CODA Advancements in a Campaign

[Doug Taylor]

This didn't seem to be that much of a problem when we had a Lord of the Rings campaign. The characters advanced quite a bit, and it was tough to find suitable adversaries for them, but the quckness of advancement wasn't really a problem or issue.

But now we're playing Star Trek pretty regularly (we have our next session scheduled for tomorrow), and we're at a pace of playing through an episode about every two sessions. Our characters seem to advance at a pace of about one Advancement per Episode, and that doesn't seem like too much, on the surface.

But if you stop and think about that, it means that the characters on the TV show would be advancing about 20-24 Advancements per year! Multiply that by the number of years we saw them (usually seven), plus the Advancements they had before we saw them on the show, and the numbers quickly break down. On just a five year mission, characters like Kirk and Spock would get 100+ Advancements!

Now it's my opinion that a few of the characters printed in the NG are a bit "underestimated" as regards to Advancements (especially McCoy and Tuvok). But still the numbers don't work out if you compare to the rate and speed that our characters are advancing at.

For our characters pasts, we used the recommended amount of one Advancement per year (two during a "War Year"). That seems about right. But when we actually sit down and role-play, they're getting much more than that.

I suppose one could rationalize that we don't do 20-24 Episodes each year. For timing purposes so far I've spaced it out so that we are only doing about 3 Episodes a Year. Still, that rate of advancement is much faster than even a "War Year" as Decipher recommends.

Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

[Fugazi Grrl]

Well, our Narrator wont allow a PC to start with fewer than 7 advances. She hates narrating for novice characters unless there's a couple of really, total bad-a$$es in the party. Or, in this case the crew.

I think this is a throwback to trying to GM D&D - you know, the infamous 1st-level, 1-hit-point Magic-User ?

The way I've always looked at the NG characters is that they get one advancement for every episode of their series in which they participate in a lot - like, Kirk's 66 advances come from his level of participation in 59 eps of TOS.

That would presume, though, that he started TOS with 0 advances, which wouldn't work since he had to have a pretty respectable career as a young officer to be granted a captaincy at that point in his career.

I agree that characters like Bones, and Tuvok should have had more advances. They were pretty heavily involved in most episodes of their respective shows - although I really think they could have chosen better sample characters for each show for the NG.

TOS is good, with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

But, for TNG I'd have liked to have seen Data, and Troi. For DS9 the addition of Odo. For Voyager, Paris, and Torres.

Another way of explaining the number of advances for Kirk would be the "two or three" advances advised in the PG for a starting-level officer. 66 - 3 = 63. 59 per ep of TOS, means he took command of the Enterprise with 7 advances.

This math might not work for all the NG characters, though.

I think, if the Decipher line had continued they'd have published sourcebooks for all the shows, and those would have included full stats for all the main characters, like they did with the Fellowship and Two Towers books for Lord of the Rings.

I just took a glance at the Fellowship sourcebook - and Gandalf has 66 advances. The same as Kirk. I'd have guessed closer to 120 for the Grey Wizard.

But, advances do make a character pretty powerful. So, maybe 66 works for Gandalf at the time of the first film. That's one of the things I love about the CODA system - how easy it is to create a very powerful character.

Having said all that, I think your advancement rate is about right. But, I like highly advanced, powerful PCs, and so does our narrator. So, I might be biased towards that end.

Years ago there was an online Trek RPG played by e-mail - The USS Galaxy - and they did about 5 episodes a year. Based on the dates on their archives, it took them about two months to run an episode.

So, maybe your number of eps a year is closer to that of the Galaxy than a regular TV series.

[Doug Taylor]

Thanks, FG. It sounds like perhaps we're not advancing way too fast.

I too prefer more experienced and advanced characters, and I'm really glad we decided to start out this way. It does make me think of the early days or role-playing, where everybody was 1st Level starting out. In Top Secret the joke used to be that you were 1st Level and naked, just dumped out of a car on a street corner, with $400 clutched in your hand.

