Consequently, I find myself being drawn more and more to the approach to experience in Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing family of games. Now, BRP is quite unlike D&D in its design, being almost entirely skill-based, so there are limits to the lessons that can be drawn from it. Even so, there's a lot I like about its design, such as learning by experience, as presented in this section from the second edition of RuneQuest:
This version of learning by experience is, in my opinion, more complicated than it needs to be in its specifics. Call of Cthulhu – at least in its classical version; I can't speak to the current edition – makes use of a simpler version. Other BRP games employ their own variations. What matters to me is the basic conception of tracking individual advancement in each area of character's competency (skills), not any particular implementation of it. Indeed, I think it might well be possible to come up with a simpler application of it that nevertheless retains the core idea.
I don't know. My thinking is all over the place at the moment and I apologize if my recent spate of posts on experience and levels doesn't completely make sense. I suppose I am thinking aloud in order to decide what I like and want as I puzzle my way through the design of Secrets of sha-Arthan. Ultimately, my goal is a set of rules that is straightforward, if not not necessarily simple, and that is robust enough to handle a setting that's as culturally immersive as Glorantha, Jorune, or Tékumel (all of which are, to varying degrees, influences upon sha-Arthan).
As always, I appreciate your comments.
The appeal of an "advance the abilities that you use" approach is intuitive. But any system I have encountered is open to abuse. Players being ever on the look out for a "good trick" (as they should be) will take advantage where they can.
ReplyDeleteI recall the "shine" I had to the RQ skill system becoming tarnished when players used each weapon skill in turn until they had them all checked for an advancement roll. Using a skill just to get the advancement seems as awkward as advancing a skill one never uses. Of course, YMMV.
Yeah, Runequest, where players will put aside their sword because they got experience with that one, time to pull out the axe for awhile and get experience in that one as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't like the way 5e attaches proficiency to weapons either, but it at least doesn't encourage min-max games.
Back in the day, I countered the weapons golf bag by adding 1% to the experience roll for each success with the skill. These days, I see no golf bagging except when someone is legitimately trying to improve a new weapon (so they tend to use that in exclusion to the similar weapon they are already skilled with). We also only play for 2 hours every other week, so if there's a little bit of skill check hunting going on, I'm not going to complain because I want the PCs to advance.
ReplyDeleteHow is the CoC experience roll different? I haven't actually looked in detail at the other BRP games I have (and I long ago got rid of CoC)...
CoC's roll doesn't concern itself with INT. It's just a straight roll, with the target being over your character's current skill rating. A successful experience roll nets 1d6% added to current skill rating.
DeleteAh, the INT in RQ comes into play in determining the minimum chance of increase, important as you near 100% in a skill.
Deletein 7e, 1d10 % is added on a failed (post game) skill check
DeleteOther iterations of BRP (Mongoose RQ, Mythras, OpenQuest) use abstract "improvement" or "growth" points, to be spent as the player (mostly) sees fit, rather than the endless "skill improvement check chase". "Learning by experience" in this case is measured more by "playing your character" than any specific goals (though the latter are still a part of the experience awards).
ReplyDeleteI've used something like that in the past, but these days I find those systems have potential to become arbitrary.
DeleteAgree, I much prefer the skill check method, carefully watched for abuse.
DeleteHope these posts of mine help
ReplyDeleteApplying some Runequest to GURPS
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/05/applying-some-runequest-to-gurps.html
GURPS Time and Experience
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2015/01/gurps-time-and-experience.html
Also I recommend considering time spent on the "job. Just going about doing what one does normally is a learning experience but also a slow one.
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What I did for the 1xp per 45 days of On the Job Training is assume that the characters while living their life (i.e. adventuring) are "On the Job" for 16 hours out of 24 hours. This equates to 4 hours of learning per day. This meant 200 hours would occur every 50 days 4 hours of on the job. I also assume that a small number of hours per week would be spent training. When multiplied out over a number of days resulted in the final figure of 45 days per 1 xp award.
The only issue I have with the system is not golf-bagging, but how uneven it can be.
ReplyDeleteYou can end up having wildly differing competence levels in the same group.
In the long run things should even out, but although there are some workarounds, you run the risk of having unlucky players whose characters do not grow at the same rate of the others.
In the campaigns I have run, training is actually somewhat more important, which means everyone advances at some reasonable rate. If someone was really unlucky and falling way behind, I might look at ways to help them.
DeleteD&Ds abstraction can also be a good thing. Tracking things on as minute a scale as the above seldom has a significant effect on game play, even though to many it feels more intellectually satisfying.
ReplyDeleteSuch systems are also very open to abuse by players who want to have a mechanical advancement for any action their PC takes and can brainstorm a ton of ways to fit in such opportunities for advancement, many of which are put forth more disingenuousy than those that occur naturally in the story.
Skill systems like RuneQuest allow for a lot of differentiation between characters that is hard to accomplish in a class and level system without inventing lots of character classes. RuneQuest with it's experience rolls and training actually works very well, and is much different than D&D's class and level advancement.
DeleteI really see very little gaming of the experience system.
I always recommend playing a system to find out how it works. This doesn't sound profound, but it appears far too often that the authors never played their own system, so it is some ways revolutionary. The only downside to this advice is that there are rather too many games to play!
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