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Equalizing Character Progression
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@Polk said in Equalizing Character Progression:
@Roz Why do you need to handle disparities?
Because a lot of character concepts get dull if you jump straight to page 200 of the story.
Sure, 3 months into a game, having people jump ahead a little bit isn’t a big deal.
But once a game is a year old, 2 years old? You’re skipping a lot of opportunity for character development.
I think this is fine if there are plenty of opportunities for new characters to have the pivotal events that shaped the old characters’ development.
Unfortunately, again, in a lot of cases there aren’t enough staff, and not enough staff who want to focus on building those experiences for new characters, to make that happen in the same way. The larger your XP gap between characters, the more you essentially are running two (or more) games on the same grid. Because low powered characters aren’t going to be able to participate in a satisfying manner in high powered plots, and while high powered characters can “slum it” in low powered plots, when they do so, it’s usually not a great experience for anyone else involved.
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@Faraday said in Equalizing Character Progression:
if you want to play a badass, you can start out as a badass.
This is the thing. This right here. In the kind of game I’m looking to run, I want people to be able to come onto the grid with a character that can instantly get involved with everyone and everything that fits the character concept. Hot Shit Homicide Detectives. Cunning Political Animals. Well-Connected Socialites.
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@Pyrephox Completely agreed.
I know how i’m going to be handling that as an ST (making sure plot hooks get seeded to the right PCs, and can’t get trivialized by the more powerful PCs), but you have to have a plan for that. It won’t just happen.
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@shit-piss-love said in Equalizing Character Progression:
Everything I’m about to say has the caveat of “This effect may be desirable for your game, games are different and can have different goals”. I actually raised this thread because I’m working on a design project and some degree of character progress equalization is an attribute I’m looking to achieve. Don’t @ me because this doesn’t solve every problem.
One big wrinkle with the “every Character earns XP at the same rate” and especially “every Character has the same sum total XP” structure is that games tend to have a finite number of progression options. There are only so many Attributes, Skills, Spells, etc and, variable by where the ceiling is, there’s going to be inflection points where Characters start to all become Jacks-of-all-trades with homogenous success. This is incidentally the prime reason that I don’t play Arx and I imagine it’s a big problem in WoD/CoD games as well. For the kind of game I’m trying to design right now, I want to encourage deep specialization and especially cut a line between combat/noncombat Characters.
I’ve tinkered with a lot of solutions to this and the one I think is most interesting alongside an Equal Progression structure of some time, is a hefty amount of options for purchasing expendable benefits and assets that are subject to loss. Favors with NPCs or Factions. Assets like a Bar that gives you some influence but can also be burned down, etc. The idea that something you spent XP on can be lost is sacrilege in some philosophies but for what I’m trying to achieve, I think it has the interesting effect of these temporary or risked benefits being attractive to the sorts of Characters that “dinos” tend to be; deeply enmeshed in the story of a game, standing atop organizations that seek to project power, conducting higher stakes conflict against other actors.
(edit: first paragraph sounds defense because it is. i was having this same thread of conversation elsewhere and got dogpiled with unhelpful “it doesn’t solve every problem” responses and it ruined my morning coffee)
I don’t like a lot of things Derp does but his XP for extras was a good idea. Not a fan of the for alts XP cost but I /like/ the cost for ‘special items’. So, could counter the excess XP for equal XP stuff by allowing spends for special items/plotlines/whatever. Like, someone could spend X amount of XP to get a plot specifically geared to them (which would probably work better on smaller games) and helping obtain personal goals. Or the xP could be used to gain an a-typical item: like could use it on a place like Arx that is more coded to be able to get a cool item created to add to the game or for any game a special object made to represent plot rewards, or a limited use item that gives them a benefit for one GMed plot. I don’t condone using XP to get alts. You’re basically forcing people to decide between playing what they want or progressing their current character. If you want people to have limited number of alts (1 alt, 2 alts, etc) just list it as your rule.
