Capped XP vs Staggered XP?

[Arkandel]

Once again... no one in this thread is wrong (except for Gany of course, just out of principle).

We either have to debate the best way to do a thing or to debate why a thing is the best way to run a game. We can't do both at the same time, it's an exercise in futility.

A discussion has to begin with the goal, not with the method. That's basic engineering.

[Ganymede]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

By insisting on making everything 'equal', you're actually telling the people that put in the time and effort since the beginning that they're LESS valuable than the person just stepping in the door. Because that person can simply buy the dots and ruin your work.

This is not an argument for or against XP caps. This is about staff policy regarding what you can and cannot purchase without effort. If you force one player to do eleventy-billion PrPs to get Status 4 (MU* Nerds), then a person that wants to get the same should also have to go through the same labor.

I never said anything about making things equal. I'm simply tearing at the flimsy, arbitrary reasons why we explain away policies aimed to maintain a benefit enjoyed only by pre-existing players. Once we all come to terms with the fact that it all such reasoning is hokum, then maybe we'll start thinking about adopting different, potentially-better oplicies.

[Derp]

@Ganymede said:

I'm simply tearing at the flimsy, arbitrary reasons why we explain away policies aimed to maintain a benefit enjoyed only by pre-existing players. Once we all come to terms with the fact that it all such reasoning is hokum, then maybe we'll start thinking about adopting different, potentially-better policies.

Have you proven that the reasoning is both flimsy and arbitrary? Because I've not actually seen that, outside of you basically just saying that you think they're flimsy and arbitrary.

[Arkandel]

Let's take a look at a few things:

• You want players who've been contributing to the game, running plot and being active to have something to show for their achievements. Also if players have to earn things they will value them more.

• You want newcomers to feel like they can catch up to the oldbies else the game becomes owned by entrenched dinosaurs. This reduces the potential for fresh blood and causes game-wide stagnation.

• You want people who have busy lives and can't be on for every minute or every hour of every day to not be terribly outpaced by those who can. After all most games' cores are made of casual gamers.

• You want players to like and continue playing by dangling the carrot of advancement, roleplaying games' oldest trope, in front of them. There must also be ways to incentitivize wanted behaviors like PrP running.

I could go on.

See, all of those things are noble and completely reasonable things to want. They are also, to a degree or other, mutually exclusive; compromises may be found between some of them but they can't all be achieved at the same time. The proof for that is that it hasn't happened yet after several decades of people designing XP systems.

[Ganymede]

@Derp said:

Have you proven that the reasoning is both flimsy and arbitrary? Because I've not actually seen that, outside of you basically just saying that you think they're flimsy and arbitrary.

To my satisfaction, yes. To others, maybe not. It's up to others, not me, to make up their own conclusions.

As I'm speaking personally, then, yes, the reasons are both flimsy and arbitrary. You're welcome to think differently, but then, you'd be wrong.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Ganymede said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

By insisting on making everything 'equal', you're actually telling the people that put in the time and effort since the beginning that they're LESS valuable than the person just stepping in the door. Because that person can simply buy the dots and ruin your work.

This is not an argument for or against XP caps. This is about staff policy regarding what you can and cannot purchase without effort. If you force one player to do eleventy-billion PrPs to get Status 4 (MU* Nerds), then a person that wants to get the same should also have to go through the same labor.

I never said anything about making things equal. I'm simply tearing at the flimsy, arbitrary reasons why we explain away policies aimed to maintain a benefit enjoyed only by pre-existing players. Once we all come to terms with the fact that it all such reasoning is hokum, then maybe we'll start thinking about adopting different, potentially-better oplicies.

Okay, I'll admit that I didn't see it that way and that's my own fault. So my apologies and carry on.

[Thenomain]

I've never bought into the idea that if you work harder for a game you deserve payment, or that if you're new then you should be allowed to be at the level of the people who aren't. This discussion started many years ago in response to The Dino Problem, wherein people have so many Magic Hoojum Points that they drag down the game for others around them. In the discussion of XP, this is most likely the problem of one character solving game-related issues without needing to engage anyone else.

Past that, the idea of XP seems to be based upon the culture of that particular game.

[tragedyjones]

What if someone ran a game (nWoD) where the only way to gain XP was via the in-game beats? Would there be rage?

[TNP]

The rage would rival that against the dying of the light.

[Thenomain]

Incidentally, I have never been paid for all the work I've done for any game. I turned payment down, once, for our gracious site host. I've seen staffers get upset when they don't get any special recognition for running the game and rarely they end up quitting over it. This is fine because rule #1 of any game is that you play it because you want to.

