AWW: Rate of change.
Aug. 21st, 2013 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinI'm re-working the character advancement progression in AWW to be simpler, too. The previous version had two parallel sets of points (Achievement and Experience Points), and a not really complicated but unduly cumbersome set of diminishing returns on the ability to freely customize your character (each attribute point you buy makes the next one more expensive, stuff like that) in order to enforce a "soft ceiling" on them.
The point of having separate sets of points was twofold. One point was to make it so that characters could progress through levels of their qualities (using Experience Points) regardless of how they customized their characters (using Achievement Points). The other point was to make it so that characters could grow whether they succeed or fail (Experience Points) while being rewarded for success (Achievement Points). And as a related point, adding new Character Qualities took a big chunk out of both pools of points because new CQs add a chunk of new abilities all at once becuase those characters don't need extra customization to break out of their starting concept and also have a significant jump in power to balance out.
I'm getting rid of Achievement Points, at least in the form of something parallel to Experience Points. Experience Points will remain something you get regardless of success or failure... you don't get them for nothing, but rather for undertaking difficult or dangerous tasks in the first place. If you get your butt kicked back to town, you are out whatever treasure or reward you would have received, you are out the money needed to treat your wounds... but you still learn from the experience.
Basically, the standard character progression is completely divorced from any reward mechanism, because between treasure and other inter- and intra-adventure rewards, I think there's more than enough to motivate players to achieve, besides just the fact that success feels good and failure doesn't. And as I've mentioned before, I want the game to reflect ups and downs... making experience growth linear regardless of overall success means the trend will generally be upwards and if a group falls into a hole they'll have more reason to keep playing until they've climbed out of it, because instead of a vicious cycle where failure means they stagnate which means they fail more they'll be able to rise to meet the challenge.
The actual rate of experience gain and the cost of leveling is based around the idea of a group meeting once a week and gaining enough experience point to level up for every month, but with a note that Storytellers should sit down with their groups and figure out what the general expectation/preference is for how quickly advancement should happen, taking into account how often they can meet and for how long.
At every level you get in a quality except 1, you get something new. (Level 1 is the level when you get a whole new quality). The even numbered levels now give you a new ability for that quality, and levels 3 and 5 let you pick a new detail (which, as usual, can mean more gear). Some of the more simple qualities might reverse this, giving more bonus details and fewer new abilities, but this is the basic idea. At every level 2 through 5, you also get to add a permanent +1 check modifier to any attribute. Not a new point of the attribute, so you don't get more Fight Points for putting +1 next to Toughness or Willpower, or get more Magic Burn Tolerance or Luck Points for boosting Magic or Luck. At level 6, you can permanently increase one attribute, with everything that entails.
This... especially the progression of new abilities at levels 2, 4,and 6... is meant to smooth the growth from a basic quality to its higher tier version.
To similarly smooth jarring jumps in ability, each basic quality now includes two "Inherent Details". Most of them already gave at least one detail plus one or two minor static bonuses that can easily be converted into details. To buy a new quality takes 300 experience points (the equivalent of buying three levels). The first two sets of 100 points you spend towards a new quality give you either of the Inherent Details... if you already have one, you're instructed to pick something similar or otherwise related to the CQ you're growing into. For purposes of character customization, the details that are Inherent Details are just details. Anyone can take them. In some cases this will be like "weak multiclassing". The third 100 points gives you the new quality at level 1, with all the benefits that brings. So it's not a smooth, steady progression... it's a couple of tentative steps and then a leap up to the next plateau.
Advanced Qualities will work in a slightly similar fashion, but instead of Inherent Details that anyone can have, they'll have two steps below level 1 where you get an ability that stands as an intermediary between what you're growing out of and what you're growing into.
Buying your way towards or into a new quality doesn't give you the customization options or other side benefits of leveling up a quality, which is by design. If one party member levels up all three of their starting qualities once, they'll have three new abilities, three +1 check mods, and three more Fight Points plus they'll have doubled a lot of their base bonuses in three broad areas in the time it takes another party member to add two new details and one more basic quality. Another character who levels up one quality three times in that time will have benefits comparable to but more focused than the one who leveled up three things, and will be closer to being able to gain an Advanced Quality than anyone.
Will these characters be "balanced" against each other? Probably not. But they'll each have made a trade-off in exchange for the path they chose, and reaped a different benefit. I'm still of the opinion that trying to bring perfect mathematical balance to a game where different characters can do different things is impossible. It takes active thought on the part of the person running it to ensure that +5 at finding stuff is roughly as useful as +5 at fighting stuff.
Which isn't to say that rough balance isn't important, which is why I give thought to this stuff in the first place. Just that I'm not going to eliminate things like the possibility of adding qualities to a character in order to try to force balance. I want characters to be able to grow past their initial concept, or even into a different one.
Right now, I plan on having a firm limit of either two or three extra basic qualities instead of having an escalating cost. As much as I want to preserve the option, I kind of expect that only players who have a really firm concept that requires it will take that option, since to get another quality you'd have to watch everyone else leveling up twice and put your points towards something with a smaller immediate benefit. I think what will happen most often is that players will pick out the Advanced Quality they want most and focus on leveling up the quality that leads that way.
One thing not included in the above progression is magic gear. That's still very much a work in progress. I think every 100 Experience Points spent, regardless of how, will give you a fraction of a Magic Gear Point. Not a tiny fraction, probably between a quarter and one half. The idea is "1 MGP every x levels", but without penalizing characters who are growing their characters through new qualities. There will be ways to get your hands on magic equipment outside an orderly progression... the orderly progression is for being able to master it. And possibly in order to vary the progression to suit player needs/expectations, when you hit the "free detail" level of 3 or 5 you can trade that in for another step towards a MGP. So if you don't fancy loading your character down with either extra skills or more regular gear, you can hasten your way towards a new magic item.
