RPG Theory: Starting Awesome, Part 2

[amnesiack]

In an exciting confluence of events, my musings on experience in games yesterday was followed by an interesting post to the Fate RPG mailing list on virtually the same subject. I encourage you to read it here: http://tinyurl.com/2hjztr.

I found this piece to be particularly intriguing:

QUESTION THE FIRST: Do I need to include "advancement"?

Something the debut Fate 3.0 game Spirit of the Century makes no bones about is that its cast members should be considered in many ways "complete"-- Ie, they've figured themselves out to a point, and the rest is prioritizing and drama. Members of the century club are beyond broadening horizons and more about using what they've gained.

Consider whether "progression" is a big motivator for your setting. Maybe character growth will come more from the evolution and replacement of aspects as plots resolve and relationships change. Maybe your story focusing on an elite black-ops crew needs to focus on drama-- they're already elite, right? Maybe "leveling" would be a distraction from the game's real themes!

If so, skip it. I mean it. Forget the rest of this article and play what fits your game.

So, my question to you is this: How would you feel about playing a game that had no traditional advancement at all? You're characters would grow as "people", but you wouldn't be adding new points to the sheet. Periodically, you would be able to shuffle things around ("My character has been doing a lot of fighting lately, but very little water-skiing. I'll remove a level from Athletics and add it to Brawl") or possibly remove a low-level skill entirely and replace it with a new one, but the actual talley of points on your sheet would remain pretty well static.

This would, of course, assume that the game you are playing is set up so that your character "starts awesome."

Having never actually done it before, I think it's something that I would be interested in trying. I can see several benefits to this:
1) The GM always has a good idea of what your characters can do (assuming that the "shuffling" mentioned above occurs only at GM-specified intervals) and the power levels at which they operate, which defines not just a few sessions, but the entire campaign.
2) It would make it less likely that different characters would start stepping on the toes of each others' main shticks, assuming that you have a variety of concepts/skill sets from the get-go.
3) If you play in games where some players miss the game periodically, characters won't start out-powering one another, because people aren't going to be gaining bunches of character points that the person who missed didn't.
4) Related to the previous point, it makes it very easy to bring in new characters, because the starting (and, therefor, ongoing) character power level is already set.

Thoughts?

Comments

[jewjaydiction.livejournal.com]

The "starting awesome" thing is what makes it, but it needs breadth as well as depth. Shuffling points to, for example, learn a language you didn't know you'd need before your character ran into an NPC who spoke it as their primary language, will seem like a better deal if you have a lot of abilities to change around than if you'd have to sacrifice points from your major area of focus.

[amnesiack.livejournal.com]

True. It's a mode of play that lends itself to variation remarkably easily, though. For instance, you could meet halfway between keeping several of the stated benefits and also having advancement by doing periodic, modular advancement, rather than regular xp.

To use Exalted as an example, rather than 8-10xp per session and 20-30 xp at the end of each story, you could eliminate experience points and session awards in favor of across-the-board bulk raises at the end of each story, awarding, say, 1 Attribute dot, 3 Ability dots, and 5 Charms at the end of the story. Of course, Exalted isn't really the best system for this kind of advancement, but I think the point comes through.

[jewjaydiction.livejournal.com]

I think it could work for a long-time-span game (Sidereals, for example); it's not the typical Solar "Today, Gem! Tomorrow, Creation!" chronicle, but still fun.

[grandmoffdavid.livejournal.com]

Personally, I generally want to press the lever and get my food pellet. Luther is one of the few characters I've had where I think he's bad-ass enough that I'm pretty satisfied with him. (Which is not to say I didn't buy up his dodge after last session.)

I'm actually pretty happy with the way I handled this in LARPS, where you could take the age disadvantage and balance your rate of exp gain to starting power. That way everyone could make the decision for themselves. The only trick is balancing it for the length of the chronicle.

[capt-blargh.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a character that is complete. I always felt that the WoD stuff we played in school felt right as far as leveling went. very little xp given out and we generally didn't advance too far. i think the none leveling or just stats shifting ideas are nice. It allows for more of a character creation with out the players worrying about their particular "Gimmick" behind the char. Its there its in place and we can move on from that point.

its always bothered me, among other things, that a char with in a few weeks time can become UBER. in my last dnd game i ran i didnt give out xp. after each major encounter durring down time i let them level. While i didnt care for it at the time i think back now to the elric game if you didnt use a power/skill you cant level it and there is still a chance it wont happen. i think that has a bit more realizm to it but if a cast of chars doesnt share the same view on the system they would get very discouraged.

