Experience Systems

[rust]

18 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

Whats next formal duelling over it?

Yep, as soon as the seconds have negotiated whether it will be permitted to switch to secondary weapons during the duel. 

Memo to myself: Sell tickets for the duel and order more popcorn ...

[Atgxtg]

26 minutes ago, rust said:

Yep, as soon as the seconds have negotiated whether it will be permitted to switch to secondary weapons during the duel. 

Memo to myself: Sell tickets for the duel and order more popcorn ...

Hope they are quick about it. Bladesharp 10 only lasts for 5 minutes. 

 

Hmm, I wonder if Fireblade is an active spell in RQ4?

Edited September 3, 2016 by Atgxtg

[MJ Sadique]

7 hours ago, Sayerson said:

Pass the popcorn... 

Get the popcorn, and chewing some of them to think out how he can put some oil and gasoline on fire... Viper-tongue mode ON

First of all, Skill-check are done with stressfull situation but nobody ever tell that player HAVE to make a dice roll... Like Saint Gygax Said Dices are to make some noise and for player not get bored. The very principle of RQ check is "you are and adventurer, you progress as danger lure around you" and I'm pretty sure all the masters you are have already accepted a check roll for a player fighting and enemi who had 30% less in is skill but with 30% less, was he really in danger ?

OIL : skills checking in case of Danger, but what is the danger ? Does the player have to make a dice roll ? Can't we just roleplay the skill and give the check ?

GASOLINE : what if the player made a dangerous training ? like sparring with a troll or troll-balling ? Will you give the check or not ? If a 30% skills fighter go against a RuneLord, will the Runelord merit is skill check ? If the player make an excellent and wisely use of a spell but not in danger, did he merit a check or can he go to hell ?

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

RuneQuest combat is deadly, and if you expose your character to dumb risks, they are likely to die.

Deadly fight : RuneQuest combat is not deadly, unless you whant them to fight minautors head-on without armor or divine spells. A master is really dumb if he can't let the player the choice to fight or flee, and the players are even dumbers if they still try to fight they cannot win or will die trying... My player often flee when they feel they cannot do it; It saden me a bit but they don't act stupidly.

Multiple check is stupid but evolution aren't to be done at the end of the campaign... if players have time to think about their recent fight, they can do their evolution rolls. I oftenly give time (1-2 week) in the same scenarii to make multiples evolution or use this time for training ! Why do you all fight about this stupid multiple check, recent game system don't give a lot of XP at the end of the scenarii but manage some cooldown time in it, even in a 6 hours scenarii. Evolving mulltiple times in the same scenarii is common thing to me, but a lot of game master just do it every 3-4 gaming session... lot of them are friends but I think they are dumb !

Viper-tongue mode OFF

 

[RosenMcStern]

Whats next formal duelling over it?

Stealing cattle. It is always a good solution in Orlanthi communities. But beware... we all know what else is always an option among Orlanthi.

9 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Let's recap:

RosenMcStern makes the point that " If they have kept the "experience check" method of advancement (and IIRC they have), I can assure you, with hundreds of hours of playing and GMing Gloranthan and non-Gloranthan sorcerers in my past, that this is absolutely not an issue. "

Pentallion, you have quoted me totally out of context. What I wrote referred exclusively to experience checks in sorcerous spells. In no way whatsoever did I mean that "check hunting" in general is not an issue. It is an issue, and for some time has been an issue also in my games. Just not for sorcerous spells, and for the practical reasons I explained to Styopa, which apply only to those specific skills but not to others.

This thread starts to contain interventions that show the marks of two famous schools of thought. The first school of thought is that of "If it did not happen in my game, then it cannot be an issue". The second, and even more famous school of thought is that of "If it did not work in your game it is because you are a shitty GM".

I am definitely not a member of these schools of thought, and although everyone has the right to have his own opinion, I kindly ask everybody to avoid quoting me in such a way that sounds like I am endorsing the above. If it sounds so, either you have misinterpreted me or I have misphrased my thoughts.

Edited September 3, 2016 by RosenMcStern
Crossposted with almost everyone on the boards

[Sayerson]

Yep. Gonna need more popcorn. 

