> > I'd bet my starting warrior with 3 heropoints against the clan
> > champion and no hero points any day of the week.
>
> Naturally you can spend loads of HP in a contest and narrate your PC
> as being the greatest swordsman who ever lived, and it would be
> perfectly fine (if your narrator agrees).
Of course - if you get enough HP to use them in every fight, and if the opposing NPCs have no HP. Easier to have an augmenting skill called "the plot's on MY side, OK?" at a few masteries, which is what this amounts to.
> As a player, though, I don't want to rely on those methods very
> often. It is just too costly. And mentally exausting. I would rather
> have my character's abilities reflect his/her level of ability
> directly.
Quite. That's what those numbers are for, after all.
> I don't use the Advanced Experience rules for NPCs when I narrate a
> game any more than I use HPs to buy their abilities. I am way to lazy
> for all of that, if nothing else. I just make them up - usually with
> just a few appropriately high keywords.
Same here, but it's nice to have some idea how high "appropriately high" is. I use the standard resistances as a scale, myself, rather than doing sums.
Thing is, as I'm sure we all know from Real Life, people don't all just carry on learning and growing. An awful lot of them learn just enough to earn a living, then stop, and spend the rest of their lives putting all their HP into "trivia of soap operas", "watch football", or something equally useful. Those who carry on being mentally alive become clan champion (or HQ players/GMs!), but they're not the majority. And different people go brain-dead at different ages.
So, while I can see the use for an age/keyword level chart, I don't think it would work.
> > To players - if you come up with an idea that says your character
> > is a battle hardened humakti champion that doesn't mean that your]
> > narrator is duty bound to give you loads of free experience,
No, but they are "duty bound" to say "yes, but". Working out the "but" can be hard.
> I think this is not a relavent point. Narrators have a duty to help
> everyone in their games have a good time regardless of what rules are
> being used. That typicall means keeping the power levels balanced
> within the party, but not always.
Quite - no real reason to do so. What you want to keep balanced is the player ability to create drama, not the character ability to affect the universe. Yes, they're connected, but they're not the same.
Have a quick think about the Fellowship of the Ring. Balanced party? I think not. The hobbits have far more ability to create drama than the stereotyped elf and dwarf, despite being a mastery or two behind in power levels.
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