Character (mechanical) development over time

[Mordar]

Hello all -

A thought wandered by this morning, so I thought I'd grab it and see if other thoughts might come and join it.

It seems to me that the mechanical development of characters varies greatly across systems. [For purposes of this discussion, mechanical development is intended to mean "the improvement of mechanical abilities of a character, or the addition of new mechanical abilities to a character".] It even seems to vary significantly across classes/roles in certain systems.

The thought that came along with this was "how much does that influence what games people like to play, and is it an important design aspect of the game?"

Some examples:

AD&D: All classes have a mostly steady improvement in "ability to withstand damage" and "hit things". A few classes get either a slew of new abilities (spells) every other level and/or increased use of those abilities per day. A couple classes (bards, thieves, monks?) get steady improvement in their special skills. So this one is varied by class, with some classes getting a lot of new toys while all classes get better at the vanilla elements.

DnD 3.x: Similar to above, but with an effort to allow for more "improvement". Skill points and feats give everyone some opportunity for customization...but often just as improvements to vanilla elements. Spells remain the primary "new toys" of mechanical progression.

VtM: Huge opportunities for improvement and addition of new toys...but VERY arduous process to improve/add...takes a lot of time/experience points to really get at those new toys.

Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP era): Non-linear progression with a steep cost for adding new toys...and a significant cost for improving existing toys (or getting better at things you're already decent at doing).

Call of C'thulhu/Chaosium games: Not a lot of fancy toys, but easy to get new skills and improving existing skills is (IMO) very well managed. The only "big" changes available are spells, and depending on the character type/roll, that can be either impossible or reasonably easy to achieve.

So, it seems there's at least two scales for mechanistic development: improvement in base elements and addition of new elements.

Add on to that a scale of "difficulty" or "cost" for each

Example: Call of C'thulhu has low difficulty in improving base elements, VtM less so...might take three sessions to see 10 skills increase in CoC, might take a dozen to improve one VtM discipline.

tl;dr: Some games seem to be intended to have characters remain more static over time (Marvel Super Heroes), some allow for minor changes (Call of C'thulhu), and some vary from role to role (full casters in DnD).

So, how conscious is this as a design element? How much does it influence long-term enjoyment of the game? How much does it influence success of the game (from a real-world marketing standpoint)?

Maybe more to come...anyone else happen to come across any thoughts related to this?

- M

[Knaight]

Some games seem to be intended to have characters remain more static over time (Marvel Super Heroes), some allow for minor changes (Call of C'thulhu), and some vary from role to role (full casters in DnD).

So, how conscious is this as a design element? How much does it influence long-term enjoyment of the game? How much does it influence success of the game (from a real-world marketing standpoint)?

As for the specific matter of how consciously designed this is - that depends on the game. There are games which have clearly had a lot of thought put into exactly how advancement works (e.g. Burning Wheel, Monsterhearts), and there are games which clearly have it tacked on or which keep it because it's expected. I can't comment on the marketing success aspect, although I suspect it's negligible - if only because brand recognition and network effects keep D&D in the lead regardless of what games come out. As for long term enjoyment, one of the big things to consider when designing mechanical development is campaign length. If you're making a game which is intended to run fast and hot, lasting for six action packed sessions or so you'll use a different system than for a game intended to operate on a slow burn.

[tensai_oni]

Generally I found that games tend to do two things regarding development: either you can already create a character you want from the get go, or you don't.

I'll describe the latter first actually. These are games where the starting character doesn't have all tools available to their disposal yet and has to "grow into" the role. It's DnD where you start at first level - but even if you start at 10th, you still get more class powers or spells as you level up. You get more options as the game progresses, and you also get mechanically stronger. It's also Legend of Wulin where as the game progresses you learn secret techniques and become involved with various societies, characters and legends of the world: all of which may offer you mechanical benefits and options that were locked to you before. Regardless of how it's implemented, the character growth and becoming more experienced in time is an important part of the game.

In the former, the character once leaving character creation is mostly static for the whole game. Small mechanical benefits may apply in time, especially if it's a point build system (and it usually is) and you ran out of points to do everything you wanted to, but that's on an overall scale of the whole character insignificant. This is Mutants and Masterminds, this is FATE. These are systems where all options are available from the beginning and you simply decide what you want. Character growth in this kind of systems may seem tacked on and that's because it's not the focus, not mechanically anyway. On the other hand, when characters develop mechanically it's usually "sideways" as opposed to growing upward. In M&M, important combat stats are capped by power level - with implication that you're already at the cap with a starting character (though PL may increase during the game too), which means power points are spent to expand your array of powers or feats as opposed to making existing ones stronger.

Oh, and then there's White Wolf systems that pretend to be the "static" character model systems but actually are "growing" and very poorly so, since you usually have to choose between letting your starting character be moderately good at one thing and incredibly inept at everything else, or having basic (as in ordinary human level) competence in most things but nothing more than that. And like OP mentioned, growth is excruciating and slow.