[Echelon A&A] Character advancement and class(less) problem.
Kyles Games:
What I did with Orchestra to solve this problem with a classless system (and it may not be solved, and somewhat relies on the dice/modifier mechanic) is that advancements directly neglect a more juicy spread, meaning nobody has a Combat Monster +5 (unless they really want one, in which case they will be an asset to the team but not a team leader, and still far from immortal). Similarly, with the exception of maybe Weight Lifting there's no skill that can get massive modifiers (and Weight Lifting is used for its namesake, so it won't be too terribly munchkin, it'll just be like an action movie- the character can flip cars, rip massive guns from turrets [should there be guns in turrets, and then it'll require someone with some Science skill to unlock it for him]) and this makes the game more fun, allows a little bit of exceptional characters but still remembers that "no man can outsmart the bullet".
I'd also recommend to look at the health system- it bothers me when health has to be bought separately (the King of Marthin has 5 health because he didn't wanna invest in it?) but I'd definitely link its growth to well-rounded (i.e. not munchkin) selections and activity. Typically when one finds a munchkin, they find that they obsess in one area they feel they do well in (or maybe that's just my brother), for instance playing a character in the CUDA Lord of the Rings game with no fewer than five weapons and full combat skills from the get go, or a Troll Street Samurai in Shadowrun (who, interestingly, neglected Body, but that's user error).
When dealing with something finite like time as an advancement mechanism, I'd be sure to keep in mind that some characters should "waste" time in character. While this definitely makes for a perks/flaws system, you could also do some interesting stuff with short-term bonuses at the cost of long term progression, though that's your call.
Also, the "Importance Weight Tally" is sorta what inspired me to write Orchestra, if it means what I think it does. Basically, if I understood it right, you look at everything and look at how it affects the gameplay. Either make the base number for those common areas (like combat) higher, or make it cost more, or attempt to direct focus away from it. In Orchestra I attempt to do this by making combat extremely lethal (a lot of guns kill starter characters or their buddies in one hit). You could just make all the combatants encountered have something like a +3 bonus to combat during NPC creation (if you have a system) which would mean giving them a slight boost, but then non-combat specialized characters really can't do anything in combat (which is realistic but can be boring or a turn off), or just make it cost double (or do like d20 does and make it be a progression over time, sorta like what I like to do with health).
BubbaBrown:
Quote from: Richard on September 12, 2011, 09:26:36 PM
Like I mentioned, I'm not going to be using a points system, but rather the time that has passed in-character (with some GM fudge of course - "You have spent so long reading and learning this ancient language over the past week that you gain a +1 bonus" etc.)
It's just a different abstraction of points in the end. Consider points in reference to whatever you have chosen for your units of character development currency.
Quote
Could you give an example of this Importance Weight Tally thingy that you refer to? I think I understand what you're referring to, but I've never seen such a logic device used in practice before.
I wanted to debug a problem I had with character attributes. I wanted to be sure they all had roughly equal importance to avoid have the "wonder" stat and the "dump" stat situation. So, I listed them and systematically went through and counted each time they were used in the system. Helped quickly to find attributes that were deviated from the rest. The same methodology can be used to find out what components of the system are used the most.
Richard:
Quote from: Kyles Games on September 13, 2011, 04:46:55 AM
What I did with Orchestra to solve this problem with a classless system (and it may not be solved, and somewhat relies on the dice/modifier mechanic) is that advancements directly neglect a more juicy spread, meaning nobody has a Combat Monster +5 (unless they really want one, in which case they will be an asset to the team but not a team leader, and still far from immortal). Similarly, with the exception of maybe Weight Lifting there's no skill that can get massive modifiers (and Weight Lifting is used for its namesake, so it won't be too terribly munchkin, it'll just be like an action movie- the character can flip cars, rip massive guns from turrets [should there be guns in turrets, and then it'll require someone with some Science skill to unlock it for him]) and this makes the game more fun, allows a little bit of exceptional characters but still remembers that "no man can outsmart the bullet".
I'd also recommend to look at the health system- it bothers me when health has to be bought separately (the King of Marthin has 5 health because he didn't wanna invest in it?) but I'd definitely link its growth to well-rounded (i.e. not munchkin) selections and activity. Typically when one finds a munchkin, they find that they obsess in one area they feel they do well in (or maybe that's just my brother), for instance playing a character in the CUDA Lord of the Rings game with no fewer than five weapons and full combat skills from the get go, or a Troll Street Samurai in Shadowrun (who, interestingly, neglected Body, but that's user error).
When dealing with something finite like time as an advancement mechanism, I'd be sure to keep in mind that some characters should "waste" time in character. While this definitely makes for a perks/flaws system, you could also do some interesting stuff with short-term bonuses at the cost of long term progression, though that's your call.
Also, the "Importance Weight Tally" is sorta what inspired me to write Orchestra, if it means what I think it does. Basically, if I understood it right, you look at everything and look at how it affects the gameplay. Either make the base number for those common areas (like combat) higher, or make it cost more, or attempt to direct focus away from it. In Orchestra I attempt to do this by making combat extremely lethal (a lot of guns kill starter characters or their buddies in one hit). You could just make all the combatants encountered have something like a +3 bonus to combat during NPC creation (if you have a system) which would mean giving them a slight boost, but then non-combat specialized characters really can't do anything in combat (which is realistic but can be boring or a turn off), or just make it cost double (or do like d20 does and make it be a progression over time, sorta like what I like to do with health).
I understand what you mean about health. I'm thinking of tying it to one or two stats, although toughness works already with damage reduction and starting health.
That being said - having two separate metrics for damage soak is interesting though. My dark heresy group has the 2 extremes of this - one of us has 21 wounds and 3 TB, whereas another has TB5 and 13 wounds.
Combat in Echelon is also very deadly. I'm using a location system inspired by Inquisitor's. The average number of health someone has is about 11 or so, so it takes 11 damage to be pushed into the next level of injury somewhere. The guns do a minimum of about 4d10 damage for the weakest pistols, so usually about 20-25 damage a pop. The more powerful rifles do up to 7d10.
With regards to the amount of time needed to learn stuff, procrastination and living will be taken into account in the time-cost.
Could you give some examples in your system of this process for the weighting malarky? Thanks!
Quote from: BubbaBrown on September 13, 2011, 08:44:19 AM
Quote from: Richard on September 12, 2011, 09:26:36 PM
Like I mentioned, I'm not going to be using a points system, but rather the time that has passed in-character (with some GM fudge of course - "You have spent so long reading and learning this ancient language over the past week that you gain a +1 bonus" etc.)
It's just a different abstraction of points in the end. Consider points in reference to whatever you have chosen for your units of character development currency.
Quote
Could you give an example of this Importance Weight Tally thingy that you refer to? I think I understand what you're referring to, but I've never seen such a logic device used in practice before.
I wanted to debug a problem I had with character attributes. I wanted to be sure they all had roughly equal importance to avoid have the "wonder" stat and the "dump" stat situation. So, I listed them and systematically went through and counted each time they were used in the system. Helped quickly to find attributes that were deviated from the rest. The same methodology can be used to find out what components of the system are used the most.
Ah I see what you mean. Yes I think that will be very helpful for myself. Agility, Perception and Toughness are the most important presently, so like you suggest I think I'll increase the cost of these stats.
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