Age, Not Exp

[deilin]

In a few of my test projects, I've been working with a theory in some of my more "simulation" based mechanics.


Level is their Age:


In all the makers, I've been able to write some sort of code to change the exp curve to a set amount, so in this case, 365 exp per level. When you level up, it means it's the characters birthday.


Age 1-12, their class is child, and no real profession skills are available from them if they are in party.


At 13, they change their "job" from child to a profession.


We'll use an example of Sue.


When Sue turns 13, she becomes an Apothecary. As she ages, she learns some battle tonics and potions, and also learns how to make more items out of battle (crafting system) for your party to use when she not in the party.


A miner might yield more material in a day, with better chance of rarer materials as they age, and similar for a farmer/forager/fisherman.


This also goes to the point of grave markers, where the grave event brings up the dead characters status screen.


The actual project that I was using this in was "scrapped", but I've still been dabbling with it here and there to see if I want to add it to another project.


Thoughts?

 

[hadecynn]

Unless the passage of time plays a real significance in your game, I really don't see how calling it "age" and "days" instead of "level" and "experience" changes anything. If anything, I think it's actually confusing because days/age are such ordinary and ingrained concepts that you'll have a harder time convincing your audience to suspend reality and twist their meanings and the way they are understood into something different compared to "lv" and "exp". 


I'm also not sure how having multiple people in your party would work? If you have Sue and the Miner in a party, how are you going to have Sue gain X "days" without touching the Miner? Did he/she not work during those days? If they didn't, then what's the point of using 365 per level/age? If they did, would that lead to you locking in everyone's exp/day gain into the same amount? 


Overall, unless there's something I'm overlooking entirely, I don't really see real mechanical value added to the game with the system. How does this make your game experience more meaningful to the player while also being easy to grasp?

 

[deilin]

In the game I was making, there was a time system, and days mattered. Certain professions, when not in party, didn't work on certain days, so they would yield nothing, and some characters would die at certain ages, under certain conditions. Though, the 365 calendar was long, and was editing it down to a harvest moon style 112 day calendar. For the most part, you were trying to survive for X years when a rescue finally finds your settlement.


In this system, you get no Exp from doing jobs, like hunting and gathering. Just as you age, you learn to do more things in your job.

 

[Warpmind]

I think keeping age and level separate is the better choice... However, I suggest you consider some sort of experience system without levels - perhaps some point-buy variant where you pay for skill and attribute ranks with XP, like the GURPS or Storyteller tabletop systems, for example.

It would kind of suck to hit 50 and gain "Glaucoma" and "Arthritis" as new abilities alongside "Surveyor's Instinct", for example.

While I like the idea of an aging mechanic, I think it needs to be violently segregated from the experience system - people accrue experience and learn at different rates, after all.

 

[deilin]

I have skill point scripts that you gain points at certain levels. Was dabbling with that option. Miner lesrns heavy swing which helps in battle, and might yield better material, but still based off age when you get skill points. Or they can learn Endurence which yields more material passively.

 

[Andar]

Fusing age and level is not a good idea from a simulation point of view, because not everyone learns at the same speed.


But I agree with basing the level on real experience instead of a fictual starting point. This would also help with scalability if you're using the same system for different stories (As I hope to do).


In my world, children are level 1. when they learn and go on, sooner or later they have the basics for entering school - level two are young apprentices.


Level 3 is after they have learned the basics of their class, and finishing school places them on level 4 - which is where the adventures regularly start.


And then their adventures go on until they're concidered well-known veterans at level 10, famous at level 20 and so on.


Such a level system does allow for stories to take place at a magic academy (starting level 2), on their journeys (starting level 4/5) or as veterans in the service of the twon council (starting level 10) without breaking a campaign by mixing in unfitting characters (like the famous L0-civilians even if they're master smiths, just because the game mechanics can't handle anything else)

 

[jwideman]

Back in the day when I was trying to design my own roleplaying system, this was one of the mechanics I considered. The problem is that while experience points and levels are an abstraction of how good at a particular set of skills one is, age is just age. It's not even a matter of everyone learning at different rates, but time spent actively learning. More importantly, time spent being challenged.


For example, I spent the better part of a decade playing punk rock. I'm a rhythm guitarist, so that basically means playing 3 chords a bit ahead of the drums. I can play the hell out of some Danzig-era Misfits but anything more complex or the least bit technical, forget it. I never put a lot of time into it and stopped taking lessons after a couple months. In fact, the only time I've touched my guitar in the last 3 years was to move it. Contrast this with some kid forced to take lessons and practice every day. If he kept it up for the same amount of time, he'd be amazing.


What I decided in the end was that tracking skills individually instead of levels was better. Actually, what I decided in the end was that my system was far too complex for tabletop RPGs. Then a decade later Pathfinder came out and I'm still kicking myself. But anyway, if you want to avoid the "level 0 civilians" problem*, then drop levels altogether and go skill-based.


