'Guardsmen', for example.

Hope this helps a little!

Hmm,
Well, two other systems to check out, Gurps and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
The former is a completely character point based system, you earn 2-5 XP per game, and can spend these XP on skills, abilities, advantages, etc.  Stats cost 10 or 20 points per level (IQ and DX are more expensive than HT and ST), advantages cost 5-15 points for most, with some (immortality) costing over 100.  1 point in a skill gets you a level in the skill equal to 2 less than the stat, each doubling of points spent increases skill by one.  It works pretty well because spending points on a skill makes it better, but not massively better.
I would argue that it is the pinnacle of non-leveled gaming, but that is of course an opinion.
WFR is a good system that combines a variation of levels with buying skills and stats.  You start in a class which determines which stats and skills you can buy or improve.  If you max out a class, there are "exit classes," you can go into, with newer, higher levels of skills and stats to buy, or you can make a sideways switch before you max out.  That said, each class change costs 100 XP, so you want to be careful about class switches for no reason.

At one point I designed an optional "class," for DnD 2nd ed called the "master of his own fate," who spent XP for improvements kinda the way you described, only I did it in a game with players of traditional classes.
The danger is (as mentioned below) that someone will completely unbalance their character, boosting combat stats and ignoring skills, or vs versa.  Another danger is that someone will unbalance themselves by not thinking of the system (imagine someone who boosts attack and skills, but ignores HP).
Here is another possibility, give two or three types of XP, for instance, combat XP, Non-combat XP, and stat XP.  This way players have some guide to how to spend points to stay balanced (and maybe you give untyped XP to folks so they can customize).  Challenges would be based on total XP, or you could track the three types of XP, and match players to challenges of each type based on XP totals in each type.
To give a concrete example, you have three players:
Charles Monster has 1200 combat XP, 300 skill XP, and 700 stat XP.
S.K. Full has 600 combat XP, 900 skill XP, and 500 stat XP.
Stan Balanced has 800 XP in all three categories.
Sending monsters worth 2600 XP would be a good encounter for them, skill challenges should be based on an average of 670 XP, and you should assume that stats will be at about 700 for stat challenges.
Now most parties would be composed of characters with similar XP and distributions, but this is an example of characters from other games being imported...
I am not saying this is the best split (it probably isn't), I don't know your system, but I think you have a good thought, and I think some sort of dividing wall will help keep players on track..

When I created the "master of your own fate," class, I spent a lot of time figuring out XP costs so that you could reproduce most classes fairly well with about the same XP cost.  This is when you discover that clerics are overpowered in every version of DnD and that thieves are underpowered-an intentional design choice as people seem to like playing thieves and dislike clerics...
If you "took apart," your favorite version of DnD and figured out the XP costs of each element, it might give you a starting point for your system, and may give you a better idea of what fair costs are.  Then find your favorite twink, and ask him to create a few characters, and see what he buys, that will tell you what you made too cheap...
I am having trouble (because I have spent so much time breaking down DnD XP tables) with how much less XP you are requiring than DnD takes, I guess my question would be how much XP you see as a "level equivalent," or alternately, how much XP you plan to award per session.
Another consideration, when I created the "master," class, every 2000 xp spent, the costs doubled, this was to keep the class balanced with other classes.  Assuming XP for monsters is a set amount, and higher XP characters can beat harder foes and more of them, your progression could be exponential instead of linear if you are not careful.

Sorry for being verbose and confusing, hopefully you can glean the gems from the horse excrement...

Actually if people want to cheese out their character by spending only in local limited areas (that aren't Niches like Skill-Monkey, People-Person, Wizard, etc) then you teach them otherwise by half (or completely) killing them.  The older Gygax Methodology of Teaching Players via Darwinism works very well, especially with 'experienced' players who are used to doing 'certain things'.

I wouldn't separate XP, it's another level of paperworking that seems to not really provide a significant benefit that can't be taught by something else... I think the easiest option for creating the system is to just set an arbitrary XP value for something, then work the rest out in proportion.  I'm going to investigate some of the other systems out there and try establish some system.

Actually if people want to cheese out their character by spending only in local limited areas (that aren't Niches like Skill-Monkey, People-Person, Wizard, etc) then you teach them otherwise by half (or completely) killing them.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:
Actually if people want to cheese out their character by spending only in local limited areas (that aren't Niches like Skill-Monkey, People-Person, Wizard, etc) then you teach them otherwise by half (or completely) killing them.  The older Gygax Methodology of Teaching Players via Darwinism works very well, especially with 'experienced' players who are used to doing 'certain things'.

