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Old 08-05-2021, 10:56 AM   #11
Peter von Kleinsmid
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Join Date: May 2021
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

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Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
If you use the Melee rules (100 XP per point, no matter what your stat total is) you will be in a radically different place from anyone playing ITL as written. That's fine, but will naturally lead to much higher stat totals and probably no one will add talents or spells after the start of play, nor will they invest in staff mana - none of those things are worth the investment if you could instead have several stat points.
Yes, the Melee/Wizard experience costs for raising attributes are a flat 100 XP per point, which will get characters to higher levels much faster... in terms of XP...

However, XP in Melee/Wizard is earned for serious combat, where figures are pretty likely to die. Perhaps only a fraction of the figures that do what it takes to get each 100 Melee XP will survive.

Melee/Wizard also limits attribute gains to 8 total points.
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Old 08-05-2021, 12:04 PM   #12
hcobb
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pacheco, California
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

Can we get guidelines for converting from Melee/Wizard to ITL?

Perhaps apply the earned XPs all over again from starting character, then pick talents, spells, and gear?
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Old 08-05-2021, 12:29 PM   #13
Shostak
 
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Location: New England
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

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Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck View Post
But in a related question, when did folk generally allow the XP to be cashed in? Mid-session? Mid-adventure? Or only after the whole adventure was over? In my group you had to wait until the adventure was over, unless it was an unusually long campaign where the plot covered multiple days or weeks.
I allow XP to be cashed-in as soon as the threshold is reached. Though I don't require it, I encourage (through XP bribery) players to work into their characters' actions any planned talent acquisition, e.g., "Jimi asks Oolong to help him learn to use the shortsword he picked up."
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Old 08-06-2021, 12:34 AM   #14
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

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Originally Posted by hcobb View Post
Can we get guidelines for converting from Melee/Wizard to ITL?

Perhaps apply the earned XPs all over again from starting character, then pick talents, spells, and gear?
Hear hear! That was something we should have had for 40 years, since 1st edition ITL was published.

I've raised the issue myself in another thread a couple years ago, and proposed what I thought was a good, workable solution for converting existing Melee PC's to ITL rules. I'm sure it was along similar lines to Henry's suggestion.

Alas, I don't remember what I came up with, or what thread it was in! I'll hunt for it later.
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Old 08-06-2021, 01:17 AM   #15
Steve Plambeck
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

Quote:
Originally Posted by larsdangly View Post
If you use the Melee rules (100 XP per point, no matter what your stat total is) you will be in a radically different place from anyone playing ITL as written. That's fine, but will naturally lead to much higher stat totals and probably no one will add talents or spells after the start of play, nor will they invest in staff mana - none of those things are worth the investment if you could instead have several stat points.
Keep in mind that playing by the Melee/Wizard rules from 1977 to 1981 (before ITL came along) there were no talents to add because they hadn't been invented yet, and no staff mana to be earned until the much more recent Legacy edition.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter von Kleinsmid View Post
Yes, the Melee/Wizard experience costs for raising attributes are a flat 100 XP per point, which will get characters to higher levels much faster... in terms of XP...

However, XP in Melee/Wizard is earned for serious combat, where figures are pretty likely to die. Perhaps only a fraction of the figures that do what it takes to get each 100 Melee XP will survive.

Melee/Wizard also limits attribute gains to 8 total points.
Hahaha... yes, my original group (5 players) played what you'd term "combat heavy" adventures for the entire 4 years between the original publications of Melee and ITL. We still had quite a bit of role-playing though as well (we played in 8 hour sessions) we just didn't award very many XP for it -- role-playing was its own reward. There were PC deaths all the time, and none ever got near to becoming 40 point characters even though 800 XP was all that was needed then. 37 points was as far as anyone lived to have.

Even with the "head start" those characters had in those 4 years, once we adopted the ITL rules they pretty much stopped advancing. A couple made it to 40 points eventually, but those 3 additional attribute points took another 14 years of play. For that reason I always considered the ITL rules for XP much to strict.
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Old 08-06-2021, 05:14 AM   #16
Chris Rice
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

As a GM I’m not much of a bookkeeper. I just used to give an attribute point after an adventure up to about 40 points. After that I pretty much stopped giving points and advancement was by other means such as wealth, followers, status, magic items etc.
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Old 08-06-2021, 08:25 AM   #17
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

I think it is perfectly valid to play a sort of 'gladiatorial campaign' of melee as long as you wish, using melee experience rules, and then exit to an ITL campaign with ITL experience rules. You can even rationalize it reasonably well - an intense year in the fighting pits is survived only by the few people who win deadly fight after deadly fight, and rapidly hones your survival abilities, but obviously provides you no opportunity for picking up skills at the local community college. I'd say it's even fair, more or less, as your chance of surviving a dozen truly competitive melee fights is poor no matter who you are.
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Old 08-09-2021, 10:23 AM   #18
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: XP per Session: Session Length

Yes, especially if they are well-balanced deadly fights. The XP from well-matched serious arena combats will tend to mean anyone surviving many of those may have been through just as much (or maybe more) serious danger than some RPG campaigns, especially if the RP XP is being awarded just for the player spending time in the game and roleplaying well, or even if there's a lot of action but the GM and/or other players/PCs are arranging for the PC death rate to be very low, whether by avoiding combat when the PCs don't have an advantage, using lots of healing potions, or other options that aren't available in arena situations.

Of course, it's also possible to set up arena combats to likely be survived by one side.
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