Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

How long should it take to experience the full lifecycle of character progression? What is a reasonable and realistic pace for a player to experience the 'novice' thru 'legend' phases of gameplay?

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.

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

If you look at the current trends in organized play and structured campaign 'paths' used by some of the most popular fantasy RPGs in the market today, the answer is 2 to 3 years, typically. I'm not saying that is right pace for everyone, but it does seem likely that it would be a common assumption of folks that are new to TFT. ...

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.


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.

One way I and other GM's I've played with have handled desires to have characters move to a whole other level of ability, is to have the characters actually receive a bunch of training and experience by advancing time (and/or playing other characters) while the characters are taking the years to develop to that point, then restarting play after that. It might only be half an hour of real-time.

Another way is to play different characters. Maybe play follows a certain quest or situation rather than sticking to a set of characters. One set of characters' adventure is about learning about a situation and reporting that information to other people. The next adventure is about the result, which might be that more powerful different people take action to do something about information. Then the results of those actions leads to consequences, which leads to play by yet other characters at yet another level of power.

Or, just add characters at the desired power level to an ongoing or different game situation.

Often after our best characters had become quite powerful, we would choose to play a battle or adventure or side campaign at a lower power level.

So many options...