>From: "Mark Galeotti" <mark_at_...>
>What kind of ratios do other groups have?
I've seen a lot of variation here. It depends a lot on several variables.
First, what is the rate at which HP are given out? If one is stingy with them, obviously the tendency is that proportionally more will be used for bumping than for advancement. If players have a ton of them, then they can't find good places to use as many in play, and end up finding ways of using them for advancement - even when they're not all that interested in advancement otherwise.
Another strong variable is the tendency towards "tactical" play. Some players are looking to "power up" their characters, and given that HQ failures don't eliminate the character from play often, they see little reason to use HP to bump. But, then again, you get the tactical player who spends loads on winning, because he believes that the game is about winnning (I think it's poor for this, but that doesn't stop people from playing this way, apparently). Then there's the player who discovers that, since the narrator sets the resistances somewhat arbitrarily (in selecting opposition for the heroes), that it doesn't matter what level of ability the character has, the opponents will have more or less ability at the narrator's whim - these players don't spend to develop at all, and instead save the HP for bumps. Then, players playing more to themes will spend HP more on bumps when it's interesting for them to do so - that is, usually when it makes things more dramatic.
There's a typical pattern where the player will only bump to make successes better successes, and where they leave failures alone, because they want to see more extreme results. You see this with tactical players as well in some cases, because they figure that any loss is really just the same as any other - in either case they don't get the goal in question. In cases where the player is concerned about the level of victory, there tends to be a pattern of spending based on how hard the narrator makes contests. That is, if the narrator tends to make contests even, you tend to get middle of the road results, which result in a lot of bumping from defeat to victory, and victory to greater victory. If the narrator tends to throw a lot of softballs at the heroes, you see bumping to big successes, but less, because often the contests just aren't dramatic enough to warrant it. That is, if it was easy, and you got a minor, why bump to a major? When the narrator tends to hammer the group, they tend to lose large, and, again, few HP get spent (since people find it either more dramatic to lose big, or they feel that it's pointless to bump to a lesser penalty and still lose).
In any case, another thing that I've noted is that players go in streaks. I've seen players start out saying, "I'll never spend a point to bump!" or the opposite, and then play that way for a while, only to reverse themselves later in play, and go on sprees spending big piles of HP. Basically, I think that players get inspired to spend HP at certain times based on what's going on with their character in-game. At times it's time to be the winning hero. At others its time for the character to develop and change.
I think this is all well and good, too. All the HP system doing what it's supposed to do.
Anyhow, the point is that I don't think you can make any generalizations without looking at the people playing, and how the HP are being doled out. There will be those rare folks who never spend a HP to buy a thing. There are others who never ever bump. And folks in between at all levels.
Mike
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