[amnesiack.livejournal.com]

I like your system for D&D. If I was ever running a level-based game, there's a good chance I would do it that way, as long as I could get buy-in from the players.

Part of the problem with old-school Elric is that so much of character creation is random (including race and class, if I remember), so you have such a wide-range of competency to begin with that it's hard to ever achieve any sort of balance. But I am a big fan of the "use it if you want to improve it" model. If you ever get a chance to read Burning Wheel (http://www.burningwheel.com), it has a highly developed and effective version of this mechanic.

[graypawn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad someone mentioned Stormbringer. Now i Really want to read Burning Wheel.

[yurodivuie.livejournal.com]

I really like the idea (part of why I would like to play Nobilis some day). Basically, each character has a realm of influence where he is at least comparable to anyone he or she will ever meet.

On the other hand, I suddenly realize that I've never actually played in a level based system, or done the traditional farm boy to king plot line. I think that actually might be cool to try some time. Huh.

[(Anonymous)]

I've played and ran several 1+ year D&D campaigns; one 2nd Ed, the rest 3e and 3.5e. While I normally loathe levels, it somehow works in D&D due to the sliding-scale monster system. You start with your garden variety Kobolds, and work your way up from there in the grand Final Fantasy tradition.

As for the farm-boy-to-king plotline, in my opinion D&D starts to break down around 7th or 8th level, which is really the level where you're on par with a well-equipped starting Dragon-Blood. Here, the problem is that the monsters have gotten so large and specialized, and the spells and powers so varied and complex, that you're playing an utterly tactical game of Exalted at this point, without the benefit of stunts, motivations, virtues, limits, or a social-fu system.

In those lower-levels, though, a well-crafted D&D party is a thing of beauty, very much like a hand-picked Final Fantasy Tactics hit-squad.

[hansandersen.livejournal.com]

That was me. Dagnabbit, stupid browser timeout.

[amnesiack.livejournal.com]

If I was going to run a semi-traditional rags-to-riches fantasy story, I can almost guarantee I would use Burning Wheel for it.

[yurodivuie.livejournal.com]

Of course, now that I'm aware that Changeling is in fact being rereleased, I lean slightly in a different direction for my next fantasy game. Hmm... it's a toss up.

[amnesiack.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm super excited about that. It's being released at GenCon Indy this year. Of course, from the tiny teasers that I've read, it looks like it's going to be almost nothing like oWoD Changeling.

[graypawn.livejournal.com]

Where can I go to read about it? I'm super excited. I hope so very much that it blows me away.

[amnesiack.livejournal.com]

Most of what I know has come from little tidbits on rpg.net. The game is due out at GenCon Indy in August, so I think we'll start seeing teasers from White Wolf starting in June or July.

[graypawn.livejournal.com]

It's funny...

I can point to my two most favorite games of all time. First i would cite 'Afterworld,' a Home Brew game where we all played Anthropomorphic Dinosaurs in a slightly futuristic world. Think 'Die Hard' and 'Ninja Turtles' combined. We started awesome, stayed awesome, and even gained a few things. However, they were very, very specific. I got +2 to rocket launchers, for instance, because i shot a semi truck off of a bridge when it was persuing us. Until then, my character had nominal experience with rocket launchers. And, now that i think of it, i never shot a rocket launcher again in that game, not for the two years after i got the +2. Why? it wasn't in the character.

Two is a campaign in GURPS. While i still have my misgivings about the system, the GM really used it to his advantage to start us out as 'seasoned' heroes, but really let us grow in power along the way. It was especially amazing how i wanted to start as a Jedi knockoff, but couldn't afford it. So after buying Wolverine's power set and adding a Venom-symbiont suit, the last leg of the adventure comes and he outright GIVES me Jedi powers. I reached Nerd-vanna.

So...i guess i just wanted to say this was an awesome thread and i will be spacing out at work all day tomorrow constantly thinking about it's concepts...huzzah.