The point of having separate sets of points was twofold. One point was to make it so that characters could progress through levels of their qualities (using Experience Points) regardless of how they customized their characters (using Achievement Points). The other point was to make it so that characters could grow whether they succeed or fail (Experience Points) while being rewarded for success (Achievement Points). And as a related point, adding new Character Qualities took a big chunk out of both pools of points because new CQs add a chunk of new abilities all at once becuase those characters don't need extra customization to break out of their starting concept and also have a significant jump in power to balance out.
I'm getting rid of Achievement Points, at least in the form of something parallel to Experience Points. Experience Points will remain something you get regardless of success or failure... you don't get them for nothing, but rather for undertaking difficult or dangerous tasks in the first place. If you get your butt kicked back to town, you are out whatever treasure or reward you would have received, you are out the money needed to treat your wounds... but you still learn from the experience.
Basically, the standard character progression is completely divorced from any reward mechanism, because between treasure and other inter- and intra-adventure rewards, I think there's more than enough to motivate players to achieve, besides just the fact that success feels good and failure doesn't. And as I've mentioned before, I want the game to reflect ups and downs... making experience growth linear regardless of overall success means the trend will generally be upwards and if a group falls into a hole they'll have more reason to keep playing until they've climbed out of it, because instead of a vicious cycle where failure means they stagnate which means they fail more they'll be able to rise to meet the challenge.
The actual rate of experience gain and the cost of leveling is based around the idea of a group meeting once a week and gaining enough experience point to level up for every month, but with a note that Storytellers should sit down with their groups and figure out what the general expectation/preference is for how quickly advancement should happen, taking into account how often they can meet and for how long.
At every level you get in a quality except 1, you get something new. (Level 1 is the level when you get a whole new quality). The even numbered levels now give you a new ability for that quality, and levels 3 and 5 let you pick a new detail (which, as usual, can mean more gear). Some of the more simple qualities might reverse this, giving more bonus details and fewer new abilities, but this is the basic idea. At every level 2 through 5, you also get to add a permanent +1 check modifier to any attribute. Not a new point of the attribute, so you don't get more Fight Points for putting +1 next to Toughness or Willpower, or get more Magic Burn Tolerance or Luck Points for boosting Magic or Luck. At level 6, you can permanently increase one attribute, with everything that entails.
This... especially the progression of new abilities at levels 2, 4,and 6... is meant to smooth the growth from a basic quality to its higher tier version.
To similarly smooth jarring jumps in ability, each basic quality now includes two "Inherent Details". Most of them already gave at least one detail plus one or two minor static bonuses that can easily be converted into details. To buy a new quality takes 300 experience points (the equivalent of buying three levels). The first two sets of 100 points you spend towards a new quality give you either of the Inherent Details... if you already have one, you're instructed to pick something similar or otherwise related to the CQ you're growing into. For purposes of character customization, the details that are Inherent Details are just details. Anyone can take them. In some cases this will be like "weak multiclassing". The third 100 points gives you the new quality at level 1, with all the benefits that brings. So it's not a smooth, steady progression... it's a couple of tentative steps and then a leap up to the next plateau.
Advanced Qualities will work in a slightly similar fashion, but instead of Inherent Details that anyone can have, they'll have two steps below level 1 where you get an ability that stands as an intermediary between what you're growing out of and what you're growing into.
Buying your way towards or into a new quality doesn't give you the customization options or other side benefits of leveling up a quality, which is by design. If one party member levels up all three of their starting qualities once, they'll have three new abilities, three +1 check mods, and three more Fight Points plus they'll have doubled a lot of their base bonuses in three broad areas in the time it takes another party member to add two new details and one more basic quality. Another character who levels up one quality three times in that time will have benefits comparable to but more focused than the one who leveled up three things, and will be closer to being able to gain an Advanced Quality than anyone.
Will these characters be "balanced" against each other? Probably not. But they'll each have made a trade-off in exchange for the path they chose, and reaped a different benefit. I'm still of the opinion that trying to bring perfect mathematical balance to a game where different characters can do different things is impossible. It takes active thought on the part of the person running it to ensure that +5 at finding stuff is roughly as useful as +5 at fighting stuff.
Which isn't to say that rough balance isn't important, which is why I give thought to this stuff in the first place. Just that I'm not going to eliminate things like the possibility of adding qualities to a character in order to try to force balance. I want characters to be able to grow past their initial concept, or even into a different one.
Right now, I plan on having a firm limit of either two or three extra basic qualities instead of having an escalating cost. As much as I want to preserve the option, I kind of expect that only players who have a really firm concept that requires it will take that option, since to get another quality you'd have to watch everyone else leveling up twice and put your points towards something with a smaller immediate benefit. I think what will happen most often is that players will pick out the Advanced Quality they want most and focus on leveling up the quality that leads that way.
One thing not included in the above progression is magic gear. That's still very much a work in progress. I think every 100 Experience Points spent, regardless of how, will give you a fraction of a Magic Gear Point. Not a tiny fraction, probably between a quarter and one half. The idea is "1 MGP every x levels", but without penalizing characters who are growing their characters through new qualities. There will be ways to get your hands on magic equipment outside an orderly progression... the orderly progression is for being able to master it. And possibly in order to vary the progression to suit player needs/expectations, when you hit the "free detail" level of 3 or 5 you can trade that in for another step towards a MGP. So if you don't fancy loading your character down with either extra skills or more regular gear, you can hasten your way towards a new magic item.