Howdy

My players are struggling to generate many Advancement Points, and getting more looks like having to shoe-horn rolls in for specific traits at the potential cost of story.

Just checking I've not missed something - is there any other way of getting AP?

Has anyone got any house rules on how they're awarded?

Cheers

Gaz

Although we started the campaign last year, we took a hiatus to finish off another campaign and have only just restarted it.

We are 4 sessions in (average of about 2 hrs each) and the characters have between 5 and 9 Advancement Points.

Those sessions were:

A Prologue for the characters to meet up and learn the basics of Combat and Journeys.

Short adventure to introduce them to the Common Skills and Social Encounters.

And a journey to get them to the start of Words of the Wise.

I'm guessing that they will average 5 to 9 Advancement points per adventure for something the size of those in Tales From Wilderland.

That's assuming they get the first box ticked for most boxes and second ticked for a few. Odds are against them getting all boxes ticked for all skills.

What you have to remember, is increasing a skill has a very significant effect on the rolls. It's not just granting a +1, but a +1d6.

So advancement should be slow.

But that's just my opinion and based on the beginnings of a campaign.

If anyone has any actual hard facts from playing a longer campaign, then feel free to correct my guesswork

One thing to keep in mind is that any given character has five traits (including the Calling-specific one), and many of them are quite broad in application. My Beorning has used his "Bold" trait for Athletics checks, several different social skills, and probably some instances that I'm forgetting about, but I can see the trait applying to well over half of the common skills with a little creativity. Granted some traits are a bit more specialized (i.e. Boating), but that's why you have others to fall back on. Ultimately it boils down to creativity, and oftentimes a GM's preparations get thrown out the window by player creativity anyways.

It's not your job to tailor the story to fit your players, but rather the responsibility falls on the players to use their unique combination of knowledge and skill to overcome whatever you throw at them.

Most importantly, however, traits are not the only way to earn APs! Successful rolls with particularly negative consequences, and rolls with a high TN are specific hard rules that are worthy of an AP (in the bullet-point list along with invoking traits). It's also stated that "it is the Loremaster's duty to judge whether a hero deserves an Advancement Point or not (even though players are free to ask for a reward when they feel their characters have achieved something meaningful, or have learned something in failing to do so)." To me, this statement says "feel free to reward players for unexpected and non-quantifiable things relating to their own character and/or the story." Perhaps a really shy character getting the courage to address a powerful noble or king when he sees that his friends aren't doing so well; even if he fails his roll, that's a pretty defining moment for that character and an AP could reflect that very well.

Finally, the last paragraph in the section on awarding APs reads "while the distinction between simple successes and great and extraordinary ones may be used as a guideline, it is always up to the Loremaster to assess whether a hero should get an Advancement Point or not." That certainly shouldn't meant that every G/E success deserves an AP, but I've used this guideline a lot, especially for players who do have more specialized traits. Usually I'll let an E success grant the first AP in a skill group, but often I'll use a combination of factors. For example, a Hard difficulty combined with a G/E success might deserve an AP even though the list states Severe or Daunting difficulties are usually worth an AP. Using these criteria most characters have all of their first dots filled in, with half or more second dots and I think a third has been earned only once or twice (one instance I remember was when our Beorning rolled Awe and got an E success with a Gandalf on a really high TN, which was easily surpassed).

The one thing I really stress to new players is learning to use tasks. As the Loremaster, I am already prepared with tests built into the adventure, but they need to be creative in their roleplaying while utilizing their Common skills and paying attention to their Traits. Otherwise, they will not have enough opportunity to succeed at rolls and before you know it, the adventure is over and they haven't earned but 2-3 advancement points.

