Advancement, A Weird Idea?

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay my game Crossroads (I’ve formally discussed it as Quest For Chevar) has always had incremental advancement and used levels to describe rather than prescribe power, and to balance challenges.

But I’m tired of tracking xp or character points.

Previously you’d get 5 xp per session, 1-5 per significant challenge overcome (like battle or a major investigation), 1-5 for personal goals achieved, and at one point I added being able to gain 1 xp by failing a skill check and letting the failure ride.

During a rest you can take Endeavors, one of which is Advancement, wherein you spend xp to buy traits, skill ranks, or other character resources.

When you have spent 50xp (for levels 2-10, 100xp for all levels after that) you gain a level. Upon leveling you do get a few small incremental benefits but most of your advancement happens during play, and then you level when you have advanced to that point.

It’s clunky, and I’ve never liked having to cost everything in points and all that, nor tracking Gained XP vs Spent XP.

So! Taking inspiration from Daggerheart to a small degree, I have a new plan!

You can earn Advancements during play.
Eg. When you get a total success without pushing the roll to do a basic move, you can gain a specialty rank. Meanwhile Skill Ranks require a certain amount of time training and practicing the Skill’s specialties and advancing at least one rank in a specialty under that skill. Minor traits can be learned in a day or with good rolls during a short rest.
These can be Major or Minor. When you have 3 Minor Advancements you Mark a Major Advancement and clear the 3 Minors. When you gain (probably 5, maybe 10, maybe 7, depending on playtesting. Maybe 9 because it’s an important number throughout the game) Major Advancements, you clear that number and gain a level.

Major Advanvements are things like Skill Ranks (which Specialties are under, with 3 Specs per Skill), Major Traits, Acquisition of a Major new Resource, etc

Minor Advancements are Specialty Ranks, Minir traits, Minor new resources.

So this means that levels are primarily descriptive, and tell you roughly how much “stuff” a character has.

Certain levels are milestones that allow for new types of advancement, like eventually becoming a minor deity, and can signify a new state of play. (Though they don’t have to if you want to be a demigod running around saving people and investigating curses and whatever)

Just kinda sharing my ideas. Feel free to politely provide feedback on whether it makes sense to you, etc.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m partly curious how folks feel about the idea of using levels as descriptive tools for balance and challenge design in a system with incremental advancement.

 

[Umbran]

I find handling advancement during play, on a roll-by-roll basis, to be disruptive to play. And, if you don't notice that on one roll you meet the requirements for advancement, because you're focused on the events at hand, you miss out, which isn't great either.

I am neutral on the idea of using levels descriptively - it would depend on the implementation.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Okay my game Crossroads (I’ve formally discussed it as Quest For Chevar) has always had incremental advancement and used levels to describe rather than prescribe power, and to balance challenges.

But I’m tired of tracking xp or character points.

Previously you’d get 5 xp per session, 1-5 per significant challenge overcome (like battle or a major investigation), 1-5 for personal goals achieved, and at one point I added being able to gain 1 xp by failing a skill check and letting the failure ride.

During a rest you can take Endeavors, one of which is Advancement, wherein you spend xp to buy traits, skill ranks, or other character resources.

When you have spent 50xp (for levels 2-10, 100xp for all levels after that) you gain a level. Upon leveling you do get a few small incremental benefits but most of your advancement happens during play, and then you level when you have advanced to that point.

It’s clunky, and I’ve never liked having to cost everything in points and all that, nor tracking Gained XP vs Spent XP.

So! Taking inspiration from Daggerheart to a small degree, I have a new plan!

You can earn Advancements during play.
Eg. When you get a total success without pushing the roll to do a basic move, you can gain a specialty rank. Meanwhile Skill Ranks require a certain amount of time training and practicing the Skill’s specialties and advancing at least one rank in a specialty under that skill. Minor traits can be learned in a day or with good rolls during a short rest.
These can be Major or Minor. When you have 3 Minor Advancements you Mark a Major Advancement and clear the 3 Minors. When you gain (probably 5, maybe 10, maybe 7, depending on playtesting. Maybe 9 because it’s an important number throughout the game) Major Advancements, you clear that number and gain a level.

