Code Talk: Advancement (2/2)
This post is a continuation of the Character Ranks post. Reading it first is highly recommended.
So, first of all -- WHY ADVANCEMENT? Why XP, or its equivalent? What are we trying to accomplish by handing it out -- what goals of the game does it satisfy? This isn't a rhetorical question; there are plenty of games, including games with systems, that don't have XP. Just because it's a common RPG thing doesn't mean it /has/ to be a thing, so if we're going to have it, it's worth really knowing, very clearly, why we want it.
In the case of Battle Fantasia, answering this question shook out as follows:
* Representing Character Development - As characters develop and grow through RP, it can be frustrating to keep the same stats for years and years. Having a system for advancement avoids that. Note that that isn't the same as 'compensating' players in order to entice activity; if people are here to play, they're here to play, and if they're not, they're not. We're not out to bribe people to participate with XP. But being able to tell stories where a starting character eventually becomes powerful enough to oppose a previously unreachable enemy (in the csys, as well as the narrative) is worth doing. Some concepts call for starting more higher-powered than others, but they should never be untouchable forever.
* Genre Suitability - Though, admittedly, it may be because of merchandising, the narrative structure of magical girl shows tends to involve very measurable growth, as girls acquire battlefield experience, and eventually, new henshins and attacks. Advancement in power (often a metaphor for coming of age) is a huge part of the theme. It's never going to go away. We chose to embrace the design challenge of building character growth into the csys from day one, so that this fundamental part of the magical girl experience (if you'll pardon the pun) can play out on Battle Fantasia.
* Fun - Always the most important consideration, XP is fun, which isn't worth overlooking. The object of the game is fun, and players enjoy accruing XP and allowing their characters to grow in stats as well as in RP development. However, it tends to be fun in two basic ways: Some players enjoy XP because they like their character to grow in power and ability, and some players enjoy XP because they like to grow in power and ability /over everyone else/. We have a great deal of support for the former feeling, but our advancement policy tends to cut the latter off at the knees, because one of the classic pitfalls of advancement is 'a year later, you have XP haves and have nots, leading to a difficulty in getting new players involved, and often a touchy stratification of existing players.'
We also wanted our system to satisfy the following criteria:
* Launch: We wanted our advancement system to be designed and implemented straight from the beginning, so that everyone knows what they’re getting into and can plan accordingly. We’re hoping that knowing that you can and should advance will encourage people to be happier to start at Master Rank C and tell their character’s story straight from the beginning, rather than apping in media res as an experienced Rank B because they feel it’s the only way they’ll ever be able to get to that point.
* Clarity: An unclear, uncodified advancement system often makes good players feel guilty about asking for nice things, while those players who do consistently push to advance are seen as greedy. By making an advancement system clear and accessible, an advancement system that WANTS TO BE USED, we’re hoping to resolve this issue before it starts.
* Transparency: As opposed to clarity, in the sense that we want a fair system that is very clear in its requirements to advance, and for which the process, during advancement, is also very clear. This avoids the issue of favoritism, which even if it doesn’t exist tends to be assumed to exist.
So, here’s what we did.
Ours is a pointbuy system; all points are in one pool, spreadable around Stats, Traits/Abilities, extra Attack slots, and so forth. On top of there being a pointbuy system, there is the concept of Rank. Starting characters are typically Rank C, which we'll say for the sake of example is 'built on 101-200 points'; Rank B is built on 201-300, and so forth. Ranks have a few minor but existing advantages that mean that the difference between 200 and 201 is significant.
This lends itself well to two ‘tracks’ of advancement, which is basically what we decided to do.
Characters start at 101 points; points are accrued through votes from other players, slowly (it's not one point per vote); more slowly at higher Ranks, as well. These points are immediately spendable, 1:1 on stats and in larger increments on other things like abilities and additional attack slots. This gradual gain of XP represents equally gradual battlefield experience; the seasoning of a magical girl that only the day-to-day triumphs and tragedies of their lives can bring.
When they get to 200 points, they stop being able to spend XP, accrue it at a much reduced rate, and to change either of those things, they have to submit an application to rise in Rank. This application requires several things, all of which are essentially impartial:
1) Time played. You have to have played for at least six months before you can hit Rank B; after that it's a minimum of a year until A, and 1.5-2 years (still under discussion) before S, which is the maximum. Once you're S, you can go on accruing XP (slooooowly), but at that point the /benefits/ of XP, really, are starting to see diminishing returns, you're sort of running out of things to buy, really.
2) Activity. This solves itself in the 'you have to have gotten enough votes to get to 200 before you can advance in Rank’ requirement.
