Speed of Advancement in my DF game

What's the current speed of advancement in my DF game?


I've set up the XP system so that for each session:

- the maximum is practically limited to 7 points (5, +1 for awesome, +1 for MVP) for one person, 6 for most others.

- the expected return is 5.

- the minimum is 0.

- the average is around 3-4 points a session.


We can potentially play as often as 25 times a year, although 20 is more like it. That's 60-100 points per actual real-world year if you run the same character all the time, come back profitable more times than not, and occasionally take home MVP.

That's all off-the-top estimates - I didn't go and look at each and every session and calculate, because I'll still be close with a guess and exact doesn't matter.

Potentially, then, a character can be generated at 250, and a player can look about 100 points out in terms of advancement over the next calendar year.

I think that for us that's a good pace. Not so fast that your decisions don't have consequence, but not so slow that we're crawling along for years pretty close to your starting character power level.

I set this pace with the assumption that'd we want to advance at a good clip even without a large investment of time. We used to hand out 1-3 points, plus some extras for completion of missions and special events, at set points. So you didn't even get points for sessions. Advancement was slow - 150 point guys were closing in on 300 at the end of the game for the higher point characters. We had to jump start the points of new characters because there was literally no way to keep up or catch up.

That pace will slow in the future, because it looks like we'll rotate in Gamma Terra more often and add Star Wars, but we won't actually add any game dates. We're not playing DF 20 or so times a year do to a limit on DF, but due to a limit on game time.


All in all, though, I think it's worth running the numbers even if in this vague fashion. How often will you play? How many points will that be over the course of a year, or a month, or whatever feels long for your game? What can people aim at?

Back in the day when I used to game daily, even a slow rate wasn't slow. But with twice a month being a good month, we just can't enjoy the game at a slow pace of development. So we sped it up. And that's okay.

My latest DF draft update, DFT1 Designer's Notes, SJG Stakeholder's Report

Three pieces of news from other blogs:

"• I am about 80% of the way through my review of the first draft of the newest GURPS Dungeon Fantasy supplement from Peter Dell'Orto (peterdellorto)."

- from Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch's livejournal


That's good, because it means maybe sometime next week I can see the notes and start working on my revisions to the draft. I expect a lot of notes, because I often have an accumulation of little things that need addressing, and because Sean is great about giving 100% complete commentary on the draft.

Reading harsh notes on how much you messed up is something you just have to be able to take - it's where improvement comes from. And a better final book.



- DFT1 - Here are some designer's notes for Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1.


Finally, SJG finally released their Stakeholder Report for 2014. They don't have to do it, and it's always interesting, but I have to admit that by November 2015 I'm not terribly interested in how 2014 went. So I just skimmed it, myself. I'm not even sure when it finally went up. Still, good news for SJG and it's a nice glimpse inside a private company. I'm glad they do it. Here is hoping the 2015 one is in January 2016.

GURPS release this week: Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1: Glittering Prizes

Just a quick FYI:

Dungeon Fantasy Treasures 1: Glittering Prizes came out this week.



It expands your options for coin sizes, clothing (and armor) materials, and more?

Need magic coins? Randomly shaped coinage for the infernal ape-snakes of the Great Gorge of Level 7? Want to wear a shirt made out of screams?

Got you covered.

Also, there was an update to Dungeon Fantasy 15: Henchmen this week, fixing a skill level error on a template. It's worth downloading the update if you're using sages in your bevy of henchmen.

High HP and Healing, expanded

Hate the breakpoints for HP 20 and HP 30 and healing? Annoyed that your HP 19 guy isn't getting anything until he finds 2 more points to spend?

Here is an easy option to fix that.

Round all effects down.

Instead of the rules for High HP and Healing (p. B424), use these:

HP <15: Healing is x1.0 effect. HP 15-19: Healing is 1.5x effect. HP 20-24: Healing is 2.0x effect. HP 25-29: Healing is 2.5x effect. HP 30-34: Healing 3.0x effect. Etc. HP 15 folks, rejoice! While you could just multiply all healing by HP/10, it just gets silly. The game has breakpoints - smoothing them doesn't imply the need to get rid of them. And it's easier to remember a few extra breakpoints than apply a formula per casting. And for those you who say, Bah! I want more breakpoints! Well, Christopher Rice has you covered.

The Party in Miniature, New Additions

Here is a quick WIP shot of the five minis of the new party members:



Hasdrubal, Kenner, Gale, Hjalmarr, and Mo

Yes, the left three are taller than the right three. "Heroic 25mm" or whatever Reaper calls it these days means "everyone is very big." Can't be helped.　しょうがない, eh Kenner?

Why do RPGs have to give permission for changes?

Earlier today I posted a meaning-reversing typo in Stonehell: Into the Heart of Hell.

It's a meaning reversal because it tells you what you can't do, but ultimately, the book goes on to say (after 3 hefty paragraphs) that

"[. . . ] Stonehell is now yours to do with as you please."

I grew up with the AD&D DMG as my primary learning source. The book is full of admonishments about how to stomp on players who read the DMG. How to answer requests for monster characters (short version: No!) How to befuddle players who know how the game works. How I can't run a proper campaign without time records. Etc. etc.

There is definitely a right way to play, and a lot of wrong ways. It even says so in the introduction - change stuff, and it's not AD&D anymore. Tough talk to read when you're 10.

It's not just the DMG, though. I'm struggling to think of an RPG book that doesn't take pains to either tell you how to do it or else, or that it's okay if you change things.

Why is that? Why do we need special permission to change things? People mod the heck out of video games and we pop the cases on electronics that have sticky labels saying we're violating the warrantly. We jailbreak phones. We get LEGO sets and put them together into new things not shown on the box. We saw the heads and weapons off of minis and modify them, and paint them whatever the heck colors we want.

But RPGs always seem to have this section saying, it's okay to do this.

Board games don't, and we do it anyway (your money is under Free Parking). Workout books often go to great pains telling people not to change things, and they do it anyway (and then typically complain that their results varied.) People sample and re-mix music, without and without permission.

I'm wondering, just as a matter of writing, why we always feel like we have to say that it's okay to change things. Are we fighting a war of words with rules lawyer players? Are we figuring that our RPG books fall into the hands of people who need permission to change things? It's one thing to say, "It's up to you how to use this stuff, we haven't provided guidelines" but why do we need to give specific permission to change things?

Won't we all do it anyway?

Fun Stonehell 2 typo

Or at least, I think it's a typo. Otherwise it's putting Michael Curtis in the running to have "High Curtisian" as a writing style:

"Referees and players looking for complex details on overarching plots and other story elements will not find them here - but that doesn't mean they can be introduced!"

Ah, 't, where are thou?

It's obviously a mistake because the rest of the paragraph is about how Stonehell is just giving you the facts and it's up to you to tie them all together into a narrative whole.

But I laughed out loud and had to backtrack and read that one again.

I make my own share of typos (and even actual outright errors that need fixing.) But rarely are they as funny as that. Maybe Tin Shorts, which I need to stat up as a magic item.