Experience Gain in nWoD 2.0 - An analysis and shit

[tragedyjones]

@Cobaltasa did you include your initial xp as auto gain?

[Derp]

Well, if we're sharing:

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::. XP & Beats .::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Normal: Experience: 3, Beats: 2

• Earned: 79.5
• Spent: 76
  Player: Experience: 0, Beats: 0
• Earned: 2
• Spent: 2
  ................................................................................
  You have been approved for 5M 3w 1d 17h 9m 58s
  You are auto-gaining 10 Normal Beats per week
  You have earned 4 out of 10 Normal Beats this week
  It will be reset in 1 day

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Starting XP: 10 (Chargen 7 + BG 3)
Aspirations: 9.0
Newbie Bonus*: .2
Conditions: 2.6
Dramatic Failure: .4
Scenes: 5.0
ST XP: 2.0

29.2 (I think. Quick mental math)

Which would leave auto-gains at something like 50, if my lazy math is correct, which at just shy of six months ain't bad. Plus that leaves like 5xp until I'm down to half xp earnings on auto-gain (since I think the threshold for that is 55?) And then it goes down again at something like 80, and then again at... some other point. Point being it goes down to 1 beat per week on auto-gains at some point, which will probably happen sooner rather than later.

[Cobalt]

@tragedyjones said:

@Cobaltasa did you include your initial xp as auto gain?

Yeeeees. Drop that by 10xp (50beats), edited.

[Thenomain]

@Sunny

yearly spend cap

For the sake of St. Gygax, why? If you don't want people to spend XP, don't give it to them. Why complicate things by throttling both ends?

The only spend throttles I remotely agree with are increasing costs for linear gains (how WoD used to do it) and spend timers to space out the spending, and I can be on the fence about both sometimes.

So what in Planescape is this meant to accomplish?

[Sunny]

@Thenomain said:

So what in Planescape is this meant to accomplish?

Long-term upper limit on power level so that with as easy as we're making it to earn and spend experience, we don't end up with characters that outgrow the stories being told. Telling a story for a 200XP character vs one for a 750XP character are very different things, and the scope of Dust is far more aimed at the former rather than the latter, at least for our first year.

It's less meant to be a throttle and more a wall. It's not meant to slow growth, but to keep characters from going past a certain point at all.

[Derp]

@Sunny said:

It's less meant to be a throttle and more a wall. It's not meant to slow growth, but to keep characters from going past a certain point at all.

+1 Theno. This sounds like a terrible idea. If you don't want them to spend xp, don't give it to them. Setting a hard upper limit like that is just depressing, and leads to periods of non-growth that will lead to more frustration than steady growth with a slow xp gain.

[Sunny]

@Derp said:

@Sunny said:

It's less meant to be a throttle and more a wall. It's not meant to slow growth, but to keep characters from going past a certain point at all.

+1 Theno. This sounds like a terrible idea. If you don't want them to spend xp, don't give it to them. Setting a hard upper limit like that is just depressing, and leads to periods of non-growth that will lead to more frustration than steady growth with a slow xp gain.

I can understand the perspective, but I disagree. Have you looked at Numenera at all? I ask, because the game assumes that you'll spend about half of your earned XP on transitory things. Our system isn't going to remove the ability for folks to spend XP, it will, once they hit the cap, prevent them from spending that XP on character stats. We're going to have other options available for putting XP into.

That said, yes, it does limit character growth. At a certain point, characters stop gaining points, but instead start shuffling them around. I'm planning on running, at least initially, a fairly low-powered campaign in comparison to some of the games that have existed. It's not for everyone, and I completely respect that, but the idea itself isn't actually terrible; it accomplishes precisely what I want it to. My goal might be terrible, but the system keeping the power level low is working as intended.

At the same time, I refuse to allow big group scenes, RP reports, +reccs, goals, conditions, etc -- I won't choose any specific way that folks can earn XP. I want people to be able to earn it as befitting their playstyle (within reason). Having the number of options we have requires limiting how many of them you can partake of. Having the Big Cap be yearly means that if I can't play this month, I can still catch up the following month or whatever.

Personally, I despise spend waiting times, or really anything that interferes with which stats someone is going to buy with their points.

