Topic: A New (Sort of) Leveling System

[RandalThor]

I have been thinking about this for a while now, and I would like to hear some opinions on it. (Yeah, I realize this has been touched on, but I would like a more in-depth discussion, if that is possible.)

I know that in the past I have railed a bit against the class/level system, thinking it as being an anachronistic carry-over from a more popular, but not nearly as good system. Lately, though, I have come to believe that levels have something to add to the game.* Most, notably in the arena of initiative, surprise/awareness, and RRs. Basically, I now feel they represent a character's natural growth in these areas as they get more and more experienced. (In fact, I think that certain aspects shouldn't be choices, for the most part, but be a steady progressive increase in ability. Though augment-able through talents and such. Example: Initiative - For me, experience should definitely play a bigger part in this than just raw natural ability. This can be implemented in one of 3 ways: Add the character's Experience Level, add their skill ranks of what they are doing, or combine/average the two and add that to their initiative modifier. But I digress, and that is a topic for another thread.)

Instead of levels being: nothing....nothing....nothing....BAM!! Everything all at once. I would like to run them more like Earthdawn does. As the character goes, their skills progress until they get to a certain point, and then they are the next level and gain the profession's level benefits, if any. And, instead of XP, I would think just dispensing Development Points would be better; just have each level a set number of DPs (say 40, for this example) and each time they get a full 40, they level.

Now, I also don't like the rules imposed/fake way of enforcing moderation on how many ranks a character can go up and top out in any given skill. If a player wants to increase a skill to the exclusion of many others, than they can, they will just be a one-trick pony. Which, as an "adventurer" is a very bad idea. Also, as training time increases with each rank, they will be forced to have more and more down-time. (Not to mention, it should cost a whole heck of a lot more to get a master to train you, which is what you would need once you get to 20+ranks in a skill.)

What do you think?


*Still, not that crazy about professions/classes, but in HARP they aren't too restricting, at least, so they are doable. And that is another discussion anyway.

[Pat]

Example: Initiative - For me, experience should definitely play a bigger part in this than just raw natural ability. This can be implemented in one of 3 ways: Add the character's Experience Level, add their skill ranks of what they are doing, or combine/average the two and add that to their initiative modifier. But I digress, and that is a topic for another thread.)

I think this is a brillant idea. It recognises that experience and skill in initiative is more important than stat (such as quickness).

The other ideas I will have to have a bit of a think about. I'm not sure if it's an improvement or not.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Example: Initiative - For me, experience should definitely play a bigger part in this than just raw natural ability. This can be implemented in one of 3 ways: Add the character's Experience Level, add their skill ranks of what they are doing, or combine/average the two and add that to their initiative modifier. But I digress, and that is a topic for another thread.)

Instead of basing it on level, why not base it on combat ability -- such +1 for every 5 ranks in best melee skill. I already do similar things in my current project, just not for initiative. But this post now has me thinking in that regard - as a possibility.

Instead of levels being: nothing....nothing....nothing....BAM!! Everything all at once. I would like to run them more like Earthdawn does. As the character goes, their skills progress until they get to a certain point, and then they are the next level and gain the profession's level benefits, if any. And, instead of XP, I would think just dispensing Development Points would be better; just have each level a set number of DPs (say 40, for this example) and each time they get a full 40, they level.

I would presume that you would allow saving up DPs, at least to a certain point or other.

But it seems here the the real trick would be on deciding how many DPs to give out. Basically, like many other games, the number of XP required to get to the next level usually increases as the level goes up. So, a GM would have to actually learn how to pace himself in giving out DPs, requiring more and more effort on the part of the characters to gain the same number of DPs as they go up in level.

[jdale]

Instead of basing it on level, why not base it on combat ability -- such +1 for every 5 ranks in best melee skill. I already do similar things in my current project, just not for initiative. But this post now has me thinking in that regard - as a possibility.

With such a system, mages never get faster, or if they do it is only by pretending to be fighters.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I would presume that you would allow saving up DPs, at least to a certain point or other.

But it seems here the the real trick would be on deciding how many DPs to give out. Basically, like many other games, the number of XP required to get to the next level usually increases as the level goes up. So, a GM would have to actually learn how to pace himself in giving out DPs, requiring more and more effort on the part of the characters to gain the same number of DPs as they go up in level.