Not to really argue with you Garbar, but the Adventurer's Book says, "A character’s Common skills may improve rapidly during the game, if he puts his abilities to good use and earns Advancement points (see page 120)." So, the expectation for the players is to advance their skills at a faster pace than only earning 5-9 Advancement points in 3-4 sessions and still not having enough to raise a single skill from 2 ranks to 3. At that pace, their advancement in skills would fall way behind their improvements in Weapon skills, Wisdom and Valour. They would earn at least 2 Experience points per session (unless they aren't making progress toward their Company Objective) and then they could be given a reward of up to 1 supplementary Experience point per session at the end of the Adventuring phase. In a 4 session adventure, that's a possible 12 Experience points, enough to take two Weapon skills from 2 ranks to 3 (I think this is a good pace).

In my opinion, advancement in Weapons skills, Wisdom, and Valour should be slower than advancement in Common skills. Therefore, I suggest to my players that they try to earn 10-12 Advancement points per adventure, but this takes work and a lot of creative roleplaying.

As we tend to only be able to play for 2 hours a week, i have been giving out just 1 Experience per session with a bonus for completing the adventure.

So that should keep progress in Advancements and Experience in line.

As for 'suggesting' that the players earn 10-12 Advancement per adventure, that's fine in theory, but there are no guarantees it will happen.

But as I mentioned, we're only in the early stages of the campaign, so i may end up tweaking how many Experience are dished out.

There is no real right and wrong, you just do what works best for your campaign!

5-9 advancement points per adventure seems to be a good number, considering that there are only six skill groups, and that points 2 and 3 are harder to get.

Assuming that you can get at least 1 point in all 6 and half of them up to 2 points, that gives you 9 for that adventure. I think that is a mildly generous assumption.

Excuse me, sirs.

I have a related question: where in the books is the xp (not ap) awarding detailed?

I know that at page 120 of the Adventurer's book is the general rule: "1 xp per session, 1 more if they advanced toward the Group Objective".

I think I have read somewhere about some more xp once the adventure is completed, but I'm unable to locate it. Was I daydreaming? Does this rule really exist? If so, where?

Pg 17 of the LB

It would be interesting to see some suggested variants in the costs associated with advancing skills, tailored around pacing desires. For example...

Rapid Play
(Recommended for groups that play 6-12 sessions per year)
Experience Point Costs: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 12
Advancement Point Costs: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12

Accelerated Play
(Recommended for groups that play 13-24 sessions per year)
Experience Point Costs: 1, 3, 5, 8, 12, 18
Advancement Point Costs: 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18

Normal Play
(For groups that play a regular compliment of 25+ sessions per year)
Experience Point Costs: 2, 4, 6, 10, 16, 25
Advancement Point Costs: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24

This post has been edited by JamesRBrown on Apr 13 2012, 05:37 AM

I wonder, the Experience point cost for buying the 6th rank in a Weapon skill, Wisdom or Valour does not seem to be consistent with the rest of the charts. Is this a mistake? It seems that the cost should be 22 or 24 Experience points, not 25. That would make the pattern to increase the cost by 2, 2, 4, 6, 6 or 2, 2, 4, 6, 8.

FWIW this is how Advancement Points have been being handled in my campaing so far (and it seems to have a pretty good flow).

We play 6 hr sessions. We play 2.5 sessions per adventure. Every third game has been the conclusion of an adventure (first half of the game) and then the FellowShip phase for the last 2-3 hours of that game. We are going towards our "game 3" of the third adventure (so it will be our 9th game). The last game we played (game 8) I noticed the players were finally truly catching on to how to use the Trait inductions for skill tests. They had used them quite sparingly and unsure of how/when to invoke them - but last game their comfort level was much higher and I think they may have truly surpassed the learning curve on that. As someone pointed out - many traits/distinctive features can theoretically be used in a number of ways or apply to a number of different skill attempts.

We follow the bulletpoint guidelines on page 30 to help flesh out this system:

1st Advancement Point (within a skill group): Automatically assigned if/when a player invokes a trait/distinctive feature that is applicable. (but only one can be awarded per Adventure for this).

