leveling vs "locationing"

[xechnao]

I speak in broad generalization, of course. The effects of all power are situational. A leveled character who has skills and powers that aren't very applicable to the current situation can look less powerful than a lower-leveled one who happens to have the right skill at the right time. For example, you can have a spellcaster who is very powerful in general - but that doesn't do him much good against a critter that's immune to fire.

Ok, now we are talking!

This is very much like what I am trying to talk about. I think there could be good use of a mechanic that could help track the game on this sort of dimension.

For example a qualification of skills based on how broad or local they are along with a qualification of the value of the "local" skills on the broad picture. Here things can be balanced around two variables instead of one.

ax+by=balance
instead of
(a+b)x=balance, which is the linear approach.

For this to take place you need to track things on a relation a tad more sophisticated than the >,< or = of the leveling we are practical with on traditional game design.

This may seem a bit intimidating but I am trying to figure out a mechanic as simple as possible to do this.

 

[Umbran]

Gaining powers is often the core of character advancement in RPGs on the one hand, while adventure design often includes the opportunities for plot hooks and story devices on the other hand. I think the idea here is to unify these two mechanics as a means of advancement that is more tied to the narrative than conventional point-buy or leveling.

Sometimes, a unified mechanic is a good thing, sometimes it isn't.

Call me a traditionalist, if you must, but as a GM I would prefer that I, who can observe my player's level of satisfaction, determine what narrative effects the actions of PCs have, rather than have a rulebook tell me.

I very specifically would prefer the combat prowess and general effectiveness of PCs rather divorced from the narrative development. I want to be able to have each able to move without the other, which becomes problematic if they are unified.

 

[xechnao]

Btw, I think a GNS filter cannot be really applied to this discussion.

It is not like it is about something more narrativist in the price of being less gamist or simulationist.

 

[1Mac]

Call me a traditionalist, if you must, but as a GM I would prefer that I, who can observe my player's level of satisfaction, determine what narrative effects the actions of PCs have, rather than have a rulebook tell me.

I'm guessing that whatever we are talking about is a little more freeform than that, such that a GM is still required for interpretation. The rules would guide, not tell.

I very specifically would prefer the combat prowess and general effectiveness of PCs rather divorced from the narrative development. I want to be able to have each able to move without the other, which becomes problematic if they are unified.

Why do you suspect this would be problematic?

I'm reading Fantasy Craft and am finding that it treats powers, abilities, rewards, and story elements as different sorts of resources with their own similarly conceived systems of adjudication. Yet there is still an important place for the GM.

 

[Sigurd]

I think there are three problems with your idea as I see it:

1. Players want something concrete of their own. - Yes a player might be more a part of a region and be more powerful by virtue of the decisions he\she influences but they will forever see that as the DM's world. Leveling is something on your sheet - its yours.

2. Involving players in their setting is something DMs the world over try all the time. I often give away power for free if they will use it in accordance with the setting. Most players don't have the time\ability or inclination to develop more than their character. Hell, I'd be happy if they put their heart into just their character.

3. Clarity - you have generalized a couple of times but I find it hard to be sure of what you're saying exactly. Perhaps I'm wrong, by all means be concrete and tell us your idea.


Sigurd

 

[xechnao]

I think there are three problems with your idea as I see it:

1. Players want something concrete of their own. - Yes a player might be more a part of a region and be more powerful by virtue of the decisions heshe influences but they will forever see that as the DM's world. Leveling is something on your sheet - its yours.

Then give players the maps and let players track their stuff on the various locations !

2. Involving players in their setting is something DMs the world over try all the time. I often give away power for free if they will use it in accordance with the setting. Most players don't have the timeability or inclination to develop more than their character. Hell, I'd be happy if they put their heart into just their character.

3. Clarity - you have generalized a couple of times but I find it hard to be sure of what you're saying exactly. Perhaps I'm wrong, by all means be concrete and tell us your idea.


Sigurd

I think 2 and 3 make part of the same problem.

Indeed, I am trying to design something as concrete and simple at the same time as I can. If I had done it already I would be publicizing the mechanic

 

[Umbran]

Why do you suspect this would be problematic?

We'll get to that in a minute...