I've been doing something along these lines, giving out DPs instead of XPs. "Saving up DPs" is allowed with a very simple convention: Please don't save more than 5 DPs unless you're saving for a talent or some such. If you are saving for a talent or something, let me know what it is and why you want it when you start saving for it, not when you spend the DPs to get it. That allows me time to find a way to insert it into the scenario context.

I agree that learning the proper pace is a major part of getting such a thing right, but I don't necessarily concede the point that it should always be harder to gain a level of skills the higher you go. Lots of games, and certainly ICE games, have a diminishing return built into the mechanics anyway.

 Using HARP's 50 DPs per level as a guide, "a level" is roughly equivalent to 20 skill ranks and a fairly minor talent. A GM's pace at awarding DPs becomes a personal calculation of how fast he wants skill development to go in relation to his story. How many things should you encounter, how many story elements should you have to figure out, to develop 20 ranks and a talent's worth? Divide 50 DPs by that number. That's the DP value of a typical encounter.

[RandalThor]

I think GOF said it with the diminishing returns. Why double-penalize?

Also, we need to remember that as the characters go up in level, so to do the challenges they face. And, like in RM, it would be fairly easy to build into the system the diminishing DPs one would get from dealing with the same creature or situation multiple times. (I can see where fighting goblins the 100th time would not be as instructive as the 1st.)

Saving DPs should definitely be allowed, whether or not you limit how many they can "hoard." I actually like the idea that a certain amount of the DPs must be spent on the skills that gave earned them the DPs.

Another way to go could be that when you use a skill, you get some XPs that are applied to that skill. When they earn enough XP, they go up a rank in that skill. You do this by saying so many XP = 1 DP (or just convert directly to ranks using the favored/unfavored as a guide). Example: 1 DP = 10 XP (different scale here folks), so that for favored skills it takes 20 XP to go up one rank. Extra DP are earned through adventure goal awards to be spent on other things. Like succeeding in doing X, you get Y amount of DPs. (Which equal a specific amount of XP.) The XP is kept in a running total which is checked against the level chart to see what level the PC is currently. Also, training can earn them XP, but I would have it take quite a while, so to encourage adventuring (which is what the game is primarily about anyway), and have the best way to increase in ability and level be a combination of adventuring and training.

[DavidKlecker]

for the issue that Mages don't go up, why do the same thing but from a magic perspective. Thus, if a fighter is going to increase his initiative ever level, why not have a mage get a reduction in cost for casting?

[GrumpyOldFart]

Also, we need to remember that as the characters go up in level, so to do the challenges they face. And, like in RM, it would be fairly easy to build into the system the diminishing DPs one would get from dealing with the same creature or situation multiple times. (I can see where fighting goblins the 100th time would not be as instructive as the 1st.)

Well giving out DPs one or two at a time becomes a much more subjective calculation on the GM's part, albeit one that's a lot easier to check for bias from outside. Sure, the first time you face this horribly ugly creature with unknown powers, the encounter should probably net you at least a DP, probably 2 or more. Your 500th hobgoblin? Not so much. You probably hit the "worthless for experience purposes" mark a while back. For a hobgoblin encounter to teach you anything anymore, there has to be something unusual about it.

Should you live so long, you'll find the same to be true of dragons.   

Saving DPs should definitely be allowed, whether or not you limit how many they can "hoard."

Well I could see a sensible compromise in limiting your "DP hoard" to the price of the most expensive Talent (or other option possible to spend DPs on) available in the game. For me, I consider it quite enough to say you can hoard however much you want as long as you and the GM between you can make it mesh with the scenario logic. For me, that's the limiting factor.

I actually like the idea that a certain amount of the DPs must be spent on the skills that gave earned them the DPs.

I feel like this is a redundancy. If using X skill is what got him the DPs, he's in a scenario where X skill has at least a passing importance. He assesses for himself how important he expects X skill to be, and either develops it or not. He's either correct in his assessment, or not. The accuracy or inaccuracy of his assessment either gets him killed, or not. It's self-correcting.

Also, training can earn them XP, but I would have it take quite a while...

See the problem with the 500th hobgoblin, above. Training is often as much about imposing a pattern of movement and/or behavior as about learning how and why things work, and how and why to work them.

[RandalThor]

Well I could see a sensible compromise in limiting your "DP hoard" to the price of the most expensive Talent (or other option possible to spend DPs on) available in the game. For me, I consider it quite enough to say you can hoard however much you want as long as you and the GM between you can make it mesh with the scenario logic. For me, that's the limiting factor.

