XP systems

Community Larp discussion
#1

Personally, I dislike the Unspent XP being used on new characters. I think it should either, preferably, a percentage of Total XP earned, or be no XP carried forward.

This is because it rewards something completely different from, and in my opinion, counter to, what XP is rewarded for. I don’t think that people should be encouraged to, and rewarded for, not spend their XP. XP is rewarded for participation, good costuming and good roleplaying. So it is generally those that put effort into their costumes and get into their characters and generally enhance the game for others by roleplaying well.

Then when characters die, what is rewarded is not having spent your XP. This rewards those that either hedging their bets, or those that are laziness, disinterest, or casual players that don’t get around to spending their XP.
I’ve seen it in a number of White Wolf Larps, where there are the dedicated players which are very into their character, are very active in roleplaying and plot and get the most XP rewards. Then there are the more casual players, that aren’t as into the game, don’t get as involved in plot and roleplaying and thus earn less XP. But often it is these casual players that have the most Unspent XP sitting on their characters because they don’t get around to spending it. So they are the ones that are most rewarded when building new characters because of character death.

I don’t see why, when XP is rewarded for costuming and roleplaying, that character death is rewarded for either non-participation or calculated hedging of your bets on character survivability.

So, it seems that XP is earn for being more fully invested in your character (in costume and roleplaying), but the rewards for character death is not fully investing in your characters development.

#2

That sounds like a strong argument O.o

#3

Unspent XP doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not investing in the character. Some skills are expensive and it may take multiple adventures to save up enough to purchase them. Saving 3-4 XP so that after the next game you have enough to buy that 5 point skill could really be considered to be just investing long term…

#4

True, you have outlined one scenario in which what Dave has said is untrue, but I’m still with Dave on this one. It seems counter-intuitive to allow those who have not spent their points to get a systemically better character at the beginning of their next character.

If the XP reward system is all about rewarding those who are making the game better for everyone else, shouldn’t they be able to keep their rewards after character death? Surely those people who are enriching the game would be more able to do so with a systemically better character? More skills = more roleplay = more props. Surely it is the people who have already gained the XP rewards that are likely to bring these props and dress up their character in a more interesting way than those who are less interested in the game but come along anyway?

#5

Yes, Derek, you are right, the system also rewards fortuitous timing (if fortuitous can be used regarding character death) and punishes those that are unlucky to have died just after spending their XP on something expensive, in addition to those that are buying cheap skills.

I don’t see how this is beneficial either. Rewarding saving for expensive skills rather than cheap skills and rewarding fortuitous timing over unlucky timing. These are not what XP is rewarded for in the first place and doesn’t counter any of my previous points. Really, it just adds to how bad the system is.

#6

As these posts about XP systems are no longer specifically about Teonn, I have split them to this new topic in the General forum.

For what it’s worth, I think “unspent XP rollover” is excellent and I’d use it in campaign larps.

As I see it, XP is a reward for participation. How the player spends it should be their business.

If a player spends all their XP on their current character, they get to enjoy it immediately. They are not “losing out” in any way if that character dies and they have no XP to pass on to their next character, they have already reaped the benefits of having that XP on the character who died.

The player who doesn’t spend their XP on one character, but spends it on the next, is actually worse off. XP doesn’t accumulate interest “in the bank”, so any XP you don’t spend immediately is an opportunity cost. Sure, you get to enjoy it later, but you don’t get to enjoy it now. All other things being equal, that means you spend less time in the campaign playing more powerful characters. So on average, it’s the person who doesn’t spend their XP immediately who loses out.

If a player wants to save up all the XP for several games, then retire that character and start again with one that enters the game super-powerful, I also think that’s perfectly reasonable. They have sacrificed the time they spent playing their first character as a low-powered person, for the opportunity to start the game with a new powerful character. Why shouldn’t new powerful characters sometimes come out of nowhere, why should they always have to develop right where the PCs happen to be?

#7

I believe I can make compelling arguments for all four situations:

(a) discard all earned xp and start again
(b) keep only unspent xp
© keep only spent xp
(d) keep all earned xp, including spent xp

But I really don’t care. Any of these would work just fine for me. I don’t really larp for xp and I don’t care if my character is a lot stronger or weaker than other characters.