I'm reading Fantasy Craft and am finding that it treats powers, abilities, rewards, and story elements as different sorts of resources with their own similarly conceived systems of adjudication. Yet there is still an important place for the GM.

I'm not familiar with that product. However, I note that you report they are all different sorts of resources, each with their own systems for adjudication. That's fine. It seemed to me we were talking about making them all, in essence, the same resource, and that I find problematic. They are apples and oranges, and ought to be managed separately, IMHO.

I now return to the original premise once again - that levels are the base for the adventure design. In general, for RPGs, this is patently not true. While D&D and the various D20 variants have them, most systems don't have levels. All the White Wolf WoD games? Point buy. GURPS? Point buy. Shadowrun? Point buy (and money-buy). The list goes on. Levels are fairly unique to D&D and its direct descendants.

Ergo - in general, for RPGs, levels are not that integral to adventure design at all.

Have you guys ever played a point-buy game, by chance? If you think that levels are so integral to games, then perhaps not. They have their own strengths and weaknesses - in fact, the basic strength of point-buy is also it's basic weakness.

Point buy systems are, by their nature, far more flexible than systems that use levels - players can buy all sorts of different abilities, and tailor their character to be exactly what they want (or as close to as the rules will allow, anyway). However, that means that a character can often be built haphazardly, so to be minimally effective, or in so focused a manner as to be nearly broken*.

The same flexibility that allows players to get what they want makes it more difficult for the GM to deal with that situational change in power. Challenging the combat-optimized characters without killing off the non-optimized characters is harder in a point-buy system than in D&D. In D&D, the GM can at least count on certain minimums of hit points, saves, and so on for characters of a given level. The same cannot be said for point-buy.

Now, take that one step further. All the "advancement" is pooled together. I now have to try to balance an adventure for the guy who has focused on getting combat tricks with the guy who has focused on getting the narrative-based bennies (say, favors from people of note). That becomes... downright ugly.

If they are separate resources, I can manage them separately - make sure the characters are more on par in each field separately. That isn't as easy if they are all unified as "development".




*People who think that some 3e feat combinations and class powers together are broken ain't seen nothin', until they've looked at some of the ugliness that you can do with, say, GURPS Supers. Yeek!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Ok, lets say you are a Fighter. So, what do you have to do to earn your living? Lets say that the answer to this is connected to the answer of who trained you and why -the answer of your origins. Now, lets say that Mordor and Isengard are two different locations that interact with your origin location. You are threatened because if you rest too much evil will get you in the end: so you have to act and fight it or face it. The ways you have to face it are supported by the rules. You can now make your choice about what to do.

Instead of starting as say, a level 1 PC in Hommlet, who then ventures to the Temple of Evil, you'd start as a PC in Hommlet who then ventures to the temple of Evil. You might have a class, such as wizard, cleric or fighter -- especially if it's a combat-intensive game -- but you wouldn't have a level. Also, your particular combat maneuvers/feats/skills might be determined by your origin/race: dwarf, southern human, etc.

Instead of gaining levels as you explore the Temple, you learn new tricks. For example maybe after fighting a bunch of earth elementals, you gain a bonus to remain standing on unsure terrain (such as when the elementals stomp the ground in an effort to knock you over). Maybe you learn how to overbalance and knock over those elementals, making them child's play to defeat.

Instead of having each basement be tougher than the last, each one is simply different and challenging in a new way. For example after the elementals you encounter a group of flying ghouls, which you then have discover the weakness of.

And finally instead of pointing to the world map once you've done everything to do in the Temple and saying "I'm going there," you look at the world map to see what's not covered by the fog of war and say "I want to go there." The GM doesn't say "You can't go there," but s/he would say "most who pass through the Fey Forest need a druid guide, so you might want to travel to Druid's Grove first and find a gift for them on the way." (This is how many GMs run their games; I think Xchnao means to formalize this practice a bit.)

A good analogy for videogamers might be to look at it as being more Metroid than CastleVania: Symphony Of The Night. No leveling, just acquisition of skills and gear.

I'm on board with this. I've been exploring the idea through FFZ a lot, and my last ENWorld blog post has to deal with this idea, too.

