Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems
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My point still stands. Just because there were "expansions" that allowed it, the baseline game has a very clear and definite limit. That limit is level 20. I think in 4th it was level 30, but I don't think they ever did the whole "Epic level" bit. I didn't play it much. Oh. And in organized play, that level limit is.... 12, I think? And in 5th Edition, you can't have a stat above 20, if I recall correctly. It's been a bit since I've looked at the book.
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@Lithium said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
Does every character require an optimized build? Absolutely not.
James Bond (just as an example) however /does/.
As does any reasonable special forces type character, or thousand year old viking vampire...
So, if you want to be James Bond, be optimized and do so. If you want to be a thousand-year-old Viking vampire, then so be it -- optimize away. I have never been opposed to optimization or specialization.
But, sure, you have to be careful about XP spending. This is a hallmark of every other WoD game prior to GMC. If you wanted to have a 5 in an attribute and pair it with a 5 in a skill, you're going to need to hoard XP to get there, and this forces a PC to specialize. Call it diminishing returns to XP if you will, but it was built into the system. Want to be James Bond? You're going to blow elsewhere relative to another PC of equal XP.
When GMC went to linear progression, that really tore open the system, whether they believe it or not. Barring arbitrary limits set by staff the arbitrary limits set in the game, anyone could be or do anything if you have the XP. And if XP is unlimited, as is the case just about anywhere, then there's no penalty to specializing, and no real need to plan XP building, except to get to your objective as quickly as possible.
To paraphrase Syndrome: when everyone can be super, then no one can be. And while I appreciate the reasons behind the reluctance or reticence to adopt or accept XP spending caps, I believe that a game that implements them can enjoy the same success as any other game. It'd be even more successful if you provide meaningful avenues to compete that doesn't devolve into punching each other in the face.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Ganymede What I never understood is what the objective of having linear spends was. What was they hoping to get by it? Simplicity? Because it's not that hard to explain you spend '<x> XP per dot' to raise a stat to <x>, surely.
It just... makes no sense. Learning first aid is easy, reading a few books on biology is harder, going to medical school is harder still... all the way to becoming a world-class surgeon which is pretty damn hard. Why make each step cost the same? It's counter-intuitive.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Ganymede I never said I disagreed with your xp cap idea. Just that as a bad side it promotes min-maxing. Though how 'bad' that is of course varies based on opinion.
I personally like the idea of /slow/ advancement, without an arbitrary cap on total xp possible.
But, games I run tend to have a lot higher mortality rate than typical MU*'s these days where true character death is so rare due to consent based death and nerfing 'fate' levels or whatnot.
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@Arkandel said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
@Ganymede What I never understood is what the objective of having linear spends was. What was they hoping to get by it? Simplicity? Because it's not that hard to explain you spend '<x> XP per dot' to raise a stat to <x>, surely.
It just... makes no sense. Learning first aid is easy, reading a few books on biology is harder, going to medical school is harder still... all the way to becoming a world-class surgeon which is pretty damn hard. Why make each step cost the same? It's counter-intuitive.
In the real world, each one of those steps has exponential results in your understanding of a thing. Because the 1-5 ratio is meant to be an abtract representation of (in your example) knowledge, and each dot is mechanically and mathematically worth exactly the same when it's time to roll dice (each die has the same exact chance of coming up a 10 as every other die, and each die can produce the same exact variety of results as every other die) it is perfectly justifiable that the costs for each of those dice, separately, be the same.
You can agree or disagree, but this is a perfectly all right way of looking at it. In fact, when talking about Skills, the most valuable dot is always the first one, because it's worth more than the others, due to unskilled penalties (the first dot of Social and Physical Skills is worth 2 dice, while the first dot of a Mental Skill is worth a whopping 4 dice). (Amusingly, or perhaps logically, the first dot of an Attribute is also the most economic one, since it's free!)
So for example, if learning first aid is worth 1 dot, then reading a few books in biology might be worth 2 dots, and going to medical school might be worth 3 dots--but the way the system works mathematically, you're only slightly better at Medicine than you were when you just had first aid (and not even 3 times better, since you have to take your Attribute into account, which lowers the percentage of worth of the following dots, which in fact makes each following dot be worth less overall, if my rudimentary understanding of math is correct).
It's not as simple as 'getting better should be harder' when the theoretical progression is not mirrored and represented by the mechanical progression.
Choosing to do away with diminishing returns for higher levels of a trait implies a recognition of the trait's mechanical and abstract worth, because the system assumes that the storyteller and players are smart enough to recognize this.
This isn't, necessarily, a better way of doing things, since obviously there are preferences otherwise, but your argument against it is flawed.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Arkandel It's probably due to the effects of having things cost differently depending on whether you buy them in chargen or with XP. That is, if you want to end up with a stat spread of 3/5/3, there is an objectively more XP-efficient way to get there when post-chargen costs are not linear, which disadvantages people who want to start out with a relatively balanced set of stats.
