Topic: A New (Sort of) Leveling System

[Cormac Doyle]

Losing ranks doesn't "work" as a mechanic for a very good reason - the current level/XP/Development paradigm means that it is progressively harder to get Xps (DPs) ... but you are losing information at a set rate (in fact, as you learn more skills, you have more skills you constantly have to "protect")

Additionally - re-familiarizing yourself with a skill is *much* easier than relearning it

To my mind - you do not "lose ranks"

However, you might get a -5 per month/year of lack of use, regained at +1/minute/hour/day of practice.

(e.g. - DON'T use the XP/DP skill DEV system to model this familiarity issue - use a GM-imposed activity penalty, removed by a relatively short period of practice OUTSIDE the XP/DP/Skill Dev infrastructure).

[RandalThor]

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.

Well, that is how I imagine the downtime being anyway; the characters are (probably after a bit healing/relaxing) undergoing the normal training for their profession, and likely looking for new things to learn to get better - like a swordsman picking up new tricks with the blade or a mage uncovering new arcane secrets and spells, etc.. I feel that the only time skill degradation would come into play would be when they cannot train for whatever reason. (Massive injury, in jail, decided to retire, way out away from civilization/on another planet.......) Just be sure to have their down time take time, so that you don't have the D&D 4E phenomenon of going from 1st level to 20th level in 6-months. (In game time.)

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)

Which could be both humorous and disastrous. Like in all things while gaming, using "common sense" and playing the character & situation and not the rules is the way to go.

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.

Like I mentioned earlier, I feel that the only time to bother with this, is when the character cannot take time to train/use/do more learning.

[Marc R]

So everyone who dies in bed at the full three score and ten ends life as a 0 ranks ignorant in diapers essentially? (Since you eventually hit a point where the upward curved advancement of XP to gain DP vs the linear drop in ranks per year will always trend to zero).

[Pat]

So everyone who dies in bed at the full three score and ten ends life as a 0 ranks ignorant in diapers essentially? (Since you eventually hit a point where the upward curved advancement of XP to gain DP vs the linear drop in ranks per year will always trend to zero).

Essentially yes...But it makes role playing interesting.GM "A goblin nurse appears from the shadows, wash cloth in hand." Player "I take out my false teeth and bite her using OB 40 improvised weapon - false teeth."

[jasonbrisbane]

Can I put forward a theory?

Please correct me if I am wrong but I think I have the grasp on what the (almost) Level-less system would entail, particularly when combined with the new HARP system. In fact it would simplify the Experience table for GM's but make book-keeping a little difficult to maintain the Levels...

If everyone has the same DP's (40, I believe..?), and as Randthor said on page one, they get their 40 DP's  and the GM dispenses DP's instead of XP. IN fact Xp doesnt exist.
Every 40 DP's they gain a level, which allows them to increase the max ranks by another 3 (same skill rnak progression as current system).

It then becomes a GM issue if PC's can increase skills they dont know, or if they have to train and study to gain a rank in anything... in fact PC's can gain XP out the wazoo and may not be able to do anything with this Dp's until they can train - taking a week per rank to train in (so a fighter with 5 ranks and gaining level 5 and a lot of XP can go up to 15 ranks if they spend the full ten weeks training (if the GM's world moves slowly enough for them to do that)). Lots of room for role playing  (instead of roll playing) here!

GM would have a smaller set of guidelines for granting DP:
as an example:
- player turns up to a game and participates actively - 1 DP
- player turns up and sits around playing iphone/pc/something else - 0 DP's
- player has a great idea that assists group to complete goal - 1 DP
- player has a great idea that assists himself to complete a personal Roleplaying goal - 1 DP

Does any of this seem familiar??

Introducing White wolfs storyteller system for HARP..
 

Dont get me wrong - im definetly NOT pooing the idea - in fact Id seriously consider taking it as the only other game I play is Dark Ages vampire and the game system is one reason I love it. Introducing some restrictions (whether gm based training restrictions, etc) makes this a fantastic idea (can I give myself an idea point? Maybe Randalthor gets it for his initial idea clicked it for me!)

Thoughts anyone?
Do you like the storyteller XP system that this seems to emulate? (Granted it keeps Levels as a restriction to the max number of ranks you can have, and also gives the GM a way to balance combat with monsters...)
You could of course get rid of the levels altogether and allow people to spend ranks in any skill at any time (2 dp's per rank in a weapon, but this gives opportunity to allow players to push ranks in combat stats if they allowed...some people may see this as a GM issue whilst others may see the system as flawed for allowing it...

Ideas?

[RandalThor]

it has been a looonngg time since I played any Vamp or Were (my favorite, I prefer werrewolves to vamps and zombies), but who knows, it could have been knocking around in there somewhere. But, more recently, it has been my playing of Skyrim that has got me on this level/xp variant system.

As for the "Every 40 DP's they gain a level, which allows them to increase the max ranks by another 3 (same skill rnak progression as current system)." I was going with the idea that there is no max rank per level. I like the idea that you can excel in a few skills at the expense of others. As was mentioned: it could come back and bite you.

I do agree it would entail more bookkeeping, but so long as we don't have hundreds of skills like in RM, it shouldn't be a problem. In fact, for those skills that have nothing to do with your character, they wouldn't even be listed. The same would go for skills you don't even know exist. (Like a viking and algebra.)

I also think that it is a good way for the GM to better control what the PCs get in the form of skills. You don't want your mage to learn a particular skill/spell, well there is no one that can teach it to them.

As for who gets the idea point, I would say nobody as it isn't a particularly new or clever idea. (But I will take it if you are giving it.  )

[Maelstrom]

I pretty much implement something like Jason's idea for large games I GM, with a little change.  Failure (not fumbles) results in acquiring 1 rank on the spot, since we learn much more from our failures than our successes.  Surviving a fumble intact (or relatively so) is benefit enough and produces the result of "Note to self, NEVER do it that way again!" but no further enlightment as to how to actually do it successfully.

[RandalThor]

Currently I am running a Greyhawk AD&D game, but will be transferring it to HARP and will be using this method of gaining levels. I am setting the DPs at 50/level with adolescent being its own "level." So that at first level you have 100 total DPs, and every 50 DP more you gain, you go up a level.

I just prefer a smoother character progression to the obviously artificial: nothing, nothing, nothing, EVERYTHING! Nothing, nothing, nothing, EVERYTHING! Gaining DP will be less of killing & stealing (though, those do gain you experience, the murder-hobos joke aside) and more about being there and participating. (I kind of think that it is more about rewarding the Player than the character - though you are doing it through the character and their increased cababilities.)