(Discussion) General Part VII

[orsal]

Heh, I can easily say I'd side with the 100 xp/month system. You could of course make use of both, changing to the 50 xp/level after a certain level (9th, 10th?). Of course the experience gain will be a lot faster because you get the normal experience awards on top of that, but I'm not seeing this as too fast advancement.

I would say that if we expect time spent to be principally what drives level advancement, then we're giving too much XP for it. I thought the XP-for-time-on-an-adventure was supposed to compensate for adventurers getting caught in RL-delays that keep their timelines tied up, not to replace in-game experience and achievements as the principal basis for advancement. In other words, if Someone's calculations are at all meaningful, then it's too much XP.

 

[Xael]

I would say that if we expect time spent to be principally what drives level advancement, then we're giving too much XP for it. I thought the XP-for-time-on-an-adventure was supposed to compensate for adventurers getting caught in RL-delays that keep their timelines tied up, not to replace in-game experience and achievements as the principal basis for advancement. In other words, if Someone's calculations are at all meaningful, then it's too much XP.

Time spend adventuring isn't what drives level advancement, not even close, unless the game is in total stop for a very long time. It's just a matter of picking up the amount that's not too much and not too little. You think that 100xp/month/level is too much, and I think that plain 100xp/month is too little after couple of levels. So one might think that a good number is somewhere in between, right (unless you think that 100xp/month is enough of course)? The 50xp/month/level certainly isn't too much IMHO.

Of course, as a player, I tend to think that more is better...

 

[orsal]

Time spend adventuring isn't what drives level advancement, not even close,

I agree. My contentions were
(a) that that is as it should be, and
(b) that this fact makes Someone's calculations irrelevant.

 

[Someone]

I´d like to point that I´ve been playing both by post and by e-mail for some years, and in the games I´ve been playing the average leveling happens between one and three times per year. If the pacing is fast, the game is most of the time combat, and the DM generous, it can get to 4 times per year. In another board I DMed an adventure in 3 month, but it was a small party and we were posting more than once per day. For what I´ve seen, the adventures here tend to be slow, around three levels every 2 years.

Trying not to lose focus, the purpose of the time xp is to provide some reward for a player that spent several months in an adventure that got nowhere. The failed adventures tend to drag for a month or two, with the DM posting every week or so until it definitely stops and one or two monts later it´s declared dead. That´s 4 months, at the very least. In normal pbp or pbem it doesn´t matter a lot; you made your character for that adventure: you can always make more. In living EnWorld that character has an history, or is one of the three allowed. How much should a character get in those 4 months? With 50 xp/month and level, that´s 200 xp (for a 1sr level character). Woot. It´s better than nothing, sure. Now, if only the DM could at least had time to mount a battle with three or four orcs, you would have doubled that amount.

 

[Someone]

I agree. My contentions were
(a) that that is as it should be, and
(b) that this fact makes Someone's calculations irrelevant.

I think I´m being annoying, so I´ll stop with this post. The calculation were ment to put the XP rewards in perspective. How fast do, or should characters level, using the regular, hard earned experience? Would the "free" XP amount be of some importance compared to it? The calculations are meant to show that. A character created just now, earning exclusively the 50 xp/(level x month) would level about October 2006. I don´t hide that I think that´s stupidly slow. An amount of experience that makes your character reach level 5 in 2011 is so small that it´s better not to give it at all. He´ll probably have to be converted to 5th edition before he hits level 8. That means that it´s no worry of "free" xp overwhelming regular XP, unless characters are not meant to hit medium levels before our retirement age.

 

[orsal]

I think I´m being annoying, so I´ll stop with this post.

Annoying? Hardly.

A character created just now, earning exclusively the 50 xp/(level x month) would level about October 2006.

Only if he spends the entire time in an adventure in which nothing happens for over a year and a half. Nothing happening, but the adventure thread still tied up? After a month or two,
Judges will step in and stop the adventure if there's no hope of reviving it. In 20 months, either the character should have earned far more than 100 XP the traditional way, unless he has been inactive for most of that period, in which case he's getting no time-based XP.

I don´t hide that I think that´s stupidly slow. An amount of experience that makes your character reach level 5 in 2011 is so small that it´s better not to give it at all.

