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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4463266" data-attributes="member: 710">You could try it out yourself - just don't grant any XP. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I think this is one of the aspects where "classic" stories and RPGs do sometimes diverge. But are from all - Conan becomes a King eventually. The Hobbits gain fighting skill and when they get home, they easily defeat the bandits trying to take control of it.Many other heroes are only found in a single book or movie. Some of them feature advancement, others have the characters already be strong and well-trained (typical for action heroes). Others feature a kind of "mix" - superhero stories grant the characters often a sudden boost (gaining their superpowers), but they have to learn using their powers. But after that, not much is happening in that regard.I think it is hard to say there is one consistent type of advancement in stories.But very often, advancement might seem not as significant because we rarely watch the protagonists of story their entire career. We only watch the highlights. PCs, we follow from 1st level to 20 or 30th level in D&D. There are games where this is different. Many point buy systems tend to have you start with a certain degree of competence, and advancement is typically slower. In Shadowrun, you would probably train one or two skills after each Run - a far cry from 2+INT skill points, dx hit points, a feat or spell and a +1 to attacks or saves you might get in D&D after one adventure.Anyway, advancement in RPGs an come in the "role-play" reward - succeeding at a task, getting revenge, finding allies and friends. But your character is barely expressed by all this "world" connections. In mechanic terms he is described in great detail in entirely other aspects. It seems to follow naturally that players will want to see their "success" or advancement also be reflected in the mechanical representation of their characters.If you'd find a way to represent "deeds" in mechanics, maybe you wouldn't need "skill" advancement. To bring up my favorite example for everything: Torg grants PCs possibility points for concluding individual acts in a storyline (adventure) or the entire storyline. You can use them to improve your skills or statistics, but you could also just "hoard" them and use them to improve specific results you roll. In Torg, these possiblities actually have a ingame reflection, and it is a resource highly sought by the High Lords, each having ways to "steal" them from a hapless victim or even an entire cosm. But they also reflect "story" success - a special case is using the "Glory" card, that grants each party member another 3 possibilities if they perform a spectacular task (rolling 60+ with a d20 roll again on a 10 or 20 mechanic). Aside from this highly sought benefit, it also allows the characters to further manipulate the world, bringing the "good side" closer to a win. If you use a concept like possibilities in an even more abstract context, and use it to describe allies, friendships, experience, and limit or remove its ability to increase other statistics, and focus on their ability to manipulate the outcome of random events (dice rolls etc.), you could create a game where characters abilities are mostly stable. No character growth in the sense of more powerful spells or attacks, but character growth in the sense of story.A character doesn't succeed on his Gather Information check because he has improved his ranks by 2 points, but because (mechanically) he is spending a possibility (story-wise) relying on the contacts he made in past adventures.Of course, this would be a very abstract game and not for everyone. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />You could make it a lot more concrete, and end up with a reflavored skill approach, like this: - Contacts (Arcana)- Contacts (Streetwise)- Allies (Military)- Allies (Economic)</blockquote>

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