Well, I think "killing them," is harsh, but I do think there is room for building the design of the adventure with reasonable skills in mind, and letting the lacking skills stick out...
For instance, the characters who get max combat skills, and put one lonely point in lockpicking discover a locked door.  The door is set at a difficulty for the level of the characters, and is frankly impossible to open for them.  You can tell them OOC after they try once that the adventure requires a higher skill, so they can ignore the door-it just isn't a possibly for them unless they go get a hireling (or use explosives, etc.)
On the flip side, you should pump up monsters and such to keep the combat challenge up for the combat monster group, or there is no challenge.  The important thing there is to tell your players you did this, so they don't think "we had to make combat focused characters because of the monsters you were throwing at us."
From the game perspective I think communication is the important point, the DM and players have to agree on what the goals are, and the DM needs to tell the players if their characters are lacking.
From the design perspective, I think a lot of games do well by making higher levels of skill more expensive.  In white wolf, buying the first dot in security costs 1 XP, buying the 5th dot in brawling costs 5, if someone has a few XP, they may get a few level 1 or 2 skills instead of worrying about the 5th dot in brawl.  Likewise, if it costs 1 CP in gurps to get lockpicking, and 8 to improve your broadsword skill, you may get that lockpicking skill "just in case."
Of course in both systems, that one point may be enough for a tough lock, a high dex white wolf character may have 4-6 dice with one point in security, and the gurps character may get a lockpicking skill of 11-13 with that one point (as opposed to the broadsword skill of 17, but...).
I don't know if there is a good way of doing that for you.

contracycle wrote:
Should a GM be in the business of "teaching" players at all?  I think this sort of approach can create a very pernicious relationship.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

contracycle wrote:
Should a GM be in the business of "teaching" players at all?  I think this sort of approach can create a very pernicious relationship.

Should a GM be in the business of "teaching" players? Yes. You can teach people things from either side of the Big GM Screen. It's foolish to think that in a game one side cannot teach the other side something. The relationship is no more pernicious than when one player shows another player how to play a game or discusses tactics.

With any highly-versatile system you instantly run the risk of highly specialised characters having a distorted effect within the game. The easiest way to ensure players are aware of the distortions caused by their specialisation is to have them experience the distortion (Combat Specialist can't talk their way out of trouble, Glass Cannon Wizard gets hit by one arrow and dies, etc, etc).  That is the learning/teaching experience the GM can provide. If you aren't sure about how/why it works, feel free to send me a private message and I'll explain it privately off-thread.

The problem is that you're assuming a didactic, and superior, relationship to the players.  This is not analogous with teaching someone new to the game how to play, showing them the ropes.  This seems to be intrinsic to the GM/player relationship, not a temporary condition that pertains only until the student learns to understand in their own right.

You say that highly specialised characters have a distorting effect... but, in whose opinion?  The GM's.  The GM is thus arrogating to themselves a power not just to act with a certain role within the rules of the game, but in fact to pass judgement on the players use of those rules.  If they understood the system well enough to build these characters, and accepted the risks of the specialism in return for its benefits willingly, then who is the GM to judge them?

None of this has anything to do with playing the game as such.  Maybe a particular charcter build is good strategy, maybe it's bad: that's all rather different then the GM setting out to teach a lesson.

As previously, the ultimate game here is to play a game and enjoy it.  If you have to use special measures to prevent players make choices of which you do not approve, then I suggest your system is at fault; for if the character build is so bad as to require coercive correction, it should never have been possible in the first place.

So ... **clears throat**
Levels or Point Buy system...?

If point buy is the way to go. How do we get him there?

We have all played games where either inexperienced players used to video games or super competitive people try to "build" these 1 sided boring characters.
We have all played systems that allow it and enjoyed the system in spite of those "allowances". Designing a system that tightens down on building lopsided characters tightens down on more than just that. It might change something about your game design that you don't want changed.
in the end - some people look a character sheet as a bunch of stats. - some look at it like a person. Game with people that look at it like you do and its less of a problem. But sometimes you can Teach people to see their sheet as more than a bunch of stats.
Sometimes - its takes revealing the weakness (maybe even through character death) there is no hard and fast rule that teaches everyone. Different people learn in different ways.

Being pompous about it doesn't help Juggernaut with his concern.

Levels? Point/experience buy?

