Getting Better (or Worse)

Ability scores in Mörk Borg are rated from –3 to +3. They're used directly as modifiers to d20 rolls, which is straightforward and easy to use in play. I mention this to provide context for the game's remarkable advancement system. Like many contemporary old school RPGs, Mörk Borg doesn't track experience points, opting instead for a more freeform approach. As the rulebook explains, 

the game master decides when a character should be improved. It can be after completing a scenario, killing mighty foes or bringing home treasure.

Like or hate it, it's entirely up to the referee to decide when a character advances. In Mörk Borg, such advancement can take several forms: hit points, gaining money/scrolls, and ability score changes. A random roll determines whether a character advances in each of these categories. Notice I wrote "whether." That's because it's entirely possible that the referee could grant a character an advance and yet, because of the dice rolls, the character doesn't improve at all. That might seem odd, even unfair, but I think it makes sense in an advancement system as freeform as this one (not to mention the thematic appropriateness for a doom-laden dark fantasy).

Where the system is unusual, though, is when it comes to ability scores. Whereas the worst possible outcome for hit points or wealth is that the character gains nothing, for ability scores, it's possible for them to decrease. The system works like this:

Roll a d6 against every ability. Results equal to or greater than the ability increase it by 1, to a maximum of +6. Results below the ability decrease it by 1. 

Abilities from –3 to +1 are always increased by 1 unless the d6 result is 1. The ability is then reduced by 1, but never below –3.

With the possible exception of Traveller, I'm hard pressed to think of another roleplaying game where there's a chance that characters might get worse through play rather than constantly improve. The idea of the perpetual advancement of a character is one of the most far reaching ideas of Dungeons & Dragons, influencing not just other RPGs but also video and board games. It's also, I think, a very limiting one, not because there's anything at all wrong with character advancement, but because not every roleplaying game needs an advancement system at all, let alone one descended from D&D's. 

Mörk Borg's advancement system is its own and probably wouldn't be appropriate for many (any?) other RPGs. My point is more that we need to be more willing to consider alternative approaches to advancement, including ones that, like Mörk Borg, not only reject the idea of perpetual improvement but embrace the possibility of decline. Again, that's not appropriate in every circumstance, but we need more out of the box thinking like this. Why limit our game designs?