In the case of those talents tat cost a lot, I think that so long as the Player and GM get together to determine what the character is doing to learn the new talent, it should be fine. Maybe it takes a few levels for the character to finally get it, which could be longer if they are unable to do whatever it is the GM says they need to be doing in order to learn the talent.

I feel like this is a redundancy. If using X skill is what got him the DPs, he's in a scenario where X skill has at least a passing importance. He assesses for himself how important he expects X skill to be, and either develops it or not. He's either correct in his assessment, or not. The accuracy or inaccuracy of his assessment either gets him killed, or not. It's self-correcting.

Well, I for one (and I am sure I am not alone in this), have seen it too many times where this doesn't happen. The character takes their DPs and spend them in skills they haven't done anything with. Using the method where the skill goes up automatically (and adding to the their DP/XP total for determining levels) makes sure that the character has a more organic/realistic advancement - there are times where you cannot help but get better at something.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I feel like having a skill automatically develop because you used it only makes sense if it happens repeatedly. You rarely learn more about a skill by using it once. So if someone gets DPs for a using a skill and doesn't develop it... then either he gets more DPs for the use of that same skill in the future (and probably develops it), or he doesn't.... and develops something else because that skill obviously isn't that important in the GM's scenario.

The character takes their DPs and spend them in skills they haven't done anything with.

In my experience that only happens if the GM hasn't made the skill he used important enough (and used often enough) to bother developing. Take Perception as an example. There is no profession that has Perception as one of its "core skills"... and yet even the most rabid of power gamers doesn't have to be told to develop it. Why? Because the GM's scenario always tells them that.

[Barner Cobblewood]

Good discussion. A counter-conception: We don't learn much hitting a nail 1 time with a hammer (luck as more than skill), but after we have hit nails 10,000 times, we have become a good hammerer (skill almost always beats luck). Furthermore, when we hit nails for 1 week a year, at the end of that week we're pretty good, but 51 weeks later not so much. Same with musical skills, language acquisition, etc. Use it or lose it.

So PCs should lose skills they don't use. Hence training is very important - it lets you keep what skill you have when there aren't opportunities for their use in your workaday life. I know this goes against the core idea of novelty in RM's experience pt system (pulp fiction too!), but I think this is a better model of how we learn.

So I'm with RandalThor regarding the problematic way PCs often end up with odd skills. No real solution though, other than a lot of book-keeping, and designing the scenario to make sure that the opportunities for the skills the PCs/GM want to develop actually occur. OTOH, this is exactly why RL interferes with gaming (play less often, then play badly so don't like it, then play even less etc.), so perhaps we should not try to mimic this arc in the session from fear of not having fun.

Best wishes,
Barner Cobblewood

[GrumpyOldFart]

So PCs should lose skills they don't use. Hence training is very important - it lets you keep what skill you have when there aren't opportunities for their use in your workaday life. I know this goes against the core idea of novelty in RM's experience pt system (pulp fiction too!), but I think this is a better model of how we learn.

I think novelty coupled with diminishing return is a fairly decent and very simple model of one side of the learning process. You learn a lot from those first few nails, from the first week... but what you learn from the first decade is a little more subtle than that.

The problem with modeling skill loss through lack of use is not making it accurate, but making it simple. If it's too fiddly, too much housekeeping and information tracking, people aren't going to bother. Ideally it's no housekeeping at all, it's built into the mechanics like the novelty/diminishing return is with almost any skill use.

No real solution though, other than a lot of book-keeping, and designing the scenario to make sure that the opportunities for the skills the PCs/GM want to develop actually occur.

Yeah, that. The only thing I can think of that even approximates it with minimal bookkeeping is to say that every X amount of Y (time or levels or XP or whatever measure of interval), the character will lose one rank in every skill. So even if you were the undisputed master of _____ skill X x Y ago, if you haven't stayed in training you're -X ranks less accomplished than you used to be.

By making it in every skill, you don't have to track what skills have been used and how often. The skills that constantly get practiced will fall behind 1 rank too, but they'll get built back up again in a hurry. The ones that don't continually get developed slowly deteriorate to zero, and the only difference between your "OMG I'm awesome" skill and your "I dunno nuffin" skill is how long it takes to get there.

[jdale]

I don't think you forget everything. Like riding a bicycle. It comes back right away. You may not be doing it at a pro racer level but it's not like you've never done it before. Even for language, which is a classic example of use-it-or-lose-it, I still remember a fair bit of my high school Spanish. Just not to the conversational level anymore.