3) Plot justification. Advancing in Rank is a tangible IC thing (though not always linked to a literal item); it's a significant boost in power, often (though not always) represented by a shiny new (and higher-ranked) Henshin form, and it requires a reason. +vote XP gain, essentially, represents 'gradual seasoning as a mage becomes more experienced'; rising in rank takes something more, be it a more serious baptism by fire through a terrible calamity, the discovery of an empowering artifact, convincing your Order through word and deed to let you read the next great world-shaking tome in the library, convincing a spirit to bestow unto you greater power... yadda. This plot cannot be run by its own beneficiary, but we have a system to encourage people to run them for each other, and furthermore run them more widely than their team, so to speak.
4) Teamwork: This one is likely to be controversial, but we will require teams to rank up together, to the extent that it’s possible. There are a number of reasons for this: it’s genre convention for teams to either rank up simultaneously or within a relatively compact timeframe (the Inner Senshi all getting new sticks within a week or two of each other, for example). And it encourages teams to play with all of their members, to not neglect anyone. There isn’t a team application so much as a requirement that every played character on the team have reached the ability to apply for their next rank; unplayed characters don’t count, of course, and inactively played characters may require some exception-making which is why the staff is run by humans instead of unfeeling robots. Characters without teams (or casts with whom their advancement tracks together fairly steadily, even if they aren’t formally on a team) don’t have to worry about this, but we will also frown on such characters getting many TEAM-flagged attacks (which can be very nasty -- teamwork is rewarded!).
5) Head Start: If your character, at game launch, started above Master Rank C, the ‘time played’ requirement to advance to the next rank is considerably increased; the ‘teamwork’ requirement may also be relevant, if narratively speaking the Cs ought to catch up to you first, and then you all rank up together.
Let's do an example.
Day One Sailor Moon is Rank C -- that's the very definition of Rank C. As she gains experience, over time she gains points /within/ Rank C. Eventually, after time and experience and at least one major season-level plot resolution, she might hit B. It could be after she defeats Beryl, or maybe after Ail and Ann, if things played out chronologically. It might even be as late as the main arc of R, her first big power-up coming at a dramatic moment, such as when she transforms into Neo-Queen Serenity for the first time. It's a little bit tricky, because straight through most of season three, even, Sailor Moon is still mostly Sailor Moon, albiet with a series of henshin phrases, Moon Prism->Crystal->Cosmic Power, that indicate growth.
Things clarify in Sailor Moon S. By now she's definitely rank B, and over the course of events she gains access to the Super Sailor Moon form for the first time. But it exhausts her, and knocks her right out after a couple of rounds; it's rank A.
Either right during the Sailor Moon S finale, or at the beginning of SuperS, it can be argued that Usagi has mastered the Super Sailor Moon form, which becomes her standard henshin; at that point, she's rank A. A similar phenomenon occurs with the Eternal Sailor Moon form, which is arguably rank S; at first it wears her out, but by partway through the final season, Sailor Moon Stars, Usagi's using the form casually.
There's one final advancement point worth mentioning, which we touched on: what to do about new players in a year, two years. What we intend to do, down the line, is basically raise minimum XP to some function of the average XP on the game, every six months or so. As the game becomes more about powerful people, new character concepts can come in having more experience and whatnot. This applies to existing played characters who are 'behind' as well.
Because basically we see XP as something that should be earned, but that its effect on the game can't be ignored; as the playerbase becomes more powerful, the stories change, some. The grid changes, some, as the playerbase alters the world around it. New players deserve a fighting chance to exist in this world, and existing slower-paced players, well, they get a pass up to average, which is still quite a bit less than the ones who've really 'earned' it, so to speak.
And any super-active player who's furious that other people get to advance to exist in the same story as them can suck it up, basically. :) We don't have a lot of patience for people whose goal is to win. Our goal is to all have fun together.
What about this leading to out-of-control progression?
It takes more activity, by say votes going from 1/3 of a point at rank C to 1/4 of a point to rank B, to get to the higher ranks, and the application process has a temporal gating system as well that we have planned out across multiple years. Eventually, when we finally have people at the top rank, yes, we may have to stop letting them accrue XP ad infinitum because things are getting too crazy. They'll have to content themselves with merely being Eternal Sailor Moon, the light of hope of the galaxy. ;)
But the advantages one’s character can only achieve through RP, rather than in the csys, are one reason why we’re not too fussed about letting people start with more XP down the line. They might get to start at Rank B instead of C, but the real currency of being able to get things done is connections, to say nothing of the currency of fun being 'having experienced growth through RP'.
Hopefully, this two-track system, which allows for steady and meaningful XP gain to represent gradual growth, with occasional gates that require time, activity, and narrative justification for more dramatic and awesome power-ups, will satisfy our needs as a game, and your needs as a player.