Of course, the other way to do this is to make it more expensive to spike stats in chargen. CoD made tentative baby steps in this direction by having 5s cost extra in chargen, but all that did was adjust the calculations, rather than getting rid of the problem.
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@Autumn said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
@Arkandel It's probably due to the effects of having things cost differently depending on whether you buy them in chargen or with XP. That is, if you want to end up with a stat spread of 3/5/3, there is an objectively more XP-efficient way to get there when post-chargen costs are not linear, which disadvantages people who want to start out with a relatively balanced set of stats.
Of course, the other way to do this is to make it more expensive to spike stats in chargen. CoD made tentative baby steps in this direction by having 5s cost extra in chargen, but all that did was adjust the calculations, rather than getting rid of the problem.
Also, this.
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@Autumn said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
@Arkandel It's probably due to the effects of having things cost differently depending on whether you buy them in chargen or with XP. That is, if you want to end up with a stat spread of 3/5/3, there is an objectively more XP-efficient way to get there when post-chargen costs are not linear, which disadvantages people who want to start out with a relatively balanced set of stats.
Of course, the other way to do this is to make it more expensive to spike stats in chargen. CoD made tentative baby steps in this direction by having 5s cost extra in chargen, but all that did was adjust the calculations, rather than getting rid of the problem.
Yeah you're right, but it'd have been easier - and more logical - to adjust CGen and match its scaling to the rest of the game than what they ended up doing. It's why I agree with @Ganymede on the matter of the game being worse off in that particular way now than in nWoD 1.0 since diminishing returns has been taken away as a tool to control dice pool inflation.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
Yeah you're right, but it'd have been easier - and more logical - to adjust CGen and match its scaling to the rest of the game than what they ended up doing.
I suspect that the inertia of the WoD brand was working against them there. Everyone knows you do character creation in World of Darkness by assigning dots from a pool. Changing that around would result in character creation looking very different, and that radical a change might have just been off the table.
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@ShelBeast said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
My point still stands. Just because there were "expansions" that allowed it, the baseline game has a very clear and definite limit. That limit is level 20. I think in 4th it was level 30, but I don't think they ever did the whole "Epic level" bit. I didn't play it much. Oh. And in organized play, that level limit is.... 12, I think? And in 5th Edition, you can't have a stat above 20, if I recall correctly. It's been a bit since I've looked at the book.
How does one tell the difference between an expansion in your words and something that is part of the base game? This would lead to all sorts of arguments on how you define which book s are part of the base? I for one would love to see a WoD game that disalllowed anything that was not part of the core rule book for each splat. I rarely make the odd things and the wailing and gnashing of teeth from others would be great. ( for both meanings of great, in large quantity and for me in providing amusement)
Also I am not arguing there should be no limits. For the most part unless you let people buy power stats to 6 the limit on all stats and skills is five. I don't think anyone has argued for letting folks regardless of xp break game rules to spend it. Hell I am very much in favor of limits Gnosis, BP, PU, Wyrd, whatever Sin-Eaters have, whatever Prometheans have, etc to 5.
So far no one has mentioned my preferred method of solving the too powerful problem , give xp out slower. Nothing annoy me more on a game than having heaps of xp but having to jump through hoops to actually use it.
Now yes giving out fewer xp will make your game less popular, so will any of the other solutions as well. If you have spend timers some folks will be less likely to play your game. If you have a cap it will make some people less likely to play your game, (Me included while a cap would not cause me to rule out a game it would certainly factor into my decision to play on said game.) -
@Arkandel said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
@Ganymede What I never understood is what the objective of having linear spends was. What was they hoping to get by it? Simplicity? Because it's not that hard to explain you spend '<x> XP per dot' to raise a stat to <x>, surely.
It just... makes no sense. Learning first aid is easy, reading a few books on biology is harder, going to medical school is harder still... all the way to becoming a world-class surgeon which is pretty damn hard. Why make each step cost the same? It's counter-intuitive.
I think the goal was to take away the incentive to min max in c-gen because you would be at an advantage numerical if you did so.
Granted i prefer the old way as well and if you wanted to take away the min maxing rely on the storyteller/staff or best option yet have the same exponential costs in c-gen that you use for xp.Edit: Sorry posted while reading instead of waiting for the end so did not realize three other had answered the pretty much the same way before I did.
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@ThatGuyThere You must have blocked me or something, because I've mentioned slowing down XP several times.
Oh well.
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@Lithium
No I have not blocked anyone. I just didn't remember it having been mentioned. Sorry. -
@Coin points out that theme and system need to match or confusion ensues. Ten points HR Puffenstuff.
