Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Tami]

Aw, damn. RIP, Kirk.

One hundred and 3? Wow, not many live that long. Still, RIP.

[Tami]

As much as I like Cleric's RPGs, I keep thinking that it might be more fun to have a more story driven RPG where the main characters have a set power set and that's mostly it. Or that upgrades come naturally as a logical part of the story.

Watching the web series No Evil and thinking how that concept would have made for an interesting RPG.

Does an RPG have to all be about gaining more and more power and/or skills?

[bruceleegreyhulk]

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy birthday dog.

[master of read]

max is a pretty awesome dude.

he's streaming some "battle of the grid" and he's got the devs on stream with him. it's cool to see.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

As much as I like Cleric's RPGs, I keep thinking that it might be more fun to have a more story driven RPG where the main characters have a set power set and that's mostly it. Or that upgrades come naturally as a logical part of the story.

Watching the web series No Evil and thinking how that concept would have made for an interesting RPG.

Does an RPG have to all be about gaining more and more power and/or skills?

You know I'm thinking a story driven My Hero Academia RPG in this vein, where the players have set quirk might sound nice.

[The Dog]

You know I'm thinking a story driven My Hero Academia RPG in this vein, where the players have set quirk might sound nice.

Well, you can improve the potency and skill with your Quirk through training, like a muscle, but can't get a new one... Well, unless you spoilers:

are the 9th person to have One For All. Then you'll get up to seven Quirks on top of the superstrength/speed/reflexes/etc.

end of spoilers

[Dark Soul # 7]

Well, you can improve the potency and skill with your Quirk through training, like a muscle, but can't get a new one... Well, unless you spoilers:

are the 9th person to have One For All. Then you'll get up to seven Quirks on top of the superstrength/speed/reflexes/etc.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Deku has to train to get better control of all his quirks just like anybody else. Getting more of them just makes it more complicated for him.

end of spoilers

[Nik Hasta]

As much as I like Cleric's RPGs, I keep thinking that it might be more fun to have a more story driven RPG where the main characters have a set power set and that's mostly it. Or that upgrades come naturally as a logical part of the story.

Watching the web series No Evil and thinking how that concept would have made for an interesting RPG.

Does an RPG have to all be about gaining more and more power and/or skills?

Progression is an important part of the RPG experience. While they aren't generally to my taste, I can see why Cleric's games are popular because the stat systems tend be very loose and allow for high levels of customisation and self expression. This is, generally, the thing that gets people to be invested.

The other attractive quality is that Cleric is remarkably consistent and actually sticks with running games to completion even in the face of difficult situations within his player base. It's most admirable.

Other people, myself included, have tried setting up games in the past that were less focused on powers and junk but they've either not had enough interest or, in the cases when they do get interest, the GM loses interest and the game collapses.

Am I calling myself out with this? I mostly certainly am!

*looks at Underbelly with a certain level of embarrassment*

[Iron_Twister]

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy belated birthday!

[Dark Soul # 7]

Happy Birthday to Me!

Grattis i efterskott.

[Tami]

Happy Birthday to Me!

Just noticed this. Happy Birthday Dog!

[Sharpandpointies]

As much as I like Cleric's RPGs, I keep thinking that it might be more fun to have a more story driven RPG where the main characters have a set power set and that's mostly it. Or that upgrades come naturally as a logical part of the story.

Watching the web series No Evil and thinking how that concept would have made for an interesting RPG.

Does an RPG have to all be about gaining more and more power and/or skills?

No. Dear god, no.

Most RPG's I run/play in are about creating stories and exploring a character in those stories. Sure, people do grow, but it's not about that (and the growth tends to be a lot slower than the stuff I see hereabouts).

[Sharpandpointies]

For fun, and slightly off topic, I'll note that most pen-and-paper Superhero rpgs have really, really slow advancement systems (I've played a lot of different systems) in comparison with other P&P systems. Probably because that's also a trope of the genre. How often do you actually see superheroes vastly, vastly growing in power over the course of a short time? They don't. They tend to keep the same powerset with minor tweaks/improvements. Sure, that can build up over time until we get a Spider-man now that's far, far more potent than the Spider-man of 30 years ago, but...30 years, people.

[Beadle]

I’ll also note that Call of Cthulhu, while nominally having a progression system, is glacially slow and barely perceptible in terms of skill increases etc.

Which is perfectly fine by me.

[Sharpandpointies]

I’ll also note that Call of Cthulhu, while nominally having a progression system, is glacially slow and barely perceptible in terms of skill increases etc.

Which is perfectly fine by me.

Truth.

It's really only the High Fantasy stuff that's fast progression (and even then, it tends to not be the kind of progression one sees hereabouts). Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, Horror, Superhero...most of these games are REALLY slow in progression. Heck, Sci-Fi games tend to be one of the slowest, due to 'gaining tech' being the way to actually improve 'power' more of the time (unless it's Space Opera with weird powers) and any 'progression' mostly being 'so you got a little more skilled at sneaking, or hitting a target with whatever gun you're using, or flying a ship, or navigating, or first aid'....you get the point.

And I'm cool with that, myself.

I'm currently using Battlelords of the 23rd Century (6th edition) to run a Mass Effect tabletop game (waiting for the streamlined 7th edition to come out...looks interesting). Took some fiddling with the system, but I've managed it. And progression is basically 'after this eight-hour game session, I might have enough points to raise one skill one level...out of 25 levels, and there are literally hundreds of skills in the game' (not that everyone has every skill, but it's a lot more than just 'shooting, kicking, flying, and sneaking' skills). Most characters have close to a couple dozen skills. The progression one sees in combat and the like comes more from the discovery of new equipment (which occasionally happens), the modification of equipment, choice of gear for a mission, etc. I've instigated a 'research' system in the game to try to at least mimic the feeling of a Mass Effect video game, rather than having everything being dependent on 'making more money to BUY better equipment', and the players are enjoying saving up research points so that they can maybe pick out an improvement to their sniper rifle or sidearm or pulse rifle or whatever.

But yeah, the 'Mortals to Gods' thing is pretty rare in P&P RPG's. Edit: There are games where it's more 'Gods to a little more powerful Gods', but the idea of the game is to start off really powerful because that's the genre.

And I've played for years and years in PbP games where progression was minimal to non-existent. Heck, on Rpol I've been playing for close to 10 years in a D6 system Star Wars game, and anyone familiar with that system knows how slow it is to progress even when you're playing tabletop all the time. Imagine in a PbP game! My character has improved a minuscule amount since the start.

Still fun. Still playing. Why? Character, interaction, stories are the point.