Experience Points and the Numenera GM
Most roleplaying games have some kind of “experience points” or “xp.” They might call it something else, but there’s often some way to measure character advancement, improvement, or just doing a good job. In Numenera, experience points (xp) are a tool for both the GM and the player, but used in very different ways.
For the GM, experience points are a narrative tool. The GM can introduce complications into the game that affects a specific player whenever it seems appropriate, but when he does so, he offers that player 1 xp. The player can “refuse” it, but then it costs the player 1 xp.
Here’s how that might work in play. Say the PCs find a hidden console with some buttons. They learn the right order to press the buttons, and a section of the floor disappears (this happened in the second playtest session I wrote about). As GM, I don’t have the players specifically tell me where they’re standing. Instead, I give one player an XP and say, “unfortunately, you are standing directly over this new hole in the floor.” Now, if he wanted, the player could refuse the XP and spend one of his own, and then he would say, “I leap aside to safety.” Or, he could just make the defensive roll that the GM calls for and let it play out.
As I currently have things set up, players who gain an XP in this way also get one to award to another player for whatever reason they wish (a good idea, a funny joke, or whatever seems appropriate). So far, the playtesters have really enjoyed this–it’s empowering and interactive. The point is, though, is that this is what the GM is supposed to do–make things more interesting by throwing in exciting and unexpected challenges. In Numenera, it’s simply hard-coded into the rules.
This is wonderfully empowering to the GM. Not in a, “ha ha, now I’ll trounce the PCs with my NPCs,” way, but in a, “I can control the narrative a little bit, steering it more toward the story I want to create rather than just relying on the dice,” sort of way. Consider that old stand-by, “the PCs get captured and now they must escape from the bad guys.” In heroic fiction, this is such a staple that it would almost seem strange if it didn’t happen. But in many roleplaying games, this is an almost impossible turn of events–the PCs usually have too many ways to get out of the bad guy’s clutches even before they’re captured. The dice have to be wildly against them. It virtually never happens.
But in Numenera, a GM can use this narrative tool to steer things. By that, I don’t mean “you are all captured, here’s your 1 xp.” I mean more subtly. Things going wrong. The bad guys planning well. Fortune not favoring the PCs. Some players might find it heavy handed, but the xp softens the blow. And remember, they have a way to refuse these GM narrative nudges. It’s not meant to be a railroad tool, but instead a bit of a rudder. Not an inescapable track, but a nudge here and there.
And of course, the GM doesn’t have to have a deliberate goal in mind. The complications he introduces might just make things more interesting. When the PC’s climbing that burning rope, and everyone knows it’s going to break at some point, the game now has a mechanism that ensures that it breaks at just the right time.
Lastly, this mechanic offers a way for the GM to determine how things happen in the game without leaving it all to randomness. Bad guys trying to smash down the door to the room the PCs are holed up in? He could roll a bunch of dice and compare the NPCs’ stats to the door’s stats, and so on, OR, he could wait until the most interesting time, have the NPCs smash down the door, and award an xp to the PC trying his best to bar the door. It’s a task resolution tool for the GM. Which is to say, the GM doesn’t base things on stats, but on narrative choice. (Frankly, a lot of great GMs that I have known over the years–even in the very early days of the hobby–have run their games this way anyway. I like designing games toward how people play already.)
Obviously, this kind of thing requires a light hand. Used too often or used in the same way too often (Dolmar dropped his sword again?) and it becomes forced or jarring. Which means, of course, that GMs need other tools for awarding experience points. And players need some reason–or reasons–to care about them. I’ll discuss some of those next time.
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Very cool. I kinda like this style of system. Seems to get more interaction going between player and GM, which is good.
Any concern about this system being compared to the Cortex Plus system? -
Ok so I DEMAND a one-use time machine to July 2013 as part of the stretch goals!!!
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Pingback: RPG Monte Cook's new RPG: Numenera [UPDATED] - Page 12 - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine
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I’d be one of those afore-mentioned GMs, using a handful of dice and some absent-minded staring behind a GM’s screen to get the narrative on track. I’m absolutely amazed with the idea of doing this without that guilty conscience of making sure my bad guy gets in a good bull rush at just the right time.
On a secondary note, Mr. Cook, I would just like to thank you for very timely updates and information releases. I know your schedule can’t be very relaxed (especially with all this going on and GenCon, etc), but you always manage to pay attention to your fan’s demands. It’s a mark of character, and I thank you. -
I have to say, as a player I really HATE being given the option to burn XP on short-term gains. This is an un-fun decision for me and I’d rather not be forced to make it. Whenever I am a player in such a system I always feels like I’m facing a lose/lose scenario. That’s great for decisions I have to make in-character (who doesn’t like a little Kobayashi Maru once in a while?) but as a player it’s just frustrating and feels like I’m getting screwed either way.
So, please consider some sidebar-optional-variant rule that makes XP permanent and uses some other resource for transient benefits.
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Of course Will it’s not my place to tell you what is fun or not but my players and I have been using a system of “Action dice” whenever someone does something awesome like a perfect plan, good escape, great joke or taunting the bad guys, We kinda of all yell “ACTION DIE!” and give the player a reroll to be used later in game. So far it’s made us try harder to do cool thinsg because you get a reward for going above and beyond the call of duty.
If you really don’t want to play with spending Xp you could simply make the re-rolls into a separate stat/ count aside from the Xp.
Then again there is a saying: “You can spend hard currency in Hell.” or “You can’t party when you are dead!” Meaning that you have to be alive to learn new skills and use the Xp you have. In that viewpoint just having 1 Xp at the end of a game is a net gain because you are alive to spend it.
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This sounds similar to a feature in the Fate system. So far I love what I’ve been reading, one of the problems with more narrative rules sets is people who are use to having a rule for everything become confused when you ask them what they want to do. It’s like a information overload, they didn’t see a rule that allow them to do whatever so they lock up. It seems to me that this system is addressing that with a light layer of rules to help guide the narrative. Vary cool.
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Yeah, I agree. This is fairly similar to some of the uses of Fate Points. And I tend to like the Fate Point mechanics, so that’s not a bad thing.
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This is a great mechanic the GM can use to encourage players to follow his plot. Have you considered giving players more XP points for handout, but only for glorifying failures as is done in Minimus: http://www.adastragames.com/downloads/RPGs/Minimus.pdf
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Sounds great.
Know you must be over booked the next few months,Will get with a few friends and see what wild ideas, we can muster.
More details always helpful though, enjoy the con!
Then rest a bit.
Lee
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So it basically works the same way as Karma from the old TSR/Marvel FASERIP game?
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Something like that. It’s certainly in that neighborhood.
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It reminds of the style system for Houses of the Blooded Larp system. It seems like an interesting system and I’d love to see it play tested eventually at a local con.
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Like most great ideas, it is so simple yet so clever – it makes you wonder why this hasn’t been a standard game mechanic for years. Can’t wait to see what other gems we have in store.
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Sounds a lot like ‘awesome points’ from my buddy Kirin Robinson’s Old School Hack – have you seen that game, Monte?
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You’ve mentioned how XP can be used as a “Fate Point / Benny”, is it also use for advancement too? (Loving what i see so far btw
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This mechanic would have been SO USEFUL in my game just last night. The PCs had holed up in a good defensive position and were basically luring patrols to their ambush to thin the numbers of their foes. Great tactic but SO BORING. To make things interesting, I eventually ended up bending and even breaking a few rules (“Oh look! A secret passage behind your location! Oh dear, the enemy spellcaster automatically succeeds on his Dispel Magic check! The giant picks up the skeletons and THROWS THEM AT YOU; oh look: he hits!”) None of this tipped the balance of the game; it just made the session more narratively interesting, but I was completely winging it at points.
So, TL;DR, a hard-coding of “GM Improvisation with Limitations” into the Rules as Written sounds like a great idea!
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Sounds a bit like one of the ways FATE points work in that system.
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I love the ideas in this, but I’ll second the concern over having players having to decide to sacrifice character development by burning XP in a game session. Please do have the XP something that players cannot lose, but keep the idea in the game of what you’re proposing.
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Anyone else feel the need for a small community forum of our own? id even take a fan based one.
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Fled, I definitely lurk, not sure I’ve got much to post about at the moment (unless Monte was going to field questions).
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While the world still sounds interesting these rules are definitely scaring me away. You are putting characters into the author/director chair. That is fine if you want that kind of game. But it’s not for me.
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I understand your sentiment and apprehension, but every DM has been in that spot where a plot development refuses to happen because of stubborn dice, and you end up looking like your’re “out to get the PC’s” by brute forcing mechanics for things to happen.
I think I’m willing to experiment with a system that has a “cue the music” button which can be used to rein back in a runaway plot-line.
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Well thats kinda the point, John. I’ve never been in a successful campaign where the DM was the soul author; in fact, those are some of the most boring campaigns of which I’ve been a part. I’m the full-time DM, and have been for years upon years, and I love letting the characters’ decision influence the story, as I’m sure every DM worth his weight in game manuals does.
This system offers nothing different than any other system, aside from a mechanical flow to do what is already being done.In example, if a player doesn’t want to get caught in system X, they can simply disengage and take off running, and completely change the shape of the combat and the entire story you’ve written. You can cheat and throw monsters with advanced speeds (horrible), or suddenly makes some hiding in the woods nearby (lame and lack of foresight)… the list is endless. This system is just built around a way to take everything already being done into account to get rid of the ‘DM vs. the Players’ feel. At least that’s how I’ve perceived it – I do hope this helps a bit.
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I think you are misusing the term author here or at least using it in a different way than I was. Of course PCs do things in the game that affects the world. That is not what I meant when I referred to author/director.
When a player makes a decision about whether his character falls down a hole he is deciding something apart from his character. Another way to do this would be to roll a check to see if the character falls. But choosing to expend a resource to avoid something is very plot couponish.
I’ve played my entire life without these artificial plot devices. Characters stay in character point of view. And I’ve had tons of successful long running and very fun campaigns. So no need to apply your own experiences with rpgs too widely. This has nothing whatsoever to do with railroading or anything like that.
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Then what are you complaining about exactly?
Have you looked at games like Apocalypse World where the whole play is sandboxed and GMs don’t even roll dice?
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I can see what you’re saying John, but remember this; it’s the players choice whether they spend xp to nullify dangerous events; they can quite happily swear off paying them, and the GM will bear that in mind and assign these xp-giving events to them accordingly.
They’ll be a little more cautious in giving them out at times when they would go “ooh, not sure if this is too harsh, ah well, he can buy it if off if necessary” but otherwise act the same.
Then it becomes simply about balancing opposition to rewards; if the GM gives you a hard time, your character grows faster. In general, the xp system becomes about withstanding misfortune to explore.
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This sort of thing has existed for a while – action points in Eberron, in example – a meta-game mechanic used to increase your chances of being faster at grapping the ledge when you fall. If these things influence the players into feeling a lack of realism, I could certainly say just avoid the whole issue. I just don’t see it being a big issue, honestly, since its really just a different way to make a check; do you have xp, and are you willing to spend it?
Also, daily rerolls, extra dice on certain checks; there’s a ton of mechanics that really just can’t be explained in character to avoid that pit. I’m just feeling the groove a bit on a universally modeled limited resource, to be honest. I definitely see your point, its just never personally been an issue for me.
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In my opinion, it looks to me more like you are not losing a considerable amount of your XP to “un-do” what the GM throws at you, and honestly… and think about this. What is the difference between having the GM have something bad happen to you and you have to let the rules decide what happens; and him OFFERING you an exciting change WITH a reward?
I guess if you are the type of person who is going to ALWAYS deny the DM’s offer to mix-things-up you could always just not play with this rule… but don’t kid yourself that your GM might not throw things at you ANYWAY and you now HAVE to deal with it for possibly no other benefit than it was interesting.
Does that make any sense?
Either way, the book will need to ensure GM’s are taught how to do this well, perhaps with a few good and bad examples.
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Pingback: Numenera – More on Experience Points
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I’m interested in seeing how this plays out. It certainly gives more dynamic control of the story line to the participants (DM & players) which I love. Curious as to the spending of XP (hard mechanics) over soft mechanics (dice in cortex & DRYH, fate points or action point or belief in other games). Moving away from XP spend for game resources was a great thing for D&D as was the uneven leveling of ad&d. Monte always as a great idea, so I can’t wait to hear it. I applaud the move to more DM story control and a tension mechanic.