It would also be nice if Mu*s used more of the skills, or challenged characters with them more. Like, you know, Drive. Ever.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
@Coin points out that theme and system need to match or confusion ensues. Ten points HR Puffenstuff.
It would also be nice if Mu*s used more of the skills, or challenged characters with them more. Like, you know, Drive. Ever.
Ask @Quibbler, I have in the past made people roll Drive quite a bit. >.>
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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I think the issue here is when talking of caps the examples used are games that are built with a cap in mind. When we talk CofD and nWoD and WoD and others that don't have a cap built in it doesn't seem warranted. In my opinion as seen through out.
My point through all though is if there is plot/story/challenge then most of this other shit doesn't really matter to most players.
Captain Blowhard ( @Thenomain ) brings up a valid point above about using more skills, this is for real something that should happen. Nothing makes a low level player that is generalized look more badass than when he can get that "single" success that's needed on a variety of rolls that test his skills/abilities vs the POS PC built to drop a ton of raw dice on firearms that can't climb a rope, or escape in a foot chase.
With that nothing is more fun than being challenged in RP. That moment when you know you have to roll 5 dice to avoid certain doom like: Escape out of a window before being spotted by the monster creeping through the house. With CofD what's even better is getting a fail and making it dramatic for the story. So when I bomb that roll my PC then will have to take the hit and fall to the floor making a ton of noise... Now my PC needs to get up (one round) and figure out how to deal with the monster that knows where he is by the sound made (+1 beat sucka, thank God I'm not capped and can use it to beef up X skill later with the other beats).
Then when it's all over and the rest of you are ready for Dead Animal Pickup, I'm gonna go balls deep into Dahl. But only because she asked me to. Sweet-like. - Riddick (2013)
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@ThatOneDude said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
I think the issue here is when talking of caps the examples used are games that are built with a cap in mind. When we talk CofD and nWoD and WoD and others that don't have a cap built in it doesn't seem warranted. In my opinion as seen through out.
My point through all though is if there is plot/story/challenge then most of this other shit doesn't really matter to most players.
Captain Blowhard ( @Thenomain ) brings up a valid point above about using more skills, this is for real something that should happen. Nothing makes a low level player that is generalized look more badass than when he can get that "single" success that's needed on a variety of rolls that test his skills/abilities vs the POS PC built to drop a ton of raw dice on firearms that can't climb a rope, or escape in a foot chase.
With that nothing is more fun than being challenged in RP. That moment when you know you have to roll 5 dice to avoid certain doom like: Escape out of a window before being spotted by the monster creeping through the house. With CofD what's even better is getting a fail and making it dramatic for the story. So when I bomb that roll my PC then will have to take the hit and fall to the floor making a ton of noise... Now my PC needs to get up (one round) and figure out how to deal with the monster that knows where he is by the sound made (+1 beat sucka, thank God I'm not capped and can use it to beef up X skill later with the other beats).
I have ran into this a fair bit but it's more a problem with how things are /ran/ rather than the characters or XP itself. Especially in the modern MU* world where people are so concerned about getting things finished /fast/ that they throw away the possibility of allowing the PC's to /fail/.
Scheduling can be a nightmare, but if something is multi-part then only people who can make the regularly scheduled parts should be participating imho.
Players should have a chance to fail, and it should have repercussions in game and to the characters. So many games everything is the carrot, everything is dessert, everything is with a cherry on top that it makes it so there's no challenge, rewards lose all meaning, and I have a really hard time remaining invested.
So GM/ST's should make use of those oddball skills more often, let other stats and characters shine, but it seems to be something of a lost art on many games.
Bravo to those who still challenge players without just adding more bad ass opponents.
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I agree completely with @Lithium 's post above, also with the addendum of challenge the players where they are weak. Granted you need to know the characters before the plot to really be able to do this, but since I don't run random public things for me that part is a given. One of the plots where I got the most positive feedback from the players involved was one where I presented a bunch of non-investigative characters with a mystery.
Or on the other side one of my favorite plots I have played in recently forced my social focused character to step up and actually fight the bad guy rather then his preferred tactic of running away and finding friends to take care of any physical problem. It was one of the few times in recent memory that I can remember my adrenaline kicking in while mushing because there was the very real possibility that I would either lose the character. -
@Coin said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:
Ask @Quibbler, I have in the past made people roll Drive quite a bit. >.>
TRUE.
I had a cabbie PC whose whole focus was Drive - skill specialties, stunt driver merits, everything Drive-related - and @Coin did indeed let me roll Drive repeatedly in order to escape an evil ghost farmer or something like that. And we escaped in the kind of style crazy successes implies, which is actually the same kind of style as a single success, but like we don't all pretend our seven success move is crazy awesome anyway.
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@Quibbler Cows. It was possessed cows.
Also, before that, a certain quick demon drove a lot and had his car take a lot of beatings.