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@shit-piss-love said in Equalizing Character Progression:
I want people to be able to come onto the grid with a character that can instantly get involved with everyone and everything that fits the character concept. Hot Shit Homicide Detectives. Cunning Political Animals. Well-Connected Socialites.
I’ll come in with the super unpopular opinions: why can’t you just do this. Just give people whatever skills they want, if they make sense with the background and concept. This wouldn’t work in a big game, I guess, because of the time required to do apps.
I don’t really care much about stats and rarely use them, they’re just a thing to make goals and do numbers go up. That said, I won’t join an FS3 game after it’s well established. It’s too frustrating - and I agree with @sao about the OOC limitations on FS3 xp. It’s very demoralizing.
as previously stated, good day.
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@farfalla said in Equalizing Character Progression:
@shit-piss-love said in Equalizing Character Progression:
I want people to be able to come onto the grid with a character that can instantly get involved with everyone and everything that fits the character concept. Hot Shit Homicide Detectives. Cunning Political Animals. Well-Connected Socialites.
I’ll come in with the super unpopular opinions: why can’t you just do this. Just give people whatever skills they want, if they make sense with the background and concept. This wouldn’t work in a big game, I guess, because of the time required to do apps.
I don’t really care much about stats and rarely use them, they’re just a thing to make goals and do numbers go up. That said, I won’t join an FS3 game after it’s well established. It’s too frustrating - and I agree with @sao about the OOC limitations on FS3 xp. It’s very demoralizing.
You absolutely can do that! And I think you’re right that it becomes a tougher situation as the game size scales.
This is actually a lot easier to achieve if you move away from systems that emphasize dice pools with wide bands. The thing I’m working on now borrows a lot from Blades in the Dark concepts for this reason.
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@sao The problem with Dominica is one I actually also had with Diego for a bit — but I think it was a Spirit Lake issue, rather than an FS3 issue. When you only have basic skills/attributes/advantages to spend XP on, and you can start with them at maximum or one dot below maximum, there’s a lot less possibility to fall behind. But when magical abilities start at nearly zero (which was an awesome experience to play, don’t get me wrong) and can build up through the entire range of the skills (plus all the spells), there’s a lot more room to fall behind, and it definitely doesn’t feel good, particularly when higher level spells make mundane tools and lower level spells entirely obsolete.
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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One of the issues normalizing character progression has can be that incentivizing certain behaviors - such as running PrPs - is difficult as it is, simply because there are few things staff can reward which are meaningful.
If everyone has the same progression then that’s one less carrot available to game-runners.
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@Arkandel I don’t GM, can I have xp for being a goddamn delight?
as previously stated, good day.
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@Arkandel said in Equalizing Character Progression:
One of the issues normalizing character progression has can be that incentivizing certain behaviors - such as running PrPs - is difficult as it is, simply because there are few things staff can reward which are meaningful.
If everyone has the same progression then that’s one less carrot available to game-runners.
Although, honestly, a lot of people find simple recognition to be worth as much as XP. Or, better yet (but much less simple), integrating the results of a PrP into the game in some fashion.
I remember way back when in Darkwater, I ran a fairly simple PrP and, completely without being asked, Cobalt changed that grid room to have a bonus to harvesting fear for a while because of how that PrP turned out.
It was legitimately one of the most motivating experiences I ever had as a MU* GM. It was a very minor bonus, and I’m not sure anyone even USED it for anything, but just seeing “hey, you did a thing, and the world we’re playing in changed” was enough.
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@Arkandel I’m with @Pyrephox on this one: incentivize with recognition, not XP. Folding PrP results into major plot lines, changing room descs, having NPCs mention PrP results, make the events part of the game’s canon and I’ll run a lot more PrPs than if I get some extra XP — and that’s as a self-admitted power gamer.
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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Also, facilitate PrP running. Like, I run PrPs - at least single-scenes - in almost every single game I play on.
Except Arx.
I couldn’t do it on Arx. Hell, I couldn’t even run anything on Arx when I was theoretically staff for a bit. I never once felt I understood the system or the truth of the setting enough to be able to run a plot on that game. I was constantly paralyzed by the feel that I would Get Something Wrong, and so I just…didn’t try.
