Thoughts on game progression, and roleplay rules

 I'm a big fan of granular rules, yet over time, they get boring. So, I think, games should progressively obfuscate the simpler forms of the game, as you level up.

Game Progression as a mechanic.

Imagine you've never trekked, never strapped a backpack on, hiking boots, and gone for a walk. Those first few hours are going to be painful, difficult, full of mistakes, hardships, and things that you just can't help avoid.

But then imagine how different it will be after a month, 6 months or several years of trekking. 

After a month, the simplest issues will be worked out. the basics of packing a bag, how to put on your boots for better comfort, making sure you don't pack weird shaped items against your back.

After 6 months, ensuring you put on dry socks, and lace the boots against the grain so water flows away, and not into your boot, packing your bags for the most long term comfort, but also quick access to certain items, and packing in under 10 minutes, instead of an hour,

After several years, you'll still be learning small tricks, maybe less often maybe barely a change, but tiny incremental changes that give you extra crucial minutes of travel each day. 

My System Ideas.,

Its one of the reasons I developed the 2d12 bell curved results system, it starts of being harder, 1st level characters, you roll 2d12 and attempt to get your number under the low numbers, and while pass or fail, you gain some experience in the skill, those first few experience will be vital. You'll learn a lot, and your score will rise quickly.

Once you've gained a basic score of 20, there is no longer the need to roll for the simple stuff, this might be dealing with the minutiae or just getting the basics right. We as adults don't think about walking, talking, turning door handles or all the simple things we mastered as children, so why should your character think about any skill they've pretty much covered. The player says they do it, its a straight forward task, so they do it. If they don't KNOW its difficult, you don't tell them, (and secretly roll for that difficulty)

You do need to roll, every single time, someone says something, and ignore 99% of those rolls, so the times when its actually a roll, your players don't know the difference. The key is, does the player THINK they might fail? 

The rulebook says, if the player has a score of 20 (or more), the GM rolls, and if there are no modifiers, ignores this dice roll, unless a 12 is rolled, and the GM has a story reason to do something.

Only if there are modifiers, does this become important. 

If the player suspects its going to be difficult, let them roll, let them apply other skills for bonuses, it shows they are thinking, being creative in solving the problem. rolls = experience. 

But if the player thinks this is going to be a walk in the park, and it might be, then you roll, openly to put players on edge.

The key here is, players will get used to your rolls, and will ignore all the 'probably passed' and like real life, get into a false sense of security, Until its a fail, and then, that world of pain will teach them a lesson.

Rolling dice is barely a second, a glance, not a 12, ok, lets proceed.. but the moment on the persons face when they are so assured they'll swing across the chasm with that worn old vine as a rope, and that vine snaps, with a cloud of dust.. and they drop.. 

and their friends cast a spell, or a prayer or a quick thinking rope & hook, and they're safe, or.. a speedy healing ward as they slam into the ground almost dying.

NOTE: casting healing ward, is 1 HP to a location and 1 HP in general, it can be cast on a person as they hit the ground, and prevent death. Provided no further insta damage occurs (like falling in acid/lava/poison/fire etc) 

But, slowly, as players progress, they'll notice, they're not doing rolls for things, they're not seeing any negatives happen for simple stuff, and consciously or subconsciously they'll feel like they're getting better. This is what you want to achieve as gamemaster, getting players to feel confidence about their character. Feel like they 'Earned' it.

[Dev] Character Creation vs Generation

I was part of a discussion on reddit, and found myself looking at things from a different perspective on the whole "no Levels" argument. A most interesting one came from this slipped comment:

Character creation in Dungeonworld* takes six weeks!

Top 10 'modify and dress your avatar' systems

Tell anyone that character creation is going to take 6 weeks and they'll balk! 6 weeks to create a character? what are you Nutz? just roll the dice, pick some skills, spending little more than 30 minutes so they can "get into the game"... Yet they'll spend hours tweaking an MMO characters looks, when Charisma/Looks is usually the dump stat for the same players..

But the reality is that to make decent characters, you have to spend hours, days even weeks.. but that's what we call roleplay right?..

Whoa!, What? say some people? Roleplay your character before creating them? how .. what.. I'm confused!

I have several ways that I introduce players to my game & system. For a single session, such as a Convention or an Intro session for newbs, I would of course, pre-roll a set of fairly standard trope adventurers, using the rules lite characters. The session would likely be 3-5 hours, and I don't want to waste a minute of it, discussing which spell would be better for the wizard.

