Rewarding Advancement Points

[zedturtle]

Yeah, I tempted to do something similar. I'm even thinking about awarding the first (and maybe second) AP to a roll that is not Great/Extraordinary but produces a Gandalf or a Sauron. That way, characters who are weak in certain categories are still motivated to give those skills a try, on the chance that they earn an AP from the attempt.

[Murcushio]

My GM just cut out all the weird stuff. Everyone in the party gets a set amount of AP every session, period.

It has some advantages. It vastly simplified bookkeeping, and in extended campaigns you avoid the drama that can sometime attach to characters growing unequally in power. You don't have to always be on the lookout for chances to invoke a trait, which can be fortunate if someone has a Trait like, say, "Fair", which might conceivably come up a lot less than "Bold" does.

Frankly, we were all glad of it. Some of us are specializing in skills that just plain don't get rolled a lot but are very important when they do, and we all like that our Fellowship is going to grow equally. We can all just worry about roleplaying rather than constantly needing to try and farm APs.

[Glorelendil]

My GM just cut out all the weird stuff. Everyone in the party gets a set amount of AP every session, period.

It has some advantages. It vastly simplified bookkeeping, and in extended campaigns you avoid the drama that can sometime attach to characters growing unequally in power. You don't have to always be on the lookout for chances to invoke a trait, which can be fortunate if someone has a Trait like, say, "Fair", which might conceivably come up a lot less than "Bold" does.

Frankly, we were all glad of it. Some of us are specializing in skills that just plain don't get rolled a lot but are very important when they do, and we all like that our Fellowship is going to grow equally. We can all just worry about roleplaying rather than constantly needing to try and farm APs.

Interesting. Is the number still determined based on how (how often, how successfully, etc.) skills are used during that session? So that if the session is mostly social interaction and the two characters with high persuade/riddle/courtesy do all the rolling, everybody still gets AP? Or is it just "fixed AP per session"?

[Morten]

My GM just cut out all the weird stuff. Everyone in the party gets a set amount of AP every session, period.

It has some advantages. It vastly simplified bookkeeping, and in extended campaigns you avoid the drama that can sometime attach to characters growing unequally in power. You don't have to always be on the lookout for chances to invoke a trait, which can be fortunate if someone has a Trait like, say, "Fair", which might conceivably come up a lot less than "Bold" does.

Frankly, we were all glad of it. Some of us are specializing in skills that just plain don't get rolled a lot but are very important when they do, and we all like that our Fellowship is going to grow equally. We can all just worry about roleplaying rather than constantly needing to try and farm APs.

Yeah, that can be a refreshing option and a relief. If you have a group of mature, "well behaved" players who don't need the motivation from AP and don't enjoy the "gameism" involved, then why not give everyone the same. I see many benefits from this, and I like it!

[Stormcrow]

Some mature gamers prefer to actively earn their in-game rewards, rather than just be handed them regardless of one's actions.

[Morten]

Some mature gamers prefer to actively earn their in-game rewards, rather than just be handed them regardless of one's actions.

And some feel that the roleplay and the storytelling is a reward in itself, and don't need AP as a reward. After all, experience points and other in-game rewards aren't the reason for playing rpgs. At best they can fuel a gaming engine, and give insentive to the behavior that the game is designed for, and they can simulate character growth. But if the players are able to motivate themselves, and don't need the added motivation of in-game rewards, then all the better.
I'm not trying to get on my high horse here, don't get me wrong, I like AP and XP as well as the next guy. But I've played lots of games that do not have any such mechanics, and found that those games can be just as fun.

[Glorelendil]

Some mature gamers prefer to actively earn their in-game rewards, rather than just be handed them regardless of one's actions.

I don't think he was suggesting that mature gamers prefer one or the other, just that one approach may require more maturity.

Not sure I agree with the premise, but I don't think he was saying you're immature if you enjoy RAW.

EDIT: And I'm still curious if it's a fixed number or "earned for everyone".

[Murcushio]

Interesting. Is the number still determined based on how (how often, how successfully, etc.) skills are used during that session? So that if the session is mostly social interaction and the two characters with high persuade/riddle/courtesy do all the rolling, everybody still gets AP? Or is it just "fixed AP per session"?

Flat rate per session, regardless of what the hell we were doing or how successful we were at it. We show up to play, we all get 1 XP (two if we're finishing off some extended goal or something else really big) and 3 AP.

For some context: this works for us because we're a weekly, scheduled game with fixed session length. There aren't some sessions which only last an hour and some sessions where we play all day, it's always roughly the same length of time. And because we play online, combat takes longer than it might otherwise, which means sessions where we're bouncing around stabbing things tend to occupy a lot more of our play-time than ones where we try and convince Beorn to part with some sweet, sweet honey.

Like I said, it's a way to go.

Some mature gamers prefer to actively earn their in-game rewards, rather than just be handed them regardless of one's actions.

See, that's the thing. Our GM doesn't pure mechanical character advancement to be an in-game reward. An in-game reward, to him, is managing to slay all the trolls and claim their loot. Or convincing Dain Ironfoot to back up Frar the Beardless on his quest to reclaim the Greydelve. Or becoming the War-leader of the Woodmen. Or, after a year-long quest, receiving an Arnorian weapon made by the Dunedain that you can wound Nazgul with without it breaking.

Those are in-game rewards, in his lexicon. Our GM has an enormous hate-on for systems which advance characters mechanically in an uneven way, based on his own experiences, which have been: people generally roll up characters to do awesome, cool stuff with them. Generally, your ability to do said awesome, cool stuff is tied strongly to your mechanical strengths; good planning, creative thought, and just plain luck play a large part, but the best planner in the world is probably still going to fail if the plan he comes up is one relying on skills they're mechanically deficient in. And people tend to grow resentful if they've been showing up every week and playing (at least in their minds) just as hard as everyone else, but are advancing more slowly and, thus, are less able to do cool stuff than the guys who managed to buy up skills faster. So whenever he runs a game he tends to flatten out mechanical advancement and award totally equally.

For stuff he considers to be an in-game reward he can be pretty brutal. I played in a game with him where my PC ended up as a complete pariah, hated by most, not allowed to hold personal property or any responsibility, and only hadn't been executed because of the patronage of one single person. This was a result of in-universe decisions on my part, and it put me, in-universe, at a grave disadvantage compared to the other players.

But mechanically speaking I was exactly as strong as all the other PCs. We'd all advanced at the same rate and started from the same floor.

This isn't any sort of "one true way" of doing things. But it works for him, and I also like it and will probably emulate it.

[Glorelendil]

Personally, I'd make the pool vary with the actions (successes, failures, trait invocations). Then I'd really like the approach.