When You Aren't Playing To Level

[hanasays]

Originally Posted by RFisher

Classic Traveller. I tend to have a hard time understanding people for whom mechanical improvements to their PC is a primary element of the hobby.

A lot of it is a sense of one-upmanship, something that seems to have gotten stronger with later editions of D&D. I started with 2nd ed. Even the difference between that and 4th ed. of the same series, and how the focus of the game has changed, can be pretty amazing. Character optimization has become far more important and sometimes the games just feel like the players are trying to outdo each other more than actually defeat a villain. There's really a sense of competition between the players themselves, as opposed to earlier editions where the focus was more on cooperation (failure to cooperate generally meant you died). I'm not saying it's bad - I'm just saying it's different and how the focus of the mechanics seem to have shifted. I'm sure that for this observation, there are 50 that someone else can provide of how they haven't changed or how they have shifted away from that. That's merely my perspective. D&D may appeal to a sub-set of gamers for whom a sense of one-upmanship is something that they want or expect from a game.

One of the reasons the last campaign was run using AD&D was because we wanted a little more freedom, and a little less focus on character optimization. We were interested in being classic fantasy characters rather than superheros.

I'm not characterizing all D&D players with my previous statement, I'm just saying that this tends to hold true for many of the groups I have played in. Especially evil or politics-heavy campaigns where the PCs are often trying to gain an advantage or otherwise double-cross their own party members while still somehow stumbling toward a mutual goal. On the other hand, we also approached this with a good-natured humor - it was hilarious watching our own PCs repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot.

And it's not a bad thing, it's just a certain element of a game that may appeal to some people and put other people off.

It can also be fun trying to come up with story reasons to explain why your PC suddenly developed a bizarre new skill, or using your PC to do absurd and unrealistic things. I've played some over-the-top cartoony campaigns with a focus on character optimization that were hilarious because the characters were so ridiculous and overpowered that we were actually having a really hard time explaining how or why they could do the ridiculous things they were doing. It devolved into comedic hack-and-slash and it was very fun.

[RFisher]

Originally Posted by hanasays

A lot of it is a sense of one-upmanship, something that seems to have gotten stronger with later editions of D&D.

Don’t take this as disagreement with anything you wrote, but I’ll share more of my experiences.

When I first really noticed how important mechanical advancement was for a friend of mine was years ago when we were playing primarily GURPS and Rolemaster. It was truly not an upmanship thing with him, but just an aspect of the game that was really important to him.

Likewise, I don’t see any competition among my current group in this area. When we were playing Decipher’s LotR game it wasn’t comments about how some PCs were advancing slower than others; it was comments about how the whole party was advancing slower than they wanted. (Or maybe just than they were used to.)

To ramble a bit: It feels so artificial to me. In most stories the characters don’t ever really progress in abilities significantly. When it does happen, it’s usually just one character. (e.g. Luke in Star Wars eps IV–VI.) Or it’s over a lifetime—usually over many stories with no real progression within any one story. (e.g. Conan) Or you have things like the Harry Potter series or Ender’s Game in which you’re dealing with young people going through their education. (Despite the fact that they’re also saving the world at the same time.)

(Of course, I ignore as much as possible all literature based on D&D.)

I’ve been wondering a lot about what an RPG would look like in which most PCs would be fairly static mechanically yet still have support for the youth whose education is ongoing or the character who choose to take up a new specialty late in life.

[Pierson_Lowgal]

You have to remember, most group's games aren't very complicated or role playing heavy either because the players aren't interested or no one in the group can handle story-writing or game-mastering at that level. When the stories aren't splendidly engaging, gaining a level is the primary way to show the characters they have achieved something, and I think most people are interested in achievement.

As for xp, once you are familiar with a system, or if the game tells you how many sessions are 'supposed' to equal a level gain, abandon xp and just give out experience at a rate the GM and players are comfortable with. I abandoned calculating XP in 3.X DnD because it was just another time-waster. I knew how many sessions I wanted a level to be, and then gave out a little more or a little less xp per session depending on how effective the PC's were.

[amethal]

Originally Posted by Pierson_Lowgal

You have to remember, most group's games aren't very complicated or role playing heavy either because the players aren't interested or no one in the group can handle story-writing or game-mastering at that level. When the stories aren't splendidly engaging, gaining a level is the primary way to show the characters they have achieved something, and I think most people are interested in achievement.

