Games with primarily lateral character progression?

[Raine_Sage]

So what I mean by lateral progression: Instead of increasing and improving abilities they already have, the characters instead gain wholly new skills or abilities as they progress.

Games like D&D tend to offer both things, having your characters numbers get bigger (AC, saves, hit etc.) while also granting new class features and/or spells.

I'm wondering about games where stats don't tend to increase at all (or increase very little) but instead characters gain access to a broader and broader pool of options.

I know PbtA game and their offshoots tend to go this route. And in certain cases Mutants and Masterminds can also favor lateral improvements over vertical (if for example you're starting on a low power level you'll cap everything fairly fast and need to build out instead of up).

I'm wondering if there are more systems that focus on broadening to the exclusion of improving though.

[Anymage]

Would Exalted count? It's very easy to start near if not at the peak of normal human performance in a skill, where character growth in that skill tends to involve learning new tricks you can use without adding any more dice to your rolls.

More generally. Is this about wanting characters who learn to do a broader variety of things, or is it okay if you get better at doing one thing but that "getting better" has interesting mechanical effects instead of just incrementing a number on a sheet.

[Quertus]

Off hand, World of Darkness games are usually more suited to lateral growth. And even so, many things are secretly lateral - like taking Obfuscate 4 doesn't increase the potency of your Obfuscate 1-3, it just gives you a new ability (I believe - AFB, and I don't have the abilities memorized).

Is E6 a fully lateral game after level 6?

2e D&D psionics were pretty darn lateral.

Building decks for MtG feels pretty darned lateral - if expect a good RPG for that (or Harry Potter) to feel rather lateral / to emphasize lateral growth.

[gkathellar]

If and when Wushu involves character progression, it tends to involve broadening ones traits or gaining new ones, since the numbers don't scale up past what you can have at character creation.

[Luccan]

Is E6 a fully lateral game after level 6?


Not fully. Even ignoring the "Lean Up" approach (where you basically wind up at 8th level but with smaller numbers), its generally better to tale feats that make you better at what you do asap. Though in E6, it's certainly less crippling to not specialize for many classes.

[John Campbell]

Shadowrun 4E has some of this going on, as, due to stupidly low hard caps on stats, a typical starting character with an unremarkable degree of optimization will be the best there can ever be at what they do, so the only way to advance is to branch out into doing other things.

It is not a feature.

[weckar]

Tri-Stat dX highly encourages this through hard power caps.

[JeenLeen]

Mutants & Masterminds is a good example, I think.
In a standard game, you stay at the same PL (power level). This caps how strong a lot of your stuff can be. You do gain an equivalent of xp, but it can be spent on skills, feats, or new powers, but not on increasing PL.

It's generally advised to max your dodge/parry during char-gen and probably at least have one attack maxed. So most PCs have that at max for their PL at char-gen. Even if not, it's probably a minor increase in power to get to the standard for your PL.

So, basically, you increase in skill and power variability, but stay at literally the same Power Level.

(There are things in the rules about games where you increase in PL, but that seems to be non-standard.)

---

Maybe Call of Cthulu? You get better at skills and might pick up a spell or two, but I think PCs generally stay at the same power or get weaker (well, crazier) as the game goes on.

[Knaight]

Allowing for slight upward movement, outside of D&D building out is the norm - yes, skills* are generally increasing, but they tend to be new skills a lot of the time.

*Or other representational mechanics, but skills are by far the most common.

[JeenLeen]

I think a handful of games could easily be lateral if there's a ruling that the 'power stat' does not increase.

oWoD Mage with a static Arete, Exalted 2nd edition with a static Essence, In Nomine with static Forces. All of them are point-based systems where you can continue to grow. I do think these would have a lateral feel for the first 20 or so points of xp gained, at least potentially, as you might try to max some of the things you use in combat but didn't have char-gen points to max. (E.g., max weapon skills in Mage, get your Perfect Defense or good weapon combo Charms in Exalted, build up your best Songs in In Nomine.) But once that is done -- though that might be all the xp you get in a given campaign -- you are on a fairly "let us get more things of similar power" bent.

A 'tending towards lateral' aspect of those system is that raising your power stat usually costs a LOT of experience. So there's a tendency to not increase it unless it's a very long campaign (or, well, rich xp awards.)

I think M&M, in contrast to those, feels more lateral since you are more likely to start out with what you want maxed out.

[AceOfFools]

Would Exalted count? It's very easy to start near if not at the peak of normal human performance in a skill, where character growth in that skill tends to involve learning new tricks you can use without adding any more dice to your rolls.


I'm only familiar with 2nd edition, I would not describe this as lateral advancement. Higher essence charms (not available for starting PCs) are often better versions of their prerequisite charms. E.g. a charm that let's you jump hundreds of miles in howevermany minutes obsoletes the earlier charms useful for fast travel.

Starting characters can achieve the maximum possible dice pool for humans at something, and getting new charms tends to have way more value per point of XP spent compared to raising dice pools. Exalts also eventually can go beyond the normal human limits of die pool size, but iirc, that's a very high-end advancement. Thus, Exalted characters tend to experience much more lateral advancement than DnD characters, but they will certainly get astronomically better at whatever their primary gimick is as well.

Where you draw the line for "primarily lateral" determines weather or not you consider Exalted a fit, but I think Exalted (at least 2e) has a lot of cool ideas mechanically and stylistically that I would recommend you check it out.

[Mutazoia]

Warhammer FRP would fit this bill nicely. Characters don't level up, so much as they just change professions. They can gain a new profession when they meet the requirements for said profession (mostly gear requirements).

[Nifft]

Warhammer FRP would fit this bill nicely. Characters don't level up, so much as they just change professions. They can gain a new profession when they meet the requirements for said profession (mostly gear requirements).

In the edition I played, you did get to increase your stats in addition to changing profession.

Increasing your main stats would be an increase in power.

Also, changing profession into a more powerful profession would be an increase in power -- some of these were direct advancement (e.g. Apprentice -> Wizard).

[mucat]

I'm wondering about games where stats don't tend to increase at all (or increase very little) but instead characters gain access to a broader and broader pool of options.

The Fate system might be close to the mark for you. After a long campaign, the characters will have grown slightly more powerful, but much of their growth will have been lateral.

Most of a character's flavor and motivation, and much of their game-mechanical power, comes in the form of "aspects". These are brief phrases such as "Death before dishonor", "Nothing lies beyond the reach of Science", or "You killed my father; prepare to die!". You can boost die rolls when pursuing one of your aspects, and the GM can and should use your aspects to complicate your life. As the game progresses, a character's aspects will change -- ideals are tarnished or re-inspired, goals are accomplished or disastrously failed, relationships mature or disintegrate -- but the total number of aspects remain the same.

Characters do have skills as well as aspects, and those skills do increase gradually over time...but they tend to broaden more than they increase. For example, a typical starting character will have to learn at least four new skills that they didn't already know, before they can boost their top skill another point.