*Not to get off-topic, but the reason master smiths were level 0 was because only adventurers had levels. Not even monsters had levels, just hit dice. Anybody can kill goblins, but it takes a special combination of bloodlust, greed, and insanity to be an adventurer.

 

[Andar]

*Not to get off-topic, but the reason master smiths were level 0 was because only adventurers had levels. Not even monsters had levels, just hit dice. Anybody can kill goblins, but it takes a special combination of bloodlust, greed, and insanity to be an adventurer.

Yes, but that is only another example why that mechanic is problematic - everyone can learn something new and train to be better, even young animals need experience to learn how to hunt successfully.


And while point-spending on skills solves some problems, there are others that are a lot better handled by leveling.

 

[deilin]

In many aspects, this mechanism doesn't work with Role Play, I know. But, you also can look at it this way, just because you do something over an over again doesn't always mean you get better at it. In the game, the ability to perform a job is more important. There are no masters, because there's no masters to learn from, so you know whay you know. There ate some triggers as well. Sue, the apothecary, might for the most part seem an average apothecary, but when on a certain map, she remembers a family story about an herb you come across, and now can start to gather, Sue with greater success. Joe, the hunter, will change deer spawn to an enemy that fights like normal, but will drop better pelts while he is in party. Greg, the hunter, will give the chance of more salvaged meat. So on, and so forth.


There are "discovery" drops that can trigger advancements in certain people, but a forager wont get anything useful hunting deer, or a tailor exploring caves.


Your role in the game is more organizing the others, ordering special constructions, exploring new maps with your party.

 

[Wavelength]

Most stories and games have a hard time properly capturing the passage of time on the span of years or especially decades, which makes Age a really poor choice to represent anything that should be changing over the course of your game (like stats, experience, or skill acquisition).  However, if your game is set up to capture these things well, then go for it, keeping in mind that things will work best if there are characters becoming old at the same time that other characters are coming of age.

 

[jwideman]

Yes, but that is only another example why that mechanic is problematic - everyone can learn something new and train to be better, even young animals need experience to learn how to hunt successfully.


And while point-spending on skills solves some problems, there are others that are a lot better handled by leveling.

The point is, 30 years of making armor and weaponry doesn't make you a warrior. I'd love to know what problems you think levels solve that skills can't.

 

[Oddball]

i would also think that with two people of the same job. one becomes idel after three years then sifs on there ass for fifteen years watching television then decides to go back to work. another one learns new techniques in there trade the whole time


which do you think would be better at there job? the one that watched television the whole time might even get worse from nonpractice

 

[Andar]

The point is, 30 years of making armor and weaponry doesn't make you a warrior.

I never said that. You can be a master smith but know only the minimum of weapon handling to test your product.


Level is NOT combat capacity - a level 30 smith can still be inept at fighting.


And the problem with skill point distribution is the way to keep the cost balanced. Most skill & point system solve that by making the point cost to improve a skill scale very high, but that prevents everyone from gaining those high skills. If you want scalability on one system, allowing you to play apprentices as well as legendary heroes, then you need some fixed scale to keep the characters in line - and in such a case, a leveling system works a lot better than a free point system.


Just look at the problems of for example GURPS SUPERS if you want to play a normal there, but have the same points as the supers. Similiar things happen with other point systems when you try to make characters  a good step below or above the intended playing power level.


Leveling is no guarantee for scalability of course (for example the scaling of D&D in the older editions is ridiculous, especially if you go to the old immortal set - they removed those levels in later editions for good reasons).

 

[deilin]

True. But cutting and planking logs doesn't mean you can suddenly make a rocking chair.


Interactions with them, on and out of party, can inspire them to try making something new, but, they still can fail.


As for stats, the game doesn't have high stats, but as you age, they grow based on their profession, hense the connection of level with age. At a certain point, as you age, some stats start to fall.


Yes. All age, and one main character early on dies no matter what do, do to his age.

 

[jwideman]

I never said that. You can be a master smith but know only the minimum of weapon handling to test your product.


Level is NOT combat capacity - a level 30 smith can still be inept at fighting.


And the problem with skill point distribution is the way to keep the cost balanced. Most skill & point system solve that by making the point cost to improve a skill scale very high, but that prevents everyone from gaining those high skills. If you want scalability on one system, allowing you to play apprentices as well as legendary heroes, then you need some fixed scale to keep the characters in line - and in such a case, a leveling system works a lot better than a free point system.


Just look at the problems of for example GURPS SUPERS if you want to play a normal there, but have the same points as the supers. Similiar things happen with other point systems when you try to make characters  a good step below or above the intended playing power level.


Leveling is no guarantee for scalability of course (for example the scaling of D&D in the older editions is ridiculous, especially if you go to the old immortal set - they removed those levels in later editions for good reasons).

I thought we were still using the D&D model as a comparison, where level absolutely is combat capacity. Also, you introduced an example that's exactly counter to your argument. Playing a normal in a team of supers is like Aquaman teamed with the Justice League. There's your level 30 smith who can only stick his head in an aquarium to talk to the fish while Superman is curb stomping goblins. I suck at analogies. My point is, levels only work when you're comparing adventuring classes. How many hit points would  a level 30 smith have? What's his THAC0? His saving throw vs petrification? All the same as at level 1, because he's a smith, not an adventurer.