I'd never really considered it before, but I agree with you.

In D&D 3.5 there is also a strong incentive to get as much gold as possible, to buy better magic items. I have a lot more issues with this than I do with the XP system.

Carrying 45 goblin shortswords out of the dungeon so you can sell them later (presumably to more goblins - who else would want to buy them?), haggling over the amount of the reward when asked by a farmer to try and find his missing child, having characters whose short term goal is always "find the nearest shop", none of this is the kind of game I want to play.

Groups can slow down or speed up XP progression to suit their personal tastes, but you tinker with the wealth system at your peril.

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally Posted by RFisher

Don’t take this as disagreement with anything you wrote, but I’ll share more of my experiences.

When I first really noticed how important mechanical advancement was for a friend of mine was years ago when we were playing primarily GURPS and Rolemaster. It was truly not an upmanship thing with him, but just an aspect of the game that was really important to him.

Likewise, I don’t see any competition among my current group in this area. When we were playing Decipher’s LotR game it wasn’t comments about how some PCs were advancing slower than others; it was comments about how the whole party was advancing slower than they wanted. (Or maybe just than they were used to.)

To ramble a bit: It feels so artificial to me. In most stories the characters don’t ever really progress in abilities significantly. When it does happen, it’s usually just one character. (e.g. Luke in Star Wars eps IV–VI.) Or it’s over a lifetime—usually over many stories with no real progression within any one story. (e.g. Conan) Or you have things like the Harry Potter series or Ender’s Game in which you’re dealing with young people going through their education. (Despite the fact that they’re also saving the world at the same time.)

(Of course, I ignore as much as possible all literature based on D&D.)

I’ve been wondering a lot about what an RPG would look like in which most PCs would be fairly static mechanically yet still have support for the youth whose education is ongoing or the character who choose to take up a new specialty late in life.

You could try it out yourself - just don't grant any XP. I think this is one of the aspects where "classic" stories and RPGs do sometimes diverge. But are from all - Conan becomes a King eventually. The Hobbits gain fighting skill and when they get home, they easily defeat the bandits trying to take control of it.
Many other heroes are only found in a single book or movie. Some of them feature advancement, others have the characters already be strong and well-trained (typical for action heroes). Others feature a kind of "mix" - superhero stories grant the characters often a sudden boost (gaining their superpowers), but they have to learn using their powers. But after that, not much is happening in that regard.

I think it is hard to say there is one consistent type of advancement in stories.

But very often, advancement might seem not as significant because we rarely watch the protagonists of story their entire career. We only watch the highlights. PCs, we follow from 1st level to 20 or 30th level in D&D.

There are games where this is different. Many point buy systems tend to have you start with a certain degree of competence, and advancement is typically slower. In Shadowrun, you would probably train one or two skills after each Run - a far cry from 2+INT skill points, dx hit points, a feat or spell and a +1 to attacks or saves you might get in D&D after one adventure.

Anyway, advancement in RPGs an come in the "role-play" reward - succeeding at a task, getting revenge, finding allies and friends. But your character is barely expressed by all this "world" connections. In mechanic terms he is described in great detail in entirely other aspects. It seems to follow naturally that players will want to see their "success" or advancement also be reflected in the mechanical representation of their characters.

If you'd find a way to represent "deeds" in mechanics, maybe you wouldn't need "skill" advancement.

To bring up my favorite example for everything: Torg grants PCs possibility points for concluding individual acts in a storyline (adventure) or the entire storyline. You can use them to improve your skills or statistics, but you could also just "hoard" them and use them to improve specific results you roll. In Torg, these possiblities actually have a ingame reflection, and it is a resource highly sought by the High Lords, each having ways to "steal" them from a hapless victim or even an entire cosm. But they also reflect "story" success - a special case is using the "Glory" card, that grants each party member another 3 possibilities if they perform a spectacular task (rolling 60+ with a d20 roll again on a 10 or 20 mechanic). Aside from this highly sought benefit, it also allows the characters to further manipulate the world, bringing the "good side" closer to a win.

