Core change to LEW

Bront · Nov 15, 2007

I think I have an idea of a core change in LEW that I think will ultimately be a good thing.

1) Remove the 3 character limit. Instead, players after 3 characters may only have 1 active 1st level character.

2) Due to the change in the above issue, Players with the Leadership Feat may recruit another player to play their henchman, and their Henchman follows all normal LEW rules except for XP advancement, which follows the core SRD (I don't think we've made any changes to that) version of XP advancement.

Why:
There is nothing stoping players from opening a second account to play more people anyway, and realy, the 3 characters is an artificial limit. Many players play less than 3 anyway. This also gets rid of one of the main objections to the Leadership feat, which is bypassing the 3 character rule.

Edit:
Batted around ideas.
- No increase
- Expending GM credits one time to get an extra character slot (1 per # of current characters seems to be current thought, 3 GMCs for the 4th character, etc)
- Flat increase (Seems to be not approved)

Creamsteak · Nov 15, 2007

I'm not sure what "core SRD version of XP advancement" is.

Bront · Nov 15, 2007

For leadership, it's a level ratio. If I'm 9th level, and my companion is 7th level, my companion earns 7/9 of my XP earnings. It's mildly annoying, since it means your companion can never catch up XP, though it does limit XP draining for Craft XP from a companion.

Bront · Nov 15, 2007

Ok, apparently LEW is instead they earn XP normal for their level outside of other players. Reading it now, it's worded rather poorly, so we might have to reword it.

Manzanita · Nov 15, 2007

I believe the three-PC rule was originally instituted for the sake of fairness. We were concerned there wouldn't be enough DMs to go around if some people had large stables of characters. Keeping it to three was a way to help newer players find games.

I don't believe circumstances have changed since then.

I do understand why some players would want a 4th PC. Sometimes a particurly juicy 1st level adventure will start & we wish we could get in. Or some DMing ideas I have involve starting with a party of 1st level PCs, who were, say, all members of the Monemvasia militia.

This may be a bit whacky, but what if we allowed additional PCs over 3 for a certain number of DM credits. That way, we would reward DMing with more PCs. That has a certain goes-around comes-around ring to it.

Rystil Arden · Nov 15, 2007

Perhaps a number of credits equal to your current number of PCs? So then 3 credits for a 4th, 4 more for a 5th, and so on. This allows the quite-reasonable 4th character for a not-too-insane cost while still limiting the creation of 15 new PCs for a set cost each (anyone who can afford to create 15 new PCs using my scheme deserves the ability to play 18 PCs--they have to pay 150 credits, which is like GMing an adventure with us for over a decade)

Bront · Nov 16, 2007

Manzanita said:
I believe the three-PC rule was originally instituted for the sake of fairness. We were concerned there wouldn't be enough DMs to go around if some people had large stables of characters. Keeping it to three was a way to help newer players find games.

I don't believe circumstances have changed since then.

I do understand why some players would want a 4th PC. Sometimes a particurly juicy 1st level adventure will start & we wish we could get in. Or some DMing ideas I have involve starting with a party of 1st level PCs, who were, say, all members of the Monemvasia militia.

This may be a bit whacky, but what if we allowed additional PCs over 3 for a certain number of DM credits. That way, we would reward DMing with more PCs. That has a certain goes-around comes-around ring to it.

I disagree at this point. Often, the ones who have multiple characters are the ones more encouraged to run a game or two, as well as write new material for LEW. Many people would choose not to run an extra, but I know a few who would love to. However, my idea of limiting it to 1 L1 character at a time beyond 3 (And I mean 1 L1 active total, regardless of it being in or out of an adventure) should keep that in check, and we can even add that players with 3 or less character get first dibs on adventures if they want it, so that regular players with more characters can't squeeze out other players.

I don't mind the DM Credit idea though. It encourages people to run games, but I might suggest adding something to the DM credits then. When a player writes a new rule, feat, class, or location that gets approved, that they should get a DM credit as well. This encourages players who aren't good or into DMing but good at writing fluff or world expanding material a reward, and allow them to earn the right to get an extra character as well.

Wik · Nov 16, 2007

Bront said:
I don't mind the DM Credit idea though. It encourages people to run games, but I might suggest adding something to the DM credits then. When a player writes a new rule, feat, class, or location that gets approved, that they should get a DM credit as well. This encourages players who aren't good or into DMing but good at writing fluff or world expanding material a reward, and allow them to earn the right to get an extra character as well.

That, to me, is a great idea.

As for the beyond 4 characters rule, well - as Bront said, nothing stops someone from just opening up another account.

By charging DM credits, while also rewarding credits for "non-DM" activities such as feat-writing or world building, we can really build upon LEW. And I'm all aces with that.

Rystil Arden · Nov 16, 2007

I disagree with Bront and Wik.

Okay, I only disagree sort of--there should absolutely, positively, definitely be ZERO GM credit reward for writing a new rule, feat, or class (the majority of Bron't proposal). This is a terrible idea. It encourages unnecessary rules bloat, as players strive to invent useless crunch to get rewards (remember, GM credits can also be used for XP--do you want me to gain a level because I invented 20 worthless rules just for the credits?). But the last thing Bront mentioned, locations, is worthwhile to consider rewarding--or in a broader sense: fluff.

On the other hand, we need to have an extremely wary eye and reining hand on rewarding the fluff as well or you lose the living world aspect--in almost all cases, it is easier for a GM to ignore our world and invent their own detached location, rather than read up on everything and correctly use an established location. By giving the lazy GM extra credit for inventing a location, we may be rewarding the wrong thing as well as decentralising everything and keeping it less connected.

Wik · Nov 16, 2007

Good point.

Really, though, I like the idea of encouraging Players to participate, in any way necessary. Why not differentiate between GM credits, and Player Credits?

Invent a feat? You get PC Credits, which you can use to bypass the 3 PC limit, and maybe do some other fun things within the rules. I dunno, just spitballing here.

Core change to LEW

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