Capped XP vs Staggered XP?

[Misadventure]

Useless trivia: GURPS has means of equating training time to XP. The amount of XP needed to be at the level of skill of Special Forces as assessed by the Steve Jackson Games required a special exception to make them possible.

[Thenomain]

@Misadventure said:

Useless trivia: GURPS has means of equating training time to XP. The amount of XP needed to be at the level of skill of Special Forces as assessed by the Steve Jackson Games required a special exception to make them possible.

GURPS is about as balanced as the World Trade Towers on 9/11. Magic: The Gathering has better game balance than GURPS. I'm not sure which has less balance: GURPS or Steve Jackson.

[Misadventure]

The world trade towers collapsed almost straight down. Excellent balance.

Also who mentioned balance? It wasn't me, unless you are inferring the balance of hours left in a special forces life if they used the non-exception required training hours to reach their game ratings?

[Thenomain]

I mentioned balance, and did so as a reason why I always assume an example starting "GURPS does this" as an immediate reason why it should never be done.

[Misadventure]

GURPS often provides excellent starter reference to various genres, eras, and topics.
Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it.

Mainly I agree with you on GURPS, though I will say that it appeals to some folks need for a sense of realism being baked into the game rules. Much like Spectrum Smallarms/Phoenix Command, it may not BE realistic, but it pulls it off as a feeling for a decent chunk of folks. It certainly doesn't do well pulling off the genres, eras, or topics.

[Derp]

@Misadventure said:

GURPS often provides excellent starter reference to various genres, eras, and topics.
Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it.

Mainly I agree with you on GURPS, though I will say that it appeals to some folks need for a sense of realism being baked into the game rules. Much like Spectrum Smallarms/Phoenix Command, it may not BE realistic, but it pulls it off as a feeling for a decent chunk of folks. It certainly doesn't do well pulling off the genres, eras, or topics.

See, this is how I feel about most modern systems. I -like- complexity. I really do. I like that there are rules that cover a wide range of things and they each have specific things that you have to do in order to make that work. I hear people talk about systems like FATE and hear things like 'oh it's so easy, it's a great starter thing, so quick and straightforward', and I'm the guy that just kind of cringes and fake smiles while thinking 'that's ... greaaaat. Come join me at the grown ups table when you're ready to learn DnD or WoD and pass into adulthood of gaming'.

It's the same reason why I've pretty much stopped believing in any version of DnD past 3.5. I refuse to play Dungeons of Warcraft, I don't care how much 'quicker and easier' it is, and why most MMORPG's make my eye twitch.

[Misadventure]

Complexity isn't the issue for me. I like complexity.
GURPS has had long standing issues with it's point balancing. For instance you can buy up your stats. Your skill levels are in relation to that stat rating (eg you buy a skill at Dex-3 as a roll on 3d6). There are various points where you are far better off buying up the stat instead of the skills. BUT XPs in the skill is supposed to be the measure of actual experience. In my 1930s game, a player proved they could be as good as an expert, by spending it all in stats. Likewise there are questions about the meaningfulness of advantages and disadvantages. I do like how detailed they get in terms of describing organizations as patrons, allies, minions.

(My fix for that skill situation for Champions was to limit how many levels of success you could generate based on your xp spent on the skill. So someone who was innately deeply talented, but not well trained, would make their roll often, but only get 1-2 levels of success. Suddenly players felt how they spent their skill points really reflected their character.)

MMOs are extremely complex usually, but only in regards to combat and perhaps crafting. They rarely have any sort of other gameplay, and if they do it's usually a few more responses to interaction decision points.

[Thenomain]

@Derp said:

I hear people talk about systems like FATE and hear things like 'oh it's so easy, it's a great starter thing, so quick and straightforward', and I'm the guy that just kind of cringes and fake smiles while thinking 'that's ... greaaaat. Come join me at the grown ups table when you're ready to learn DnD or WoD and pass into adulthood of gaming'.

Yeah, man, without structured rules for make-believe, it's so much more kiddy.

[Derp]

@Thenomain said:

@Derp said:

I hear people talk about systems like FATE and hear things like 'oh it's so easy, it's a great starter thing, so quick and straightforward', and I'm the guy that just kind of cringes and fake smiles while thinking 'that's ... greaaaat. Come join me at the grown ups table when you're ready to learn DnD or WoD and pass into adulthood of gaming'.

Yeah, man, without structured rules for make-believe, it's so much more kiddy.