Major Advanvements are things like Skill Ranks (which Specialties are under, with 3 Specs per Skill), Major Traits, Acquisition of a Major new Resource, etc

Minor Advancements are Specialty Ranks, Minir traits, Minor new resources.

So this means that levels are primarily descriptive, and tell you roughly how much “stuff” a character has.

Certain levels are milestones that allow for new types of advancement, like eventually becoming a minor deity, and can signify a new state of play. (Though they don’t have to if you want to be a demigod running around saving people and investigating curses and whatever)

Just kinda sharing my ideas. Feel free to politely provide feedback on whether it makes sense to you, etc.

I'm with @Umbran on tracking advancement in play.

My experience is that players very, very frequently fail to notice when they should gain some kind of in-play advancement, even it's as simple as checking a box next to a skill, or keeping track of the numbers checks you failed over a session. And, when they don't, as Umbran says, it can be distracting.

So I would personally not been keen on any system which requires actual, in-game, continuous tracking of ability success/failures.

Level as descriptive is fine - there's no inherent problem with it if nothing is really scaling off it.

 

[John Dallman]

I think the clunkiness is coming from advancement being an interruption to play. Both methods seem to require significant knowledge of the game system. This is more work for the players, but that may not be appreciated by the system designer.

In experience point systems, awarding experience at the end of a session gives the players time between sessions to think about what they want to buy. That keeps thing flowing during the session. Having less complicated criteria for awarding XP will make your life easier.

Your system driven by total successes resembles the BRP system of taking a "tick" when you do something successfully, but is more complicated. That may cause mistakes in identifying advancement opportunities, both missing them, and claiming them wrongly. You'll also need to create a quick-reference summary of the advancement rules, and a tally-sheet for the successes will be helpful.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I find handling advancement during play, on a roll-by-roll basis, to be disruptive to play. And, if you don't notice that on one roll you meet the requirements for advancement, because you're focused on the events at hand, you miss out, which isn't great either.

I am neutral on the idea of using levels descriptively - it would depend on the implementation.

Thanks!
So, to clarify.

Advancements are generally health with during a Rest, not during a normal scene. The only times it could interrupt play are;

1. Total Successes - in this case, you will usually get multiple total successes per session, and you can only mark so many advancements for it, so a few missed opportunities isn’t a big deal. I will probably try to design the skill map on the character sheet for this version of the game to have a box to tick next to each skill for this. Then you gain ranks and clear boxes during your next rest.
2. The Player goes out of their way to train, in which case awesome that is just one of many types of roleplaying scene.

I will keep my eye on these cases though, and I appreciate having it pointed out as a potential issue.

I think the clunkiness is coming from advancement being an interruption to play. Both methods seem to require significant knowledge of the game system. This is more work for the players, but that may not be appreciated by the system designer.

It does necessitate some sort of cheat sheet for the players more easily keep everything straight. As I say above though, advancement doesn’t interrupt play, it’s built into the mechanics of Rests.

In experience point systems, awarding experience at the end of a session gives the players time between sessions to think about what they want to buy. That keeps thing flowing during the session. Having less complicated criteria for awarding XP will make your life easier.

Good points. I think the main thing I don’t like is having to track Spent XP and Unspent Xp, and point costs for things, and I’d rather just have major and minor traits, skills and specialties, and how many you have of each.

Your system driven by total successes resembles the BRP system of taking a "tick" when you do something successfully, but is more complicated. That may cause mistakes in identifying advancement opportunities, both missing them, and claiming them wrongly. You'll also need to create a quick-reference summary of the advancement rules, and a tally-sheet for the successes will be helpful.