I’d just prefer to keep it simple if possible.

#8

I kinda like the idea of not knowing, what about (bare in mind I am still quite new), when your character dies you see a GM and they have a bag with 4 colored stones representing the 4 options outlined by Derek. You randomly pick 1 and there is what your new character has to start with?

#9

[quote]But I really don’t care. Any of these would work just fine for me. I don’t really larp for xp and I don’t care if my character is a lot stronger or weaker than other characters.

I’d just prefer to keep it simple if possible.[/quote]

Quoted for truth!

#10

Quoted for truth![/quote] Justice and the New Zealand Way.

An odd way of putting that I agree as well.

#11

Years ago some friends of mine created a tabletop RPG for GURPS called GURPS: Goblins

It had a very interesting experience system. Your character after generation was as physically good as they would ever be. After that, the only thing that could go up was your reputation and the list of injuries you were nursing…

[i]"Life in London is nasty, brutish and short. So are you.

This game more or less relates to the sad lives and hard times of persons living in late Georgian London – that is, the city is more or less London, the individuals concerned are more or less persons, and King George is more or less late. The year is 1830.

A roleplaying game usually sends characters on an exploration, in which they seek elusive treasure through uncharted jungles, ruins and dungeons, overcoming obstacles and whacking monsters with magic or astounding technology.

Such things are sadly rare in this game. GURPS Goblins is set in a city, where every square inch has been trod by one and a half million pairs of feet, and all obstacles are marked on a handy street map. The ruins and dungeons are far from uncharted – the only creature who never explores them is the landlord who rents them out. The magic is dubious. The technology isn’t astounding.

There are however plenty of monsters, in every conceivable shape and size. They live in the characters’ houses; eat their food; buy groceries at the same market. Many of them are relatives. The characters of GURPS Goblins roam well-worn, familiar streets in a sea of unwashed, diseased rogues and villains. The characters are unwashed, diseased rogues and villains. They seek the same elusive treasures that all do – gin, glory, and bags of money…"[/i]

#12

I believe I have a copy of the original game at home, not sure how I ended up with it. Must play it sometime :slight_smile:

#13

I think the main problem that a death & new character creation system should address is The Peasant Problem. That is, as far as I’ve read up on it, when a character, or group of characters, is so underpowered that they can no longer meaningfully influence the plot compared to the character or characters with the greatest systemic advantage. The players of the un-influential characters have less to do, and start to slip out of character, thus breaking the immersion for not only themselves, but those around them. These people are also likely to leave the campaign and not bother to attend future events run with the same or similar systems.

I figure a system that allows players of dead characters to create a new character that is at least on par with the current average systemic advantage of all the other characters is a good way to avoid this problem. How that is represented systemically depends entirely on the game system being used.

#14

Here’s another potential scheme for discussion (CP = creation points, XP = experience points)

------WARNING: MATHS!-------

Award XP to CHARACTER, not player.
Assume XP is awarded per game on a (base XP) + (bonus XP) system of some kind.
On character death, a player is given CP + (base XP) x (no. of games - 1) + (some percentage of unspent XP from dead character).

The middle term in this equation (base XP) x (no. of games - 1) helps keep characters in touch with any growing dangers of the campaign.
The last term (some percentage of unspent XP) ensures there is some recognition of Player investment/effort from prior games, while still encouraging active XP expenditure.

Potentially, (some percentage of base XP) could be used instead of (base XP) in the middle term, so that death is still penalised somewhat, but not overmuch.

This sort of pattern could also help with new characters joining mid campaign … CP_mid_campaing = CP + (some percentage of base XP) * (no. of games - 1)

#15

Another potential scheme could be “peasant’s creation” (regular CP only) after character death, with a boon/gift granted during the next game.

STs could use these for plot, helping drag new characters deep into the story, and the magnitude of the boon/gift (or perhaps a curse to balance the boon) could be determined by the magnitude of unspent XP.

Again, this would really require XP to be per character, but it still recognises the effort the player spent in earning the XP. Additionally, XP-“hoarders” are not rewarded with power - they are rewarded with plot.

Which is, after all, why we roleplay, right?
(and anyway there’s no reason the “plot reward” can’t be tailored somewhat to the player).