@Thenomain said:

@Derp said:

I hear people talk about systems like FATE and hear things like 'oh it's so easy, it's a great starter thing, so quick and straightforward', and I'm the guy that just kind of cringes and fake smiles while thinking 'that's ... greaaaat. Come join me at the grown ups table when you're ready to learn DnD or WoD and pass into adulthood of gaming'.

Yeah, man, without structured rules for make-believe, it's so much more kiddy.

No, no. This is more than that.

Baby Formula RP - Cowboys and Indians
Gerber Graduates - FATE

The more advanced systems are like the real food. It's about taking the training wheels off. It's about playing with people with a grasp of advanced systems because I want to know they're smart enough to grok them, and work within them.

I'm an elitist. I'm aware of that. I feel no shame.

[Cobalt]

I'm pretty sure I put this in the "more or less constructive" thread. I don't really feel putting down different RPG systems is particularly constructive to this conversation. If you must continue @Derp please go start your own thread.

---

@Arkandel, so answer your very old question-- I don't know specifically what I want or what I am hoping to achieve. I have decided from reading this conversation that I wouldn't run a game with a stated XP cap, instead there would be a "soft XP cap" that was "enforced" via staggered autoxp. I'd decide a max amount for the game, decide how many weeks I want it take to get there, and then figure out how to stagger it from there.

e.g. I want folks to "cap" out at 200xp. I want it to take a year. The first X weeks they get 4xp. The second Y weeks they get 3xp. They third Z weeks they get 2xp. Etc. They would be able to earn non-auto XP in other means even above this cap, but once they hit 200xp, they HAVE to be active to get XP.

Granted this then comes to the problem of:

How do I keep people with piles of XP from "solving all the problems"? One problem with Mage as a game is that allows for such a wide range of abilities. And thus people with piles of XP can very, very easily do everything and steal the spotlight. Yes, your character can both fight and solve the puzzles-- but if you do, will the other people in the scene have any fun at all?

I think if I run another game I'll need to find a way to have people come up with what "roles" they want to play, and how to keep them from stepping on each others toes and working as a cohesive unit. So everyone has fun.

[WTFE]

I just find the concept of tying "elitism" to "pretendy fun time games" utterly hilarious.

Nobody (self included) can ever just say "I don't like <X>." They always have to make it some moral or mental failing in The Other for liking something different.

[Thenomain]

@WTFE said:

I just find the concept of tying "elitism" to "pretendy fun time games" utterly hilarious.

Pretty much this.

[JDCorley]

The jumble of confusion over this is because there's a lot of confusion in tabletop RPGs about what character advancement is for. GMC advancement only makes sense in the context of characters with visible, relevant Aspirations whose ambitions/desires are being put in a vice with increasingly horrible situations. On most MU*s, they're not being put in increasingly horrible situations (the staff will only impose this on them once every few weeks at most and there's no reason to have PrPs do this ever) and individual character Aspirations are never relevant (because the setting isn't constructed to interlace with them the way they are on tabletop.)

The obvious solution - not having character advancement until those two things occur - isn't considered fun.

[Lithium]

Personal resonance with a game system does not necessarily make it good, or bad, it just makes it not to your taste and/or preference. Which is completely, and utterly, fine. There is nothing bad about disliking a game system. There may even be reasons you personally find a system lackluster, or failing in an area, but this does not in general make a system 'bad'.

All a system is, is a series of rules, to try and interpret our pretendy fun times in a way that doesn't devolve into infantile cowboys and indians/cops and robbers where someone got shot, and another person says they didn't, and the back and forth lasts for all eternity.

The system is supposed to be the impartial mediator. If everyone plays by the same rules, then everyone is in balance, in theory.

The reality is that no system is perfect, there are people who find the holes either accidentally or on purpose, and build to take advantage of the system being ran (Such as multiple action combat merits in nWoD 1.0 for example, or a mentalist in Champions). These can make a system appear to be imbalanced, but everyone is still playing by those very same rules.

Long story short: Different strokes, for different folks.

As to capped vs staggered? I dislike automagic xp. XP is supposed to signify important life altering events that spur a person to change and grow one way or another. It's a mechanic to give the illusion of increased experience.

One can simply do the same job, day in, and day out, and live without truly living, and thus gain no experience. Their skills are static because they aren't being challenged to improve them. They are couch potatoes who spend much of their free time watching the telly.

If you don't have those experiences, then you shouldn't get xp in my opinion.

Also: The only day we stop learning, is when we die (Theoretical soul notwithstanding) thus I am against xp caps.

I also don't believe that some fresh character should be the equal to one who has had all these experiences that have shaped them and made them grow beyond a starting character. It devalues all those experiences.

That's just me.