[Jeff]

OK, this thread has degenerated into ab hominem attacks. If you want to debate your disagreements about the experience check system, do it without name-calling and personal attacks. 

[Psychman]

The other aspect to this no-one has mentioned is maintaining a sense of pc parity for players who are, for whatever reason, unable to attend regularly. The skill check approach depends completely on attendance of the player whereas an experience roll/point approach does enable the player to "catch" their character when they do attend.

 

Training could be given but judging how much could be tricky.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Psychman said:

The other aspect to this no-one has mentioned is maintaining a sense of pc parity for players who are, for whatever reason, unable to attend regularly. The skill check approach depends completely on attendance of the player whereas an experience roll/point approach does enable the player to "catch" their character when they do attend.

 

Training could be given but judging how much could be tricky.

Should players who do not attend regularly have parity? 

Generally speaking, parity isn't necessary in games where the PCs aren't playing against each other. What's important is that each PC has some meaningful way to contribute.

 

BTW, this touches upon the question as to what function character advancement serves in the game. Is it a reward of some kind? If so then why should a player who doesn;t show up be rewarded? If it is a tool to promote character growth, then it gets a bit tricky. 

 

I for one, don't mind letting characters get training while they aren't adventuring. IMO it sort of makes sense. How much sort of depends on how much they are willing to spend, although I could see some issues if somebody shows up after a really long break. Dave. who dropped out after the first game session, returns after six years.... 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Atgxtg

[rust]

48 minutes ago, Psychman said:

The other aspect to this no-one has mentioned is maintaining a sense of pc parity for players who are, for whatever reason, unable to attend regularly.

Like Atgxtg I am not convinced that character parity is an important issue, provided that each character has his own niche where he is important for the party and therefore can shine. For cases where a player is unable to attend regularly I sometimes borrow an idea from the Pendragon RPG and provide a short solo scenario for the player's character which enables him to get some experience in skills the character is likely to need in the ongoing campaign.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

Get the popcorn, and chewing some of them to think out how he can put some oil and gasoline on fire... Viper-tongue mode ON

First of all, Skill-check are done with stressfull situation but nobody ever tell that player HAVE to make a dice roll... Like Saint Gygax Said Dices are to make some noise and for player not get bored. The very principle of RQ check is "you are and adventurer, you progress as danger lure around you" and I'm pretty sure all the masters you are have already accepted a check roll for a player fighting and enemi who had 30% less in is skill but with 30% less, was he really in danger ?

OIL : skills checking in case of Danger, but what is the danger ? Does the player have to make a dice roll ? Can't we just roleplay the skill and give the check ?

GASOLINE : what if the player made a dangerous training ? like sparring with a troll or troll-balling ? Will you give the check or not ? If a 30% skills fighter go against a RuneLord, will the Runelord merit is skill check ? If the player make an excellent and wisely use of a spell but not in danger, did he merit a check or can he go to hell ?

Deadly fight : RuneQuest combat is not deadly, unless you whant them to fight minautors head-on without armor or divine spells. A master is really dumb if he can't let the player the choice to fight or flee, and the players are even dumbers if they still try to fight they cannot win or will die trying... My player often flee when they feel they cannot do it; It saden me a bit but they don't act stupidly.

Multiple check is stupid but evolution aren't to be done at the end of the campaign... if players have time to think about their recent fight, they can do their evolution rolls. I oftenly give time (1-2 week) in the same scenarii to make multiples evolution or use this time for training ! Why do you all fight about this stupid multiple check, recent game system don't give a lot of XP at the end of the scenarii but manage some cooldown time in it, even in a 6 hours scenarii. Evolving mulltiple times in the same scenarii is common thing to me, but a lot of game master just do it every 3-4 gaming session... lot of them are friends but I think they are dumb !

Viper-tongue mode OFF

 

Lets see.

First off, somebody does tell the player when they HAVE to make a dice roll-the GM. If the GM says make an attack roll, spot check, reistance roll, etc. then yes he is telling them to do so. Technically, it the GM doesn't require a roll then there was no roll.

The guideline for what deserves a skill check is that the situation must be "stressful". So..

