Since the beginning of role playing games experience points (XP) have been gathered as a reward for killing all manner of ridiculously imagined (and poorly rendered) monstrosity in order to advance the player character (PC) into a new level of awesome, or out of the state of suckitude little by little. They get more powerful in skills, abilities, spells, wealth and even their foes become proportionally more badass as a matter of course. These new horrors are worthy challengers whose freshly spilt blood/ichor earn you larger chunks of XP, since your next level requires even more points to advance to.

To the non-gamer this appears a masturbatory circle of slaying, like a symbiant circle but messier – although Force powers may be involved. We hardcore gamers merely call it “tradition”, and return to the non-judgmental depths of the basement to indulge in our shameful hobby.

Many games, especially those of the heroic fantasy genre that are over thirty-years old and the flagship of the industry, involve players stampeding through levels of advancement until eventually Zeus has to come down from Mount Olympus to defend his title – like a WWE plot line. In divine consolation, when your wife is an omnipotent bitch, being slain by mortals becomes attractive.

For the tactical battle game Dungeons & Dragons was at it’s origins, and by many still is, this is fine. Although, I myself dont see much point to playing in these endless Pokemonesque battles where the monsters just keeping bigger and more evil until you’r fighting a half-demon Tarrasque with 30th level dark priest spells that doesn’t pay child support, fornicates during hellfire herpes outbreaks and offers subprime loans to zero level commoners, then forecloses on their veeeery SOOOOOOOULS! When you start fighting them by the squad, the impression fades.

For the thematically and narratively sophisticated storyteller, this presents a bit of a problem. As we discussed in Cast 4, higher level games are harder to run, requiring lots more prep time and balancing to deliver the challenge desired. Another issue is versimulatude. In the fiction that inspires the stories we tell, you rarely see characters becoming a whole grade better at their skills in a short time. Jack Bauer isn’t a whole lot more powerful than he was in season one – we just have more evidence of his awesome levels (definately above … 18,000!). After 6 seasons you won’t see Jack riding atop a missle’s nuclear warhead in mid-flight to disarm it, and if we ever do he might as well wave below to the shark he’s jumping – or torture it to death for affiliations with terrorist chum dealers, “They’re gonna need a bigger fish.”

The solution: toss out the advancement rules. Your new school indie games like Spirit of the Century and The Burning Wheel introduce this concept or champion more dramatically appropriate leveling. If you’ve spent the last plot arch casting spells your magic skill increases, not your dagger wielding prowess, which is mostly used to cut lunch or the throats of your “prisoners” or female NPCs whom want to be “just friends”. But these games are point-buy systems, allowing customized advancement, where as class/level systems are blanket improvement affairs. You don’t want to run/play those point buy systems. You will NOT, damn it! FUCK those hippy games owned by their own creators and innovating what ain’t … stagnant!

Slow down the pacing then. The more dangerous a challenge, the more the XP, so fill the game with intersting non-combat scenes. 4th Ed’s skill challenges, once you adjust the math to your liking, provide an excellant way lower XP hauls and with generous and creative narration can be as entertaining as combat. Hardcore tactical gamers scoff at this. They enjoy their ruler prescribed measured movement and leave the storytelling to the dice, the type to count each shot in action flicks to make sure realistic clip sizes are obeyed. My local group was apparently steeped in this style, but last session they mostly planned and role played for over 4 hours and had one combat that lasted a mere 15 minutes (and didnt even directly involve their PCs), yet had so much fun they didn’t even press about the XP award: 400 XP each for the session.

Should I even tell them this is their award, if the game was reward enough? Shouldn’t they be reading this blog? Am I that kind of dick DM …?

Popularity: 5% [?]