That would have been cool to see those sourcebooks. I know a lot of people complain about the ones from LotR, but my only complaint is that they never got the Return of the King one published. I haven't used them a lot for RP purposes, but they're beautiful books that do provide a lot of insight by spotlighting the characters so well, and that can help a GM out when they get stuck.

I also agree about the characters they spotlighted. I like the ones they did, but it would have been great to see some other major characters, most especially the ones that are truly unique, like Data.

[Fugazi Grrl]

Do you find that using more advanced characters makes it easier on you, as a GM, to come up with stories and run them through to their natural conclusion ?

Tam has said, before, that there's nothing she hates more than spending a week writing up an adventure, doing an alien write-up or two, even a couple of planets - and then to have it all end in the "teaser" because some novice Ensign fails a dice-roll.

I think having more advanced characters makes it easier on the GM, when it comes to working up a challenging adventure with the feel of a TV episode or a movie.

[PGoodman13]

Novices fail, it's how they learn. It's not the end of the world if it happens, but as a writer/narrator you have to have trap doors for that sorta thing and be prepared for it. Everything can't hinge on that dice roll, especially that early in the story.

Sorry, I know from our emails that she puts in a lot of work, but it sounds to me like she's letting things stray out of her control a little with that sort of comment, and it just bothers the heck out of me to hear things like that. Possibly because I've been doing this for so many years, but that just tells me that something's wrong on her side of the screen.

[Fugazi Grrl]

No, Tamanny is not only the best GM I've ever played with but someone I am very closely, personally involved with. I find your comments a bit offensive, on a personal level.

Since you decided to make this personal, I HATE a game where a player is forced to start as a novice PC. It is an idiotic concept in my opinion. Especially in a Star Trek setting; and it has no basis in fact, or reality. Especially when one takes the "facts" of Star Trek, Starfleet, and the real-life military into account.

Think about Star Trek - how many regular characters on Televised Trek don't know their butt from a hole in the ground like your average 1st level character.

Ensign Chekov often looks as if he could outfight Captain Kirk if it came down to it.

Most of the failure Tamanny cannot stand at the gaming table comes from the fact that we are playing trained military officers 90% of the time. Her father saw active military service, achieved officer rank, and advises her on how a real military officer should function in the field.

A Starfleet Lieutenant Commander should never fail so disastrously that a whole away-team is killed because someone, somewhere, failed to roll a 3.

When she creates a gaming situation her scenarios and house rules are based on avoiding things like that. Not on some concept of a "challenge" for the player, or some kind of learning experience for the character. We don't see characters like Riker, McCoy, or Sulu "learn form their failures" on Trek, we see them succeeded against often insurmountable odds. That's why we admire them. That's why the characters on Trek are heroes to Trek fans.

When a kid wanted to play Star Trek in his back-yard back in the 70s, he didn't want to play Captain Kirk because Kirk took failure well. He wanted to play Kirk because no matter what you threw at Jim, you knew he'd win out.

You may have been playing roleplaying games longer than Tamanny's been alive. But, that doesn't mean we are required to play them for the same reasons you do, or enjoy them the same way you do.

Maybe I'm wrong but I would feel comfortable assuming that most Star Trek role-players are Star Trek fans. We don't watch Picard, Data, Scotty, and Spock fail, stupidly, because their players are unlucky at rolling dice, and then learn from it - one might argue Picard, for example, has learned all he needs to know.

And as Trek fans, I'm assuming most people would rather play a Picard, Data, Scotty, or Spock than a bumbling idiot who fails at the most rudimentary tasks over and over again, and deserves to get bawled out for failing their duty and endangering the rest of the away team.

Maybe I'm approaching this thing all wrong, but when we're playing Star Trek, we are playing Star Trek - not 1981 AD&D. I'm sorry if my Narrator's opinion offends you - I find the "novice character" concept offensive, so I think we're even there.