A simple way to handle it might be to say that your specialization in a given skill is however you've been primarily using it over, say, the last few months. If you're using it several different ways, you keep your current specialization, or pick one. If you want to switch, you can do some intensive training for a week or so. But if you don't use it at all for, say, 3-6 months, you lose the specialization.

That means:
* you lose your edge but you don't lose your general knowledge.
* you can get it back fairly quickly by re-training.
* you don't really need to track it, but when you use a long-unused skill the GM can ask, when was the last time you did this?

This works best for a skill system that is designed around specializations.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I don't think you forget everything. Like riding a bicycle. It comes back right away. You may not be doing it at a pro racer level but it's not like you've never done it before. Even for language, which is a classic example of use-it-or-lose-it, I still remember a fair bit of my high school Spanish. Just not to the conversational level anymore.

One of the things I was thinking as I posted the above was that it needs a way for re-gaining skill to be much faster and easier than it was to gain it initially. And yeah, it needs to go down to a minimum, but not zero. Or if zero, not the -25 for "I dunno nuffin 'bout dis."

[RandalThor]

BC: I have thought about that as well, but like the rest of you, I realize it would take some bookkeeping - especially in a game that is primarily skill based. (But all games take bookkeeping, it is just a matter of balancing that with the fun.)

My goal here is somewhat of a mental exercise as well as trying to get a good, working method that institutes the ideology I express in the opening post.

GOF: Well, I am going with the idea that it takes more than a single use of a skill to increase it, even at the beginning stages of learning. I am even OK with increasing how much it takes to earn the next rank as their skill goes up, but i don't want to double punish them with that and diminishing returns, so it is something I need to think more about.

[Marc R]

I strongly suspect that most of "forgetting" lies in marginal quality, it's just the margin that matters.

If you bike every day, you get very good, you stop for a long time, and you retain most of it, but you lose your "edge". . .like professional sports players are out a year and come back, it takes them a bit to train their edge back on (if they can). . .but in pro sports that last couple of percent is the crucial last couple of percent.

Same is likely true of anything else. . .but in a system like RM a penalty of -5% is not critically a problem most of the time, so I dunno that the concept can really be made to fit that well.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Same is likely true of anything else. . .but in a system like RM a penalty of -5% is not critically a problem most of the time, so I dunno that the concept can really be made to fit that well.

Exactly. I can't speak for today, but back in the day a US Coast Guard certified welder had to recertify if he'd gone more than 90 days without a welding job. But -5 is meh... if you made it -5 per X unit of time, it would add up, but then you'd have to track skill usage.

It would halfway "rough out" if you said 1 skill rank per 6 months (3 months?) since you've used the skill, all the way down to zero for no skill (not -25 for no skill). However, ranks lost through disuse can be relearned at 1 DP per rank up to the original peak skill rank total. But that would require you to track peak skill rank totals separately from current skill rank totals.

It would track fairly accurately if you could do skill loss by the same -5/-2/-1 progression that you used for development. In other words, going from rank 1 to rank 3 is +10, going from rank 18 to rank 20 as the last of a progression from rank 1 is +4. Going from rank 20 to rank 18 from disuse is -10, going from rank 3 to rank 1 as the last of a regression from 20 ranks is only a -4.

Looked at that way, yes, those last few ranks are the ones that matter. But you'd drive yourself crazy trying to model it at the game table, I think.

And again, that gives you the problem of tracking how long it has been since you used _____ skill. And I still maintain that if the skill is important in the context of the game, it will get developed. And if it isn't important in the context of that individual game, I doubt it will matter to any of the players no matter what we decide here.

 

[Pat]

If I was playing to these restrictions I'd simply tell the GM I use a skill/skills during my down time. i.e. I have climbing so I climb a tree for an hour a week. I have riding so I practice riding my horse for an hour a week etc etc

It could all be done out of adventure so it doesn't really impact my character but it avoids skill loss.

[Marc R]

A lot of people would just "work the checklist" each session, and try to fit in rolling every skill on your sheet once a session. (A method I recall coming into play in games that used the "use it to advance it" system)

[GrumpyOldFart]

That's why I think you'd get better, simpler results (if you were willing to try modeling skill loss at all) by just saying okay, everyone loses a rank in everything once a year, or whatever. The skills you use regularly and consider important are all maxed out, so they're barely impacted. The ones that were important to you once, but you haven't used in forever, slowly decrease to zero. The difference between skills that have deteriorated to nothing and skills that you never learned is the difference between 0 and -25.