XP Rollover

mietze

And even that isn't really what we're talking about, which is rollover.

I disagree with the assertion that the dinosaur IC and OOC isn't a part of rollover--one of the reason why I am thinking through this issue is because I think it is an unintended consequence of full rollover--both in a stats sense but also in a player entitlement sense. Not everyone is like that but certainly it can be a big problem revolving around those that are like that.

Bobotron

@Bennie said:

@Bobotron catching up with the old characters isn't the issue, or at least not the most obvious one. The old characters being so entrenched as to never cycle back into noobs is the perceived problem imo. That they're invincible, or can't be fought, or can 1-shot you, or any of a laundry list of other 'those guys sux' arguments.

All truth. But it seems that many times the primary issue that gets brought up is 'catching up to the old guys'. The other issues you mention there can be overcome, but it requires a competent staff and a staff who is willing to let the creative players get the outcome to their endeavors (as long as they put the appropriate effort into it, and do everything per the rules to GET to that end).

A lot of these aren't the XP. They're "Staff protects those guys" arguments. They're "Those guys cheat and will say my attempt is broken/incorrect/not approved" arguments. They're "going to never put themselves in danger and hoard the power and not do anything with it" arguments. There's just this massive list of complaints people seem to have over anyone who has more XP.

Yeah; I won't deny that this happens. I've seen this on MU*s and in LARPs.

But the issue isn't the XP. The issue is, is only noobs recycling into new noobs, or is there any kind of chance for the entrenched minority to lose their place and start over too?

And even that isn't really what we're talking about, which is rollover.

You have to break it down:

What do I get when I have to start a new character? Nothing? Something? Something more for having had unspent XP previously? A portion of my previously spent XP?

Does everyone get the same opportunity? Is the opportunity selective to only people who have been PK'd? Only available when you die in a plot? Do people who have a stale character get the same benefit, or are they the odd man out?

Does the game have limits? Is there a limit to the amount of unspent XP you can have? Is there a limit to the amount of spent XP you can have? Is unspent XP a part of you, as a player? Is unspent XP smoke that disappears when you change characters?

Is the game's difficulty such that someone starting new (or over) would be behind? Are you in jeopardy in the most basic storytelling component of the game until a certain amount of XP is reached? Does everyone have to go through this learning curve each time they make an alt?

Is your playgroup varied? Will playing with your friends be made difficult because your XP is not on the level of their XP? Will you be forced to find new friends? Are your friendships being detrimentally impacted with changes in PCs?

All good things to think about, and I think any staffer planning on running a game should consider these. Of all of them, #5 is the one I've probably never had an issue with, both in LARP or MU*. But I have extremely limited experience with the WoD MU* circuit, so I can't give a huge comment on the varied playgroups. And as for #1-4, every game is going to be different because of different design philosophies. I am going to steal those questions and save them, because they're good questions and worth keeping.

silentsophia

I think that part of the problem on WoD games is that as time goes on, more things get houseruled and so older characters're more likely to have stuff newcomers can't get. That's just a part of life on a game, probably. Unfortunately, what I ran into on HM was when people had hundreds upon hundreds of XP, wiggling in as a noob was nearly impossible.

Sure, she's good with spirits and/or money. So're five other dudes and they have several hundred XP on her and do it five times better. The other problem was that the other newbs were either non-existent or just not open to newcomers. The sphere was also so big already that there wasn't really room for more newbs.

Course, the best part was when I came back and apparently had been booted for 2+ weeks from the cabal and no one told me. So part of it also is when players just don't want to deal with outsiders, which might be from bad experiences, being a douche or just having what they want out of an RP circle already.

Thenomain

@Bobotron said:

Yeah, the 'rocketship' analogy is why I like the concept of a monthly XP floor, and maybe a 'flat award' at some point

Again, we did this on DarkWater. People hated it. Not everyone, of course, but the abrupt shift in character was a turn-off to many of the people that I think we wanted to have play there.

@Glitch's Reach XP climb was meant to solve that particular problem, but after a few years the escalation was de-facto. He has already said that the system wasn't used in the way it was intended.

Between the two, a better-scaled, more elastic version of Reach's system would be my preference, as it answered the issue of keeping power levels roughly in sync far better than DW did.

For the sake of those who forgot or never knew, DarkWater made sure that people were no more than 2 months' worth of Flat-XP behind anyone else. Extra XP that was earned was not calculated in. However, this meant people who joined a year in found themselves being handed 100+ xp after a month. It was not a happy balance.

Bobotron

@Thenomain said:

@Bobotron said:

Yeah, the 'rocketship' analogy is why I like the concept of a monthly XP floor, and maybe a 'flat award' at some point

Again, we did this on DarkWater. People hated it. Not everyone, of course, but the abrupt shift in character was a turn-off to many of the people that I think we wanted to have play there.

@Glitch's Reach XP climb was meant to solve that particular problem, but after a few years the escalation was de-facto. He has already said that the system wasn't used in the way it was intended.