There's nothing wrong on Tam's side of the screen. There's something wrong with roleplaying games that force players to play novices just to hold to some archaic sense of "challenge" and "game balance" from a 30-year old set of rules that has, in itself, been rewritten and revised a good dozen times.

I know all RPGs have that "start at the bottom" junk as part of their rule-systems. Some are easier to dodge around with it than others - both CODA & ICON Trek make it easy to create a good starting character hero-type. A starter who does not fail as easily - maybe the character is robbed of that "learning experience" but at least the player had a good time playing him !

That's what is supposed to be important, right ? Having a good time enjoying a hobby ?

Who the heck wants to play a novice character anyway ? Why would any game, be it CODA, ICON, or Eden Games' Buffy, make it possible for a player to start out with a very, very powerful PC if it wasn't what some people want to do ? How many players over RPGing's 30+ years have voiced a complaint against the "1-hit point starting character" so that a starting character in Eden's Unisystem, can easily beat the tar out of a Vampire ?

I hate the incompetent green-horn starting characters in RPGs. Or, more accurately, I have no enjoyment whatsoever in playing them. It is the single worst thing about any role-playing game IMO. It's an embarrassment to me on so many levels.

The fact that people are forced to start out playing some dysfunctional stumble-bum just to earn "points" to make them a better person is an idiotic concept that should be done away with in all games, in my opinion.

Sure, we have ways of beating the "failed dice roll" - by making sure our game is 100% cinematic. No "Novices fail, it's how they learn." hard-line approach.

Nothing strays out of control at Tamanny's table. No beloved PC dies because some goon got in a lucky shot. And we play for the love of it, not to earn more points to make our characters more proficient killing machines.

This is 2011 - you sound like you're still running a game like it was 1980.

I know, from my own personal experience, that no drunken goon could beat up a sober expert in Muay Thai. A skilled Martial Artist can throw more than 2 punches in 6 seconds.

A well-trained pilot who has flown over 100 emergency missions and successfully navigated mine-fields while being fired upon is not going to have any trouble navigating an asteroid field with no distractions.

And an Android is always, always stronger than 3-5 men of equal size.

No matter what a pair of dice, book of rules, or harsh game-master says.

And there is no reason a player cannot start playing a character with all of those abilities, and all of that previous experience. People who watch Trek don't get a kick out of watching Worf get the crap beaten out of him. Why would someone playing a Star Trek character enjoy a night of gaming where their character is a stumbling fool, instead of a hero on a par with Lieutenant Worf ?

I play these games to play a character - not roll up a new one every night because some novice couldn't hold his own in a bar-fight.

Starfleet Academy is supposed to be the equal, in the 23rd and 24th centuries of West Point, or Annapolis. Do you think any graduate of West Point, or Annapolis is going to fall on their butt the first 10-20 times they try to perform their duties in the field just because of bad luck ? Maybe a lack of field-experience could result in failure 1 or 2 times, but then a smart CO would pull that person and send them back for further training before someone got killed because of the newbie's incompetence.

No, I can guarantee you that anyone good enough to attend those military academies is going to know a lot more about their field of study upon graduating from said school than the average Joe walking down the street. West Point, Annapolis, or Starfleet Academy wont graduate someone unless they can do their jobs. Thus "starting level" Starfleet PCs should be of equal skill.

How often does Ensign Harry Kim fail at his appointed tasks ? Did it take Geordi LaForge until he was 60 years old to make Chief Engineer ? In the real world, a kid can learn enough Karate by age-10 to beat the heck out of 3 grown men.

These things need to be taken into account before you try to convince me there is something wrong with the GMing style of the GM I play with. Bottom line - as a group we demand an incredibly high level of cinematic performance form our characters.

