Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Skarg

It seems to me that the words "realistic" and "legend" are near-opposite ends of a spectrum. And, that the answer will be subjective and handled (or not) in different ways by different GMs.

Yes, but to be clear 'realistic' is referring to the player's perspective from the real-world looking in while 'legend' is the final stage of the character's in-game lifecycle.

I am curious how others would answer this question, though.

Originally Posted by Skarg

I can think of at least twenty other inaccurate assumptions that players from other RPGs may tend to have, none of which would I recommend changing TFT to comply with.

True, but I'm only focused on the one for the purpose of this discussion. And I'm also not exactly suggesting that TFT needs to change to accommodate this expectation, but I do find it curious that the revisions to TFT, with regard to this particular aspect, moved so far from its original state which IMO offered a fuller range of player experience (even if, admittedly, the higher levels were problematic).

Originally Posted by Skarg

If a GM wants to have relatively inexperienced/slightly-above-average PCs become legendary best-in-the-world sorts of people during X amount of play, I would suggest they think about why and how they want that to happen, and then make it so. e.g. say they're all blessed by the goddess or savants or ate mutant pizza and then give them 1000 XP per session.

Personally, I'd stick to giving characters XP for things the characters actually eXPerience, having nothing to do with play sessions, real-world time, or zero-to-hero expectations.

Philosophically, I agree with you, but practically I think it is hard sometimes to separate my own goals and expectations as a GM or player from those of my character. The time that I actually get to spend playing is precious to me nowadays because real life just seems to get in the way so often. And when I do get to play, I want to see that my character (or those of my players) is progressing at a reasonable pace allowing all involved to experience the full range of their characters' potential.

I do like your options, though.

[larsdangly]

These issues put me in the mood to play Classic Traveller, where you can just forget about any form of experience points or leveling up, and just play your character, going through the universe however he or she emerged from character generation. It is very liberating. I think people play differently, and think about a game differently, when they aren't focused on this stuff.

[TippetsTX]

BTW, here's how I prefer to see the character 'level' tiers in TFT...

• Novice - 31 to 36 points
• Veteran - 37 to 42 points
• Legend - 43 to 48 points

I realize that others may draw these lines differently, but as I said earlier, I want the RPGs I play to support viable options for characters in each one of these stages.

This is why most of the adjusted XP schedules that I have proposed thus far have a more moderate progression than RAW Legacy as well as allow for higher attribute totals.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

These issues put me in the mood to play Classic Traveller, where you can just forget about any form of experience points or leveling up, and just play your character, going through the universe however he or she emerged from character generation. It is very liberating. I think people play differently, and think about a game differently, when they aren't focused on this stuff.

You have a point there. Traveller does break the mold in many respects, but it is still great fun to play.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by JohnPaulB

This is what you can spend XP on other than Attributes, Spells or Talents (ITL page 45):

• For gold! Sweet, sweet gold!
• For a Limited Wish, which can save your life on the day that luck turns against you.
• To improve your staff’s Mana stat, if you are a wizard. This lets you cast more spells.

I might expand this to include:

• Bribes
• Favors
• Lawyer
• Establishing a business or farm
• Contacts
• Bookings on Journeys
• Investing in something that brings in continual returns

(ITL page 46) A character who needs mundane wealth between adventures may, if the GM permits, cash XP in for 1 gold piece each. The player must offer a good in-game explanation of where the money came from. “Found it in the street” should work zero times, and “Rich uncle died” once at most.

As per Talents, Contacts & Favors could be something that you were working on all year long and finally one decided to present themselves. Or you could save a Contact (not have a particular person selected) Slot waiting until you needed one in game and then that slot would be given over to that NPC. The same contact is available for other games until you screw them or they die. Favors get used up once.

Lawyers can be put on retainer. Though if you are going to travel, you might want to get a Letter of Retainer from the Lawyer's Guild.

You can save up your XP and buy a business. The GM can determine how much that new business costs. When you have enough XP cash it in. It could represent $ you've been saving all along or the buying out from the previous owner or even a business you got from your dead uncle.