If you use a concept like possibilities in an even more abstract context, and use it to describe allies, friendships, experience, and limit or remove its ability to increase other statistics, and focus on their ability to manipulate the outcome of random events (dice rolls etc.), you could create a game where characters abilities are mostly stable. No character growth in the sense of more powerful spells or attacks, but character growth in the sense of story.

A character doesn't succeed on his Gather Information check because he has improved his ranks by 2 points, but because (mechanically) he is spending a possibility (story-wise) relying on the contacts he made in past adventures.

Of course, this would be a very abstract game and not for everyone.
You could make it a lot more concrete, and end up with a reflavored skill approach, like this:
- Contacts (Arcana)
- Contacts (Streetwise)
- Allies (Military)
- Allies (Economic)

[Spatula]

Originally Posted by hanasays

Any reason for the dearth of home-brew for Torg? Is it a lack of open-source material and copyright issues? Simply the age of the system? This has probably been discussed in other threads but I guess I'll ask anyway.

Doubt it's been discussed much here, Torg died ages ago and Mustrum_Ridcully is the only person here I see talking about it. It's an interesting game, geared towards emulating action-adventure movie tropes while also accomodating a number of different action-adventure subgenres simultaneously, with a pretty involved meta-plot that explains the clash of subgenres. But the way the game is run demands a certain structure from adventures, in that they are supposed to be split up into acts, and each act is broken up into scenes. Some mechanics recharge at the end of a scene, some at the end of an act, etc. (my memory may be fuzzy but that's what I recall) That presents some difficulties in winging it or in coming up with your own adventures.

As I recall the subgenres were:
Land of the Lost / wilderness survival / dinosaurs
Medieval fantasy
Cyberpunk
Pulp heroes
Near-future industrial intrigue
And there was some strange future biotech thing that came later.

</threadjack>

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Originally Posted by Spatula

Doubt it's been discussed much here, Torg died ages ago and Mustrum_Ridcully is the only person here I see talking about it. It's an interesting game, geared towards emulating action-adventure movie tropes while also accomodating a number of different action-adventure subgenres simultaneously, with a pretty involved meta-plot that explains the clash of subgenres. But the way the game is run demands a certain structure from adventures, in that they are supposed to be split up into acts, and each act is broken up into scenes. Some mechanics recharge at the end of a scene, some at the end of an act, etc. (my memory may be fuzzy but that's what I recall) That presents some difficulties in winging it or in coming up with your own adventures.

As I recall the subgenres were:
Land of the Lost / wilderness survival / dinosaurs
Medieval fantasy
Cyberpunk
Pulp heroes
Near-future industrial intrigue
And there was some strange future biotech thing that came later.

</threadjack>

Good summary. In a way, there are actually two Cyberpunk setting, one with strong religious influence (the Cyberpapacy) and the other a way more chaotic world with cybered-up demons (Tharkold). And it also includes our own world.

I keep wondering why it's me talking about it, despite barely playing it (or even "good" at it). My group loved the game before I became a member, and they played it intensively in that time, but where already into other systems mostly when I was there.
I am just intrigued by its mechanics and the way "fluff" and "crunch" where aligned to create something that manages to combine these genres AND keep them balanced. It's really a shame that a game like Rifts (that also seems to merge many genres) with by all accords totally wonky mechanics seems to have survived while Torg is dead.

[Spatula]

Originally Posted by Mustrum_Ridcully

I am just intrigued by its mechanics and the way "fluff" and "crunch" where aligned to create something that manages to combine these genres AND keep them balanced. It's really a shame that a game like Rifts (that also seems to merge many genres) with by all accords totally wonky mechanics seems to have survived while Torg is dead.

Well, it's not like Rifts gets talked about here, either. I'm always surprised that it's (apparently) still around given that I never see it in actual game stores, nor hear about it.

From a business standpoint, Torg probably had a much higher overhead than Kevin Siembieda's games. And from a game standpoint, Torg was just weird... the metaplot is really oddball. They could have taken the rules and turned it into a universal systam ala GURPS (1e GURPS was published around the same time, IIRC), but they threw all the different genres together in a jumble and came up with a pretty silly story to tie them together. It's distinctive, it's interesting, but I'm sure it's not for everyone. Then there's the narritivist gameplay elements (which I had never seen before at that time), which require a different frame of mind compared to other RPGs - and not everyone is down for that, either.