If a set of roleplaying rules derails this, in any way, we chuck it. Space Opera, FASA, AD&D - they've gone the way of the dodo at our table because the PCs don't start out powerful enough to create an atmosphere of high adventure straight out of the box.

I know the Academy wont graduate a fool who can't do his duty in the field. I know that Bruce Lee was experienced enough to teach Martial Arts at age 19. Would anyone want to watch a Bruce Lee movie where Bruce lost ?

I seriously doubt that.

and it just bothers the heck out of me to hear things like that

You may not agree with mine or Tam's opinion of low-powered starting characters. But that is no reason for you to question her GMing abilities in a public forum. A good GM tries to provide a fun evening for his or her group. And if that means banning characters who fail easily from the game, then that is what the GM should do.

What bothers me is that you would take umbrage with our GM's style without having even ever met her, or played with her. I take your comment very, very personally. Because 90% of what Tamanny insists upon at our table comes from things I have emphasized, pointed out, or suggested.

I hate playing novice characters. I hate when characters who have rules-legal levels of expertise in skills like Piloting and Martial Arts cannot perform as they would in the real world because I'm a bad crap-shooter. I hate RPGs that put more emphasis on earning "advancement points" than on the playing of a character or the telling of a story.

You're talking about the person who saved gaming for me by willingly GMing a more cinematic style of play. You're talking about the person who taught me the CODA system and keeps me playing it loyally.

I don't know how long you've been gaming, but I've been doing it for 27 years, Tam for 23, and her little sister for 12 years. And I can assure you, I'd never, ever tell a GM who has only been GMing for 5 or 6 years "you stink because you don't do it my way". Or "I disapprove of your style because I've been gaming longer than you."

I might point out that our group has more fun with a more cinematic game, or emphasize that any opinion I might have of a rule or a game mechanic is tainted by my own love of cinematic game-play, and that it might not be the standard or the norm for most players. But I'd never even insinuate that any other GM's style is "wrong" simply because I don't agree with it, or because it goes against the style I like.

I think starting a character out at "1st level" is silly. That is my opinion. I know most players and GMs don't hold well with this opinion. And it is not my place to try to change this. And, in turn, I ask that no one try to change my personal feeling that starting-character Can't-do-nothins have no place in any game I play in.

It is our game, after all. And we play it our way, and enjoy it. Very much.

I suggest you re-read the sections in the NG regarding running a game. And pay close attention to the parts about the GM making the game a fun experience for everyone involved. The same advice is given in ICON's Narrator's Toolkits, and it is usually the "prime directive" of most on-line RPGs.

We have a small group. But everyone at our table always has a good time. At the end of a Trek session we feel as if we have just watched an episode of Trek. At the end of a LotR session, we feel as if we have just read a chapter out of Tolkien. At the end of a Buffy session we feel as if we have just watched an episode of Buffy.

I've never come away from a game-session GM'd by Tam that felt like a video game hiding in a Star Trek costume.

I hope I never, ever sit down at your gaming table, sir. But, at the same time, I hope you always have a group to play with. And always have a good time playing, GMing, and enjoying RPGs the way you enjoy them. The way you like to play them.

I will stick with my GM, and her style. Which I believe to be the best style I've ever seen in GMing. Simply because it is with her that I've had the most fun, ever, gaming.

And that is what it's all about... isn't it ?

[PGoodman13]

Whoa. Cool your jets, FG. You're taking a lot of what I said completely the wrong way, and completely out of proportion.

Not going to respond to the rant, though. Nothing good will come of it. I'm sorry you took it personally, that you took it as an insult to your friend, and that you seem to think I'm the devil, since none of that was intended.

[RaconteurX]

I suggest everyone step back, breathe deep, and calm down before making further posts. Let's not make this a topic for moderation.

[Thakowsaizmu]

Novices fail, it's how they learn. It's not the end of the world if it happens, but as a writer/narrator you have to have trap doors for that sorta thing and be prepared for it. Everything can't hinge on that dice roll, especially that early in the story.

