(no subject)

[technoir]

I had an interesting game design question.

Is earned advancement really needed?

Whats to say we have to have experience points in a game?

I was wondering if would hurt a system is if all the character advancement was based on how long the characters played or age. It seems to me that concept of an earned advancement through points is not inherently even. And if you are doing it in such a manner to keep everyone even then there is not point in having an earned point advancement.

Just a thought. I would be interested to see what other people thought.

Comments

[technoir.livejournal.com]

The problem with RP awards as I have seen them in the past has been that no one actually wants to tell someone else, well you did not actually do as well as someone else on something. What has happened in many of the games I have seen and by no means all, is that everybody ends up with a role play award.

I am generally in favor of encouraging role play though. I think the role play award is probably more useful in games with mnore beginner players. Experienced players generally don't need much encouragement.

[jeffrey.livejournal.com]

I could see that being a problem, but... not for me. I have no qualms about not awarding extra RP xp if the person just phoned it in. And I don't just give one blanket award, either. I give awards of certain amounts (based on level, right now it's been 300xp) for moments of exceptional RPing. So if someone has two or three of those, they'll get 600 or 900. So people don't always get the same amounts.

Don't mind me, just butting in...

[gideondelnath.livejournal.com]

When I played with Jeremiah he didn't really get to see the RP award system in affect for DnD since we ran WoD for our group, but our system is more of an 'atta boy' instead of hard rewards in the tripple digits. In my group we have some fairly roleplayish people and some not so roleplayish people... we're also sadly numbermongers.

The groups' DMs (two currently) will hand out minor XP awards, at about 5-10 points at a go, -maybe- 20-30 for exceptionally good roleplay. The reason we did this is because the rewards are less noticable, but also allow for our exceptional role players to really show how they're doing later in the campaign, when they get to process a level up a good 2-3 encounters before the non-role players. We've started to discontinue the system though, as we're all getting better at falling into character and that so much of it is based on DM perception. The other DM and myself are taking a closer look at if we should keep the system, or possibly start handing out true atta-boys like rerolls or action points.