Yes, a character fighting an opponent who has skill scores 30% lower than his is still in danger. A critical or impale can be fatal even if the opponent is incompetent. This isn't D&D. Single hits from weak opponents can kill off experienced heroes. And dead characters tend to stay dead. That there is a very real and significant possibility of getting killed makes combat stressful pretty much all the time. 

No, you can't roleplay a skill to get a check. Because you can't roleplay your character's abilities, or lack thereof. You may personally be very good with a particular skill that your character isn't  good at, or vice versa. 

A player who "made a dangerous training" wouldn't get a skill check, but would be able to take advance of the training rules.  

Yes, the Runelord would get a skill check. It probably won't do him much good, but that's another issue. 

 

if a player makes an "excellent and wisely use of a spell but not in danger" then if he receives a check depends on two factors. First off, was the situation stressful? A character might not be in any danger per say, but could still be in a stressful situation. Like maybe he could ruin a value item with a blown roll, or lose something of value. Basically there has to be some sort of significant consequences for failure. The second factor is wheather or not the spell can receive an experience check. In Chaosium's RuneQuest, Spirit ad Divine spells don't get experience checks.

 

RuneQuest Combat is deadly. A GM might allow the PCs a chance to flee, but theres no guarantee that the opposition or the situation will allow it. And arrows travel a lot faster than running characters. Arrows are very deadly in RQ. Even if the GM allows the characters to flee, there is nothing to say that they will do so. Or that things will go the way everybody expects when they are supposed to stand and fight. I've seen highly experience characters fumble and kill themselves with their own weapons. 

Have you played much RQ? it's not like D&D. The encounters aren't as heavily biased in the PCs favor, and there is always a slight chance of things going horribly wrong for the PCs, and them it's usually too late to do something about it. 

 

For example, in one campaign I was playing in, in the very first combat, the GM rolled an 02 and got a critical hit on my brand new character. Luckily for me and the rest of the group (who would have had to deal with a doubleteam on one flank) I rolled a 01 to parry it. But without that critical parry I probably would have been dead, shortly followed by the rest of the group. 

 

Multiple checks during a (long) adventure are fine. The old RQ2/RQ3 rules basically state that you get to make improve rolls about one game week after "the adventure". When something takes a long time to play, like some sort of epic quest, then multiple improvement rolls are the way the rules work. There are even some examples of PCs making improvement rolls during travel in the rules. 

[deleriad]

There are two main reasons that I have gradually come not to like the skill check system: simulation and game play. Growing up, I used to love Walls ice-cream. Then I discovered haagen dazs. Now, if someone buys me Walls I'll eat it to be polite but I wouldn't buy it for myself. That's where I am at with the skill check system.

Failures of simulation are plentiful but to name a few: no ability to learn from failure, no ability to learn from repeated success; quality of success is irrelevant; context of success is irrelevant; type of skill is irrelevant; no ability to learn from observation ("ah that's how you do it"). I won't belabour the point with repeated examples and yes I do realise that you can house rule all sorts of granularity into the system in order to increase the number of things it can simulate.

In terms of game play I also have severe reservations. Most fundamentally it tends to lead to regression to the mean. Over time most PCs end up with a fairly similar skill set. They become generalists as their pace of improvement in their best skills slows down and the other PCs catch up. It is also in tension with one of the key passages of every BRP rule book ever written: don't call for skill rolls except in key moments. PC progression is related to the number of skill rolls they get per session thus they're incentivized to do something (spamming skill rolls) that goes against the game. This is different to but related to secondary skill check hunting and POW gain through using Disruption several times until you get a POW gain check. Both of these last two interfere in game play because the game has to stop while the player checks whether the skill qualifies for a check.  Finally, it means that as a GM you either have to keep an eye on ensuring that a wide-range of skill rolls will be called for each session or start having players complaining that they're not getting a chance to use their favourite/key skills.

An improvement point system puts all that stuff in a box and gets it out of the way during play. Everyone focuses on the session rather than having to keep an eye on which skills they're using. In terms of character development, it does incentivise skill specialisation rather than generalisation due to Improvement Points being a limited resource but I regard that as a feature rather than a bug.

Now downtime/training is, unlike skill checks during play, a limited resource. So skill checks + training should lead to a balance of generalisation + specialisation but most BRP systems have put a ceiling on training so that you can't increase above a certain value. 

There are some things you lose when using improvement rolls. It is *fun* as a player to check a box for later and as @RosenMcStern once said you tend to generate a little organic history from those weird skill rolls you made once in a scenario long ago. 

[rust]

57 minutes ago, deleriad said:

An improvement point system puts all that stuff in a box and gets it out of the way during play. Everyone focuses on the session rather than having to keep an eye on which skills they're using. In terms of character development, it does incentivise skill specialisation rather than generalisation due to Improvement Points being a limited resource but I regard that as a feature rather than a bug.

I can agree to this (small wonder, I prefer Mythras to BRP/RQ), provided the referee still holds the power to disallow skill improvements which would contradict the internal logic of the setting, like an improvement in a seafaring skill by a character who spent the last year in a desert.

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Should players who do not attend regularly have parity? 

No, I don't think that is required (and certainly not in my games).  But that's one reason why I've enjoyed both RQ and HQG as the systems support the 'realistic' aspect that characters will have very divergent levels of skills.  That may mean that some are 'protected' or 'shielded' during a combat or during a debate with the Queen of Nochet, or in some cases they'll be forced to act even though their skills and abilities are significantly lower and the consequences higher.  But that makes for good drama.

[MJ Sadique]

First : thanks for answering my always too long answers/questions.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

1/ A player who "made a dangerous training" wouldn't get a skill check, but would be able to take advance of the training rules.  

2/ Yes, the Runelord would get a skill check. It probably won't do him much good, but that's another issue. 

3/ In Chaosium's RuneQuest, Spirit ad Divine spells don't get experience checks.

4/ RuneQuest Combat is deadly. A GM might allow the PCs a chance to flee, but theres no guarantee that the opposition or the situation will allow it. And arrows travel a lot faster than running characters. Arrows are very deadly in RQ. Even if the GM allows the characters to flee, there is nothing to say that they will do so. Or that things will go the way everybody expects when they are supposed to stand and fight. I've seen highly experience characters fumble and kill themselves with their own weapons.

...

The encounters aren't as heavily biased in the PCs favor, and there is always a slight chance of things going horribly wrong for the PCs, and them it's usually too late to do something about it. 

5/ Have you played much RQ? it's not like D&D.

6/ Multiple checks during a (long) adventure are fine. The old RQ2/RQ3 rules basically state that you get to make improve rolls about one game week after "the adventure". When something takes a long time to play, like some sort of epic quest, then multiple improvement rolls are the way the rules work. There are even some examples of PCs making improvement rolls during travel in the rules. 

1 & 3/ This as always sadden me... before I started to read Rune Masters (the old one with "overpowerfull" runelord. Because there is somewhere a special rule for 1-2 week of training get you 2D6% without tossing the dice for the "will I evolve today" (still one year use only).

2/ That is my problem because I get bored to play/master cockroaches-character... I whant RuneLord adventure in RuneQuest doing some Rune's Quest.

4/ This is why sometimes I cheat, as master, because the game is for play and fun not for remaking another character each sessions. This bad habit had given me the surname of "Sadic game-master" because I prefer a character to suffer, being heavily injured, to miserably crawl to save their lives and to suffer the terrible consequence of a little travel to land of death and the come back in the world...

For me a hero destiny could be like "The Revenant"... the hardest way, the better

5/ RQ3 only : from 15y'ol to 35... as PC (RQ, land of ninja, viking) about one session each week during 5 years = 1500 session gaming and as master it's easy, my scenarii are numbered....#77 x 3-5 session each so three hundreds session gaming as master during 10y?

6/ Agree with you but we where speaking about Multiples successives checks... Like giving 1% free in skill after the skill is checked !

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, rust said:

I can agree to this (small wonder, I prefer Mythras to BRP/RQ), provided the referee still holds the power to disallow skill improvements which would contradict the internal logic of the setting, like an improvement in a seafaring skill by a character who spent the last year in a desert.

And I think therein lies the fundamental conflict. If you prefer Mythas/RQ6 over RQ2/RQ3, then which system are you most likely to use if you were to run a Gloranthan RuneQuest campaign? RQ6, right? 

Now I prefer RQ3 to any version of RQ that has come out since. RQ2 has some nice stuff that didn't make it to RQ3, and in some ways is better suited towards a Glorathan camapign. So if I were to run a Glorathan RQ campaign I'd  go with RQ2 or RQ3. 

Now if the new RQ were to copy rules over from RQ6, I think it would have an harder time trying to establish itself against RQ6, and probably not be considered the definitive RQ. But if it builds off of RQ2/3 then it can probably be considered an evolution of Chaosium's RuneQuest. 

[Atgxtg]

30 minutes ago, MJ Sadique said:

First : thanks for answering my always too long answers/questions.

1 & 3/ This as always sadden me... before I started to read Rune Masters (the old one with "overpowerfull" runelord. Because there is somewhere a special rule for 1-2 week of training get you 2D6% without tossing the dice for the "will I evolve today" (still one year use only).

2/ That is my problem because I get bored to play/master cockroaches-character... I whant RuneLord adventure in RuneQuest doing some Rune's Quest.

4/ This is why sometimes I cheat, as master, because the game is for play and fun not for remaking another character each sessions. This bad habit had given me the surname of "Sadic game-master" because I prefer a character to suffer, being heavily injured, to miserably crawl to save their lives and to suffer the terrible consequence of a little travel to land of death and the come back in the world...

For me a hero destiny could be like "The Revenant"... the hardest way, the better

5/ RQ3 only : from 15y'ol to 35... as PC (RQ, land of ninja, viking) about one session each week during 5 years = 1500 session gaming and as master it's easy, my scenarii are numbered....#77 x 3-5 session each so three hundreds session gaming as master during 10y?

6/ Agree with you but we where speaking about Multiples successives checks... Like giving 1% free in skill after the skill is checked !

1&3/ I don't think I quite follow you here. You are saddened that a character who is training uses the training rules? Oh, and it wasn't 2D6%. Now as far as Spirit Magic goes, I agree with you. I with Spirit Magicians could improve their skill scores with spells. 

2/ There is a lot of fun to building a character up to rune level. Heck, most of my RQ campaigns were not set in Glorantha and didn't have any Rune Masters characters. The last few times I tried running my players in Glorantha they got toasted by the spirit magic. They were too podding and reactive, and usually ended up getting outclassed in magic due to poor timing. 

4/ That's a doubled edged sword. No good GM wants or likes killing off PCs, but the alternative is usually far worse. If the players get the feeling that the GM is fudging things to promote their welfare, then they will play dumber and take greater and greater risks, secure in their GM provided script immunity. On the other hand, if you let a PC die here and there, the players usually smarted up and play better. In my area I have the rep as the GM most likely to kill off characters. I'm also the GM who has probably killed off the fewest PCs. Mostly because the players know that I won't save them, so they make an effort to save themselves.

 

5/ I think your decision to fudge heavily has influenced your view o how deadly the game is. If the GM keeps fudging the PCs survival then no, it won't be all that deadly.  But that's not the system, that's the GM. 

 

6/ I don't think I'd like giving out 1% free in skill after a skillin checked. I think it would accelerate the rate that combat skills would improve. In an adventure with a half dozen fights skill could improve by 5% before the experience rolls! Somebody might become a master swordman in no time. What I might consider is to allow multiple skill checks, and then let the PC roll multiple d6s for skill improvement and take the highest. But then I could also see higher skill scores requiring multiple checks to get an improvement roll. 

 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

6/ I don't think I'd like giving out 1% free in skill after a skillin checked. I think it would accelerate the rate that combat skills would improve. In an adventure with a half dozen fights skill could improve by 5% before the experience rolls! Somebody might become a master swordman in no time. What I might consider is to allow multiple skill checks, and then let the PC roll multiple d6s for skill improvement and take the highest. But then I could also see higher skill scores requiring multiple checks to get an improvement roll. 