If you need to journey by ship and don't have the $, you could cash in some XP and get passage. This might be by contacts or getting in good with the Captain or (if the GM is surly) being shanghaid.

The GM and the Players can get creative on what else this could be expanded into.

So Sandbagging XP might be the alternative to spending it on Attributes or Talents.

I LIKE the contacts thing -- and think some thought should be given to it in the official rules; as it stands, you really don't have any guidelines for something like that, but in "real life" how many times have you wound up "lucking into" something simply because you knew someone or a friend tipped you off about something? Honestly, a good "contacts" system would tremendously aid roleplaying and also help the GM figure out all kinds of extra adventure hooks just by running such a system.

I'm vaguely remembering some such system in another role-playing game (maybe Thieves' Guild? Or maybe it was some kind of Noir Investigative game? I can't remember off the top of my head -- I know I ran across it several years ago and sort of "bookmarked" it my mind for future thinking, but haven't thought about it in years...). Anyway, whatever game it was, it was really an engine that helped move the players through the adventure and provide additional information/clues/support/opportunities to the players in a structural way (instead of "you happen to talk to the old geezer seated on the bench in front of the tavern" schtick that so many of us use all the time).

[Helborn]

Originally Posted by JLV

I'm vaguely remembering some such system in another role-playing game

Are you thinking of J. Andrew Keith's Freedom Fighters?

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Helborn

Are you thinking of J. Andrew Keith's Freedom Fighters?

No, darn it, I don't think that was it. I'll think about it and see if I can come up with it. I seem to recall that it had examples involving a cyberpunkish future city that smacked more of a Bladerunner type ethos, (and maybe Freedom Fighters has that too?), but I don't think FF was the title of it. It was a clever mechanic, though...

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

These issues put me in the mood to play Classic Traveller, where you can just forget about any form of experience points or leveling up, and just play your character, going through the universe however he or she emerged from character generation. It is very liberating. I think people play differently, and think about a game differently, when they aren't focused on this stuff.

That's a very good point. I think we're cursed by the fact that the original RPG (Dungeons and Dragons) had such a strong focus on character development via "levelling up." For whatever reason (it probably started as simple laziness) I always ignored XP in D&D, and just gave characters a level after an adventure sequence but only if it was needed because the next adventures were of higher level.

Players were more focussed on their characters deeds and the consequences of these than on the artificial process of recording XP and levelling up.

As you say, players play differently and think about the game differently.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

That's a very good point. I think we're cursed by the fact that the original RPG (Dungeons and Dragons) had such a strong focus on character development via "levelling up." For whatever reason (it probably started as simple laziness) I always ignored XP in D&D, and just gave characters a level after an adventure sequence but only if it was needed because the next adventures were of higher level.

Players were more focussed on their characters deeds and the consequences of these than on the artificial process of recording XP and levelling up.

As you say, players play differently and think about the game differently.

One solution is to simply tell players that YOU will manage the XP stuff and they can safely ignore it. When they do anything, you figure up the XP on your "super-secret GM sheet" and then when they can advance, tell them they can add a spell or a skill or an attribute point or whatever. All THEY have to do is tell you what they want to gain or learn next; "I want to learn the Illusion Spell," or "I want to learn Two-Weapons," or "I want to add a point to my ST." That way they can focus on playing and you can focus on the mechanics for them.

Heck, that would even solve Joe Tippets' issue on learning. They tell you what they want the next advance to be, and you start accumulating XP for them in that pot. If they change their mind and decide they want to advance something else, you start a new pot (but leave the old one intact and partially filled with however many XP they'd accumulated towards it); that penalizes (somewhat realisitically) changing your area of study in mid-stream, and the process of accumulating XP simulates the learning time necessary to gain the advance, whatever it is. All without a lot of extraneous rules that just confuse everyone!

You could even allow them up to three "pots" (as in the old system where you could study three things at one time), and simply divide, as evenly as possible, any incoming XP between the pots for them. All in all, it's an elegant solution, if I do say so myself! ;-)

[ColBosch]

I like the cut of this man's jib.