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Honestly I don’t want xp rewards for gming. Dominica should not be more badass because I ran a plot. She should be more badass because of her IC effort. That’s part of why it always bugged me that I missed out on her development because of my OOC forgetting stuff. It reflected on her and I never thought it should.
let it be a challenge to you
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@Roadspike said in Equalizing Character Progression:
@Arkandel I’m with @Pyrephox on this one: incentivize with recognition, not XP. Folding PrP results into major plot lines, changing room descs, having NPCs mention PrP results, make the events part of the game’s canon and I’ll run a lot more PrPs than if I get some extra XP — and that’s as a self-admitted power gamer.
At the risk of derailing this thread, the difference is between having the option and exercising it.
In other words if your XP curve is normalized you simply cannot reward XP directly. It’s not in your toolkit as staff.
So it’s something to at least factor in to the conversation.
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@sao I give the same rewards for GMing that I give for playing. So you don’t lose out by taking your turn telling a story.
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@Arkandel said in Equalizing Character Progression:
@Roadspike said in Equalizing Character Progression:
@Arkandel I’m with @Pyrephox on this one: incentivize with recognition, not XP. Folding PrP results into major plot lines, changing room descs, having NPCs mention PrP results, make the events part of the game’s canon and I’ll run a lot more PrPs than if I get some extra XP — and that’s as a self-admitted power gamer.
At the risk of derailing this thread, the difference is between having the option and exercising it.
In other words if your XP curve is normalized you simply cannot reward XP directly. It’s not in your toolkit as staff.
So it’s something to at least factor in to the conversation.
On the contrary I think this point is super relevant. Part of the idea of equalizing XP is to try to keep an even footing. Rewarding with XP is explicitly providing material advantage.
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@farfalla said in Equalizing Character Progression:
That said, I won’t join an FS3 game after it’s well established. It’s too frustrating
I’m curious why though?
On BSGU, opening day, the best fighter pilots left chargen with 6 piloting, 6 gunnery.
2 years later, you could still leave chargen with 6 piloting, 6 gunnery.
And the pilots who were there on day 1? They only had 6 piloting, 7 gunnery. (or vice versa)
Sure they might have a couple extra points in secondary skills, but anyone can come out of cg virtually at the max both in total number of action skills and skill level. And with only 2-3 core skills for each profession and many free background skills, there’s ample ability to start off both awesome at what you do and well-rounded.
At least that’s how it is in the default config and core philosophy. There have certainly been some FS3 games out there that have done some weird things.
@farfalla said in Equalizing Character Progression:
Just give people whatever skills they want, if they make sense with the background and concept. This wouldn’t work in a big game, I guess, because of the time required to do apps.
I did this on Martian Dreams with a precursor system to FS3. Players really didn’t like it. It’s like they thought it was some kind of trap and they found it unnerving.
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@shit-piss-love said in Equalizing Character Progression:
On the contrary I think this point is super relevant. Part of the idea of equalizing XP is to try to keep an even footing. Rewarding with XP is explicitly providing material advantage.
That’s an excellent point.
One of the worst things staff can do on a MU* is force their players to choose between advancing/working on their own characters or doing something that’s great for the game overall.
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@Faraday If so, what is the point of xp at all, if nothing changes? Either the xp is irrelevant, or someone joining 2 years later is never going to catch up. I don’t even care about stats much, everyone on Arx could have better stats than me and I wouldn’t care. But psychologically I know I could if I wanted to, I’m not somehow “behind”.
as previously stated, good day.
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@farfalla said in Equalizing Character Progression:
@Faraday If so, what is the point of xp at all, if nothing changes? Either the xp is irrelevant, or someone joining 2 years later is never going to catch up. I don’t even care about stats much, everyone on Arx could have better stats than me and I wouldn’t care. But psychologically I know I could if I wanted to, I’m not somehow “behind”.
You can somewhat mitigate this issue by tuning your progression curve to higher rates of diminishing returns.