So. I have three design goals I'm working with, here. One, low powered campaign. Two, wanting to provide WAY more than needed options for earning XP to account for the main differing playstyles. Three, no spend wait times.

The downsides to meeting these design goals are downsides that I have acknowledged as the cost of using this system, and I firmly believe that for the type of game that I want to run, this will work. We'll see.

[Coin]

The only part of @Sunny's system that I thinkis a mistake (as opposed to my just not liking it, which isn't the same thing) is making the cap a yearly thing. It would be much better in my opinion to make the cap an constantly rising goal based on how long the game has been open. The following are examples only.

Let's say the "yearly" cap is "100 experiences". This is how much you can spend in a year. Every year. We can apply this to the first year wholesale, but the second year you'll just jump straight to 200. That's problematic if you have people who bank XP and just want to be able to spend all their XP when the limit goes up. Instead, after the first year, raise the limit per day.

100 divided by 364 equals 0.27->

If you raise the limit up by 0.25(-ish) per day, you can easily create a steadily rising "wall" without huge, sudden leaps of XP for those people who don't give a flying fuck about your transitory stuff, they just want MOAR POWAHZ.

---

Another thing to remember is that this system will undoubtedly generate further "front loading" on "useful" stats while people leave behind stats they would buy if it didn't mean it curtailed their ability to buy the useful ones. With wait/spend times being the arbiter of what you can buy, you still have people who just bought Brawl 4 buying things like Persuasion 2, because they can't buy Brawl 5 yet, and they have the XP for Persuasion 2. But if the arbiter of what you can spend is universal--a top limit of how much XP IN TOTAL you can spend on your stats--that Persuasion 2, which might actually make sense and be relevant to the concept, is gonna fall to the wayside for the more useful and commonly rolled Brawl 5.

Yes, I know, the difference to how it is now will probably be negligible. But it came to mind.

[Sunny]

@Coin said:

The only part of @Sunny's system that I thinkis a mistake (as opposed to my just not liking it, which isn't the same thing) is making the cap a yearly thing. It would be much better in my opinion to make the cap an constantly rising goal based on how long the game has been open.

I agree that this is problematic. We have not yet decided precisely how we're going to handle the changing of the cap; this is a good way to address it, certainly. We are still exploring options on how we're going to deal with this particular pitfall. The cap will be evaluated at the year mark; what we do with that evaluation is still up in the air. It will be nailed down and clearly marked when we do figure it out though, so that people can make an informed decision up front as to whether or not they're willing to play under the conditions in question.

If you raise the limit up by 0.25(-ish) per day, you can easily create a steadily rising "wall" without huge, sudden leaps of XP for those people who don't give a flying fuck about your transitory stuff, they just want MOAR POWAHZ.

This will be self-punishing.

Another thing to remember is that this system will undoubtedly generate further "front loading" on "useful" stats while people leave behind stats they would buy if it didn't mean it curtailed their ability to buy the useful ones.

Yep. This is a drawback of a spending cap. I don't know if there's a way to get around this beyond limiting things that I'm not interested in limiting.

[surreality]

@Sunny said:

It will be nailed down and clearly marked when we do figure it out though, so that people can make an informed decision up front as to whether or not they're willing to play under the conditions in question.

This, broadly, is the most important thing for any game to do. About everything. Really -- everything. Major kudos on this.

Again broadly, we seem to collectively be in a period of trying a lot of new ideas; labeling everything up front (or when a decision is made) is the best possible way of respecting player agency on the most fundamental level. (Read: "Do I play here or not?")

[Thenomain]

I suppose I don't understand the benefit of this system. Without knowing what is transitory, or what extra things XP can be spent on, it's a discussion about how to make stat systems in general. Even with more information, it may become so house-rule dependent that it would be useful in a terribly focused setup that I, for example's sake, will be calling Sunny's World of Darkness.

And no, I don't think this is similar to any old house rule setup. Changing how XP works is a fairly deep system change.

[Sunny]

@surreality
Yeah; that's pretty much my number one priority. I want it all to be 'look, it was on the tin' when there are inevitably issues. I'm sort of extra attentive about it because I know damn well that my vision is not going to universally appeal. EVERYONE is happier if people can figure out whether they want to play or not BEFORE they have the time invested. Differing expectations are a huge huge huge huge huge problem with mushes.