The Second method is for my lite rules system. I have a 3-6 week pre-written adventure, characters are unlikely to gain a rank withing that time, or if they do, its plot related. So I want the players to have more choice over their character, but again, not get bogged down more than an hour (including maneuvers, spells & prayer lists). Players roll standard 4d6 for the characteristics, and choose two 'classes' from a list of eight. This gives the players all the stats and standard gear for those classes, with a few choices.. "So you've chosen Warrior and Rogue, More of a Footpad with a Spiked-Club or a Mercenary for hire, with a sword."

But Full roleplay, when the players are expecting to continue for the next 6 months in the open sandbox, possibly interacting with up to 75 other players from 10 other GMs. That means some proper character generation.

Character Generation

Character Creation, is more realistically, the beginning dice rolls. before any choices are made. The first choices are almost forced upon you.. good strength, good dexterity, poor wisdom, might be a fighter... but nice charisma.. well..

You choose something that matches your rolls, figure out how you'd take advantage of what you've got and pick a class...

But what if, instead of just 'taking a class' you start out as kids. Getting to know the world, the setting, the background, all in a fairly safe environment.

So Character generation, players play out a scenario, the first RPG session, as kids. Getting to know themselves without skills, without training, just plain base stats.

When a player displays an apptitude for some skill, (Derrik climbs the balcony of the ruined house, so the GM takes note, and award Derrik the climbing skill bonus) the GM can award that skill to the player, and it becomes known by the players, that Derrik is the climber.

The first session should be understood as a tutorial mission. Something to cut your teeth on, learn some background skills, some of which may become irrelevant to the character, but builds character.

Session Two becomes the Training and intermissions. Characters join guilds, travel locally, do chores, study books, and take holidays at festival times. So have the players manage to 'catch up' in this time, and take on that nasty old bugbear thats been haunting the ruined mine all these years. (and discover it was just a costumed old man, looking to cash in on the gold mine when the lease expired - "and I would have gotten away with it, hadn't it been for those dang kids and their dog")

Session Three, the characters should meet up under circumstances, hopefully plot related. Maybe that gold mine was haunted after all, and the town gets the famous kids back to solve the mystery, maybe someones family member has become ill and cash / an ingredient is needed. This brings the players back together for a reason, hopefully plot hook.

Session Four, The characters should do some kind of income improvement related mission. Maybe tied in with Session Five. Something that's less dangerous, more likely to just set up some contacts for the future, some knowledge of the local area, and an idea of how much income can be gained from more mundane jobs, so when they do an actual adventure, they'll 'feel' how rich they've become.

Session Five introduces the need for a base of operations OR a travel pack mule/horse/cart that takes care of the bulk of the mundane. I've given players an escort mission to show them how much easier it is to have the gear in the cart, vs having to waste the first round to take off backpacks and get out gear.

Session Six, starts with a shopping session, has a 'find X to get Y' mid session and finishes withe the characters getting that 'upgrade' that makes them feel like their ready to take on the world.

Now don't take this list literal, I'm just giving you a feel for how one such gaming character generation works.

The whole point is to spread out the 'parts' of character creation, roleplay each one as a memorable event, so players can get a far more real immersive feeling for their character.

Players are constantly griping about how they should have taken skill X instead of Y. This style of play lets them choose the skills as they are needed, Let the player 'build' their needs. Players are more in tune with the world you want them to be in, little things that break immersion and cause argments are often the expectations of the world and their character, and how they feel cheated, because they couldn't foresee what skills they needed when they chose them.

In this style, players acquire skills, weapons, armour, spells, all on the go, while roleplaying. They feel more in touch with them, know when and how they got them and why they got them. Nothing on the charactersheet is 'given' from a book, its all earned.

Lastly, Since the players "grew up" together, they have a tendency to be a more coherent group, more likely to watch each others back, rogues are less likely to backstab their fellow players, Leaders are formed rather than chosen and players choose skills which compliment the group based on needs as they go, rather than clash because three players have herbalism, but no-one has first aid.

Note: For those adventures which are 'strangers coming together' obvious a different style is needed. If tension is part of the plot, having players develop their character independantly is the obvious choice, but if you can handle the initial build time, have them roleplay each heroes arc before the meeting, with whole other groups if possible, then have them meet up.

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* p.s. I have recently discovered that another Dungeon World title exists under the Apocalypse World brand. I have zero affiliation with them. DungeonWorld(tm) was created in 1993, registered in 1993 and trademarked under Australian Law.