>From: Philippe Sigaud <sigaud_at_...>
>
>Mike:
> > I renamed this thread, since Philippe had asked that the other be
>closed.
> >
>Uh, that was mainly because it was successful as far as I'm concerned:
That's what I assumed. I'm saying you doing so made it a good time to change the thread title to focus on where the discussion is headed now.
>Hmm, they started as beginning chars. But many parallel processes are at
>work there.
>They did many (6, 7 ?) heroquests and gained abilities at a high level
>in them.
Ah, that explains things somewhat. That's a HQ every ten sessions. I did one in 80 sessions.
>And we used the HW followers rules: they grow as you grow. So, add
>another 4-6 high level abilities (not always available, but even
>then...). We shall not do that anymore.
OK, yeah, that's a big difference there. I like that rule in some ways. I wonder if there isn't some way to meet somewhere in between.
>After a few sessions, I began to give them many HP, maybe 10 a session.
>Then I augmented it again and they got between 10 and 20 HP per session
>for 60 sessions I'd say. Make that 800-1000 HP all in all, so 40-50
>abilities at +20.
Oh, OK. You'd quoted 5-7 somewhere else. Why the huge piles of HP? I've advocated giving relatively large amounts in that "per session" is actually more than what the book advocates (per "adventure"), and I like "per session. But that's far beyond anything I could imagine.
What motivated you to give out so many? I mean, let's say that an "adventure" is 3 sessions long for argument's sake. That means you're giving out around 10 times the amount of HP that the book suggests. Yeah, that's going to make for a meteoric rise, all right. Worse, I think that it's going to make bumping seem trivial. Why not bump every roll, when HP are in such high supply?
>Hmm, you're right, it doesnt quite add up...
Yeah, as I've said, the numbers you quoted seemed waaay to high to have come from starting characters. I was seeing a bejillion HP if they were starting characters. My experience is that characters really don't get that much more powerful at the rates of HP I give out. I mean not much more powerful at all. HP spending serves more as an indicator of what the player thinks is interesting than a power boost.
>My, rereading this, I sure got what I was aiming for: lots of high
>abilities. :) And now it's a problem? silly me.
Well, again, I think you have to account for this. I added nearly as much ability in giving out masses of keyword levels (as many as 20 to one keyword). And you can simply start at a very high level of ability if you wish. So it has to work at that level. Heck, forget advancement, you could simply start with characters who have keywords at 15W2 or whatever. Then you have to hope that the system can accommodate. As I've said, I think it can just fine. Though, yeah, with the amount of HP you wer handing out...I really can't say at that rate.
>- No, we don't need any more growth. We are quite satiated (I may even
>convince them to recreate their characters into a more streamlined version)
You know, if you just drop down to like 4 HP per session, it might curtail advancement to the point where it's still interesting, but not nearly so inflationary.
>- We augmented like rabbits on amphetamines, because this was a
>GodQuest, with a big part of our country praying for us. No time for
>fumbling! Huge responsability. They then cited many other moments in
>game were they did not do this. So, I stand corrected.
Ah, cool. As I've said, I find this to be a self-correcting problem, for the most part. Good to see that I'm not alone in this.
>The first rule of RPGs: Talk to your Players.
Heh, sage advice. Sounds like you've got it covered.
Mike
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