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RPG Theory: Starting Awesome, Part 2
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:
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?
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?
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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.
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