#16

OK, I have a question for you guys: why?

Why should there be a character progression of increasing skills as a reward for longevity? Why should there be growing danger in the campaign? Particularly if it’s balanced by increasing character capabilities? What’s the payoff?

I’m genuinely interested in people’s opinions here - for me, XP is not a big deal because there are other things about roleplaying campaigns that give me warm fuzzy feelings, but I can see from the indepth discussion here and elsewhere that a lot of people care about it a great deal. I’m wondering if anyone’s interested in analysing that drive for me.

#17

It’s the Power Up.

Some people like having a sense of mechanical progress where their character becomes more powerful periodically. Games like D&D and World of Warcraft are pretty much predicated on this urge to have regular “accomplishments” that make you slightly “better” than the other guy.

Apart from the psychological payoff of feeling gradually more powerful:
[ul][li]With time you develop a wider variety of abilities, giving you more of a sense of variety and options. If you started with them all, you might find them overwhelming. Having them come slowly helps the game retain a sense of novelty for you. [/li]
[li]Unlocking new abilities may allow you to interact with aspects of the setting you couldn’t access before. Again, novelty. [/li]
[li]Arguably, having some characters more powerful than others helps with believability - why wouldn’t people improve with experience, and why wouldn’t there be a variety of power levels around?[/li]
[li]Spending the points is fun.[/li][/ul]
As for “catch up” systems where new characters get a boost of XP so they don’t lag behind the “party”, I think that’s peculiar to games with a cooperative party that’s Powering Up.

The Red Queen effect of powering up against ever-more-powerful opponents, and having new party members start up to speed, doesn’t have much of a psychological impact. You still feel like you’re getting regular rewards of power, even though it’s kind of a treadmill.

#18

I agree with Ryan on the reasons he has provided for powering up.

Skill gain, if it exists in the game, should be dispersed across the length of the game so that it is gradual. With dispersion, each skill is more novel than if they were lumped together. Ryan makes several good points about skill gain in regards to novelty. It’s also somewhat a representation of how we gain new knowledge and skills as we live our lives.

Growing danger in a setting is part and parcel of having character’s gaining new abilities to deal with bigger and/or more complex problems. Why gain all these cool abilities if you don’t get a chance to use them? More specifically, the danger is relevant if the skills gained enable a player to kill monsters with more HP. A more generalised way of putting it is as an increase in difficulty, rather than specifically danger. The rewards are as Ryan has stated.

Having said that, the sci-fi campaign that Mel and I are working on has a different system for skill-gain, quite separate from any form of XP (you’ll have to wait for the campaign to find out more about this).

#19

Also, IMHO, a campaign of finite length, will likely have some goal, and as players approach this goal, things will get harder - the big bad will keep his strongest minions closer to him, the macguffin’s most secure defenses will likely be in the inner layer, the world is tumbling ever closer to some cataclysm, etc…

#20

It also allows you to develop your character, for example if you start off as a man-at-arms who is illiterate but happens to save a young noble who decides to make him his personal Yeoman (warden) then you might suddenly have to be able to read! But you don’t have the skill to do so! Getting xp allows you to purchase skills that you have learn’t during the game!

This is why I am very big on skills - not just for spells but for melee as well. Alot of games have loads of very xp costly spells that do alot of bang for their buck. But if you create a character who is a duelist and you buy all of the skills that let you use weapons and you do not want to become a mage / ritualist / noble. Then alot of systems leave you high and dry. There are usually few options for you to put your xp into. Sure you could buy more hp, you could buy more armor but that doesn’t really fit in with your muskateer theme… you want a nice puffy jacket not full plate and the extra hp doesn’t really let you represent performing a perfect repost and disarming somone…

If you are able to spend your xp to become a mage that can break somones shield by mumbling a few words and pointing your finger… then why can you not become the worlds best duelist and have a skill that lets you disarm your opponent?

This perhaps steps outside of the realm of this conversation but I hope it answers your question stephanie:
Somtimes it’s nice to be able to develop your character by buying skills rather than just roleplaying and being able to represent your training with a target xp and amount of games means that becomming the worlds greatest mage takes time - somthing for you to do rather than just have it handed to you when the gm’s feel you are worthy (or not) :slight_smile: