More on Experience Points
In my last post, I wrote a little bit about experience points (xp) as a narrative tool for GMs.
The method of awarding xp that I described is the “in-game” award of points. But there’s also a more standard, “between sessions” method.
And no, it has nothing to do with killing monsters.
I know, that’s weird for a lot of people. That’s the core way you get xp in a lot of games: you defeat things in battle. But not in Numenera. I’m a firm believer that you award players experience points for the thing you expect them to do in the game. They’re the little reward pellets they get for pushing the button… oh wait, no, that’s rats in a lab. Oh well, same principle. Give them xp for doing a thing, and that thing is what they’ll do.
In Numenera, that thing is: discovery.
This can be the discovery of something your character can use: an artifact. It can also just be the discovery of some new numenera procedure, device (something too big to be “equipment”) or even knowledge. Lastly, depending on the outlook of the GM and the kind of campaign the group wants to play, it could be something as abstract as a truth. This could be an ethical idea such as “what goes around comes around,” or it might be something like, “everyone has their price.” Typically, discovery is going to earn PCs about half their experience points.
Using XP
Players decide how they want to use the xp they earn. There are short, medium, and long-term uses. The short-term, immediate use for an xp is that you can use 1 xp to immediately reroll any die on the table (even one someone else rolls). This is pretty straightforward.
Medium-term uses are a bit more costly (but not much) and are usually story-based. A player can spend xp, for example, while climbing through the mountains and say that these mountains are just like those found in the region where she grew up. In those mountains, she is skilled in climbing. This helps her at that time, and any time she might return, but it’s not as though she’s skilled in climb everywhere. This might cost, say, 2 xp. Alternatively, another character, with a bunch of numenera components, might spend xp to cobble together a device that allows him to breathe underwater, because he wants to explore a submerged complex. This gives him that ability for a considerable length of time but probably not permanently. Again, the story and the logic of what’s going on dictate the parameters.
Long-term uses of xp are more costly still, and permanently affect a character. For 4 xp, you can gain training in a skill, increase your stat pools, improve your ability to use effort, and so on. When you do this four times, you gain a level (which in and of itself has some advantages).
But levels in Numenera aren’t like those in many other level-based games. They mainly exist as benchmarks for character story arcs. (I’ll talk more about that in a later article.) For now, though, it’s worth noting that starting (thus, 1st level) characters are already quite competent, and there are only six levels. There is a power curve, but it is only steep enough to keep things interesting. Character improvement can continue past level 6, but the level rating doesn’t increase past that point. In other words, gaining levels is cool and fun, but it’s not the only path to success (or power). If you spent all your points only on short and medium-term uses of xp, you would be different, but not “behind” someone that spent their points on long-term uses.
The general idea, though, is that most characters will spend half their xp on long-term advancement and the rest on short and medium-term uses (which I think of as “gameplay” or “at the table” uses, because you use them during the session, not in between sessions). This means, of course, that some groups might choose to have in-game xp earnings usable only for gameplay uses, and discovery points, awarded between sessions usable only for long-term character advancement. This would be particularly useful for groups that are used to a more traditional type of heavily level-dependent game who will likely undervalue using xp for other things. I wouldn’t do it that way–it feels a bit too rigid for my tastes–but it’s easily done.
Ultimately, the idea is to make experience points–for both players and GMs–tools with which to shape the story and the characters, and not just a bookkeeping hassle.
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The important thing to me is that the act of becoming more powerful over time feel substantial. Traditionally that’s done with levels. You level up, you get more HPs, you may get skills points or feats, news spells, new abilities, etc. So long as Numenara still has that feel then I’m really interested in what’s described above.
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Why do you need to “become more powerful” over time? Do characters in movies and stories become more powerful or do they just change and develop as characters/people?
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Advancing character power is the most common form of keeping the character interesting and fresh over long periods of time. Going too long without a change in the character’s capabilities will eventually bore the player (and also the GM, with regards to challenges).
Changing the character’s capabilities is either done by advancement (i.e. levels) or via replacement. In many groups (particularly high-lethality old school gaming), the latter is the preferred method, while most of my experience has been the former. There is a third option- the “character re-spec” that is used a lot in video games, where you can swap out most or all of your character customization at certain points. Very, very few tabletop RPGs will do this, though, but this can be very appropriate for certain types of characters and stories.
I personally prefer advancement or respec to replacement, simply from bad experiences in high-lethality games. Advancement also comes with a direct feeling of accomplishment, an easily perceived ability to affect the game world, and usually a feeling of taking on bigger, more important challenges. While these don’t have to be the focus of the game, it is worth mentioning why people like it.-
I think it’s important to note that you can also gain power through less direct means. Like networking and contacts. How do you rate having the love and admiration of an entire village of people on a leveling scale? Those people would go to war to rescue you. That’s worth something amazing. Heck, simply learning new information about the environment you’re in (especially the way I’m imagining Numenera) as a player would be invaluable. Knowing that a landshark can’t travel through wet earth makes you more powerful. Stuff like that.
I don’t think keeping your character dynamic and advancing in power actually requires that you alter your stats. I definitely prefer a game with a mix of stat boosts and story-based rewards, but I don’t necessarily think levels are the only form of advancement.
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I agree.
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This is absolutely why I think that a game doesn’t need progression mechanics it just needs GM-logic but -also- Player-Logic. A lot of players don’t think about games as though they were real life, they don’t think about contacts or having information on of their opponents. But a big part of that is that games don’t encourage it, so players don’t think about it! In D&D, having information that the kobolds use spears basically means nothing to your combat strategies. And even much more useful information only has a small impact on battle tactics in D&D.
I’m loving these discussions, a lot of interesting stuff is coming out, and it’s also giving me hints that maybe I’m not completely on the wrong track with my personal RPG I’m making. The whole design of my RPG will be to encourage this type of progression by making it extremely useful throughout the game mechanics. Knowing that an enemy has a wounded leg and they can’t do certain movements well will be an invaluable tool to combatting that enemy. Learning that your enemy has certain behavior patters will be too.
Having connections, information and resources outside of your characters stats and “HP” matter, which means a smart and well roleplayed character that doesn’t focus on combat would easily beat out a min/maxed combat character who just jumps into life-or-death fights without thinking.
Of course, I think this means my game is more suited to assassination/battle royale like games than epic adventures, but it would work for anything.
As for Numenera I’m getting more and more excited about it, I can’t wait! Thats the downside to these kickstarters you generally have to wait. I have to be patient… I can’t wait till the char creator comes out either, thats my favourite part, creating characters!
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Thanks for clarifying – I am in the camp of “Oh no, I can’t use XP for short term effects!” I’m a hoarder – the kind that when playing a video game, tries to never use consumables in case I’ll need them later. I might be able to break out of my mold, but it’s good to hear that you’ve taken people like me into consideration.
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I wondered about your single digit XP usage in the last post, but now I feel obliged to ask about it.
My assumption is that this game is also not like others which award thousand or even 10′s of thousands of XP points.
I have read about but never played one. Can I assume that XP rewards are single digit affairs?
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Correct. As you can see from my post, buying 4 character building things at around 4 xp each gets you a level.
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So when you say, “you can use 1 xp to immediately reroll any die on the table (even one someone else rolls),” do you mean a player could use 1 xp to immediately reroll a die the GM rolls? Whether this applies or not, I like this short-term xp use.
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I hope that tracking discoveries is easy. Long ago I used to use spreadsheets to do XP. Ugh!
For many years I’ve been the type of GM who ignores XP per monster and just goes “X xp per session”.
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Yeah, if you’re using a spreadsheet to track Numenera xp… well, I guess I just won’t understand.
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Who spends the 1xp to reroll something that benefits the whole party?
I mean, the obvious answer is “whoever volunteers to,” though that may result in the most generous player at the table ending up at a serious fun disadvantage as other players dominate the problem-solving with their superior and more diverse abilities.
Some groups presumably will decide to rotate who buys the lifesaving reroll. That’s not bad, but it seems like it reduces the enjoyment of earning a personal reward when it’ll be spent by the party.
It’s probably worth including in this section of the book your thoughts on the matter. It seems like you’re disinclined to lay down a law, but I think hearing good ideas would benefit players.
Another idea: when a player spends 1xp to reroll, they earn a different reward. For example, they earn a point of fame for the heroic action that defied the inevitable.
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You lost me at “fun disadvantage.” If I spend my xp to allow me to gain some new skill that affects what happens in certain parts of the story, and you spend yours to do rerolls that affect what happens in certain parts of the story, why have you had more fun than me?
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If you’re not careful, (although I’m sure you will be) it’s tragedy of the commons, or worse:
When a roll comes up that multiple people can pay for a reroll on, and someone should, who does it? The most generous player? The player it affects the worst?
If it’s the same player most of the time, then that player will keep earning xp with the rest of the party, but slowly fall behind, because of their reroll spending, perhaps having this effect become exacerbated over time because they will now always be the person worst affected by random events, and so spend more and more of their xp on rerolls.
Old school hack solves this problem in two ways; firstly you “double spend” xp on short term improvements and on long term ones simultaneously, and also because you only level up when everyone has spent a certain amount.
Another way to solve it is to have alternative traits that build up when you spend for rerolls, perhaps ones that focus on parts of the world rather than the characters personal abilities, so are a less reliable source of power, but nonetheless allow some growth. But that depends on how the rest of your stuff is set up, obviously!
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In fact, pondering this, it occurs to me that it might actually be very good to combine the short term xp and medium term xp in this way:
If you keep marking down the kind of threat that your character has avoided, every time you spend xp to nullify a threat/reroll a die, then this will start to cue up a pattern to the GM of your aversions.
Unlike advantages you pick because you are interested in conflicts and dangers of that type, this will cue up those conflicts and dangers that you are _not_ interested in. In other words, the character sheet becomes a record of the player’s preferences, as well as the portrait of a character, which I would find very helpful when GMing. -
I would think the player who is most offended by the outcome of the die would be the one who would pay for the re-roll. Or the player who most wishes the going to be smooth. Basically, whoever speaks up first and has the points to spend.
As for the part of uneven leveling, since leveling determines where in the story arc characters are, it’s okay for characters to level separately. The less others level at the same time as your character does, the more the story is currently about your character development and not theirs. This is only a problem if, when playing, you as a character must have the plot revolve around you as opposed to everyone else. Everyone leveling at the same time and to the same extent leads to a very complicated story where everyone is constantly going through world-changing developments simultaneously. Not leveling when someone else is shares the spotlight.
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Actually, barring that I think short-term XP use is too meta and pulls me out of the experience of the character (see my posts below) I actually kinda really like the idea that some characters might often spend their XP to help others, because it would really play into characterisation.
Some of my favourite characters to play are characters that always sacrifice themselves to help out others and never think of their own situation… and using XP on other people would be indicative of that type of personalit. The only problem with this is how short-term XP use is a meta-fiction decision and so not really indicative of your character’s personality in any way.
That being said, I think there are better resource systems out there (I’m personally in favour of a resource system where both using and not using the resource is a tactical decision, rather than not using simply being “saving it up for something big”)… but no one here except Mr Cook knows the nuances of the Numenara system… and what resource systems would work with it really depends on those nuances.
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I believe that a 1XP cost for a rerroll is a way too high cost, specially if permanent effects are supposed to be 4XP. I guess that will come up in play with your group before production.
Is there a chance of Numenera becoming a traditionally published RPG? Or is the project dead after the final Kickstarter book is sent?
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If by “traditionally published RPG” you mean, that you can buy print copies in a store and pdfs online, then yes. There is a 100% chance of that happening.
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You think 1 xp is too high a cost to warp reality? You’re essentially given the power of ultimate veto. If you never leave any xp to spent in this fasion, you’re open to whatever dastardly thing the GM decides to throw your way.
Reminds me a little of Demon’s Souls, where xp is also currency. One must to choose to spend on stats or equipment. I like tough call trade offs like this.
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Just loving it Monte! Keep up the good work!
I’m really interested in knowing the 6 levels/tiers.
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I think the way xp is explained here is as simple as a tool. We have to stop seeing the xp as only a way to make more powerful a character or to gain levels, but as a way to resolve conflicts that in other way would be the dead or something else of your character or some other player. To be willing to give an xp point to save the neck of other player’s character is a good way to promote partnership and probably that’s something worth of some kind of award. I see it as a great way interact with the players and the story in a different way.
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This sounds really cool. I can see some players feeling like they are forced to lose xp to do cool things but it seems like a neat way to control difficulty as in Savage Worlds.
And I would ALWAYS burn an xp to keep my or another players character alive. Who wants the story to en unless they feel it is time?
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Is Numenera designed with a specific group size in mind or does it readily scale from small groups to large groups?
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I love the break-away from traditional Experience definitions, including (and certainly not limited to) the destruction of battle-based experience balance. I also am really eager to feel the comparisons between long-term XP and short/medium XP uses. A player who rerolls 4 times a session doesn’t get that ‘upgrade’, and the player who got that upgrade, is going to have 4 more bad rolls per session, assuming true statistics. At least in theory, this sounds wonderfully balanced and delicate.
The question I have, however, is about your example for the breathing aparatus – are these mid-term uses completely independant of the player, or does your role/character have an effect? In example, would a Glaive be just as likely to be able to rig together this device as a Jack / Engineer? Just a curiosity, thanks! -
I like the multiple uses of XP, from character development to in-game usage like Savage Worlds bennies.
Reminds me a bit, in fact, of how XP was used in the West End Games d6 Star Wars game–multiple uses, from spending them in-game to affect individual rolls to long-term character development. I always thought that was rather innovative, and I like the application here, too.
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From the twitters: Are you compiling a list of influences as you write? I’d be keen to see your list of likes.
This all looks pretty neat. I have so many questions about how things might work out, but I think I’ll hold off on those until there’s more on the page.
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Numenera will have a substantial bibliography.
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Sweet. Really excited to see where this goes!
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It just occurred to me that technically a character only needs 20xp to reach the max level ( though as you mention they can continue to improve). How many xp do you expect to be given out in an adventure such as the ones you are publidhibg in the Kickstarter?
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I meant 80.
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Still working that out. Maybe 20ish?
I’d caution you, though, I don’t think most players are just going to focus on leveling up with all their xp. I mean, some maybe will, but I suspect once people shake the cobwebs of other games from their thinking, they’ll see that that’s not the only interesting way to create their character’s story.
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I think most players wouldn’t be comfortable to trade precious xp for temporary rewards, while they potentially could get something permanent. On the other hand, if everybody hoards xp, nothing interesting will happen.
I’d suggest each 1 xp allows you to do everything you listed: reroll a die, then someday declare a fact, and after you’ve done both – improve some stats. This way each player would be obligated to invest into story (dramatic rerolling) and setting (declaring facts) before he can get more power.
That probably would work for my table.
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But that takes away from the interestingness of the decision!
The times where the players will spend that 1 xp are those times when whatever’s at stake is so important to them, they’re willing to spend xp on the roll now and delay advancement. So you get those lovely moments where you’re going, “dang, I don’t want to let that result stand… but how badly enough do I care? Enough to spend this point?” That’s a cool choice to make.
But only if the decision to NOT spend the point leads to a significant in-game issue for the player. Like, “am I willing to let the villain get away with the macguffin? Am I willing to arrive too late to save my poor grandmother from being eaten by the wolves? Am I willing to let my favorite sword fall into the flaming pit of phlegm and marshmallows and be destroyed forever? Or would I rather keep my precious, precious XP and level faster?” Obviously, few people will spend it when there isn’t some important issue at stake.And on that note, I have a question for Monte Cook: Does this system encourage stake-setting before rolling? Also, does it have anything to say about what’s too trivial to roll for?
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Much of the game system is about players trying to making a task simpler for their character, to give them the best shot at success. The idea being that through things like training, the right tools, the right situation, help from your friends, extreme effort, etc. you can make the task an easy die roll, or in fact, a situation where no roll is needed.
I will get to this in coming columns.
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I’m …. not sure about the whole 6 levels of advancement thing. Who knows, maybe I’m just used to the D&d levels system, maybe it’s because I’ve had bad experiences with other systems.
I kind of thought you’d be doing some sort of d20 variant system here, but it seems to be something different. Shame on me for not having enough horsepower to get into your playtesting circle, I’m curious about what system this is. I’m curious about the way you’ll handle monsters on a mostly level neutral game as well.
Anyway… let’s just FF to july 2013, shall we?
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The “XP for Exploration” concept has me very excited. I really want to see more about this, including guidance for the GM to be included in the book.
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Not huge on this idea, to be honestly. I like how you’ve set up levels to be balanced, so whether you use it on short-term or mid-term stuff you’re not going to fall behind… but I dislike the idea of having a resource system that can just completely override game mechanics. You get to reroll a roll? How does that work? What does that correspond to my character doing? Trying again? Manipulating reality? It just seems so out of wack. I’d much prefer a resource system that can be used preemptively or a resource system that allows recovery from a failure than a resource system which ‘somehow’ manipulates reality.
All that said, “XP is what you get from combat” is an idea that needs to die and I welcome Numenara’s attempts to execute it.
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Gelsamel, bear in mind that from an in-fiction perspective, the points don’t even exist. The character isn’t doing anything whatsoever – it’s you as a player who is spending a point.
So this resource system doesn’t manipulate reality. It manipulates fiction, which is the same thing as what you’re doing any time you say your character does something. You just get to spend a point to extend the scope of your sphere of influence a little.-
I get that, but that type of thing irks me. At least HP and other stats can be corresponded to things about the character (varying from abstract to concrete things depending on the RPG) and you can make excuses for vancian magic, but the whole “fate points redo rolls” thing?
I like to feel like I am my character, and making decision for my character that can only be interepreted as being meta-fiction decisions pulls me right out. This is why I think ‘fate points allow you to negate the failure’ is nicer because to me thats like my character ‘using their effort/force of will’ to avoid a bad outcome, then they can choose to try again or not. Similarly ‘fate points allow you to make a roll against a lower DC or with a higher bonus’ is like the character’s effort/force of will, or insight, etc.
‘Fate points allow you to reroll an opposed check’ just remind me “I’m not actually my character doing awesome things, I’m playing a game and make believe”.
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Fair enough, I guess I can see how that might break immersion for you. Doesn’t bother me at all, but to each their own.
Hmm… what if you looked at it from the point of view of it being your character using up some of his/her good luck?-
Good luck would be like what I proposed rather than the reality warping of being able to reroll.
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My thoughts exactly. I can say that I dislike metamanipulations in the game and prefer to limit that to concealed GM manipulations as much as humanly possible. But with system like that, players bending reality and making meta-game decisions is pretty much a mainstay of the gameplay. And just as Gelsamel said, it completely ruins the immersion, each die roll or reality bending reminding how non-real the situation is.
That is actually even worse in the case of med-term manipulations. You can try to pretend that die rerolling is your character doing something with great effort. But bending reality? That’s so obviously metagaming it hurts. Using the example from the post, how on earth the character can “make” mountains suddenly become “similar to ones she is used to”? There are absolutely no possible in-universe explanation for things like that. It’s plain meta, and in that case at the much bigger scale. A single die roll may slightly affect the outcome of a combat or trading, but that’s pretty much it. A bended reality will become a part of the campaign, possibly affecting it’s flow.
Not to mention that there are a lot of loopholes and ambiguities in this rules. For example, let’s assume that one player will bend reality to “make the mountains familiar”. What will happen if after a couple of game sessions, another player will make those “bend” mountains into being familiar to *his* character? Will those mountains suddenly become different? Or that character will suddenly become a fellow countryman of the first one? How such conflicting changes will be handled by the game rules? Is there a way to prevent such manipulation from being inconsistent and immersion breaking at all?
And of course, what is the limits of such manipulations, if any? How far the reality could be bent? Can players make a new village to appear in the middle of the deadly desert? Can they make it’s inhabitants extremely friendly? Can they “bend” villagers into worshiping them? Those are really important questions as if left unanswered by the rules they will create a huge abuse potential for the game. And believe me, players *love* abusing the rules.
In conclusion, all that reality bending will not do the game much good. It ruins immersion for the players that want to actually play the game, as opposed to collectively writing a story, and opens up a lot of loopholes for players to try and break the flow of the game. To keep the game course from being constantly swayed by the reality bending tools, you need an extremely consensual band of players, that are willing to voluntarily submit to the GM’s will, which is extremely rare thing to have.
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I have a question. Are XP awards per player or is the same amount given to the whole group?
Given how you mentioned the option of splitting XP awards in short term/long term (which is definitely the one we’d take at our table), would it be out of place suggesting also an option for flat-rate XP per session? I have a player at the table who is really uncomfortable about carrot&stick XP awarding criteria (he doesn’t say it openly, but he dislikes feeling like he’s competing with the rest of the table and always ends up resenting people who earn more than he does).
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In game it’s per player and between sessions it’s for each member of the group.
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Sounds a lot like Savage Worlds with Bennies and the option to convert unused Bennies into XP if left at the end of a session. Also similar with the only a few XP to level and not many overall ‘levels of power’. In other words, it sounds very much to my liking
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