Juggernaut - it seems to me by looking at your game design thus far that you have basically tailored the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 model more to your liking. Tidying up what you consider to be loose ends. Fixing things that bothered you or making things make more sense.
I would almost advise you to start over if you were to switch to a point buy character advancement mechanic. Though I would advise that you steal heavily from yourself. :)

Well, Necromantis, I'm  afraid it does have relevance.  Thing is that you can tie yourself in knots trying to head off problems that aren't actrually going to happen, or which are unsolveable.  Realising this can help you focus your design.

I/we don't even know that Juggernaut actually has these "kinds" of players to deal with in his own games, or if it's just the sort of stock concern that gets floated about.  If he does, it may also be that the problem isn't solvable however much he attempts to teach because, fundamentally, they appreciate the game in a different way.  In either case, the didactic posture is unlikely to be helpful.

To show some bona fides, here are some direct answers to the questions in the OP, which I'll admit I could have given initially.

You can create niche specialisations by arranging sets of skills into packages that are bought at a discount.  Thus your stealth-and-lockpicking thiefy package maybe contains 30xp worth of skills, but costs only 20xp.  So, you bribe them, basically.  You can also have interdependencies, such that buying a level in one skill requires a certain level in another.

Magic is usually handled by making it a big ticket item, such that buying it requires some niche specialisation.  But otherwise there is no notable standard for the types that can be executed by point buy; some game have long lists of discrete powers, others have packages, others have a few flexible types.  Magic is always a thorny problem in its own right.

With a few exceptions, encounter balancing is not much of a concern.  Gurps might establish that  agiven scenarios built for 100 point or 300 point characters or whatever, but its not measured on a per-encounter basis.  Very few games actually bother with this sort of thing.

Juggernaut,
First, point of clarification, do you have a working, level based system, and you are considering replacing it with point buy, or are you trying to decide whether to use levels or point buys, and have more familiarity with the former but a preference for the latter?
Anyway, I really think you would gain something from seeing if you can "rebuild," classes using the point buy system you create, if you can't, is it because of intentionally overpowering one class/under-powering another (like DnD does with Clerics)?  Or is there a flaw in your costs?
I would then play with some "broken," characters, folks who put everything in combat, or in one part of the system (high stats, no attack skill?), and just make sure there are no "uber-builds," that take advantage of that.
Then as I recommended earlier, find your nearest munchkin or power-gamer, and ask them to make 3 characters using your system, they will probably find your flaws, so you can try to fix them.
If you like a point buy, DO IT!  But if you are unsure, you can try it in parallel with levels first, and then phase out classes as you get it working right.  Imagine play-testing with one character using point buy, and the rest using classes/levels, see what makes the point buy too powerful or too weak, and adjust, then play-test with 2 point buy players, then 3...

One other point (if I didn't already make it), avoid having someone buy "a class level," instead find point buys for the items gained.  On the flip side, you can put "minimum character XP," requirements on abilities, so someone can't take fireball as their first spell, they have to have 1500 XP first...

Ignoring the tendency for people to have protracted debates here I specifically asked to have happen off-thread...

I currently have a draft level system based on 3.5E D&D, utilising a similar Triangular-numbers system that existed.  A number of structural changes, predominantly with Saves, Magic, Feats and more explicit non-grid combat.

The debate I am having is regarding replacing the level-system with an XP Buy System.  The XP issued by an "level equivalent challenge" (the EL = Character Level concept) would remain CONSTANT over all levels, allowing the prices for skills, etc to also remain constant over all levels.  However, it means that PCs encountering significantly less powerful challenges will get neglible amounts of XP.  Instead of the more constant concept that XP value remains the same across all levels and higher improvements cost more than lower improvements.

The concept would be if you buy a level, you don't get Save bonuses, but you would gain access to new spells, bonus Feats, etc.  Skills, Attack, Saves, (possibly Defence), Feats and the like would be purchased on their own. Hit Points would come as part of the broader "Buy a Class" idea.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:
Ignoring the tendency for people to have protracted debates here I specifically asked to have happen off-thread...

I currently have a draft level system based on 3.5E D&D, utilising a similar Triangular-numbers system that existed.  A number of structural changes, predominantly with Saves, Magic, Feats and more explicit non-grid combat.