If we stopped using D&D as the model a long time ago and I missed it, sorry. If levels aren't combat ability, what are they in your system?

 

[Andar]

no, even with D&D (which is extremely combat-focused) the level is not combat power but overal power. Best proof is the rogue where quite a bit of its overal power goes into lockpicking and similiar options that don't help in combat.


But you're focusing the level on combat abilities, that's why it looks that way to you. But that definition depends on the game system. If you can get non-combat abilities by levels, then two actors of similiar level will be worth the same even if their combat abilities are different.


Just as an example - in my game world, there is a healer class that is forbidden to kill and should harm only in defense. In higher levels they're even required to make sure that their friends capture criminals instead of killing them - and they will get legally prosecuted by their guild masters if they ever behave against those vows. So their combat power is almost none (most healing spells take too much time for combat, they're more usefull after combat). But that is the only class that can revive the dead and their other healing spells are also better than anything else.


Roleplaying is not wargaming, even if a lot of groups do both and the origins of RPGs come from wargames. But the true roleplaying part is the one about story and character decisions, like does the group accommodate the wishes of a healer to get those advantages, or do they work with weaker potions and minor healing only to have less restrictions when going on an adventure?

 

[jwideman]

no, even with D&D (which is extremely combat-focused) the level is not combat power but overal power. Best proof is the rogue where quite a bit of its overal power goes into lockpicking and similiar options that don't help in combat.


But you're focusing the level on combat abilities, that's why it looks that way to you. But that definition depends on the game system. If you can get non-combat abilities by levels, then two actors of similiar level will be worth the same even if their combat abilities are different.


Just as an example - in my game world, there is a healer class that is forbidden to kill and should harm only in defense. In higher levels they're even required to make sure that their friends capture criminals instead of killing them - and they will get legally prosecuted by their guild masters if they ever behave against those vows. So their combat power is almost none (most healing spells take too much time for combat, they're more usefull after combat). But that is the only class that can revive the dead and their other healing spells are also better than anything else.


Roleplaying is not wargaming, even if a lot of groups do both and the origins of RPGs come from wargames. But the true roleplaying part is the one about story and character decisions, like does the group accommodate the wishes of a healer to get those advantages, or do they work with weaker potions and minor healing only to have less restrictions when going on an adventure?

That's why the rogue gets a (IIRC) d6 hit die, the fighter a d8, and the magic user a d4. Saving throws and THAC0 also reflect this. But it's not JUST combat ability, it's adventuring ability - of which combat tends to be a large part. Non-adventurers, therefore, cannot have levels. Maybe the rules have changed since I played. It's what, 5th edition now? Anyway, the issue for me is that you haven't explained how you define "worth" and the definition you seem to be using isn't at all different from TSR's. A healing class that can raise the dead is HUGELY powerful in adventuring ability despite having low combat ability. But a smith? He doesn't leave town or go on adventures. If he did, he'd be an adventurer who happens to have smithing skills. Which, in a skill-based system, is entirely possible without having to shoehorn in a new class.

 

[Andar]

it's adventuring ability - of which combat tends to be a large part.

That is where we have to agree to disagree. Because that depends on the playing style of a specific group and is NOT universal.


In all my gaming groups in about twenty years of gaming (not counting the first five or ten years as that was indeed combat-focused), there often have been RPG gaming sessions without any combat in the entire 6-hour-session. In fact in the last few years there were often four to five complete sessions between two fights, simply because we prefer to spent our time on the story and not on battles.

 

[jwideman]

That is where we have to agree to disagree. Because that depends on the playing style of a specific group and is NOT universal.


In all my gaming groups in about twenty years of gaming (not counting the first five or ten years as that was indeed combat-focused), there often have been RPG gaming sessions without any combat in the entire 6-hour-session. In fact in the last few years there were often four to five complete sessions between two fights, simply because we prefer to spent our time on the story and not on battles.

Again, that's as per D&D. It's not a matter of opinion, it's in the manual. You're free to ignore the manual, but for the purpose of communication we must use common definitions. Anyway, if combat isn't the focus, levels are secondary - if any - consideration. Ever play Teenagers From Outer Space? It didn't have levels. It didn't even have combat. So what do levels represent in your system?

 

[Missile]

Man there's a lot of stuff in this thread. You could've prototyped the idea in the time it took to write/read it.


Age/time-based levelling sounds totally fine. Having steady time-based improvement and steering it is pretty much the foundation of clicker games and some grand strategy games (like EU4, etc.). In clicker games time is your resource (dps = gold output), while in grand strategy it's your challenge modifier (since your opponents are always growing faster/stronger(it's a lot of things in EU4, but picking challenge offhand)). There are a million other ways to use it. Not sure why it's being dismissed so eagerly.