So, first of all -- WHY ADVANCEMENT? Why XP, or its equivalent? What are we trying to accomplish by handing it out -- what goals of the game does it satisfy? This isn't a rhetorical question; there are plenty of games, including games with systems, that don't have XP. Just because it's a common RPG thing doesn't mean it /has/ to be a thing, so if we're going to have it, it's worth really knowing, very clearly, why we want it.
In the case of Battle Fantasia, answering this question shook out as follows:
* Representing Character Development - As characters develop and grow through RP, it can be frustrating to keep the same stats for years and years. Having a system for advancement avoids that. Note that that isn't the same as 'compensating' players in order to entice activity; if people are here to play, they're here to play, and if they're not, they're not. We're not out to bribe people to participate with XP. But being able to tell stories where a starting character eventually becomes powerful enough to oppose a previously unreachable enemy (in the csys, as well as the narrative) is worth doing. Some concepts call for starting more higher-powered than others, but they should never be untouchable forever.
* Genre Suitability - Though, admittedly, it may be because of merchandising, the narrative structure of magical girl shows tends to involve very measurable growth, as girls acquire battlefield experience, and eventually, new henshins and attacks. Advancement in power (often a metaphor for coming of age) is a huge part of the theme. It's never going to go away. We chose to embrace the design challenge of building character growth into the csys from day one, so that this fundamental part of the magical girl experience (if you'll pardon the pun) can play out on Battle Fantasia.
* Fun - Always the most important consideration, XP is fun, which isn't worth overlooking. The object of the game is fun, and players enjoy accruing XP and allowing their characters to grow in stats as well as in RP development. However, it tends to be fun in two basic ways: Some players enjoy XP because they like their character to grow in power and ability, and some players enjoy XP because they like to grow in power and ability /over everyone else/. We have a great deal of support for the former feeling, but our advancement policy tends to cut the latter off at the knees, because one of the classic pitfalls of advancement is 'a year later, you have XP haves and have nots, leading to a difficulty in getting new players involved, and often a touchy stratification of existing players.'
We also wanted our system to satisfy the following criteria:
* Launch: We wanted our advancement system to be designed and implemented straight from the beginning, so that everyone knows what they’re getting into and can plan accordingly. We’re hoping that knowing that you can and should advance will encourage people to be happier to start at Master Rank C and tell their character’s story straight from the beginning, rather than apping in media res as an experienced Rank B because they feel it’s the only way they’ll ever be able to get to that point.
* Clarity: An unclear, uncodified advancement system often makes good players feel guilty about asking for nice things, while those players who do consistently push to advance are seen as greedy. By making an advancement system clear and accessible, an advancement system that WANTS TO BE USED, we’re hoping to resolve this issue before it starts.
* Transparency: As opposed to clarity, in the sense that we want a fair system that is very clear in its requirements to advance, and for which the process, during advancement, is also very clear. This avoids the issue of favoritism, which even if it doesn’t exist tends to be assumed to exist.
So, here’s what we did.
Ours is a pointbuy system; all points are in one pool, spreadable around Stats, Traits/Abilities, extra Attack slots, and so forth. On top of there being a pointbuy system, there is the concept of Rank. Starting characters are typically Rank C, which we'll say for the sake of example is 'built on 101-200 points'; Rank B is built on 201-300, and so forth. Ranks have a few minor but existing advantages that mean that the difference between 200 and 201 is significant.
This lends itself well to two ‘tracks’ of advancement, which is basically what we decided to do.
Characters start at 101 points; points are accrued through votes from other players, slowly (it's not one point per vote); more slowly at higher Ranks, as well. These points are immediately spendable, 1:1 on stats and in larger increments on other things like abilities and additional attack slots. This gradual gain of XP represents equally gradual battlefield experience; the seasoning of a magical girl that only the day-to-day triumphs and tragedies of their lives can bring.
When they get to 200 points, they stop being able to spend XP, accrue it at a much reduced rate, and to change either of those things, they have to submit an application to rise in Rank. This application requires several things, all of which are essentially impartial:
1) Time played. You have to have played for at least six months before you can hit Rank B; after that it's a minimum of a year until A, and 1.5-2 years (still under discussion) before S, which is the maximum. Once you're S, you can go on accruing XP (slooooowly), but at that point the /benefits/ of XP, really, are starting to see diminishing returns, you're sort of running out of things to buy, really.
2) Activity. This solves itself in the 'you have to have gotten enough votes to get to 200 before you can advance in Rank’ requirement.
