More than anything else, I meant to be implying that you'd have to choose which game you wanted to play in if you planned on trying a "no karma" game.

I'm the first to agree, such a game wouldn't be for everyone. But it could remain a viable game, and be plenty of fun, with the right group of people.

Ah, sorry I misunderstood.

The default assumption in all role playing games is that whatever else you happen to be doing, you become a bigger and bigger badass over the course of the story. This has little relation to any kind of "reality" and is actually harmful to some kinds of stories. If Iron Man or The Flash become appreciably more bad ass they fall out of the eco-niche their character is designed for. If Bat Man becomes more awesome he risks losing the possibility of being threatened by The Scarecrow or Penguin.

Can you imagine what a shitty story it would be if shortly before the end Robin Hood had become so viscerally powerful that the Sherriff was no longer a danger to him? Can you honestly say that the Song of Roland would have been improved by having Roland advance to the point where he could simply brawl down all those Moors himself?

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We are all used to advancing in RPGs. It's part of the legacy of Gygax. But there's no actual reason for this to happen. In the vast majority of source material, nothing even vaguely similar to RPG-style advancement occurs. In the trilogy format, characters have their effective numbers rise many times faster than any RPG would ever allow (example: characters in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Endlessness series go up about 5 D&D levels a book for the first three books - the main character seriously goes from running from individual orcs in the beginning to setting fire to entire armies of orcs with timefire in the third). And in virtually every other storytelling format ever, characters pretty much have whatever skill set they have at the end at the beginning (barring of course, those Kung Fu movies which include a training sequence montage).

The assumption of persistant gradual advancement between adventures is plain bizarre, and is one of those weird bags that Gygax has left on our doorstep which may or may not contain dog shit and fire.

Sam Verner doesn't get RPG style advancement. In the first book he's a 300 BP character. In the second book he's a 500 BP character, and in the third book he's an 800 BP character. And that's fine for a certain kind of storytelling. That's how the epic trilogy works. People don't get piddly amounts of Karma between adventures. They don't gradually increase their abilities. They start as clueless nobodies and very quickly assume the role of powerful bad asses who personally push the setting around.

And the people who don't get that kind of massive revlutionary advancement: people like Friar Tuck and Green Lantern - they usually don't advance at all.

-Frank

I've been in games where you DO get a fixed amount of karma no matter what you do. No matter what stunts you'd pulled off, no matter how well you RPed (or how poorly everyone else did), no matter how cleverly you solved the problems set before you... flat rate of xp, across the board. Same amount to each player, see ya in two weeks.

It gets a little disheartening.

I've noticied a difference between systems as well. As I said, when we play SR, advancement is never a topic. But when the same group plays D&D, advancement is always a topic - everyone wants that next level, that next feat to move towards that prestige class. I believe that's because of the way D&D is made - it's a class and level system and you're meant to advance - really, it's the entire purpose of the system.

It's one of the reasons I can't stand class-and-level systems - the weight and importance they put on character ehnchancement and gaining power and the divisions they encourage between levelled characters and levelless characters.

Agree. I can and have enjoyed games that advanced (in terms of K and $) very quickly, and games in which they advanced slowly. I could easily enjoy a game with no K and $ type advancement at all, given the right group.

But the constant 3 K no matter what type game just sucks the point out, somehow. If you're going to reward and advance, it needs to reflect character actions as far as I'm concerned. It comes down to what's motivating everyone.

In a no advancement game, one would have to assume that the story is its own reward, and own impetus for moving forward. In a game where you're being rewarded for your actions, that is the reward and impetus for moving forward. In a game where both the story and rewards are driving you forward, it's a no brainer.

But steady "same number" K just seems like you're actively telling the players "yeah, doesn't matter what you do".

One of the things that pushes advancement in D&D (as far as I am concerned) is the monsters. If you played using the D&D system with only the humanoid races (say putting a cap at a +1 Level Adjustment) you suddenly have a very different game. The players have no idea how good they are going to be against their opponents. They can't say "Oh it's only a bunch of zombies/small elementals/trolls." as their humanoid opponents could be of any level with many different class combinations. Progression is pushed as if the PCs stayed at level 5 the whole campaign they would get bored from fighting the same monster or monster groups.

SR is a little different there as almost everything scales well to any power level due to the lack of levels for advancement. A 400BP character is not equal to a 400BP character mostly based on planning and information. The stats are less important in SR as they are in D&D which is why I think the no advancement/serial type game can work well. That sort of game in D&D really only works as a one-shot adventure.

One D&D game I played in at a convention was one of the best RP games I can remember. Since it was one-shot and everyone was given a pre-gen character with a little back story everyone concentrated on the RP more than their stats/powers/advancement and all the players said they had great fun afterwards.

The games I have the most fun in are heavy RP ones where character development (not always advancing) is the central part along with the story. Rewards are fun but short lived. You don't tell the story of how you got that wiz new rifle unless it was a good story. Not just oh I worked my contacts and picked it up.

Just my take there.

-Strobe

Whatever happened to each group having its own style of gaming, and each style of gaming being acceptable as long as the group was having fun?

They all do, just everyone but one style is wrong.

I dunno, I guess the fact that my current interests lie much more toward narrativist type games where "behold my awesome 'stache: 2d10" and "My bell-bottoms are so big you can find homeless people living in them: 3d10" will provide more help in resolving gunfights to your satisfaction than "I'm a crack shot: 1d8" and "My gun hand is steady, even with my guts hanging out: 2d8" effects my take on character advancement.

Oh my. Dogs in the Vineyard.

I have heard great things about DotV, but the core subject matter doesn't appeal to me much.

Burning Wheel sounds very cool though.

If the setting of DitV dosen't appeal to you, how about Jedis on the Rim?
Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering; suffering leads to the dark side?

Diskworld using that system would be fun, too.

Really, the game structure of DitV could be applied to any gameworld you please. It will shape the style of play: but if we've established one thing here, it's that Dumpshockers already have such divergent styles of play that sometimes it's difficult to see that we're all playing the same game

the problem with non-improving characters is that they really can't develop. you can certainly alter some quirks, but ideally, major character developments should be mirrored by stat changes, because starts are how RPG characters interact with the world. if your character's SO gets killed by the BBEG, and you gain strength of character from the ordeal of overcoming your grief and defeating the BBEG, ideally your Willpower (or some similar stat) should go up. you can develop without stat changes--i'm certainly not claiming to have spent karma on Will increases every time one of my characters overcomes a major setback--but i think that eventually, the disconnect between your character's sheet and what your character has become will become quite wide.