2nd Advancement Point (within a skill group): A skill used successfully when the LM has already stated or determined that failure would result in a serious negative consequence. If a player used a skill that heroically saved or otherwise significantly aided another (horoically putting himself in danger while doing so). If a player failed at a skill test and the result was truly dire. If the skill used hard to meet a Hard difficulty (TN 16).

3rd Advancement Point (within a skill group): A skill used when the Loremaster has determined that the TN would be Severe or Daunting (TN 18 or 20). If a player succeeded in a skill that was a life or death situation for himeself or others.

Some notes for the above:
Advancement Points awarded for success only when a Hope Point was not used.

Each subsequent point trumps the one above it - In other words, a Life or Death situation or TN 20 difficulty (3rd point in a group) that was succeeded would award the first or second point also. Likewise a TN 16 success or heroically aiding a fellow other such situation suggested for the second advancement point - would award the first point as well. To obtain a 2nd point, he would need to meet the criteria for the 2nd point again or the 3rd point - thus removing the auto-success award (via traits) as an option - but many skill checks are unable to have an associated trait for the player anyways, so do not limit the first point only by that standard.


Anecdotal results: We are starting our 3rd (final) game of this adventure when next we meet, and all players have 4-7 APs already (2.5 points per game avg) Two people have 2 points in the same skill group already - one of which was a TN 20 success which could have afforded him a 3rd point in that group - but alas he had only 1 already there so he got his 2nd point on this adventure.


Musings: Note that by the game design, it was commented on by the players that "Advance Points" are for common skills and thus Combat is far less effective means of earning advancement points since many more skill attmepts are made during the "journey" rules, "Encounter" rules with NPCs, and general exploration/travel within the game. Furthermore unlike most other RPGs, Experience points are awarded carte-blanche in TOR instead of overcoming combats; thus it reinforces that the game is primarily a roleplaying and interactive game and combat is not the primary or even the most effective means of overcoming obstacles for the characters' or story advancement. Not to mention healing/overcoming wounds is so daunting. I like that all of design and rules reinforces this tendency towards parlay and creative solutions than just a string of combats.

Thanks Skywalker and JrB! great write-ups and I love when you post examples makes it so easier to understand. Thanks!


/Khamûl

The only part of the guidelines I haven't been following exactly is the idea that for each Advancement point earned in a skill group, the next one should require an even greater difficulty. Sometimes it is their first use of a skill that overcomes a severe or daunting difficulty, and I will later on still give them a second point for invoking a trait after a successful roll, etc.

Here are the different ways I tell players they can earn an Advancement point:

1. After a successful roll, invoke a Trait and explain why it helped you succeed.

2. Make a successful roll that results in a great or extraordinary success.

3. Make a successful roll when I tell you it will have serious negative consequences if you fail.

4. Make a successful roll that overcomes a severe or daunting difficulty.

5. Fail a roll by 1 or 2 points only and explain what you have learned in doing so.

Players can earn up to 3 Advancement points in each skill group by satisfying the requirements of any 3 different conditions listed above, regardless of the order they achieve them.

SirKicley, your rule is, "Advancement Points awarded for success only when a Hope Point was not used." I feel that my players can still earn the Advancement point by using a Hope point, but they must describe their struggle and how they were able to overcome it. The only exception, of course, is my scenario #5. In that case, they must fail in order to earn the point. We do learn by our mistakes! The reason I say they can only fail by 1 or 2 points is that to me it shows some effort. They almost succeeded!

What I love about this system of skill usage is the tremendous focus on creative roleplaying with a purpose (to advance skills). I have never experienced any other game that has done it quite like this. And it makes it really FUN for everyone playing!

This post has been edited by JamesRBrown on Apr 13 2012, 02:04 PM

Thanks

This has me a bit confused.


Why would you invoke a trait if you succeeded? I thought the purpose of the traits/distinctive features was to invoke so you didn't need to bother rolling (i.e. auto-success ticket).....?


And if this is the way it's suppose to be done instead (invoking if/when you succeed) and giving an Advancement Point for that - then are they NOT suppose to receive an AP when they use the trait for an auto-success......?


