Experience curve

[greasy golem gunk]

I'm not really happy with the 5/night or 10/story xp system.  What I use is something faster, and players who are spot on COULD pick up a charm every session, provided he/she does everything.  Then again, if they do everything,  they deserve it, right?


The experience curve is something like this


+1 for showing up


+3 for making me believe you played


+1-2 for doing something cool/lots of cool things


+1 for Storyteller hookups (carrides, cookies...)


+1 for the Next-episode speech (like a Bad anime or Disgaea; as long as they can make up a 40-second speech on what "could" happen next game, it's good.  Better if they work in the other players into a speaking role.).


-1-5 for screwing around all night (roleplaying out how you hit every bar in town and insisting on seducing every extra you see...  Or similar).  


Potential 8 per night


End of story would be


8 for reaching it


10 for succeeding


+1 or 2 for keeping track of your virtue flaw for me the whole story.


+1 for keeping me informed on your anima banner the whole story.


The last 2 take some of the work off of me.  (edit: 10+3 makes 13, not 12) potential points at the end of story, with short adventures all the way.  By being on the ball, they can probably end a story in 3-4 games.  


By being off-quest, they'd be netting 5 xp a night by hard effort, more likely 2 or 3 a night.  


This sound wrong to anyone?  


I'm also changing learning times a bit; during the days of training, the exalt can use the charm at 3x cost and a stunt, provided they've invested the xp into it, and announce before hand.  The day before it's finished, it'd be 2x mote cost, normal willpower, and on the last day, it'd be normal +1 until the training time is finished.  


-g3

 

[Coyotekin]

I really think it is better suited to fast-paced games. This is something that I do as people are not very reliabel usually due to varying work schedules on base, or because someone has moved, especially me. Otherwise, if I had the novelty of a steady gaming group I think I would stick to canon as I knew time wasn't so much of an issue.

 

[StarHawk]

I think it sounds neat for small games,  but I feel cannon works for long-term games. As for training times, we usually treat the times in the book as standard and 1/2 that with a teacher. It works well enough, and it doesn't let everyone increase their essence to 5 before the game ends.

 

[psychoph]

How often are you playing? Is it once a week, twice, once a month, once every three months?

 

[The Scorp]

I tend to give my players alot of exp as well...but only at first.  As the story progresses though, the exp will lessen.  Reason for this is that I believe that Exalted, when first taking their second breath, will have a spike of power surging through them for sometime, giving them the ability to climb in power fast.  But after awhile, that power surge dwindles.  You could say that, that the divine finger that touched the new Exalt eventually seeks another worthy individual, and that Exalt has to get off the divine crack.

 

[Persell]

Wow, you are a generous storyteller. I usually give between 1 and four - and that is mostly 3 xp. It maybe up to six with the conclusion of a story, and I have the same habbit of handing out more to begin with and then lessen it as the exalts grow in power. I do give a two-point xp discount on charms in the beginning. I like charms. Charms make most of the fun. But I like to keep the progression slow and easy. Takes some of the focus on stats away and helps keeping it on roleplaying, I think.

 

[Relic]

Sorry for stepping aside from the topic at hand but I really had to comment on this one:

+1 or 2 for keeping track of your virtue flaw for me the whole story.
+1 for keeping me informed on your anima banner the whole story.

To me that's like getting experience points for rolling your own dice. Of course the players should track their virtue flaw and inform you of their anima. It's on their sheets(!)


If your players really need motivation for them to keep you updated on the fundamentals maybe you should switch it around to:


-1 or -2 for not keeping track of your virtue flaw for me during story.


-1 for not keeping me informed on your anima banner during the story.


Just a thought --- your milage may vary.


Above all: have fun! :-)

 

[greasy golem gunk]

How often are you playing? Is it once a week, twice, once a month, once every three months?

We say every saturday, but it doesn't work out THAT well.  Twice a month is about average.  


I want them to end up at essence 5 or 6 before the BIG boss battle, and I want them to master a charm tree or two, with some back up charms.  


3 of them are new; I expect them to waste xp on charms they won't use THAT often, but sound cool.  Or to misunderstand what they need.  


The 2 from Hook-ups and next episode speech won't happen that often after the 3rd week I'm sure.  And the screw around penalty applies too; if we end up discussing Andromeda or past games too much, I'll be deducting xp.  It happens.  


-g3

 

[Persell]

Sorry for stepping aside from the topic at hand but I really had to comment on this one:

+1 or 2 for keeping track of your virtue flaw for me the whole story.
+1 for keeping me informed on your anima banner the whole story.

To me that's like getting experience points for rolling your own dice. Of course the players should track their virtue flaw and inform you of their anima. It's on their sheets(!)


If your players really need motivation for them to keep you updated on the fundamentals maybe you should switch it around to:


-1 or -2 for not keeping track of your virtue flaw for me during story.


-1 for not keeping me informed on your anima banner during the story.


Just a thought --- your milage may vary.


Above all: have fun! :-)

I have to agree with Relic here. It's something that people can abuse and thus get  some free xp, turn it around so that they pay attention to it.


For the rest, I would feel that depending on what everyone does and how they play to give them between 3 and 6 xp and then let it depend on the playing...


But that is me.

 

[psychoph]

From a psychological stand point I would disagree with Relic's idea of taking away exp.  


You are using punishment to try to get character to do something.  The original idea of positive reinforcement is a much better idea with a trail off period for new players once they have formed the habit that you want them to have I.E. keeping track of stuff.