I don't think this is incompatible with linear leveling. Indeed, I think it adds a lot if this is an additional dimension. Sort of like Prestige Classes were originally intended to be, and what paragon paths and epic destinies are: if you're a member of Organization X, you can focus your abilities to help reflect that, rather than (or in addition to) getting general abilities from your main class. You could do it without linear leveling, but I think I like it better as an adjunct than as a replacement.

The thing is that it's a very DM-intensive way to set up the game. You have to make prerequisites and ways for players to get prerequisites and kind of set up the flow of the entire campaign like a giant dungeon (going back to the idea of "dungeon flow," which games like Metroid or Zelda or Okami use).

It's possible, with a more formalized system, that it could be made much easier for DM's, and I'd immediately get on board with finding one or helping to design one. The idea has a lot of appeal for me, and not a lot has been done with it. I'm not sure it's entirely possible to make an easy system like this, but maybe. I'd be on board with feeling it out, anyway.

I'd never expect it to replace D&D's core leveling approach entirely for D&D, but I could easily see it getting placed on top.

It strikes me that a lot of DM's who level up "when appropriate" rather than with XP are already doing this to a certain degree: you gain power when you complete a significant challenge. It's just that these DM's give out buckets of stuff at once with a level, rather than discrete, individual pieces.

I've also noticed, in FFZ design, that the idea is a little easier to pull off in videogames, where you have unlimited time to explore, poke, prod, and research, to find hidden things. At the tabletop, you rarely have that freedom, because you have a game you need to keep flowing. Not that this makes the absolute case one way or the other, it's just something to keep in mind.

 

[xechnao]

snip

I think we are losing track with the point buy vs leveling focus. More traditional D&D is not point based but it does want to grasp the notion we are discussing here.

Rangers have this class feature of favorite enemies, dwarfs fare well in subterranean environments, druids can tame nature, Paladins can fight evil, priests can face undead and thieves have different paths to choose from based on their exploring abilities.

Now, lets remember that levels gave another dimension by determining a shift on the relation of character power -namely arcane casters versus the rest of the classes. In respect to the other classes mages at lower levels were weaker and as they gained more levels became stronger. Add to this how the game played differently across the levels: lower level gameplay swingy, sweet spot next, too complicated after that lol.

4e clearly decided that the implementation of this dimension was not so good gameplay wise. A dimension that needs the development of a campaign long session to matter was incompatible with the gameplay pace of the encounter design of the game and so, in the end, the most utilized part of the game (encounters) felt lacking, and with it the big picture of the game: as we say it, the game lacked balance.

At this point, it is hard to find a game design reason for leveling to exist. Character powers rise linearly, but the game assumes that the characters face linearly more powerful obstacles or problems. This neutralizes the whole leveling dimension mechanic wise. The only way that remains for the leveling mechanic to be utilized is its descriptive characterization. That would be akin of having the powers of 4e be made only with fluff and no crunch.

Now, lets return to the first paragraph dealing with rangers, paladins and the like. We have mechanics here that want to help the game to incorporate a certain fluff but mechanics seem kind of incomplete. The DM is needed to fill the missing mechanics by improvising. But it is an improvisation very different than the improvisation the DM does in combat in 4e: there, he knows the rules and the rules are comprehensive: he knows very clearly what he can and what he cant do and still he manages to keep everyone happy, even himself.

A design that manages to give a clearer guide on balanced choices with clear rules regarding adventuring could take the place of leveling and be more intuitive. Saying that I can speak the language of these strangers or that I know their history is more intuitive regarding adventuring than saying I am a level 13 bard. Simply because it is more real life like. Heh, think about all the D&D sociology and economy dead ends fans have been sporting. Remember that our hobby needs to approach and make as much sense as possible to people that do not know any of the game design traditions of D&D.

 

[lin_fusan]

xechnao, are you suggesting a game system where you gain, say, "traits" while adventuring, as opposed to XP?

For example, after exploring a subterranean cavern, the PCs thus gain "Spelunking"? And from then on, whenever the PCs spelunk (I know this is not a real word, it just sounds ) , they will obtain some numerical or narrative bonus because of their previous experience in "spelunking"?