WOIN Great System!

[JWatmough]

Although I was aware of this system a while ago, it wasn't until the last couple of days that a really dove into it and I must say I am quite impressed. It seems quite solid and flexible. I would like to get your opinions on how well does the system hold up during play? I would imagine well.

Thanks
JW

 

[Morrus]

It holds up amazingly during play! It’s a wonderful life changing experience which will make you younger, healthier, wiser, richer, and better looking. Thanks for asking!

 

[JWatmough]

Haha! Well then. I didn't realize I have stumbled upon a modern-day panacea.

 

[JWatmough]

On a more serious note, however, I would like to get some honest impressions and advice about how the system handles and how I should handle it in practice. It would seem that its greatest strength is character creation. Does the system scale well with advancement? What sort of progression do you see in games? Is it hard to maintain a good difficulty level/challenge for the players? How do you generally rate an encounter/scene for its difficulty? Do you tend to do it just on the TN? Obviously this would be a case by case interpretation from people's perspective, but that is kind of what I would be interested in hearing.
Thanks again.

 

[M3woods]

You can find commentary on judging character/opponent challenge levels HERE.

 

[JWatmough]

Thank you! Might I ask do you find that the MDP is the best indicator on the challenge? and how do you adjust for that with characters who prefer to only use XP to advance individual characteristics without grade advancement?

 

[TheHirumaChico]

Thank you! Might I ask do you find that the MDP is the best indicator on the challenge? and how do you adjust for that with characters who prefer to only use XP to advance individual characteristics without grade advancement?

I would refer you to a quote from the OLD 1.2 book (p. 59): "Incremental advances are not as cost effective as career grades, but they allow for fine-tuning and granular advancement. Note, however, that a character’s maximum dice pool is always based on his overall grade, so incremental advancements
should always be viewed as a supplementary advancement method." Players that use only incremental advancement to buy attribute & skill increases and universal exploits cannot access career exploits and most importantly do not increase their MDP.

Therefore, while these characters might be OP as compared to equal grade level (MDP) opponents, I think they will find themselves outclassed more than might normally be predicted when compared to opponents just 1-2 grade levels higher. They will potentially be throwing away dice that their incremental advancement gained them. I think that for broadening a character's breadth of skills as a generalist, it can be useful to spend 3 XP incrementally here or there to get that 1d6 for a skill they lack. But, just for example, if a Grade 5 character spends 30 incremental XP to increase an attribute from 9 to 10 to get to 4d6 for checks made with that attribute, that character just lost 50% of the XP needed to get to Grade 6. That Grade 6 jump should net them a +1 to four (4!) separate attributes, not to mention 2 more skill ranks (albeit in different skills), plus a career or universal exploit, AND the +1 to their MDP.

 

[Morrus]

Players that use only incremental advancement to buy attribute & skill increases and universal exploits cannot access career exploits and most importantly do not increase their MDP.

Yep, this. If your dice pool is forever limited to 5d6, all the skills and attributes in the world aren’t going to help you fight a dragon.

 

[JWatmough]

Great, thank you so much for the replies and info. That makes a lot of sense.