When I've played, it's because I enjoy playing. I sincerely believe the idea of demanding extra kudos for playing more than someone else as selfish. Getting extra kudos as a thank you, as a gift, sure, but not out of some kind of necessity of fairness and balance..

[Coin]

@tragedyjones said:

What if someone ran a game (nWoD) where the only way to gain XP was via the in-game beats? Would there be rage?

I'm okay with this; I just think there would need to be many more ways to get XP than the ones in the books.

[tragedyjones]

@Thenomain - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMxX-QOV9tI

[ThatGuyThere]

@tragedyjones said:

What if someone ran a game (nWoD) where the only way to gain XP was via the in-game beats? Would there be rage?

That was the case with RfK, during my time playing there i don't remember anyone raging against it.

[tragedyjones]

@ThatGuyThere said:

@tragedyjones said:

What if someone ran a game (nWoD) where the only way to gain XP was via the in-game beats? Would there be rage?

That was the case with RfK, during my time playing there i don't remember anyone raging against it.

I thought RfK had a +recc system as well?

[ThatGuyThere]

@tragedyjones
Well it had +squee which you could give a beat some something above and beyond, but from what i noticed it was not used that often. I think I only gave out a few and got back a bit more then that but it was, in guesstimate, between 10 and 20 percent of the beats I got. Honestly I would pinpoint it on the low in of that but no longer has access to the data.

[Derp]

So after taking some time away to consider some of this, I think that I partially agree with @ganymede. But only partially.

The moving cap idea is okay, if the cap moves fairly often. Capping things 'per season' of something seems like too much of a hard-and-fast cap for my tastes. But I'm also okay with the idea of capping the amount of xp that can be gained per week, or per scene, or whatever. Eldritch currently has that. You can get whatever the auto-gain is, +10 regular beats for doing things, +10 extra beats per player for running things per week. Which ultimately comes out to something like 4-6 xp a week max, which is pretty high under the WoD system, if you're running at full burn and are willing to do enough stuff to hit that number.

As very few people actually hit that number or anywhere close to that number, it doesn't create unreasonable setbacks, while still allowing for some degree of parity.

The amount of xp you've earned in auto-gains also slows down the more xp you have, so the older people have to do more in order to keep their advantage over newer people, which is also kosher with me. New people don't have automatic equal footing with the people who are already there (in which I agree with @Miss-Demeanor, at that point you're really just sticking it to your existing players). They start with the same things in chargen as everyone else started with in chargen, and have to work their way up from there. That's still equality. Not 'gimme all the stuff too' equality, but 'I have a chance to get there as well' equality.

So, in consideration ... personal per-short-period-of-time caps are okay, so long as it's not a game-wide ceiling that isn't gonna move for a good long while, but I still don't buy this 'new people should be able to do all the same things at the same level that existing people can' mentality, or the idea that those who can't for whatever reason do as much as others should be equally 'rewarded'. You get out of it what you put into it.

[il-volpe]

I like the idea of caps (if you've got to have 'em, I'm not a fan really) being determined by a character's IC age.

This would be all the better on a timeskip game like @Coin and I were talking about elsethread -- if timejump is enough to put all the characters into a new age-class, it would have this 'allowing newbies to catch up' effect but in a seamless-seeming organic-ish way, and give players a reason to look forward to the timeskip eagerly even though it'd mean their PCs stop being beautiful 22 year olds...

[silentsophia]

I wouldn't worry too much about age limits. I found that even on games which encouraged older PCs, a subset of the older characters were still desced like teenagers or in their 20s.

[il-volpe]

@silentsophia No surprise there. I didn't mean to say that I recommend this or that it's likely to work well for a typical MU or go over well with a lot of players. It's just an idea that I like.

[Groth]

@tragedyjones said

I thought RfK had a +recc system as well?

RfK allowed you to claim up to 15 beats per week broken into these categories. (They don't add up to 15, 15 was the weekly cap). The various beats were mutually compatible so you could easily earn 3-4 beats from one scene if you remembered to claim them all.

You could claim up to 7 scene beats per week.
You could claim up to 3 theme beats per week. (Being particularly Ordo or Daeva or whatever)
You could claim up to 1 hosting beat per week
You could claim up to 3 aspiration beats.
You could claim up to 7 breaking point beats.
You could claim up to 3 frenzy beats.
You could claim up to 7 condition beats.
You could claim 1 beat per point of Vincilum.
You could claim up to 3 beats for placing rumors on character pages.

Additionally, you could earn up to 7 beats per week from another playing giving you a +squee.

In total this meant that the super active characters on the game earned 15-22 beats per week, not counting staff beats.