Color me confused.



I do like the award of a point if/when you fail by a couple of points and explain what it is you learned....


Can you please share with us a couple instances where this occurred in your games that you awarded points for; just for fuel for our own imaginations...

Re-read pg. 95-96 of the AB, and pg. 30 of the LMB. Basically, you have a choice between either taking an auto-success (and playing it safe), or you can roll and if you succeed the trait can be invoked for the AP. This makes for an interesting decision, because you can either ensure that things go smoothly OR you can assume some measure of risk to have your character grow.

I believe the idea is that by using your skills and abilities in slightly new ways and knowing that there's a risk of failure you gain new knowledge (represented by the increase in skill that the AP allows). If you do things the same old way you always do then you're not really going to learn anything new, even if you know it'll work.

My players react to the decision in very different ways, with the Beorning tending to go for the AP and the Barding generally sticking with the auto-success (incidentally, the Barding tends to have TERRIBLE luck with his dice rolls, so this is understandable).

The reason you award an Advancement point if they invoke a Trait after they succeed on a roll is because of the combination of actually succeeding on a roll and invoking a Trait to explain the effort.

You would not give out an Advancement point for an automatic success precisely because there was no roll involved. The benefit to the player is that they guaranteed a success with minimal effort. This does not lead to advancing their skill.

None of my players have actually used option #5 yet. But, the groups I have played with are all beginners and they are still learning many things, including how to call for tasks to make sure they are earning Advancement points. I expect they will take advantage of it soon (now that they are getting the swing of things).

To give you an idea of my playing schedule, I began with 6 players in August. That group played 2 sessions before everyone's schedule and s changed. I started another group that played a couple of sessions and the same thing happened. I started a third group and we have played a couple of sessions, but I am waiting for one of them to come home from college to start up again. In the middle of all this, I have taught and played incomplete games with various people. This is partly why I did a couple of game store demos. I am hoping for a consistent group that can focus on an entire campaign. Ideally, I would like to play at least once-a-month. That is another reason why I posted about Experience point and Advancement point cost variants. With a low number of gaming sessions per year, my players will not improve their characters much. The game store group seems solid and I am in the process of scheduling regular gaming sessions with them.

alien270, I just saw your response and it includes some things I wrote here as well. Thanks. Sorry for the delay in response, but I'm trying to get some work done today too.

This suggestion came directly from the Loremaster's Book, page 30, which says, "It is the Loremaster’s duty to judge whether a hero deserves an Advancement point or not (even though players are free to ask for a reward when they feel their characters have achieved something meaningful, or have learned something in failing to do so)."

This brings up another point. When teaching players how to earn Advancement points, make sure they know that they can call for task rolls and ask for an Advancement point if they think they deserve one, regardless of the Loremaster's agenda. Of course, the Loremaster will make the final decision and holds storytelling initiative.

Yes I knew of this comment in the LM - and I do award when they fail occasionally - if it was something that failure caused a significant consequence.

What I was specifically commenting on that I like, was the impetus you put on the player "explaining what they learned" as part of the interactive story-telling aspect of the RPG. This bit of creative thought was not something I had previously considered and will now incorporate it.

Another little nugget that seems so vacant in many other RPGs that focuses so much more on the combat challenges.


Since this hasn't been done yet, could you cite a couple hypothetical instances where number 5 would apply and the "commentary" of what was learned would suffice to you as LM for the player to be awarded with his point?




As for the Invoking of a trait - i guess i simply never knew exactly what "invoking" a trait was - I guess I thought it was more like "activating" it - but now I see it's more about "explaining how it applied." I like this more - just didn't ever grasp this notion until you mentioned it being done this way. I'm only ever applied the APs when they use the trait for auto-success. Will definitely shift gears, AND will enjoy even more having them succeed and explain how the trait did work - in order to earn an AP. I think that would be even more enjoyable for all.

Thanks for all your great explanations.