Hmmm I’m not sure why anyone would wrongly identify an opportunity to mark a skill for specialty rank advancement. Total Success and Critical Success (which counts as total success plus a little extra) are the only ways to get it. Perhaps it will help to have “Mark the Skill for Advanc.” On the success ladder on the chapter sheet next to Total Success would help.

The idea is definitely to have a whole advancement section on the second page of the character sheet, specialty advancement tick-boxes on the first page with the skills, and possibly other simple aids.

It might be simplest to also restrict advancement by successes to 1 per skill at a time, but that might weird gameplay by encouraging not using the same skill twice between rests.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm with @Umbran on tracking advancement in play.

My experience is that players very, very frequently fail to notice when they should gain some kind of in-play advancement, even it's as simple as checking a box next to a skill, or keeping track of the numbers checks you failed over a session. And, when they don't, as Umbran says, it can be distracting.

So I would personally not been keen on any system which requires actual, in-game, continuous tracking of ability success/failures.

Level as descriptive is fine - there's no inherent problem with it if nothing is really scaling off it.

The only things that scale based on level are gaining 1 attribute point per level, and the limit of how many total Rank Dice you can have in one specialty at a given level. Ie, at level 2 you can’t have more than 3.

The other thing is that there are milestone levels where certain things unlock.

 

[John Dallman]

Good points. I think the main thing I don’t like is having to track Spent XP and Unspent Xp, and point costs for things, and I’d rather just have major and minor traits, skills and specialties, and how many you have of each.

Having a single, fungible, advancement currency is simpler once the number of possible advanceable traits is considerably larger than the actual number of traits on a typical character sheet. That's why systems like Hero System or GURPS use character points.

If every character sheet includes most of the advanceable traits. then having a way to mark them for advancement is adequate.

Hmmm I’m not sure why anyone would wrongly identify an opportunity to mark a skill for specialty rank advancement. Total Success and Critical Success (which counts as total success plus a little extra) are the only ways to get it.

Yes . . . Players can get confused about levels of success really easily.

Perhaps it will help to have “Mark the Skill for Advance.” On the success ladder on the chapter sheet next to Total Success would help.

That's a good idea.

It might be simplest to also restrict advancement by successes to 1 per skill at a time, but that might weird gameplay by encouraging not using the same skill twice between rests.

An extra clause in the rule is not "simpler." especially when it will give players perverse incentives. For example, there is a phenomenon in RuneQuest known as "tick-fishing" where characters start using lots of different weapons and skills to try to advance them, and it easily becomes silly.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Having a single, fungible, advancement currency is simpler once the number of possible advanceable traits is considerably larger than the actual number of traits on a typical character sheet. That's why systems like Hero System or GURPS use character points.

Perhaps, but also still not what I want.

If every character sheet includes most of the advanceable traits. then having a way to mark them for advancement is adequate.

Not sure what you mean. Advancement isnt “you did the thing now tick the box of that specific trait” it’s “you did the thing, now mark an advancement and when you next rest you can spend that advancement to gain the trait you’re trying to train in.”

With “the thing” being either completing a training endeavor over time during rests, getting total success on a skill check, or completing a task or goal or overcoming a challenge.

Yes . . . Players can get confused about levels of success really easily.

Huh. I haven’t seen that all that much. You mean like thinking they got a total success when they actually got a mixed result? Because that isn’t any more common then add their bonus incorrectly to roll in D&D, IME. It happens, but not enough to design around it all that much.

That's a good idea.

An extra clause in the rule is not "simpler." especially when it will give players perverse incentives. For example, there is a phenomenon in RuneQuest known as "tick-fishing" where characters start using lots of different weapons and skills to try to advance them, and it easily becomes silly.

Yeah that’s partly why the idea is to gain a rank in any specialty of the same skill, but we will see how it plays in practice.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Had a whole post with lots of working through thoughts. It disappeared. Ugh.