Proposal: Adjustments to Time Experience

TwoHeadsBarking · Aug 29, 2010

H.M.Gimlord said:
THB: Mikara is stuck in Love Bites that hasn't seen a post in a month, and she's been stuck at level 4 since Christmas. I created Mikara in 2008, and she's my highest level character. I do think something needs to be done about the rate of advancement. Perhaps raising encounter xp further is not the way to go, but I'm just exploring that possibility right now.

That really sucks, and I know that Mikara hasn't had the best luck with adventures (she was in SeaPainter's one too, right?), but I think the better solution for your current problem would be to talk with the DM and judge of your game.

H.M.Gimlord said:
Tenchuu/THB: I respect your opinions, and in truth, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate to make sure that the arguments for and against are clear. I'm in no way intending this to be a personal argument.

No offense taken. In fact, I'm not even sure what I might take offense to.

Anyway, I'm not against doubling time xp, or against changing it to per day rather than per month (in fact, I really like that last idea). Out of curiosity though, how will the rewards from DMing change? They have been tied to time xp, after all.

Luinnar · Aug 29, 2010

I assume time gold would be doubled too?

H.M.Gimlord · Aug 29, 2010

I haven't considered DM credits at all here, but I'm not sure we'd need to change their current rate of accrual.

Nor would I suggest to increase time gold, necessarily. This, of course, runs the risk of an imbalance between level and what one can afford at that level, but I would like to see this problem arise in game testing, rather than presume it.

Tenchuu · Aug 29, 2010

Re: Gold - I assume it would be 2x as well. If everyone agrees, i'll add it to the proposal.

As for DM credits, if we made no other changes than the proposal, then DM credits would also be doubled. That's a lot of credit, but we can always use DMs, so I don't see a lot of harm leaving it that way.

Iron Sky · Aug 30, 2010

I'd ok with time gold/xp doubling but I think increasing encounter/skill challenge xp would be too much. I'd be ok with DM credits being (effectively) doubled too

(though if you are going to reduce them, let me know in advance so I can spend them before they do a reverse 2:1 split!)

For my sample numbers, in the last adventure I ran, time xp was 311xp out of 1564xp for an adventure that lasted a bit short of 4 months, so, about 1/5.

I also have developed a general rule in games I run to keep things going pretty quick: If a PC doesn't post for about two weeks without letting me know they will be doing so in advance, their character leaves the adventure or are sidelined if leaving doesn't fit (though I will run them until the end of a combat encounter or skill challenge so they don't leave the party in the lurch).

I think even if someone told me they were going to be gone, if it was more than two or three weeks, I'd ask them to retire their character from the adventure, to keep the pace up and because DMing is enough work in PbP without running a character or two as well...

H.M.Gimlord · Aug 30, 2010

Selfishly, I'm all for increasing DM credits, and I do suppose that time gold would be disproportionate with level if it were not also doubled.

I'm with Iron Sky, though. If we're going to double these two, there would be no need to redouble the encounter xp or treasure.

renau1g · Aug 30, 2010

Tenchuu said:
[sblock=Updated Proposal]
Proposal: Adjust Time Experience in two ways:
Part 1: Increase the amount of time experience given per month by a factor of 2. So, instead of a character gaining a level's worth of time experience after 1 year, they would gain it after 6 months.
Part 2: Remove the policy that time experience is only given in whole month increments. Ideally, the charter would list experience-per-day amounts.

The Short Rationale: make gaining experience more fair for all players and easier to track for DMs.

The Long Rationale: Since games run at different paces, players are not gaining EXP evenly/balanced. If you're lucky and you get a fast-paced DM and player group, you will level much faster than someone who is in a group with slow posters. Since it's a living setting, that's kind of unfair. Time experience tries to fix this, but it is inadequate (see examples from R1 here).

For part 2, it would make a DMs job of tracking Time experience easier. By removing the whole month policy, a DM could always grant time experience at the end of each encounter. For example, if the first encounter of a multi-encounter adventure only takes 22 days, it doesn't make sense to wait 8 days to award the time experience (or more likely, wait until the next encounter, or the end of the adventure). It also it more easy for the players to have all rewards given at one time, so updating their sheets is easier.
[/sblock]

Tenchuu said:
Re: Gold - I assume it would be 2x as well. If everyone agrees, i'll add it to the proposal.

As for DM credits, if we made no other changes than the proposal, then DM credits would also be doubled. That's a lot of credit, but we can always use DMs, so I don't see a lot of harm leaving it that way.

I APPROVE of this proposal, with the addition of the increased time gold to ensure that players don't fall behind in wealth/level.

I'm fine with DM credits continuing to be worth 2 time credits (and therefore effectively doubled) as that way they still provide the same benefit they do now and there's essentially a check against someone abusing them as if you get too high relative to your party you can find yourself without an adventure to go on.

H.M.Gimlord · Aug 30, 2010

YES to the proposal R1 just approved

H.M.Gimlord · Aug 30, 2010

Can't remember, but I know it was decided on somewhere. Would this change, if approved, apply toward the next adventure, encounter, month, or other.

We also have not yet addressed the issue of the full month vs. daily accrual of time xp.