I don't think the time-based XP is supposed to cover this kind of situation. Rather, it's meant for situations like the following:

Two characters are created at about the same time, and both join different adventures. Wizius the wizard joins The Search for Fred's Misplaced Masterwork Meat Cleaver, and Rogo the Rogue joins The Road to Somewhere Mysterious That This Vignette Title Doesn't Want to Give Away. SFMMMC starts out slow; the characters get into combat with a bunch of orcs, and the combat isn't even completed when, a month into the adventure, the DM gives up. Real life comes calling, he decides that PbP is too boring, whatever. And doesn't even check in to tell LEW he's quitting. (Unfortunately, this has happened more than once.) Another month waiting, the players decide he isn't coming back, and post in General to get a substitute DM. After a little back and forth a volunteer steps in, finishes the combat, and contributes the storyline to justify ending the adventure. After 3 months of real time, Wizius is back in the Red Dragon with 400 XP for defeating the orcs and roleplay bonus. RSM does rather better. All the players and DM keep up daily, and are very responsible about alerting if they're going to be out of touch for a week's vacation so their characters can be NPCed. The vignette is finished in three months, and Rogo returns to the Red Dragon Inn with 1200 XP, enough for 2nd level.

Wizius' player is feeling really down about this. Three months time wasted, and nothing to show for it. Especially since he sees Rogo back again at the same time, already up a level, and feels cheated that he missed out. So, the proposal goes, let's give them each 300 XP just for being actively involved in the adventure (to the extent that the adventure was there for them) for 3 months. Now Rogo has 1500 XP and Wizius has 700 XP. Wizius didn't gain a level by this, but he's getting close, and knows that regardless of what happens, his next adventure will be enough to advance him.

This is what I was getting at earlier: it's still the earned XP that drives advancement, but time spent can contribute a little. It won't make much of a difference except when you get bogged down. Since, in the long run, everyone should get their share of reasonably fast-paced adventures, most of our XP will still be coming the old-fashioned way. To make it any other way is to substantially change the model for level advancement.

 

[Velmont]

Honestly, I don't care how much the reward it is, I think it is a good idea, but it must not become the main way to gain XP. Roleplay and encounter XP are what is important.

 

[Jdvn1]

That's a good point, I think, Velmont. I think the time-based xp reward should be insignificant enough where you're not levelling for time, but at least you're getting _something_. I might make it 50 or even 25.

 

[Creamsteak]

Leadership was (as I recall) removed for the purposes of LEW. Alternatively, we were going to allow feats that gave you "access" to higher level rules for developing the setting.

Since it's being brought up again, let me lay out what I think:

If we go with the core leadership feat (with cohorts AND other minions) we will perhaps be "crowding" ourselves with NPCs. Even if we just use cohorts, I still feel like leadership would be an "ideal" feat to take for every character (foregoing any roleplaying reasons). You gain twice the influence in joining the party, you get a second non-static character to go with your (already moderately leveled) character putting him above many starting PCs. On the good side, the core leadership feat would be interesting in the sense that a character could become a lord with vassals or such and go to "war" with other lords and bring on the mass combat and such. However, that's not what I want in LEW personally.

However, "leadership" in LEW should be different. Perhaps it should even be "free" (no feats or skill investment). What I would like to see is leadership as a sort of position (such as member of the Judges of Orussus, the Watch, the cult of Seto, the church of Hyrag, a teacher of "Troi Delmontes giddy little laugh" technique, etc. I think the same kind of leadership could be accomplished in running an interplanar travel service, a guild, a shop, or whatever else.

Leadership (the feat) seems to me to be unfit for this type of game, but I do think there are non-mechanical qualities that the feat implies (and in a normal game might be used to represent) that do fit for LEW.

 

[Knight Otu]

Actually - maybe Leadership should be followers only? At that level, the character would have a few, loyal but low-powered followers (the best a 6th level character could get here would be 5 1st level characters). The followers would be NPCs under the DM's control with the player's input.

Maybe a base of operations could be thrown in to compensate for the loss of the cohort, though?

(And maybe I should add that I belong to the people who have eyed the Leadership feat. )

I don't think Leadership was removed actually, neither before nor after I became a judge - what was discussed though were feats that could allow the character to found guilds, cities and the like (not quite that simple, but you get the idea).