This is advice I have given a few of my friends who have just started DMing/GMing/Narrating/what-have-you. I am not sure where it comes from, maybe from older D&D modules or some such. But it is the worst way to write an adventure, because nine times out of ten, the adventure won't happen. Especially when the DC/TN (whatever) is set impossibly high.

[Sea Tyger]

I think that PCs should get advancements every two episodes; it seems about right for me. It allows for rapid-enough growth of PCs without making them too powerful, too quickly.

As far as starting advancements goes, I've started characters in many campaigns at low, moderate and high(er) level. The key, for me, is to make the tasks challenging, but not overwhelming, and also to manage expectations of less-experienced characters.

1st-level/low-powered/low-advancement characters are not going to be saving the galaxy/slaying the dragon/driving off the planet-eating supervillan. But that doesn't mean a low-level campaign can't be fun -- I love being able to play/run the "little guys" (or, to quote Mystery Men, "the other guys"). It makes the advancement of the campaign into the higher levels that much more enjoyable.

But, to each their own.

On the subject of success or failure of a mission hinging on a single die roll, I have to agree with Patrick & Thako. You always have to have an escape route (as a GM), if that critical roll fails.

[Doug Taylor]

I've really enjoyed playing experienced characters, though this is the first game I can remember doing it with (we've usually start out with the old "1st Level" characters as RPGs often recommend).

One thing I realy like about CODA is that there is some backstory and skill proficiency amongst the PCs, even at 0 advancements (especially with Trek, the PCs having already gone through the Academy), but with this campaign we all started out with numerous advancements, even the lowliest Ensign (who had about 9). This makes them competent enough in combat (and other dangerous situations) that they can hold their own and have a chance to shine.

I'd always subscribed to the "you start a character out low and build them up, so that you can feel that sense of accomplisment when they reach 20th (or whatever) level" concept, but playing "Main Characters" (Bridge Crew) as we've been doing for this Trek campaign has caused me to re-evaluate that paradigm. Often when we do one-shots (at Cons) we do experienced characters, and I think it can really enhance the experience. The GM just has to up the challenges to make things thrilling. Not only that, but there's always good moral dillemas and other puzzles that make it tough on the players, regardless of their Level or number of advancements.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

Simplest fix: Institute higher advancement costs after a certain threshold. After +8 ranks in a skill in CODA (or whatever you want, depending on how you feel about the bell curve), double the costs to accrue another rank. Traits might be handled differently, since if your character isn't being played as 'curious' giving them the

Or ditch the advancement system all together and get everyone else to vote on what the other players practiced well; maybe write up some packages which the group can assign to each other after some arbitrary threshold.

Personally, I've never really understood the per-episode advancement system; it should really happen between seasons. Riker's beard was not built in a day... er...

When a kid wanted to play Star Trek in his back-yard back in the 70s, he didn't want to play Captain Kirk because Kirk took failure well. He wanted to play Kirk because no matter what you threw at Jim, you knew he'd win out.

Actually, I as a child I thought Kirk's relationship with failure was kind of inspiring. cf. City on the Edge of Forever; "I need my pain," et cetera.

[somaticon]

We sometimes use a house rule wherein you can advance only in skills that you have used during session. We also use that if you want to advance a skill you haven't used that you need a good arguement for very similar to the old White Wolf system.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

We sometimes use a house rule wherein you can advance only in skills that you have used during session. We also use that if you want to advance a skill you haven't used that you need a good arguement for very similar to the old White Wolf system.

Yeah, any skill system needs a little bit of rationalization. Usually it takes the form of 'I didn't hit anything last session, I should put more points in Shotgun.'

[Doug Taylor]

Though we don't insist on it (and have it codified in any of our rules), we have done the same thing. Advancements, especially in skills, means they should be stuff you recently used or can provide a good storytelling reason for why your character is advancing in said skill.