Some stuff on stuff

[Paul L. Ming]

Hiya.

>>
"As a slightly related question: does anyone use the rule that if several
persons hit an opponent in the phase that he is killed, they are all
awarded experience and expertise for the killing blow (Combat experience
section of Book I, page 54 in the v2/v3 PDF version. I don't have the
original books handy, so don't know the original ref.) "
>>

  I dropped the whole "hp:xp" thing. From my experience, the stronger
characters got stronger, and the weaker characters got weaker. The system
basically penalized someone for making a non-combat monster character. If
you wanted to play a young city waif, who lives by her wits and her deft
hands...well, you'd basically never get anywhere. You'd get less
characteristic points and less CEP. Even if you were just as useful during
the battle/adventure. NOTE: I still use the CDF:ExperTISE rules as is.

  What I did was "collapse" the whole xp value of the creature. That is, a
creature with 20hp who had a CDF of 3 would be worth a flat 60CEP. After the
battle, I'd divy this up equaly, most of the time, among the PC's. If one PC
didn't do much of anything, he'd get less XP than the others. If one PC did
most of the work and risked more, he'd get more XP. This does two things:
first, it keeps the bookkeeping down (something that is always a good thing
in P&P! ;) ), and second, it encourages group actions. I suppose it also
encourages players to create interesting and unique characters over the "big
hulking fighter" types. A "big hulking fighter" or two in the group is
fine...I just think that the "quick street waif" character should be equally
as viable as a character concept.

  I also added GEP ("General Experience Points"). These are basically XP
that are given out for cleaver thinking, good role-playing, or even out of
game stuff like buying pizza for the group or drawing character portraits
for everyone. This encourages players to think in terms that aren't simple
"how do we kill the most goblins?". Now they think "how do we get rid of
these goblins?". Two different things entierly. GEP's also help "glue the
group" together; in real life and through the game personas. RPG's are about
having a bunch of friends together, rolling some dice, and creating a group
'daydream' of fantastic adventure...all in the name of FUN. :) I figured it
was only appropriate to encourage the "FUN factor" through any means
neccissary. GEP seems to do the trick! :)

^_^

Paul L. Ming



_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com