Jetrauben
2008-01-13, 01:52 AM
I've been idly considering making a tabletop system for a setting I came up with last night, and I was wondering. One thing that always bothered me was the arbitrary assumption of linear experience progression. Combined with my dislike for the nine-alignment system I had an idea for advancement. It's kinda sloppy right now, but I'm curious what people think about the principle.
Characters have multiple "experience" pools, essentially separating progression into several distinct fields. Fighting and surviving encounters might benefit a character's Warrior and Athletic pools, but does nothing for their Personality or Craft pools. Likewise, working as a tradesman might improve Craft, but does nothing for one's fighting ability. Achieving a 'level' in each pool is guaranteed every 100 points, but a player may attempt to 'force' advancement by rolling d100 against their current score. Failure here may incur an experience penalty.
Advancement in a given pool allows the PC access to one to 1d6 points, to be used to purchase improvements to one's skills (and possibly attributes, but I'm thinking this is a low-advancement system). The number of times a character has advanced serves roughly as their 'level' or challenge rating in that particular field.
In addition, there is another experience pool, the Self, that advances solely through acts of noteworthy character- achieving important plot points, good or bad deeds, and so forth- which is advanced at the Gamemaster's discretion. Rewards from the Self pool would be the equivalent of racial feats.
Now we get to Drives. Essentially, upon creation of the character, instead of merely picking an alignment, their maker selects one or more of several Drives- personality attributes that help define the character and influence advancement. For example, if a character is bloodthirsty and enjoys violence, lethal combats provide a small experience boost and merciful ones a small experience penalty, while a merciful character has the exact opposite reaction. If a character's drives are consistently flaunted they may be reassigned accordingly.
What do you guys think? This is admittedly a VERY sloppy, amateurish system, but I'm new to this.
Characters have multiple "experience" pools, essentially separating progression into several distinct fields. Fighting and surviving encounters might benefit a character's Warrior and Athletic pools, but does nothing for their Personality or Craft pools. Likewise, working as a tradesman might improve Craft, but does nothing for one's fighting ability. Achieving a 'level' in each pool is guaranteed every 100 points, but a player may attempt to 'force' advancement by rolling d100 against their current score. Failure here may incur an experience penalty.
Advancement in a given pool allows the PC access to one to 1d6 points, to be used to purchase improvements to one's skills (and possibly attributes, but I'm thinking this is a low-advancement system). The number of times a character has advanced serves roughly as their 'level' or challenge rating in that particular field.
In addition, there is another experience pool, the Self, that advances solely through acts of noteworthy character- achieving important plot points, good or bad deeds, and so forth- which is advanced at the Gamemaster's discretion. Rewards from the Self pool would be the equivalent of racial feats.
Now we get to Drives. Essentially, upon creation of the character, instead of merely picking an alignment, their maker selects one or more of several Drives- personality attributes that help define the character and influence advancement. For example, if a character is bloodthirsty and enjoys violence, lethal combats provide a small experience boost and merciful ones a small experience penalty, while a merciful character has the exact opposite reaction. If a character's drives are consistently flaunted they may be reassigned accordingly.
What do you guys think? This is admittedly a VERY sloppy, amateurish system, but I'm new to this.