Between the two, a better-scaled, more elastic version of Reach's system would be my preference, as it answered the issue of keeping power levels roughly in sync far better than DW did.

For the sake of those who forgot or never knew, DarkWater made sure that people were no more than 2 months' worth of Flat-XP behind anyone else. Extra XP that was earned was not calculated in. However, this meant people who joined a year in found themselves being handed 100+ xp after a month. It was not a happy balance.

See, that's different than how I'd do it. Just frontload the process with the 25%, and if someone doesn't get ANY XP for that month, give them a flat rate. I'm not advocating 'push to <X> months behind' but 'push so that they're not sitting with nothing if they have a bad couple months for gaming'.

Of course, I'm not one of the typically concerned about keeping power levels in sync, though 200XP oldbie against 30XP noob is not my ideal; however, 200XP olbie versus 110XP 'new character 'is better, IMO. And then perhaps on the year anniversary of game open, everyone gets a flat extra 10 on top of that month's cap and/or floor.

Thenomain

Ah, flooring earned xp. The people who will complain are those who were granted XP through involvement with the system, while those who don't still got XP. I think the best solution is to flat-rate it while allowing those who gained more to keep it. It's a bit more the meritocracy that people seem to look for.

Bobotron

I just feel like it's fair to give everyone something, and then those that participate, they get what they earn. That way noone is super far behind (plus my LARP works on a pretty low monthly cap for XP, but not for plot, stuff you can get through Influence/Downtimes, and other things, since not everything revolves around ALL THE XPS!)

Arkandel

I don't know there's a 'best solution' per se since different people want different things.

My more or less ideal system is one where people get XP per week based on activity then no one lags less than a reasonable but substantial amount of % behind the leader. So if ES leads with 500 XP everyone else has to have at least 80% of that. Then add delay-spending to avoid overnight triple-Masters and you're good to go.

It lets the people ahead have their extra toys but they're still within range of others catching up if they stay more active. It's an approach that works best if one can define 'activity' in a satisfactory manner.

And even then obviously there are people who'd disagree it's a better system than the one they have in mind. We'll never get a consensus out of that, which is probably a good thing.

Bennie

I've never understood the delayed spending.

If I make a new character, and that character is a Master, I always feel like someone's shoved a corn husk down my face as I try to explain, no I am not making an Apprentice, I am making a Master. And never get why the Master is off the table, but it's ok to make yet another Apprentice.

I've had Apprentices. I don't want another Apprentice. I have this here XP, it says I can make a Master, what's the holdup?

What is 'ahead'? To me ahead is having your established buildings, equipment you've fashioned, contacts and connections, not your 5 dots in... whatever. People must disagree with me because they want ahead to be you having 25 Gifts, vs. you having a position, an infrastructure you've developed, and a lay of the land you are a part of. To me that is what is ahead. Not that you can cartwheel and fart at the same time. That isn't being ahead. That's just being special.

I've always wondered about this. If a game gives you, by design, the material to use to create something, why is it 'unbalanced' to make that something. Why is there an artificial forcing of a square peg into a round hole at the CG point to 'keep people down' at some NOOB ISH (autocorrect is pissing me off) level that isn't supported by what you are giving them to start with?

MrWigggles

Very engaging conversation.

I have a different prospective on Xp, that doesn't seem to have been discussed yet.

XP, is three things primarily; its a currency, its a reward, and its time.

My experience, is when players are demanding/asking for Xp roll over for a new character, is that they don't want their time on the game to be invalidated. They've invested a lot of time on the game, and thats shown in a few ways. One way, which is (in most cases) forever lost, are the IC relationships, and the narratives therein. The second way, is the amount of XP they acclimated. Since XP is also a reward, they have an entitlement to that reward. Simply making a new character shouldn't be invalidating their work for their reward. The time they've placed into the game.

Players didn't mind the early game for the mu*. Thats why they're old character with lots of XP. If the early game was crappy, they wouldn't be old characters. (Though maybe the game has changed where the early game does now suck, but I'll assume it doesn't.) So Players more then likely wouldn't mind doing so again, rebuilding those IC relationships, and driving those narratives. As that basic game loop is very fun.

So its not having to go through the 'tutorial' again. One, they wouldn't be. It'd be a new game+ experience, and get to skip any tutorial like element. Two, they would have passive advantage that wouldn't be represented in the game, verses new players. Their game knowledge. Which is something often overlooked and under appreciated.

Now, as most of this thread has concluded, you can't really allow players to keep the XP. It creates a lot of problems.

The biggest problem, is XP Creep, as briefly brought up before. Though, it's much better to frame Xp Creep, as XP Inflation. I think it much better describe the issue. And Mus as they age, in general suffer that. MMO suffer it too with gold. So in general, any mu that has XP needs to implement as many XP sinks as possible. As it's hard to constrain the money supply, in a mu*.