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I love this idea and I think it definitely works for Numenera, but EXP and ‘levels’ seem like such a pervasive thing in Tabletop RPGs. What do you think about a game that does away with mechanical progression and thing like EXP entirely?
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So, you call these “xp”; are you using the same points as a pool for narrative control and for character advancement? If so, that’s the sort of trade off I don’t like (I didn’t like it in Savage Worlds before they nixed the rule, and I didn’t like it in DC heroes).
To be clear, I like FATE’s compel mechanic (which it sounds like you are emulating), but don’t like stirring short term control of game flow and long term character development points in the same pot.
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Xp are hard earned. Im also strongly against wasting Xp for shortterm “gains”.
I’ll just discuss & (most likely) disregard these Xp uses in my group.
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I really think that this is a collection of bad ideas. Let me elaborate.
Let’s start with the “DM intrusion” mechanic. First of all, it’s a technique that was practiced for ages. Any GM worth his salt will alter the plot of the campaign with minor and sometimes even major changes made on-the-fly to tailor the flow of the narrative to the players’ actions and reward players for coping with them. There is no need for some artificial rules to make such alterations possible. If GM is only reading pre-made adventure plot and rolls dices, he is a bad GM, period; the system he is using is irrelevant.
Now the rewards. How does this mechanic handles? Is GM obliged to offer the reward and buy-outs for the “introduced” challenge? In what cases? As a part of any plot alteration, however minor or major? Or just when he wants to? Does changes that made in-between the sessions to the future of the campaign plot counts? What counts for an “Intervention” and what does not? The reward, does it given for successfully dealing with the “introduced” challenge or just for being in a bad situation(“I made you a boo-boo with this but don’t cry, here’s a tasty XP for you”)? What about the situations where player’s actions lead to “unforeseen complications”?
Let’s take the example above, the disappearing floor section. What if GM has the actual plan of the room in his mind, including the placement disappearing section? If he asks his players where they are standing and one of them *is* happen to stand on that section, does he still *have* to ask player is he wants to fall? Does he still *have* to reward him if he “agrees” to fall? If yes, how is that a good game mechanic? It just makes players whiny, as they will be demanding an XP reward for anything bad will happen to them or a way to “buy out” with the XP from any such situation.
Now let’s talk a bit about the “buy-outs”. When players can buy-out with XP? Does it have to be a special event that GM specifically describes as being “buy-out-able”? Or players can do “buy-outs” whenever they want to provided they have XP for it? Can GM refuse player with buying out of a situation? If yes, are there any conditions to a refusal? Or is is up to GM to determine if the player can use the buy-out at all?
Not to mention that the whole “XP as a currency” idea is extremely bad for keeping the game atmosphere. It allows an abstract, meta-game concept(XP) to have tangible effect on the actual game events. XP in itself is a gimmick stat, needed to track the progression of the player character in a simplified manner. But with such mechanic, it will turn into a something tangible, that will affect the game.
Especially so because of the ability of players to give each other XP. So ok, a character is generally in good a shape(has XP) and he can use that to evade some inevitable danger(spends XP to buy out) and he left exhausted(no XP). Not really the best way to handle tough situations but at least the situation still has some internal consistency. And now let’s look at the XP giveaway. So one character done extremely good last time and have a lot of XP. Another one wasn’t, so he has no XP. But if something bad happens to him, the player of the first character can simply “grant” him XP to “buy out of it”. Not help by making an effort through his character, not spend XP himself to let his character be “exceptionally good” at that. No, as it is a meta-game mechanics, he can just say “oh, I give him 1 XP” and the second character will suddenly become able to just shrug off whatever DM is throwing at him. The characters can even be in completely different places, all the second player needs is the willingness of the first player to give him his XP. Where’s internal consistency in that?
In conclusion, all aforementioned mechanics give nothing to a GM as all described game altering could be done by simply GMing smartly, it doesn’t even require the bending the rules of the ruleset GM uses. Not to mention that this rules have a huge abuse potential if players are even slightly inclined to do so. If both GM and players are cooperative and willing to contribute towards a good play session, there is no need in this rules. If not, the rules as they are now will only make it worse because of all the ambiguity and loopholes they introduce.
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Absolutely brilliant! Can’t wait to see more!
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