[Leveling Mechanics] Would you play in this game?

[Mark Causey]

I was thinking about how often I want my character to progress faster, but I've not wanted to attempt to discard the leveling mechanic already present in D&D. I was wondering, could you balance:

Getting a new feat/ability every level

with:

Your co-players, and not you, get to make the choice as to what you get.
or
Your co-players, and not you, get to make the choice as to what you get on every level but 3^x.

Would you play in a game like that? What upsides and downsides do you see occurring?

 

[Crothian]

what are the co workers basing it off of? Are they going to give my Barbairian skill focus knowledge cities? And since I get to choose what they get what's stopping us from going "Hey, I'll give you that cleave feat you want if you give me the spring attack I want."

Personally, it would make it hard to go for prestige classes, or other goals like that.

 

[Mark Causey]

"Hey, I'll give you that cleave feat you want if you give me the spring attack I want."

This is part of what I was thinking; making character progression more social, more ... shared. The idea that not only is your character progressing but everyone is, and because of your choices, in a fashion you'd like to see. Joint ownership of characters, maybe?

 

[Crothian]

It would take the right players for this to happen. People like ownship of their character and some wouldn't agree on where to take Fred the barbarian and you'd have conflict of the bad kind.

That said, perhaps you could widen it out and have more characters then players. Each could have one character that is theres but you'd have a gropup that ius shared and can be played by anyone. This is very Ars MAgica if you know that game. Basically, for each adventure some people would take their personal characters while the rest would take fr om the shared pile. You'd have to have a reason in game for all these poeple together like a merc groups that only needs to sned X people and not the whole compnay.

 

[freebfrost]

If you are using "group"-type feats that benefit multiple PCs who have the feat, I could see it making sense, however for the most part I don't see why players would particularly enjoy that.

You are essentially saying that that player really doesn't have any input into their character without a lot of negotiation with the other players. So if Player A wants "Improved Initiative," but the other players really want them to take "Brew Potion," that player has to jump through hoops to convince the other players to change their minds, and if they fail, will have to run a character that does not fit their concept of what the character should be.

There is little difference in that versus the DM saying here's the next feat you are going to take. And players generally do not like being dictated to in that way.

You say that you wish the players to level faster, but I do not understand why you think that letting the other players "vote" on feats is a balancing factor.

Can you explain that more?

 

[Mark Causey]

That makes a good point. You could remove the 'every level I get something' if you had three characters to choose from, and they all leveled at the same time. Maybe I'm looking for a group pool kind of thing.

 

[Mark Causey]

You say that you wish the players to level faster, but I do not understand why you think that letting the other players "vote" on feats is a balancing factor.

Can you explain that more?

I was thinking that always knowing where others wanted to go with their characters would help in tying the group together. This, I believe, will need a type of 'social contract' to be agreed on before starting. If you could make choices for others and others for you, you'd have a stake in the entire party and not just your own character. If all of the others think you're making a bad decision in the route you're going with your character, would it be better for them to stop you than for them to roll their eyes every time that facet came into play? If everyone knows you're aching for a prestige class, and learn about your thoughts for your character every level, maybe they can also help you reach them in-game and not be surprised when it happens all of a sudden.

I don't game enough to know if these are problems or solutions, but they're some thoughts I had.

 

[Sledge]

Andy Collins has 1 feat/level in his Umber campaign.

 

[Mark Causey]

Andy Collins has 1 feat/level in his Umber campaign.

Yeah, I believe to supplement against the fact that gear was much less available than in standard D&D.

Midnight has a racial quality that everyone chooses that gives them an ability each level, but its set in stone from the beginning.

Same with Bloodlines in Unearthed Arcana, but you lose 1-3 levels for those abilities.

 

[maddman75]

I think it would work better in a point based rather than level based system, such as Storyteller, GURPS, or Unisystem. In that case rather than the group picking the person's ability when they level, you could have a group pool of points.

Rather than give each of four players 6 xp, you give the group 24 xp to split between them however they like. They have to work together to figure out who is going to improve where. It would certainly make progression more of a group affair.

And for the inevitable argument, you could always solve them with a good knife-fight out in the yard .