Gaining Levels - XP versus Realistic

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To Preface:

My experience with RPGs comes mostly from Ultima and many various D&D games (Goldbox, BG, NWN, etc.)

I think most people would agree that leveling up in those games, for most PCs, doesn't really make sense.

I stab an orc with a dagger and I gain a level as a magic user? I rescue the little girl's dog and return it and gain a thief level? Huh?

But it's a familiar system and, for the most part it works.

Recently I picked up Morrowind and have been experiencing the "realistic" leveling system.

To improve my sword I use it (or train), to improve running (and speed) I...run. Etc...

So, the leveling up is more realistic, to a certain degree, but is it mor FUN?

For me? Not really.

I get where they are coming from, but I just don't feel like it's fun.

To me, playing games, especially RPGs, is about being transported to another world where anything is possible. Too much realizm though, can really break the mood.

I don't want to "work out" in a video game. (Morrowind and GTA:San Andreas are both guilty of this.)

I just want to play and have fun..Is that too much to ask?

How about you? Do you prefer the realistic approach, or the non-sense D&D way? (Or another method...I'm sure there are other ways that I haven't seen.)

Cheers!

-D

 

I'd like to see a hybrid of the two systems. Yes, the skills you use should improve fastest, and in places Morrowind accounts for that.

But at the same time, you should get flexible bonuses that can account for general experience. For example, in D&D, when you level, you get more hitpoints (staying power in a fight), general combat proficiency, for wizzards and priests you get more firepower, and you get skill points, which would equate to training credits, where you can increase skills you feel need to get buffed up a little. You learn new tricks of the trade (the feat system, class abilities).

Actually, I saw a Lord of the Rings RPG that played like the Final Fantasy games, where you leveled generally, but also your skills increased as you used them. I liked the system but found the game bogged down in places with all the fighting...

This system may be hard to work with in P&P, but would work in a CRPG or MMORPG. Again it would take a lot of work to design and implement, and may take several games from the designer to refine it to what it could be...

 

Meh - there's far more options than that, and I dislike both systems. D&D's is less open to boring grinding though, so of the two options provided I'd go for that.

Honestly though - developers should come up with some better reward mechanics. There's infinite possibilities - incrementing a number whenever you achieve something isn't the be all and end all of RPG system design.

 

It almost sounds like you are rewarding objectives without quantifying them. I've seen that in Diablo II, and that could be a part of it too. Complete a quest for a trainer, he teaches you something, rather than giving you a few hundred experience points...

 

I'm a bit split on the issue. Both systems can be either well done or awfully done, and I've played all variants. The realistic system is harder to pull off in a fun way, and the one game that in my opinion truly shined in doing a realistic system properly was Betrayal at Krondor. There were no discrete levels at all, not even within a certain skill (like, say, Lands of Lore or Morrowind had). The increase in each skill was very gradual, and the system encouraged trying over succeeding (I remember noticing that my non-combat skills increased much more often on a failed attempt)

 

Online RPG's like Runescape uses the realistic XP system to the point that it becomes very boring and people don't care anymore. Every little action from woodcutting to mining / smithing ores into weapons is a separate skill that you have to level up by repeated actions. For those of us who like to powergame, the realistic way makes it harder to max out every skill category. I used to be the type of player who liked a sense of absolute completion in a game, then I can put the game down and be done with it. It's much easier to accomplish this with the D&D xp system. Now that I don't care so much about leveling up, I think either system works for me as long as the system is done well. I'm generally not bothered by this issue as much as, say, bad plot or character development.

 

Blog - Runescape is exactly what I was thinking of when I said 'grinding'. That game is the most painfully dull game I have ever played, simply because its reward system rewards boring, pointless play.

Reward systems should reward fun play
If it doesn't, your game is probably ****.

 

This may be because I'm looking into the World of Darkness games more, but I quite like their system.

You get experience points at the end of a story (session) and you spend them on raising different things with different sections of abilities/powers/attributes costing different points and costing more points the higher they are.

In the game 'Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines' the system is used after quests and completing certain objectives means you can learn skills from other NPCs. Unfortunately the progression is somewhat accelerated... though I guess that has to happen in CRPGs to adapt PnP rules to suit everyone.

As a Dungeon Master in D&D I reward more experience more for roleplaying well than purely combat, those who act out their improving skill get an extra bonus as well. I also expect roleplayed reasons to improve certain skills or take certain feats, especially from new players! (Or ones who annoy me... seriously, never let someone play a character as a novelty, it's excrutiating.)

As for storytelling, as well as the experience point allocation I will reward extra points to invest in improving certain skills a member of the group makes use of effectively for the good of the group.

Overall, discrete levelling like D&D is satisfying when the DM turns round and says "Right guys, you've hit level 2" it feels like an achievment, you've made the first hurdle. Grinding I can see the logic, though also the tedium, it should be part, but not whole, of the process. Experience point buy sytems I like, but should be much slower.

One process I did find clever was in a MUD called Materia Magica, You could train a skill up to 75% with a trainer and recieved training points every level. However the more you used a skill every X number of times using it, it would improve 1%, was the only way to get to 100% just to reward those that played consistantly a little extra.

Wow, I haven't used smileys yet!