I personally do the same thing with role-playing.  I give more points in the beginning to players that i see RPing a lot compared to the base that i know of them and then i tapper it off as I expect that level to continue.


Treats for doing things are generally better than smacks across the face for not doing something.


I actualyl would disagree with taking away any exp at any point in time it woudl be better to just not give it than to remove exp it also makes the system less complicated.  It is similar to the idea of Drama Dice in 7th sea or Stunts.  Do something I feel worth while you get a bonus.

 

[Relic]

Just for the record, I personally wouldn't deduct XP either. Then again, I wouldn't be giving any either because (barring one small exception mentioned further down) I don't like XP awards based on things happening outside the game world.


I think XP should be used as a measurement of character progress, not a prize (or punishment, in the opposite case) for the players.


In my world experience is awarded on two criteria:


1) What did the characters experience?


If your character spent the night locked in the stockade, he didn't get a whole lot of experience. If a whole evening of gaming brings you through half a day of ingame time, you won't get a lot of experience. If we fast forward two months, tell me how you spent the time and we'll find out what you picked up along the way.


2) Players' sense of progress.


Anyway we look at it, seeing the character grow in terms of skills, attributes, etc. is a big part of the fun for many players. Since we're playing to have fun there will be some minimum of progress every session, even if it's just one single experience point.


This is how I like it, and I should note that the first by far outweighs the second.

 

[psychoph]

that actualy is an interesting way of doing things.  I was thinking on this a while back due to an L5R game that over the course of 1-2 in game months my character had gone up 2 iinsight levels but was never able to actually train with a maste so he wasn't getting any new wa spiff abilities.


It got me thinking that the standard exp level is geared towards a certain amount of in game time progressing in a session.


I liked that Exalted included that in the spending of experience, but it really seems like a ST has to seriously tailor the amount given out to the story and how fast it is going.


I have so far went with the standard system and told my players to tell me what the are practicing if they want to raise abilities or attributes and that as game time progresses we can get the exps spent as needed.


I will have to think furhter on it because I feel like for novist rpers a st shoudl give some incentive for rp and such in order to try to encourage that action to such a point wher eit becomes routine.  The problem then becomes when to ween the newbie rpers off the bottle and how to deal with potentail power difference.

 

[Persell]

I actually try to seperate role playing and experience points as much as possible. If xp reflects the characters experience it has nothing to do with how well the players roleplay them. Instead I try to motivate my players to good roleplaying through the NPCs. If they come alive well, my players often follow suit.

 

[psychoph]

I actually try to seperate role playing and experience points as much as possible. If xp reflects the characters experience it has nothing to do with how well the players roleplay them. Instead I try to motivate my players to good roleplaying through the NPCs. If they come alive well, my players often follow suit.

How well does that work with newer gamers?  It definitely seems like a good way to go.


Seems like it is time to rethink my experience assigning method before my next game.

 

[Heaven's Thunder Hammer]

I actually try to seperate role playing and experience points as much as possible. If xp reflects the characters experience it has nothing to do with how well the players roleplay them. Instead I try to motivate my players to good roleplaying through the NPCs. If they come alive well, my players often follow suit.

This is pretty much what I do. In some cases I have given out extra xp for excellent RPing, but not very often. In fact, maybe I should. Typically, I give 6-10xp per session. 6 for a slow session, 8 on average and 10 for a really good session. I want my PC's to be able to do powerful stuff. I want them strong. I want them to be able to advance their character's at a reasonable rate. I feel roughly a charm a session is good.

 

[psychoph]

My friend mentioned the other day that Blue planet had a pretty good exp system.


If I remember correctly it gave out exp for the following


1. Role-playing


2. Forwarding personal goals


3. Acting out personal nature


4. Story Goals completed


That is roughly what it is.  I others have more expeirence with it they might be able to add to it.

 

[Halfdead Frodi]

I usually give out between 4 and 8 xp a session, save for the first 1 or two where I usually give 8-10xp, for the end of stories I generally add the 5 extra xp from the core book. Usually I tend more in the 8 direction if significant plot has passed... and I tend to reward a bit more ifpeople have good answers for my 4 questions. But that's because I find `em fun...and sometimes you can get a very good feel for a character or player by their responses...and realize things you didn't notice just during play.

 

[psychoph]

halfdead how often tod you run the game that you give that amount of experience for?  


Do you find your exalted to be fairly powerful?


I am curious as I tend towards lower number of exps and I would love to know more ofthe experience with higher numbers of exps.


In the end since the npc's in most of the games I have played get tailored to the power level of the PC's the amount tends to only affect the flavor of the game I think.

 

[Halfdead Frodi]

I generally run once a week. And the character do tend to be moderatley powerful, but since most of my players spend a lot on non-combat specific things...the somewhat high xp allows a continued progression, and allows for players to buy things that they wouldn't if they simply needed to be battle ready, and still allows me to use some more powerful foes for battle encounters...ala a true 5 Immaculate Wyld Hunt, with full tree mastery and a solid base of non-Immaculate charms. Seeing as another of my games involves such things as wars with a Deathlord...and eventual possibly bringing the battle directly to said Deathlord's doorstep...well, a bit of power is necessary. Since I dinna want to run the game for 5 years before tyring such a thing...then a bit more xp helps.Running such for a year or two is fine by me, but campigns usually eventually peter out... even things such as LARP which I've found usually lasts a good bit longer.

 

[psychoph]

makes a lot of sense.