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What about 'downtime' advancement? Either between story arcs (supposing a significant period of time between arcs, such as some epic campaigns may have). Should it not happen at all? What about those 2 seasons that your Noble character spent overseeing their Domain?
I think campaigns with this kind of timeframe (a la Pendragon/Ars Magica) are valid in ME.
Yeah, the rule is, you award a number of XP equal to the TN of the test. It applies to every succesful test! In addition, all of your comrades earn half of what you earned. This is a bookkeeping nightmare, way more than my system, if played "by the book".Quote:
Originally posted by Lt. Dade
I'll have to go and check the language in the book (and see how much I'm inferring or drawing from Star Trek), but I was under the impression that the book only encourages specific skill awards for the key rolls in a given combat or encounter, much like yours.
Well, yeah, but I'd think we'd all rather agree that its best to have tight mechanics that actuallly work, so as to avoid controversy. My primary problem with the CODA system as published is the arte of advancement if you go "by the book". As I've explained before, my players were earning an Advancement per session, guaranteed, when I was going by the book. It came to the point where it was sort of pointless to track experience at all. Since I didn't allow "excess" points to be carried over from one session to another, bookkeeping seemed sort of superflous. Heck, if they survive the session, just give 'em a level! That's what I'm really trying to remedy. Next problem was the amount of bookkeeping required, as written. Last priority was level-less advanncement. In fact it was sort of an afterthought, not a primary goal.Quote:
Regardless, in a strictly experience-based system, it's all subject to Narrator fiat anyway.
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First of all, it's the player's right to determine what is and is not a silly choice for their character. Restricting their freedom of choice turns advancement into an automated exercise, rather than a reward. It's their hand to play as they see fit, I say.
That said, should a character be allowed to place ranks in a skill that their character has had no in-game experience with? Yes, sometimes. Not only shoul that be up to the individual Narrator to encourage or dissuade as necessary for that play group, but there are several factors related to player enjoyment that also say "Yes."
A player has only so many points to spend during character creation with which to define their character. I think it's fair to allow them some leeway to expand the definitions of their character even if the Narrator hasn't given them the go-ahead in an adventure to do it. The tools used to expand those definitions are advancement picks, earned through play. Players, in other words, earn advancement picks instead of characters, because the player should get his say.
As far as easier advancement at lower levels, that's true to a point. Some player, though, is going to have trouble escaping the gravity of his character's skill ranks and so be prevented from developing the character he wants. That is, if I can't ever manage to get a damn TN 15 Swim check down (remembering environmental modifiers), then I'm going to keep getting screwed until I get lucky. That feels like a punishment for playing, rather than a reward. All games should reward play. I don't think the level-less spectrum of advancement is worth the player frustration, even if it's rare.
Good points, all, and well stated.
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Story-driven ways to encourage players to make particular choices are great. Giving players opportunities and automatically raising some skills still undermines the player's participation in the game. Since their character is the avatar in the game and the story, that restriction will eventually spill over into their ability to participate in the story, too. The existing system, while imperfect, encourages creative ways to engage in skills by encouraging players to play up their character's strengths rather than their weaknesses.
Your system specifically encourages characters to do the things they're bad at. That's counter-intuitive and doesn't sound like much fun.
I don't follow this argument at all, I'm afraid.
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It certainly does. If I want ranks in a skill, I have a barrier to entry which I must surpass as a player before I get to have my way with my own character. I can't put ranks in my Games skill until I get lucky on a die roll during the game (with my +1 modifier) and beat a chess master, in your system. Horizontal character growth not only includes skills, it's made up mostly of skills.
I do follow that one! I understand your point, but I'd think it kind of odd that a character suddenly gains gaming skill out of the blue, as a totally arbitrary notion. Besides, your scenario describes an Oppossed Roll, not a Challenging success, so you've revealed a hole in my design. Perhaps I should base an award on degree of success? I considered that, but then you'd have high level players constantly getting Extraordinary successes off of Simple and Routine successes. Maybe awards by degree of success only apply to Oppossed Rolls?
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Your system also suggests that there is nothing to be learned from failure, I should point out. Chaosium's house system does cover that sort of thing, I think.
I don't recall this from Chaosium. Seems like if you have to track experience for successes as well as failures, you're automatically doubling the amount of bookkeeping required. Yuck.
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Your system is arguably more organic, but I can't yet agree that organic is necessarily better. There's a very real place for an arbitrary system, even in Middle-earth. I say it's exactly right for a player to be the arbiter of his own character. I say that the great thing about Coda character advancement is that it extends the character creation (or definition) process throughout the whole of a campaign, giving the player the power to tweak, color, and detail his character for as long as that character is alive.
The specific method that Decipher has used might be statistically unsound. The notion of a levelling mechanic is not. Further, all of the characters within my campaign use a single method, so I can use it to gauge their power level to some extent. I used Gimli as an example because if I said Sheriff Cotton, it wouldn't have meant anything. I'd think that the flexibility of the levelling system Coda uses (which could also be seen as intangibility or fogginess) would appeal more to level-less fans, but I guess I was wrong about that. :)
I've got to reinforce, here, that I don't think your system is unplayable or devoid of fun and use for you or your players (or a thousand other players who might be lurking right now). I just don't think your method fixes anything. I think it's weaknesses lay exactly where the Coda system's don't, and vice versa. It's a step sideways, not a step up, in my opinion. In that way, your method is exactly right for those folks who don't like the Coda system. I don't concede, though, that this reveals the Coda method of advancement as inherently "problematic."
Well said. Again, CODA's main flaw, IMO, is the astounding rate of advancement. I'd love to arrive at the "ultimate solution", but I think, as you say, it all comes down to taste.
I don't think my system is perfect by any means, that's why I've invited you all to come poke holes in it. Ideally, our collaboration would help me arrive at the "ultimate" XP system, which I think is what you're after as well. But for me such a system has to:
1. Require as little bookkeeping as humanly possible while still observing a certain consistent logic. CODA's logic I can live with, even Advancements, but all that bookkeeping, jeez. "Dammit Jim, I'm a storyteller, not a accountant!"
2. Discourage rapid-fire advancement. One level per session is what you get with CODA (played "by the book"), and that's just waaay to much, IMO.
Hey me too, but seriously, I'll continue to think on it and I'd love to hear what you end up with.Quote:
I also think I've just written the same three sentences like nine times each, so I'm going to stop rambling your ear now! :)
T.
As mentioned on the Decipher boards, T, this experience award is not meant to be applied for every successful test. Only those that are of imprtance and relevance. Aragorn's use of Intimidate (Majesty) to convince Eomer not to attack in the Two Towers (as described in the book) is a good example. Every tracking test Aragorn made while following the orcs would not.Quote:
Originally posted by Taliesin
Yeah, the rule is, you award a number of XP equal to the TN of the test. It applies to every succesful test! In addition, all of your comrades earn half of what you earned. This is a bookkeeping nightmare, way more than my system, if played "by the book".
Fair enough, but--as I said on the Decipher board--I don't generally ask players to make rolls that aren't important to advancing the story. Let's take the example of a party trying to catch a company of Uruk-hai: the party meets with a log spanning a rocky chasm. Some might argue that this is not "important" or "relevant" to the story. But, as a Narrator, I don't require an Acrobatics roll to walk that log unless it is important to the story—if if it's no big deal, I leave out the log, or just have the character's scamper across. If one of the guys doesn't make his roll and is injured, the party's movement rate is going to be cut in half, or more. Uruks are lost, chapter goal is not realized.Quote:
Originally posted by Doug Burke
As mentioned on the Decipher boards, T, this experience award is not meant to be applied for every successful test. Only those that are of imprtance and relevance. Aragorn's use of Intimidate (Majesty) to convince Eomer not to attack in the Two Towers (as described in the book) is a good example. Every tracking test Aragorn made while following the orcs would not.
The Core Book admits that there's a subjective element to deciding which tests are "important" and which are not. That is an undesirable state of affairs, IMO. Something as imporatnt as XP awards and should be spelled out for all to see, so eveyone understands how and why experience is awarded. Leaving it to the whims of the Narrator, IMO, is inviting controversy where there need be none. I'm usually, a fan of the flexibility inherent in the CODA system (for things like mook damage and so forth), but experience awards should be more B&W, enabling players to track their own experience and advancements, with the Narrator just checking their accounting before awarding the Advancement.
FWIW,
T.
Interesting system, Taliesin. Alas, it's a bit too complicated for me I think, though I may try it when I've got a little more experience under my belt. :cool: I've got a big belt and only a size 28 waist, so I really need to fit a lot more experience under it! :D
What might work best for me is like a check list of what should give a character experience and how much, and when you have recieved 1000 you get your advancement like normal. Like Jeff, I really love the idea of the players doling out an extra experience bonuses among themselves too.
I'll have to think on it all for a while, let it sit in the back of my mind and muse over it in my free times... :)
I use the following checklist to award XP to my players (some of it should look familiar since it's pulled right out of the core book). Note that I run the game in a series of story arc that I call 'Books,' and each book is broken down into chapters, with each chapter equalling 1 game session.Quote:
Originally posted by ben hur
What might work best for me is like a check list of what should give a character experience and how much, and when you have recieved 1000 you get your advancement like normal. Like Jeff, I really love the idea of the players doling out an extra experience bonuses among themselves too.
Successful completion of Book's primary objective(s):
1,000 (divided amongst PCs)
Successful completion of Book's secondary objective(s):
500 (divided amongst PCs)
Successful completion of major scene purpose:
100 (divided amongst PCs)
Successful completion of test related to story objectives:
TN of test (divided amongst the players making the test)
Roleplaying:
(per player per session)
Exceptional: 50
Excellent: 40
Good: 30
Fair: 20
Player showed up: 10
Writing:
Session Notes (each session): 10 (one person takes official chronicle notes)
History/Free Writing Variable on length; no more than 50 for one piece
Chronicle Assistance:
Transcription of Session Notes (each session) 10
Extra work (PDF creation, character sheet generation, maps, graphics, etc.) 10 or variable if lots of work done
This system has worked very well for me, and keeps the heroes advancing at a reasonable rate. No advancement per session nonsense; the heroes advance at least once every chapter, but not more than twice, in my experience.
I'm also instituting a simple system where the players have the option to reward some discretionary XP each session to each other. I'm going to give each player two poker chips, which represent Courage points. These two chips are to be awarded to another player at their discretion--if they feel a player has role-played well enough to get a reward, they can give them one of their chips. The chips will count as either a Courage Point, or at the end of the session the player can trade it in for an XP amount I'm still thinking about, maybe 25 or 50 or something. Not a lot, but possibly enough to get them that much closer to their next advancement.
I'm thinking maybe each player should just have one discretionary point to distribute...not sure yet. If a player chooses not to award their point, it's lost--they don't get to keep it themselves.
I'll have to see how it goes.
Neat. Thanks. :cool:
This has been a very interesting topic, with good suggestions and ideas.
Our group os going to start a LotR adventure soon, and will have the honours of narrating :D
We all got together and had a look at the rules and all and we decided that the XP system was not of our liking. (it is good enough but we had other things in mind)
Basically we are going to use something more akin to vampire/werewolf XP system. So this is how we worked it out.
Basically you get 5 points for every advancement (1000XPs) so we decided that roughly 1 point costs 200 XPs. So instead of awarding XPs we award what we call advancement points.
Now, before I go on on how they are awarded and what are the benefits of this system, I would like to point out something.
For every advancement we get to spent 5 points in increasing skills known, acquirenew skills, edges, order abilities, stats, health, acquire new order, etc.
So it seems that say compared to a D20 system you have to get something like 5 advancements to get the benefits of 1 level. Of course a direct comparison is no good since they are fundamentally different systems (sklil-based Vs level-based), but anyaway.
So in my most humble opinion I think 1 advancement per session is actually a good guidline for an average award, and I stress the word guidline (not rule).
Now when you award points instead of XPs we face the difficulty of not being able to divide them in smaller parts, i.e. you either get one or not. But this drawback I think is balanced by the fact that the characters grow in a more organic way. They do not need to wait to accumulate 1000XPs to improve a skill, they do it as soon as the get enough points. I think for us this represent, for example, one character (let's give him a name shall we...) call him Durandir, has in a gaming session used his stealth skill quite a lot, so he feels he got a lot of practise to justufy increasing the skill and so if he has enough points he does. He doesn't need to accumulate 1000XPs for doing that now, does he?
Now if they need to increase a more 'expensive' feature or eg get a new order they need more points. That for us would represent that Durandir would need to learn more stuff through his career and practise more and practise different skills in order to be adequately training to join a different order.
Now on to how experience is awarded. We prefer to take a more realistic time of view here. Meaning that one gets experience by learning and honing his skills. So what determines how much experience Durandir player will get one has to ask the following questions.
- What has Durandir learned (as a character) during the session?
examples may include: learning that trolls are tough and dangerous in combat, is not wise to be ruse to kings and lords, what cunning and subletly can achieve force cannot at certain times, learned information about forgotten lore, etc.
- What has Duarandir's player learned during the session?
examples: good role play makes a abetter session, he learned to think more like what his character would or shouls, etc.
Of course then there are things as well like good role playing, keeping notes or agood diary, heroic actions, etc.
Of course the narrator that the last word on how the points are spent. Obviously if Durandir in the whole session the only thing he did was hacking and slashing he only gets to increase combat related skills and so on.
I do not know if anyone has used anything similar but it dies siuts our group just fine. Even you don't get a full worth of 1000XPs advancement points (i.e. 5) by the end of the session you get to boost a couple of skill and watch your character grow. So you always have something to look forward to after every session.