@Thenomain

I don't think going into it in depth here is helpful to anyone, really; once we've got everything nailed down better it's worth folks poking at it to see what results, but I agree that it's topic drifting a little right now. Plus I'm prone to rambling when things are still fluid like they are. Once I have everything organized and presentable I'll toss it up on the forum for you to look at. Hopefully (good lord hopefully) it'll be a little clearer how I'm planning to accomplish what I'm after. It's very much based on the whole 'reward the behavior you want to see' deal.

[surreality]

@Sunny said:

@surreality
Yeah; that's pretty much my number one priority. I want it all to be 'look, it was on the tin' when there are inevitably issues. I'm sort of extra attentive about it because I know damn well that my vision is not going to universally appeal. EVERYONE is happier if people can figure out whether they want to play or not BEFORE they have the time invested. Differing expectations are a huge huge huge huge huge problem with mushes.

This is exactly my thinking, honestly.

I would rather see smaller games with variations in place like this that suit the players and their general vibe than mega-games that aspire to be all things to all people. The mega-game just isn't terribly viable long-term.

[Thenomain]

@Sunny said:

Once I have everything organized and presentable I'll toss it up on the forum for you to look at.

Well my comment wasn't entirely for you. I don't disagree that finding something else for people to wibble their XP on is an interesting goal, it's just not WoD's goal. It's Fate Core's goal. It's D&D 3/3.5's goal. (Spending XP for magic items.) I'm sure there are other games in which you can spend your XP more on than character advancement.

So let's go ahead and make it WoD's goal. Why not; bringing in elements from other games to potentially solve a problem is a good thing. Think outside the box.

This doesn't answer the question: Why a spend limit? I can't think of a single RPG that has both XP as a limiter at both ends of the stat. Curtail, guide, discourage, but never cutting you off from your own character sheet.

I'm not asking you to defend the choice (maybe explain it), but there's enough chatter that the idea is good and ... no, no it's not.

[Sunny]

@Thenomain said:

So let's go ahead and make it WoD's goal. Why not; bringing in elements from other games to potentially solve a problem is a good thing. Think outside the box.

I'm incorporating things both from other systems, and also pulling in some elements from other genres of mushes. What we do online is different than what we do sitting around the table, and I think it's appropriate to make changes that relate to those differences. .

This doesn't answer the question: Why a spend limit?

To keep the game at a power level that fits with the campaign that I will be running while still allowing a very generous number of ways to earn experience.

I can't think of a single RPG that has both XP as a limiter at both ends of the stat. Curtail, guide, discourage, but never cutting you off from your own character sheet.

Any MMORPG on the internet.

I'm not asking you to defend the choice (maybe explain it), but there's enough chatter that the idea is good and ... no, no it's not.

I disagree.

[Derp]

@Sunny said:

To keep the game at a power level that fits with the campaign that I will be running while still allowing a very generous number of ways to earn experience.

This is not going to do what you think it's going to do. Which is why I'm rather skeptical of this as an approach in the whole.

Not only is a 200xp human different from a 200xp vampire different from a 200xp werewolf, two 200xp werewolves are going to be worlds different from each other. Experience level does not relate to power level. That largely comes down to build choice. And as @coin mentioned earlier, when you set a hard cap, you're just going to end up with people who frontload a whole bunch of other stats and ignore others.

I see the reasoning that you have. But your reasoning in this instance is faulty. It's based on the false premise that characters at the same level of xp are at rough parities of power. And that's simply not the case.

[Sunny]

@Derp said:

@Sunny said:

To keep the game at a power level that fits with the campaign that I will be running while still allowing a very generous number of ways to earn experience.

This is not going to do what you think it's going to do.

Yes, it actually is.

Not only is a 200xp human different from a 200xp vampire different from a 200xp werewolf, two 200xp werewolves are going to be worlds different from each other.

Yes, and there is yet more of a world of difference between a 200 XP character and a 750 XP character. I am more concerned about this difference than I am between the factions. Some character choices are more powerful at some things than other characters are. That's as true at 15 experience as it is at 500.

Experience level does not relate to power level.

This is incorrect.

That largely comes down to build choice.