A really cheap, but also crappy solution, is to provide a new game+ tax. Any character which has xp roll over has an additional tax of X%. This'll upset most players, as it's devaluing their time, invest and devaluing their reward.

My current solution, is to allow new game+ characters, to use their XP to purchase limited use Boons. Since WoD is the primary game we're working against, I'll try to provide examples for that. Though I like nWod and oWod, I don't strongly differentiate their mechanics. So please forgive, if I do one then other, or do a combination of both.

Purchase Success Dice. When used, they're counted as additional success. Maybe restrict it, to negating 1's.

Purchase Discounts.

Purchase Inroads to the Game IC world. (Such as having pre established relationships.)

There probably quite a few others you can do.

Arkandel

There is something I've long been fascinated by about the way power correlates to MU* and the reasons it makes designing one so difficult if you try to appeal to as many players as possible.

Players invest time into PCs on these games, a great deal more than an average table-top campaign. An average character on a MU* is played several times a week for sessions which often run for 2+ hours each; most dedicated roleplayers outside such settings don't invest more than a fraction of that.This means, in many cases, they want a return for that investment. It's a human thing; you put in time and effort and you'd like to see something back. Yes the fun you derive from playing should be it; no it's not enough. It is for some, it is not for the majority. In that way power and respect tend to be looked at as potential returns.

I won't discuss respect. It's not a rewardable trait.

When it comes to XP though here's what's interesting: Most players will detest being unable to ever catch up in the power curve; everyone wants to be special. However players also detest when everyone catches up in the power curve; that's when no one is special.

So we are sometimes urged to design games with conflicting design goals, either by allowing only some specific category of players to catch up (usually highly active ones) which alienates the coveted casual people with lives or by patching their approach in ways which conflict with the original plan - take TR for instance, where there were specific XP caps which got overridden in different amounts by things like Tier-ed characters, arcane XP bonuses and the like.

I don't think there's a universal solution out of this, games have to pick their poison. But it's still an interesting problem to tackle.

Miss Demeanor

Negating 1's doesn't really do much in nWoD, since generally 1's don't count against your successes. There are instances where this CAN occur, but they're kind of few and far between. If you're going to purchase something like that, then purchase the ability to negate a penalty. And I don't mean negating someone's defense in combat, I mean more like... you have a note on you that says you have purchased the ability to negate 3 general penalties. You go into a plot and your Wits + Comp is penalized for darkness or or magic, whatever. Spend one of your purchases to negate that penalty.

For discounts... that's a bit sticky. If you're buying it, how much of a discount is it really, or is it a discount at all? It would have to be plotted out very specifically, and show enough of a discount to make people WANT to buy it. And people will do the math.

Purchasing 'inroads' is also a bit difficult, since that is generally counted through Allies/Contacts/Status merits. Which people pay xp for. Or through a relationship with an existing NPC, which requires active staff that actually portray said NPC's.

Any way you look at it, buying boons with rollover xp is still going to amount to 'why is this person getting something that I don't get'. Its going to be an issue regardless of what you do.

MrWigggles

I was just trying to throw out some Boons. While I know the universe of WoD, I'm fairly weak in understanding it mechanically.

Miss Demeanor

I get that, but the bulk of what I'm saying is that no matter HOW you handle it, there's going to be people who will complain that 'those' people are getting more cool things than they are and how unfair it is.

Misadventure

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If I were to have any kind of XP transfer between characters it would be a percentage solely for players whose characters died on grid and thus reinforced the world as a dangerous place.

HelloRaptor

When it comes to XP though here's what's interesting: Most players will detest being unable to ever catch up in the power curve; everyone wants to be special. However players also detest when everyone catches up in the power curve; that's when no one is special.

The first of those grates on my nerves far more than the latter, which is more or less understandable when talking about games where there being a power curve is part of the setting.

Glitch

@HelloRaptor Except the power curve isn't part of the player setting. You're all neonates or apprentices. The elders and masters are NPCs. It is a problem with the conversion of a tabletop to an always-on game that runs for multiple years and has a steady influx of new people. Arguing that there is a power curve in the setting is ridiculous, as most settings attempt to provide a societal framework of some sort, which almost invariably includes haves and have-nots.

Arkandel

@HelloRaptor said:

When it comes to XP though here's what's interesting: Most players will detest being unable to ever catch up in the power curve; everyone wants to be special. However players also detest when everyone catches up in the power curve; that's when no one is special.

The first of those grates on my nerves far more than the latter, which is more or less understandable when talking about games where there being a power curve is part of the setting.

It was just so very clear when you observed what some people who played on both HM and TR complained about. I mean crystal clear. In HM it was about being unable to catch up to the dinosaurs; in TR that everyone was at the same point.

The obvious and really, only conclusion here is that what many people want is to play in whatever system they, themselves, are ahead of others. That's about it.

lordbelh

@Arkandel I don't think that's necessarily correct. I think a system that combines the potential to catching up (or at least works in some sort of xp dillusion scheme where the relative power differential becomes smaller and smaller) with it not being automatic, works best.