The debate I am having is regarding replacing the level-system with an XP Buy System.  The XP issued by an "level equivalent challenge" (the EL = Character Level concept) would remain CONSTANT over all levels, allowing the prices for skills, etc to also remain constant over all levels.  However, it means that PCs encountering significantly less powerful challenges will get neglible amounts of XP.  Instead of the more constant concept that XP value remains the same across all levels and higher improvements cost more than lower improvements.

The concept would be if you buy a level, you don't get Save bonuses, but you would gain access to new spells, bonus Feats, etc.  Skills, Attack, Saves, (possibly Defence), Feats and the like would be purchased on their own. Hit Points would come as part of the broader "Buy a Class" idea.

Spellcasters run on a Mana Points System already, not a Vancian (as a way to balance out Clerics, Wizards & Psychics/Sorcerers).

Balancing out the "class levels" is going to be done by:
Spellcasters get MPs, access to spells, etc
Combat-Type Classes get bonus/cheap access to feats, other bonuses, free AB, etc
Skill-Type Classes get bonus/cheap skills, potentially other bonuses, etc

So I'm planning to make it worthwhile to get the "class levels" and "spare XP" gets spent on skills, maybe additional feats, possibly Attack/Defence, etc.

Regardless of what path you take the odds are still good that they will be strong in some areas and weak in others. So you will have to adjust to opposition accordingly, or stomp all over them. I do not see a problem with either option there. What I do see an problem with is the amount of choice you are giving to a player, so in the end why not just give them all the choice.

here's your basic options:
strict level based - 1st edition D&D.  You gain a level, you have no choice, you just get those advances

strict level based but choice of classes.  You gain a level, choose which class you get and you get those advances

level based with limited options - 3rd edition D&D.  You gain a level, you get some advances and then get to choose others (pick what your 1 new feat is)

Advances limited by level - Dark Heresy.  You earn advances individually but can only buy the ones available at your level.

Advances limited by class/career - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  You earn advances individually but can only buy the ones available to your career

Advances limited by power level - Mutants and Masterminds.  You buy whatever you want but each thing has a maximum level you can buy too

Unlimited advances - You put points in whatever you want and can be as min/maxed as you want

Of these choices WFRP is my favorite for roleplaying and maintaining reasonable balance.  But it is a massive amount of work to create the career system.

The general choice is to allow spending points on whatever you want but put in arbitrary limits.  Attacks can only do +10 damage at most, skills can only be up to +5, etc.  The problem is that players just min/max to hit those numbers and then everyone is the same even though the system allows for diversity.

My personal goal is to build in diminishing returns instead.  Imagine if every +1 costs double in a skill.  So +1 costs 1, +2 costs 2, +3 costs 4.  So for 7 points you can have +3 in one skill or +1 in 7 skills.  You allow the player to max out their fighting skill, but it isn't much better than someone who got +1 less and then spent all of the other points on other skills.  It is more realistic and encourages more character variety than an arbitrary limit.

Personally, I believe that as far as enabling a wide variety of characters while ensuring niche protection goes that a "soft class" system is probably best. What I mean by a "soft class" system is that you have each character declare a "talent", a "specialty" or some other synonym for such and skills, feats, etc that fit into that sort of specialty are cheaper for that character than for others (and if you want to you can also have a character's "talent" enhanced skills have a higher maximum value than other characters), meaning that someone with the "Magic" talent will find it easier to increase his magic attribute, buy spells etc and can have a higher maximum magic rating than someone who declared their talent as "Fighting" or "Skill".

Depending on the type of game you want to design, you could break talents up differently as well. Here are a couple types of ideas:

Fighting
Skill
Magic

Notes: This talent list basically creates the sort of "class" situation that you find in D&D and it's ilk. You've got the brawny guy (the fighter, barbarian etc.), the tricksy guy (the rogue, ranger etc.), and the magical guy (the wizard, sorcerer or cleric).

You could also split it up like so

Mental
Physical
Social

Notes: This is kind of how White Wolf does it with the World of Darkness games, which each supernatural creature having a certain subgroup that's especially good at a certain subset of abilities. You could fold Magic and academics into mental, fighting and physical skills into physical, and social skills, contacts, and social merits into Social.

And if your really wanted things to be freeform, you could handle it like this:

You have x talent points. Talent points are spent on traits to increase their maximum value by 1.
You have x learning points. Learning points are spent on traits to decrease their cost per rank by 1.

Notes: This is the approach most susceptible to building one trick ponies, but if character customization is your thing, and the genre and theme you're going for supports specialized characters then this approach is pretty good.

Just some ideas