Build choice impacts it; how many experience you have to spend on that build also has a significant amount to do with it as well. I can do more with 500 XP than I can with 50.

And as @coin mentioned earlier, when you set a hard cap, you're just going to end up with people who frontload a whole bunch of other stats and ignore others.

This is how tabletop works.

I see the reasoning that you have. But your reasoning in this instance is faulty. It's based on the false premise that characters at the same level of xp are at rough parities of power.

Er, no. It's not. It's a limiter on upper power level. It's a cap, not an equalizer. If I was (stupidly) attempting equality I'd simply give a flat rate of XP to all characters (including those not made yet) at a set time. This system is not an attempt at making things equal.

And that's simply not the case.

[Derp]

@Sunny said:

@Derp said:

@Sunny said:

To keep the game at a power level that fits with the campaign that I will be running while still allowing a very generous number of ways to earn experience.

This is not going to do what you think it's going to do.

Yes, it actually is.

Alright, then. If this is the intended goal, then I have to think you're just bad at game design, and shall choose not to play there.

Not only is a 200xp human different from a 200xp vampire different from a 200xp werewolf, two 200xp werewolves are going to be worlds different from each other.

Yes, and there is yet more of a world of difference between a 200 XP character and a 750 XP character. I am more concerned about this difference than I am between the factions. Some character choices are more powerful at some things than other characters are. That's as true at 15 experience as it is at 500.

How in the world do you figure this? Your methodology relies on the idea that characters who hit a certain amount of xp 'level up' in some fashion. This is not how world of darkness works. A character that has 200xp invested in Contacts and Retainers is in a world different place than a character that has 200xp dedicated to fighting styles and combat skills. It just doesn't work that way, and you're treating the system as if it does, which is at best naive and at worst shortsighted.

Experience level does not relate to power level.

This is incorrect.

See above.

That largely comes down to build choice.

Build choice impacts it; how many experience you have to spend on that build also has a significant amount to do with it as well. I can do more with 500 XP than I can with 50.

For some things, yes. Not for all things. Build choice is the ultimate arbiter of this, not your experience level. I can do plenty with a 50xp combat character that I can't do with a 500xp social character. It depends on the stories told and what design I took with it. I don't hit level 10 when I hit 200xp, so there is no way to distinguish my 200xp from some other guy's 200xp and call them the same. Again, it just doesn't work that way.

And as @coin mentioned earlier, when you set a hard cap, you're just going to end up with people who frontload a whole bunch of other stats and ignore others.

This is how tabletop works.

And you think that's it's not going to work that way in a MU? That the two are so magically different that something you would see in one can't happen in the other? Are you new here?

I see the reasoning that you have. But your reasoning in this instance is faulty. It's based on the false premise that characters at the same level of xp are at rough parities of power.

Er, no. It's not. It's a limiter on upper power level. It's a cap, not an equalizer. If I was (stupidly) attempting equality I'd simply give a flat rate of XP to all characters (including those not made yet) at a set time. This system is not an attempt at making things equal.

And that's simply not the case.

If you're not looking for equality, then what the hell is the point of your xp cap? Again, going back to the first statement, not only does this not do what you think it's going to do, I'm not even sure that you're aware of what you want it to do in the first place, given that your premises contradict each other.

WoD is not World of Warcraft. If that's the way you want it to work, try the D20 World of Darkness, Monte Cook's version. This is going to solve a lot of your issues.

[ThatOneDude]

Do people still RP on Eldritch? Let me qualify that with - New player shows up and has opportunities to play with people? Old people return and they can to?

Addendum: Would I have to always play with Derp and would he always play like Chance from TR?4

[Derp]

@ThatOneDude said:

Do people still RP on Eldritch? Let me qualify that with - New player shows up and has opportunities to play with people? Old people return and they can to?

Addendum: Would I have to always play with Derp and would he always play like Chance from TR?4

People still play plenty on Eldritch. Nobody wants to play with you, though, because you have this allergy to subtlety and can't seem to avoid being an asshole to everyone you come into contact with. Kind of like every iteration of the Cade characters you make. So I expect that your experience will be largely poor wherever you go, and you're one to talk about always playing the same sorts.

But lo, I see that you're still approved and taking up a demon spot while contributing nothing. So bitch on, little rager. Bitch on.