(By the way - side note - a very similar style is used in Smallville RPG which i have and read - but not played yet for lack of interested players. But they use the style of players being able to explain how their traits apply to earn Plot Points and need be explained when being used to accomplish something).

You can invoke a trait to automatically get an ordinary success... OR you can roll normally and if you succeed in an extraordinary way you can invoke the trait to gain an advancement point.

By definition, invoking a trait for an automatic ordinary success is not extraordinary, so you cannot get an advancement point for it.

(And thirdly, you can invoke a trait to bypass the Loremaster when he says you can't do something.)

You only choose ONE of the three things a trait can do when you invoke that trait.

Thanks for all the compliments SirKicley. You make the interactions on the forum a joy and a delight. I mean that.

Absolutely. Let's use Persuade for example. Mungo Hornblower decides to Persuade the audience that they should join his cause and go to war against the Orcs of the Misty Mountains. I tell him that it will require a Moderate difficulty TN 14 to persuade them. He rolls a 13 and just misses! Instead of spending a Hope point to succeed, Mungo decides to fail and explain why he almost succeeded and why he should earn an Advancement point. "Everything was going just fine with the speech and I convinced them that it would be glorious to finally rid the Mountains of Orcs and Wargs. They were all set to follow me until I told them about the creepy, talking, giant spiders and the long dark journey through Mirkwood; how they would probably suffer extreme hunger and experience the strange enchantments of the forest. After that, they politely declined the adventure. I've learned my lesson not to tell so much in the beginning."

How about Healing? Avina reaches down to assist her wounded hound. The dog's leg has been badly cut and needs to be cleaned and wrapped to keep from infection and further complications. I tell her that it will require a Healing roll with a TN of 16 or the dog will not recover for another three months. She rolls and gets a 14, missing by only 2 points. She decides to accept the failure, but asks for an Advancement point anyway because the only thing she did wrong was not wrap the leg tight enough. The dressing had come loose and the hound must have gotten some dirt in the wound, aggravating it further. Next time, she'll use another method and more wrappings to make sure this doesn't happen again.

I love the Conflicts and Wedges of the Smallville RPG and what that does for player interactions and roleplaying. I also think the Pathways system to create characters is a very fun game in itself. I read the whole book, wrote an episode and had a group of friends (who are Smallville fans) play once. Our Pathways map was interesting. Here is a link to my episode called The Thief. If I play again, I want to create my own town in another part of the country (or world) that features someone different than Clark. That would be fun.

Won't that just lead to players asking for advancement points upon every failure? I think that just as a success needs to be more than regular to get an advancement point for it, a failure must be significant as well. Failing a routine healing roll isn't worth an advancement point, but watching your patient die after a botched healing roll is. Failing to persuade some listeners to join you on a quest isn't worth a point; failing to persuade some orcs not to attack you is.

That is something to consider and your examples would make excellent applications of the rule. However, in the examples I gave, not persuading the others to join him, Mungo faces a very difficult road in fighting the Orcs alone, and Avina has to go without her hound for the next three months. So, the failure is not without consequence. The Loremaster would need to adjudicate the plea and decide if it was worthy.

It is not just failing a routine check that allows a player to ask for an Advancement point, but failing by only 1 or 2 points. Also, in an ongoing campaign, the Loremaster should be hesitant to award future Advancement points for repeated types of failures. In my estimation, a beginning player shouldn't have too hard a time earning one with a good explanation.

I think the relevant guideline (LMB p120) is:

An example might be a character that fails to make an Athletics roll to jump across a chasm while being pursued by Orcs. This would probably be distinctive and memorable because of the context ... take away the pursuing Orcs (i.e. the pressure) and the same failure might not be as distinctive or memorable.

I might clarify again that failing by 1-2 points and providing an explanation for failure is my own personal guideline as a Loremaster. But, the example Ashley just provided is also spot on and I would accept that too.

Each Loremaster may be different in their awarding of Advancement points and that's okay. The rules are flexible and give the Loremaster quite a bit of freedom.