Now for a bit of subjective history.
After all, "compared to what" is often relevant when one asks how do you like something.
I have had the good fortune of running some of the same players since before Bonzo's co-star was president. Along the way we have had many others come and go or stay as players too.
So we have seen them play thru classes systems, non-classes complex point buy, simpler point buy, even more esoteric and even RPGs without any real advancement at all other than gear or status.
So, one of the reasons I moved to a classes system with level ups was during the last couple of complex and semi-complex point buy games (you earned a few xp each session - in those games **most of the players did not even spend any or almost none of their xp. **
Sure, one of the crunching maxes had his spent for weeks before it was scored and changed it at the last minute, but one never spent any and two others spent a few once in a blue moon.
So, part of that seems to be that the "gains of xp" were a bit costly to turn into advancement.
Did it cause problems? Well, only a little. By the end some lagged behind a bit but simply "played thru."
By moving to a classes system with a moderate (some might say even mid-high) build-fu factor I wanted to get to a mid point happy medium where the average players were interested when level up came - seeing obvious gains in day-to-day matters as well as a choice or two (without the gazillions of choices making advancement seem like work.)
But I also wanted to keep the cruncher interested with chargen and advancement he found interesting enough to fiddle with incessantly as he was want to do.
Did the switch succeed?
Yes!
Until he left us, the crunch kept crunching and minmaxing his path to 20 (or at least to 15ish as he realized most of the time the games wind down at 15 or so.)
Meanwhile the others now do get excited at level up time, add in their new stuff, make their choices. They also tend to stay on a more level field. Some look ahead a bit and so on, whatever they find as good balance. Most have at least a good idea of their next level.
So, the 5e advancement system I'm play has been seen to be "more interesting" or "less dull" than quite a few advancement systems that we have had considerably more playtime in.
It meet my goals with the transition 100%.
Not to be confused with saying it's perfect, but it hit the target I was aiming for bullseye in the "make advancement process interest the players" department.
After all, "compared to what" is often relevant when one asks how do you like something.
I have had the good fortune of running some of the same players since before Bonzo's co-star was president. Along the way we have had many others come and go or stay as players too.
So we have seen them play thru classes systems, non-classes complex point buy, simpler point buy, even more esoteric and even RPGs without any real advancement at all other than gear or status.
So, one of the reasons I moved to a classes system with level ups was during the last couple of complex and semi-complex point buy games (you earned a few xp each session - in those games **most of the players did not even spend any or almost none of their xp. **
Sure, one of the crunching maxes had his spent for weeks before it was scored and changed it at the last minute, but one never spent any and two others spent a few once in a blue moon.
So, part of that seems to be that the "gains of xp" were a bit costly to turn into advancement.
Did it cause problems? Well, only a little. By the end some lagged behind a bit but simply "played thru."
By moving to a classes system with a moderate (some might say even mid-high) build-fu factor I wanted to get to a mid point happy medium where the average players were interested when level up came - seeing obvious gains in day-to-day matters as well as a choice or two (without the gazillions of choices making advancement seem like work.)
But I also wanted to keep the cruncher interested with chargen and advancement he found interesting enough to fiddle with incessantly as he was want to do.
Did the switch succeed?
Yes!
Until he left us, the crunch kept crunching and minmaxing his path to 20 (or at least to 15ish as he realized most of the time the games wind down at 15 or so.)
Meanwhile the others now do get excited at level up time, add in their new stuff, make their choices. They also tend to stay on a more level field. Some look ahead a bit and so on, whatever they find as good balance. Most have at least a good idea of their next level.
So, the 5e advancement system I'm play has been seen to be "more interesting" or "less dull" than quite a few advancement systems that we have had considerably more playtime in.
It meet my goals with the transition 100%.
Not to be confused with saying it's perfect, but it hit the target I was aiming for bullseye in the "make advancement process interest the players" department.
