Wat! no XP for hurting people and breaking things??

[larsdangly]

The new XP rules are clear about the suggested relative values of stat rises, talents, spells and other things (staff power and minor wishes). But offers only the loosest suggestion regarding how fast and on what basis you gain the actual points. I'd say the real intent is that every group will figure that out for itself, and the part that will get us to stay more or less consistent with each other as a community are the relative costs of the advances (which will tend to keep stats in a narrow range, even if you do sit at a table with very fast XP awards)

[mark hill]

thats true, guys over tap 40 will be rare either way .. sooner or later some nobody brings down prince valiant with a lucky arrow etc

the kill xp mainly affects the players behaviour, makes em more bloodthirsty .. which is a personal taste thing

[Skarg]

While I have fond memories of the original kill for experience system, and I much prefer it to awards per "session" or other meta things that don't represent the characters' actual experiences in play, we also became more and more aware of how broken the old ITL system was - it vastly favors slaughtering inferiors over fighting foes who are actually dangerous to you.

So we made a fix, which I've posted here before.

But really, I agree with ColBosch in favoring experience for being in combat rather than kills per se. i.e. I think ideally it would be based on what you actually experience and what you could learn from that - the basic Melee system is closest, but I think wants more refinement from GM discretion. (And of course I agree with oldwolf and Phil's 1001 votes that GMs can/should do whatever they want.)

[Shostak]

Since talents are such an important part of the game, awarding XP for good use of any talent--whether it is combat oriented or not--seems like a better idea than giving out XP for combat and kills.

[mark hill]

I guess so .. but really xp makes no sense anyhoo if youre gonna take it that far

I developed telepathic powers because I picked lots of locks etc

the most realistic systems are the 'learn by doing' type ones .. you learn how to sail a ship by doing it badly for a long time .. not what Im lookin fer in a game personally

[mark hill]

Skarg - thats very much food for thought. One doesnt learn much about combat by slaughtering children armed with slings .. maybe a rule where you got 1 xp for killing an inferior, 5 xp for an equal, 10 xp for defeating someone with either DX or ST superior to yours, or 25 xp if they were superior in both? or base it on TAP?

it should not be complex to calculate, so no consideration for enemy talents/items etc, TFT should be idiot-simple to crunch in all things

where was your previous post on this subject?

[Skarg]

It's HERE.

It was written by/for people with great familiarity with TFT and no difficulty doing math.

I'm still using it in my new TFT play, but I think:

1) I think I'll eventually settle on a guideline system somewhat like you suggest (though mine would be more complex and I'm waiting for an inspiration to arrive as to how it will work exactly).

2) I could now make a better formula, but it'd be more complex and I'd probably make a program to do the needed math. :-)

[hcobb]

Combat example in the book is fairly close to half the enemy's FP divided evenly over your party in XP.

https://www.hcobb.com/tft/firepower.html

[mark hill]

those both do look well thought out .. but Im lookin for a system whereby the players account for their own xp, trusting them with the usual honour system to not screw it up, with little to no discussion or calculation taking up table time.

Id sacrifice a fairer, more nuanced system for this simple self accounting ability myself

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by mark hill

those both do look well thought out .. but Im lookin for a system whereby the players account for their own xp, trusting them with the usual honour system to not screw it up, with little to no discussion or calculation taking up table time.

Id sacrifice a fairer, more nuanced system for this simple self accounting ability myself

So the idea I've been working on is more like this. It's still in the theoretical phase, but the basic concept is is to use a character's stat or XP total to break them down into 3 tiers... Novice, Veteran and Legendary. Then you would do the same for monsters or other opponents. You could use something like Skarg's 'Threat Value' or Hcobb's FP rating as a guide if want a true mathematical assessment of the level of challenges or you could approach it more subjectively (which I probably where I will start). The difference between the two will serve as an XP modifier.

For example, say a starting character (Novice) takes on a more experienced Veteran-level opponent. Then whatever you decide your baseline XP award should be, you multiply it by 2 to adjust for the level of difficulty. Whenever you fight something on-level, the multiplier is only 1, so you only get the baseline XP.

Obviously, there are more details to work out (such as how many Novice opponents would equal a Veteran-level challenge), but I think the abstraction of the idea fits TFT's design.