On advancement of ability space and frontloaded learning cu-

[Dracos]

http://bishi-wannabe.livejournal.com/39675.html#cutid1

And too short topic space.  Anyhow, mmm, a neat article.

Dracos

[Rezantis]

Tangentically related.

Back when I was pondering running an exalted name, I was actually thinking of ditching XP altogether.  The intent was to use a modified training time table and hand out points depending on how long skills had been used for (to a point), or how long they'd spent trying to learn them.

I didn't really get around to trying it (or even running the damn game), but, it seemed like an interesting idea.  I don't like the idea of having two blocks in place (XP -and- training time), and the timescale seemed like an interesting experiment.

Sure people would have been able to spend a month not doing anything, but you shut yourself up in a tower for five years practicing and whatever's happening in the world will happen without you.

[Edward]

Interesting article.  While it has its points, I find it hard to fully comprehend someone whose main enjoyment from RPGs seems to be learning the rules.  This is probably the antithesis of people who favor generic rule systems - that way they don't have to keep learning new rules and can get to actual playing.

As to Rez's training time idea for character advancement, training is a realistic method of character advancement.  Personally, I feel that realistic character advancement meshes poorly with a cinematic setting, though.

Most PCs, or stories for that matter, consider training time to be dull.  Many stories ignore training altogether or just assume that advancement comes from the conflict itself.  Other times, such as in Lord of the Rings, sparring is an incidental event during the travel part of the adventure.  The most involved you usually see is a training montage, whether it be Rocky or a martial arts flick.

If training time is the only method of character advancement, then why shouldn't the PCs just shut themselves up in a tower?  You get what you reward, and this method rewards the PCs for not interacting with the setting.

[Bjorn]

Interesting article.  While it has its points, I find it hard to fully comprehend someone whose main enjoyment from RPGs seems to be learning the rules.  This is probably the antithesis of people who favor generic rule systems - that way they don't have to keep learning new rules and can get to actual playing.

My impression is that, rather than talking about players who focus on learning the rules, the author's main concern was how a player's enjoyment can be diminished because of a failure to understand the rules.  I can sympathize with this; I've had my share of characters who just couldn't quite work out the way they'd been meant to, because of poor decisions made early on due to a lack of understanding.

A point the article makes that I think is very spot-on is that this is where D&D gets things right.  At low levels, you pick an archetype, and you have too few options to do that archetype wrong.  Once you've got the opportunity to make choices, you've had experience in the rules; and moreover, you should have seen what works and what doesn't, because you'll have seen what works for your enemies.

As to Rez's training time idea for character advancement, training is a realistic method of character advancement.  Personally, I feel that realistic character advancement meshes poorly with a cinematic setting, though.

I've never been too up on the whole idea of "training for advancement."  The reasons Edward gives are good reasons: training is tedious, and it's going to happen mostly off-screen.  In that sense, all you've done is added a condition that says, "you can only level up when you have a break, and that break has to be X months long."  In the worst case, then, this model prevents the PCs from advancing.

One way to fix this in theory is to count skill use as training.  But I don't really like this, either, as I think it tends to discourage creative character builds.  You can't do the equivalent of, say, taking a level in bard, or purchasing a new power framework; you can only just get better at what you've already set yourself up to do.  Which arguably excaberates the base problem: if you didn't understand the rules when you started off, then you're going to play a (probably losing) game of catch-up from that point on.

[Rezantis]

I'd count use as training time.  If you spend six months riding around creation, you can have a dot or two in ride.

The reason this could work for Exalted is:
(1) Ten out of twenty-five skills are favoured - intuitive to the character.  They can raise these without teaching or even much practice, and to be honest, in Exalted these ten are your core skills and most players don't advance much outside them[/i].
(2) Exalted can do better than normal mortals at skills where they have no idea what they're doing, so you really can just wing it a few times.
(3) Training time could just as easily be learning from another party member and watching them do it, or hanging with another NPC, or reading books on the topic in the evenings as you're travelling.

But the main question is, if you have no possible way to learn the skill anyway, which would exclude you from it under this idea . . . what justification could you have possibly had to get it in the first place?

EDIT: As an example, say.  My Night Caste Solar in Rat's game is a sneaky, investigative, not particularly heavy on the book learning type.

I intend for her to learn Old Realm.  Her reason for learning Old Realm is that she realizes she's actually going to need to deal with spirits now, as well as the fact that it would be good to be able to read the information she's currently on a jaunt to dig out of a tomb; the way she's going to do it is she's (I hope) going to steal a book from a library and when she has time, she's going to be going through the basics from the book (and, well, it was pretty much the native language of her first age incarnations, which will help her acquire it quickly).

Martial Arts?  Well, unless you're a Dawn Caste, in which case you can practice on your lonesome and develop it as you go, you're going to need a teacher or someone to learn from - which is sensible.

Things like dodge are intuitive anyway.  I should try and nail down some specifics.