3) Plot justification. Advancing in Rank is a tangible IC thing (though not always linked to a literal item); it's a significant boost in power, often (though not always) represented by a shiny new (and higher-ranked) Henshin form, and it requires a reason. +vote XP gain, essentially, represents 'gradual seasoning as a mage becomes more experienced'; rising in rank takes something more, be it a more serious baptism by fire through a terrible calamity, the discovery of an empowering artifact, convincing your Order through word and deed to let you read the next great world-shaking tome in the library, convincing a spirit to bestow unto you greater power... yadda. This plot cannot be run by its own beneficiary, but we have a system to encourage people to run them for each other, and furthermore run them more widely than their team, so to speak.
4) Teamwork: This one is likely to be controversial, but we will require teams to rank up together, to the extent that it’s possible. There are a number of reasons for this: it’s genre convention for teams to either rank up simultaneously or within a relatively compact timeframe (the Inner Senshi all getting new sticks within a week or two of each other, for example). And it encourages teams to play with all of their members, to not neglect anyone. There isn’t a team application so much as a requirement that every played character on the team have reached the ability to apply for their next rank; unplayed characters don’t count, of course, and inactively played characters may require some exception-making which is why the staff is run by humans instead of unfeeling robots. Characters without teams (or casts with whom their advancement tracks together fairly steadily, even if they aren’t formally on a team) don’t have to worry about this, but we will also frown on such characters getting many TEAM-flagged attacks (which can be very nasty -- teamwork is rewarded!).
5) Head Start: If your character, at game launch, started above Master Rank C, the ‘time played’ requirement to advance to the next rank is considerably increased; the ‘teamwork’ requirement may also be relevant, if narratively speaking the Cs ought to catch up to you first, and then you all rank up together.
Let's do an example.
Day One Sailor Moon is Rank C -- that's the very definition of Rank C. As she gains experience, over time she gains points /within/ Rank C. Eventually, after time and experience and at least one major season-level plot resolution, she might hit B. It could be after she defeats Beryl, or maybe after Ail and Ann, if things played out chronologically. It might even be as late as the main arc of R, her first big power-up coming at a dramatic moment, such as when she transforms into Neo-Queen Serenity for the first time. It's a little bit tricky, because straight through most of season three, even, Sailor Moon is still mostly Sailor Moon, albiet with a series of henshin phrases, Moon Prism->Crystal->Cosmic Power, that indicate growth.
Things clarify in Sailor Moon S. By now she's definitely rank B, and over the course of events she gains access to the Super Sailor Moon form for the first time. But it exhausts her, and knocks her right out after a couple of rounds; it's rank A.
Either right during the Sailor Moon S finale, or at the beginning of SuperS, it can be argued that Usagi has mastered the Super Sailor Moon form, which becomes her standard henshin; at that point, she's rank A. A similar phenomenon occurs with the Eternal Sailor Moon form, which is arguably rank S; at first it wears her out, but by partway through the final season, Sailor Moon Stars, Usagi's using the form casually.
There's one final advancement point worth mentioning, which we touched on: what to do about new players in a year, two years. What we intend to do, down the line, is basically raise minimum XP to some function of the average XP on the game, every six months or so. As the game becomes more about powerful people, new character concepts can come in having more experience and whatnot. This applies to existing played characters who are 'behind' as well.
Because basically we see XP as something that should be earned, but that its effect on the game can't be ignored; as the playerbase becomes more powerful, the stories change, some. The grid changes, some, as the playerbase alters the world around it. New players deserve a fighting chance to exist in this world, and existing slower-paced players, well, they get a pass up to average, which is still quite a bit less than the ones who've really 'earned' it, so to speak.
And any super-active player who's furious that other people get to advance to exist in the same story as them can suck it up, basically. :) We don't have a lot of patience for people whose goal is to win. Our goal is to all have fun together.
What about this leading to out-of-control progression?
It takes more activity, by say votes going from 1/3 of a point at rank C to 1/4 of a point to rank B, to get to the higher ranks, and the application process has a temporal gating system as well that we have planned out across multiple years. Eventually, when we finally have people at the top rank, yes, we may have to stop letting them accrue XP ad infinitum because things are getting too crazy. They'll have to content themselves with merely being Eternal Sailor Moon, the light of hope of the galaxy. ;)
But the advantages one’s character can only achieve through RP, rather than in the csys, are one reason why we’re not too fussed about letting people start with more XP down the line. They might get to start at Rank B instead of C, but the real currency of being able to get things done is connections, to say nothing of the currency of fun being 'having experienced growth through RP'.
Hopefully, this two-track system, which allows for steady and meaningful XP gain to represent gradual growth, with occasional gates that require time, activity, and narrative justification for more dramatic and awesome power-ups, will satisfy our needs as a game, and your needs as a player.