How about 1% better chance to improve, on that skill-Check?  So that 80%-skill (20% to improve when rolling the Check), if you used it enough that you'd have gotten a Check any of... say... 15 times?  You only get the one check, but the extra 14 times you succeeded each give you a +1% chance on your check -- improving on a 34% or better roll !

This will be a minor effect at lower levels, but a substantive one for more-skilled folk...  The's succeed in their skill-checks notably more often.

Edited September 3, 2016 by g33k
typo

[soltakss]

I have used an Experience Spend system for a long time and it works in our game.

• Players spend Hero points (We merged Experience Points and Hero points very quickly, to be similar to HeroQuest) to get an increase in a skill
• If the player succeeds in an experience roll in the skill the skill improves by 1D6 (Treat 1 as 2), otherwise the skill improves by 1
• Players can spend Hero Points to reroll/flip the Experience Roll on a failure, as it is just a roll
• There is no need to have used the skill in the session/scenario

As for the endless arguments, what's the point? Find a way that suits you and use it. There's no point in saying that someone else's way is wrong as it is right for their game.

 

[Atgxtg]

17 minutes ago, g33k said:

How about 1% better chance to improve, on that skill-Check?  So that 80%-skill (20% to improve when rolling the Check), if you used it enough that you'd have gotten a Check any of... say... 15 times?  You only get the one check, but the extra 14 times you succeeded each give you a +1% chance on your check -- improving on a 34% or better roll !

This will be a minor effect at lower levels, but a substantive one for more-skilled folk...  The's succeed in their skill-checks notably more often.

Possibly. But I think the bonus should probably cap at some limit, probably INT or category modifier. 

[Atgxtg]

9 minutes ago, soltakss said:

As for the endless arguments, what's the point? Find a way that suits you and use it. There's no point in saying that someone else's way is wrong as it is right for their game.

 

The point is in regard to what method is best for the RQ ruleset. There's not problem with somebody porting over Improvement rolls or any other rule from some other RQ/BRP variant for their own campaign. I'm kinda fond of the skill check improvement used in Flashing Blades. 

[styopa]

8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Should players who do not attend regularly have parity? 

 

 

RQ's skill-check system is about as nearly a realistic system as I can imagine that directly rewards players for practicing their abilities.  If you use it, you can get better at it.  As straightforward and logical as can be.

As far as parity for someone who isn't able to get to all the sessions - that's such an entirely subjective thing between a DM and their players/group and expectations, I'm not sure a written-rules solution is really going to cover it.  I'd certainly agree that's a place for suggestions for new DMs about various alternatives for 'catchup' xp checks for missing toons, for example.

[MJ Sadique]

14 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

6/ I don't think I'd like giving out 1% free in skill after a skillin checked. I think it would accelerate the rate that combat skills would improve. In an adventure with a half dozen fights skill could improve by 5% before the experience rolls! Somebody might become a master swordman in no time. What I might consider is to allow multiple skill checks, and then let the PC roll multiple d6s for skill improvement and take the highest. But then I could also see higher skill scores requiring multiple checks to get an improvement roll.

The problem is still the same and I will properly give the details why it bother me :

-First : Multiple Check force to make a new character sheet or to write down somethinglike training hours (bothersome for player and master). I REFUSE multiple check for that.

-Second : The chance to evolve is the problem : at 89% of a skill, one of my player failed to evolve after more than 10 evolution checks and training the skill still also need to make a roll for evolving or not. I cannot find a way appart from the a great master give you a trainning and you get the 2D6% evoltion, and the gap of 90% is extremely important because It's a samurai and the Ki's rules change your world...

-Third : take the highest evole is not the problem because we have no obligation to roll a dice, we can take the average score instead (it's in the rule) : you can choose to get 3% instead of rollind 1D6. As for me I've always use a D10% evolution and offer to choose to take 5% instead of the random part of rolling.

12 hours ago, g33k said:

How about 1% better chance to improve, on that skill-Check?  So that 80%-skill (20% to improve when rolling the Check), if you used it enough that you'd have gotten a Check any of... say... 15 times?  You only get the one check, but the extra 14 times you succeeded each give you a +1% chance on your check -- improving on a 34% or better roll !

This will be a minor effect at lower levels, but a substantive one for more-skilled folk...  The's succeed in their skill-checks notably more often.

Same problem, bother some to write down on the player sheet.

12 hours ago, soltakss said:

I have used an Experience Spend system for a long time and it works in our game.

• Players spend Hero points (We merged Experience Points and Hero points very quickly, to be similar to HeroQuest) to get an increase in a skill
• ...
• There is no need to have used the skill in the session/scenario

As for the endless arguments, what's the point? Find a way that suits you and use it. There's no point in saying that someone else's way is wrong as it is right for their game.

Using the Hero point as in Herowars/heroquest is actually the only way to get out of deathlock called "my dice won't roll high enough for me to evolution"...

 

 In the similar case, getting a new sorcery spell in RQ3 is tricky because you have to take an awful lot of time and you still have to make a roll for learning it or not. In this case Check Skill system take to much time or is too risky for player to even try because you can lost an awfull lot of time and still fail. and other non-magician will evolve standard skill and get a lot of progression.

Example : Learning a new spell need 500 hours and INTx3 % test; If you try 3 times with an INT of 16, you'll have a 85,93 % of succed and you'll lost 1500 hours so 30 weeks of training. In the same time what will you be able to to with 1500 hours of training : an awfull lot of thing.

Is sorcery broken : nope !, I never think it was ! because my problem lies in the random part of roll evolution; nor spirit magic nor divine magic need a roll for progressing and they have their own difficulties fighting a spirit or losing a POW points cost a lot too but didn't need a "all or nothing" roll test ! XP points evolution may be slow but you don't bet everything you've earn in one go (like a poker game where you can only do the ALL-IN) ........too much punishing in some case !

 

[Psychman]

22 hours ago, rust said:

Like Atgxtg I am not convinced that character parity is an important issue, provided that each character has his own niche where he is important for the party and therefore can shine. For cases where a player is unable to attend regularly I sometimes borrow an idea from the Pendragon RPG and provide a short solo scenario for the player's character which enables him to get some experience in skills the character is likely to need in the ongoing campaign.

That's not a bad solution. As a healthcare shift worker, who cannot consistently attend due to constantly variable working hours, getting significantly left behind in character competence can be frustrating. Admittedly the situation is more obvious in xp-based systems as there is a specific measure of progress/power but I do wonder if the essential issue can also develop in the skill-check approach and I thought the question was a relevant one to raise.

[RosenMcStern]

16 hours ago, g33k said:

How about 1% better chance to improve, on that skill-Check?  So that 80%-skill (20% to improve when rolling the Check), if you used it enough that you'd have gotten a Check any of... say... 15 times?  You only get the one check, but the extra 14 times you succeeded each give you a +1% chance on your check -- improving on a 34% or better roll !

This will be a minor effect at lower levels, but a substantive one for more-skilled folk...  The's succeed in their skill-checks notably more often.

I have done it for years and it worked exceptionally well. The only drawback was the clutter in the tickbox.

36 minutes ago, Psychman said:

That's not a bad solution. As a healthcare shift worker, who cannot consistently attend due to constantly variable working hours, getting significantly left behind in character competence can be frustrating. Admittedly the situation is more obvious in xp-based systems as there is a specific measure of progress/power but I do wonder if the essential issue can also develop in the skill-check approach and I thought the question was a relevant one to raise.

RuneQuest Cities has a fantastic catch-up system for characters who were not adventuring. That specific supplement should really get the praise it deserves, as it is hard to find a campaign where it cannot be put to good use.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

The problem is still the same and I will properly give the details why it bother me :

-First : Multiple Check force to make a new character sheet or to write down somethinglike training hours (bothersome for player and master). I REFUSE multiple check for that. 

But, as multiple checks are not part of the core RQ rules, you don't have to.

Regarding 2  (I wish I knew how to break up quote boxes with the new format)- I don't see a problem with someone at high skill levels not improving that much. That's the whole point. BTW, where are you getting a 2D6% imrpvement from? That's twice the rate as from RQ3. Basically, once someone is a master at something improvement should be slower. 

Now the 90% guy is also getting check boxes easier, too.