Alternate idea for Advancement Points

[zedturtle]

So in one of my PbP TOR games, I asked for feedback on the AP system, notably my tendency to audit for APs after the end of a "session".

One of my players responded "I don't mind the book-keeping, and the player driven focus requires us to think of ways to use our skills.

I like the spirit of the AP; in practice it's a bit different and could use some tweaks.

In practice, I've found there are some problems:

-Travel Tests. Due to the amount of Travel Tests, and the...premium of protection that a high Travel score grants, this is a no-brainer to get to 3 as soon as possible. You make a lot of Travel Tests. They protect you against fatigue gain. Successful tests will allow you to pump up your Movement category quickly.

-Get 3 pips in a skill for each Skill Category. Best way to get ripe on each of the 6 categories is to have a single skill at 3 pips in each one of them. Too easy and too tempting to game this.

-Someone, somewhere (I think Elfcrusher on the C7 forums) once advocated for getting AP's for failures when you can tag a trait. At first I didn't agree with it, but I now see the wisdom in it. It gives a reason to players to try using skills that they are weak in."

Which tied into some thought that I've been having, so I responded as such "As for AP, at the danger of turning the OOC thread into a rules discussion thread; what do people think of some lilt the following:

To the right of the skill categories are three small circles. The first of these is filled in when the character achieves any success with one of the three skills. The next two are filled in when either a notable success (a Gandalf, a Great or Extraordinary success, or any success that can related to a trait) or a notable failure (a Sauron or any failure that can be related to a trait) occurs.

That would allow for both low ranked skills and high ranked skills to earn APs. I'd even go so far as to require a success, a notable success and a notable failure in order to fill in all three bubbles, but that'd be impractical in a face to face game."

So what do people think of that idea?

[Hermes Serpent]

The thing with awarding AP's is that while some categories get maxed out more quickly, Movement via Travel, Personality with Awe and Persuade in Encounters and Vocation with Battle it isn't that useful. The distribution of Common skills is obviously designed to spread the AP gain as the skills are not listed alphabetically but you still get three points in Personality fairly quickly. The limit of three APs in any one category per Adventure Phase is self limiting and in order to get more APs the player must test a variety of skills from the different categories. Now one could have three ranks in one skill from each category and spam that to farm AP but that's self defeating as when you really need a skill that you haven't invested in or you have failed to improve a skill as another hero has that at a decent rank you may then find your self short when testing in a situation where all the companions must test.

The learning from failure is in the original rules LMB p30.

[zedturtle]

Yeah, one of the points with forcing one AP in each category to come from a notable failure is it would actually be difficult to get that failure after a while, thus slowing down progression at higher rankings.

[Glorelendil]

Yeah, one of the points with forcing one AP in each category to come from a notable failure is it would actually be difficult to get that failure after a while, thus slowing down progression at higher rankings.

Other than agreeing with AP for spectacular failures, and/or invoking a trait to explain a failure with an Eye, I don't really think there's a problem. Yes, it encourages you to get skill 3 in each category before branching out, but given the high cost of increasing a skill above that you're probably (interesting problem to model) statistically better off if you then allocate some points in the other skills, even if you're just min-maxing to increase AP chances.

The only thing I've struggled with has been remembering how & when you get AP, and then remembering to mark them. Now that I've got it (helped by the rule changes) and I'm used to the game I really like the system. But that does raise the question of whether it's too much for new players. Maybe the character sheet could have reminders above the three columns of dots? (In a really, really tiny font...)

[Stilts]

In my experience, most players level up their skills in anticipation of using the skill itself to greater effect rather than increasing the chance of an AP. They do want to gain more in the future, but when they're in the Fellowship Phase and looking at their options, they simply want to improve their characters to be more successful during the next quest. I always hear, "I'm sick of failing these rolls, I need another die!"

That being said, I realize there are plenty of number-crunching min-maxers out there who take great joy in gaming all the systems...

EDIT: About player aids, I make sure to write up quick reference documents for stuff like this that the players can pass around and look at when they're idle.

[JoeArcher]

To improve you need to push yourself and for me that means a successful check on TN 14 when you have 4 in a skill just won't cut it. About a 50-50 success rate would be fine to allows for earning an AP.

At skill 1 I'd say a TN of 12+ would do, at 2 you'd need a success on a TN 13 test, at 3 you'd need TN 16... but well beyond 3 it gets weird as you'd need TN 20 at skill 4, TN 23 at 5 and TN 27 at 6. You could also simply rule that you need more than half your skill dice to land on 6's. That may be easier.

But I agree with RAW the AP system sort of breaks down, due to the success rate.

[zedturtle]

The thing with awarding AP's is that while some categories get maxed out more quickly, Movement via Travel, Personality with Awe and Persuade in Encounters and Vocation with Battle it isn't that useful. The distribution of Common skills is obviously designed to spread the AP gain as the skills are not listed alphabetically but you still get three points in Personality fairly quickly. The limit of three APs in any one category per Adventure Phase is self limiting and in order to get more APs the player must test a variety of skills from the different categories. Now one could have three ranks in one skill from each category and spam that to farm AP but that's self defeating as when you really need a skill that you haven't invested in or you have failed to improve a skill as another hero has that at a decent rank you may then find your self short when testing in a situation where all the companions must test.

The learning from failure is in the original rules LMB p30.

Yep, that the learning from failure didn't make it into the new rules is one of my few pet peeves with the revised edition.

Other than agreeing with AP for spectacular failures, and/or invoking a trait to explain a failure with an Eye, I don't really think there's a problem. Yes, it encourages you to get skill 3 in each category before branching out, but given the high cost of increasing a skill above that you're probably (interesting problem to model) statistically better off if you then allocate some points in the other skills, even if you're just min-maxing to increase AP chances.

The only thing I've struggled with has been remembering how & when you get AP, and then remembering to mark them. Now that I've got it (helped by the rule changes) and I'm used to the game I really like the system. But that does raise the question of whether it's too much for new players. Maybe the character sheet could have reminders above the three columns of dots? (In a really, really tiny font...)

Yeah, one of the advantages of requiring a different condition for each dot is you could indicate it by a symbol: a 'S' for any kind of success over one dot, a Gandalf rune over the middle dot for notable successes and an Eye of Sauron rune over the last dot for notable failures.

I have a hard time keeping track of who has earned what points; that's why I do an audit at the end of the session. But if I kept the character sheets up to date, then I could award points at the time of earning... this just started as an (even) easier way to determine when to award points.

[zedturtle]

In my experience, most players level up their skills in anticipation of using the skill itself to greater effect rather than increasing the chance of an AP. They do want to gain more in the future, but when they're in the Fellowship Phase and looking at their options, they simply want to improve their characters to be more successful during the next quest. I always hear, "I'm sick of failing these rolls, I need another die!"

That being said, I realize there are plenty of number-crunching min-maxers out there who take great joy in gaming all the systems...

Some would say that they're 'using the rules to their maximum effectiveness in order to create interesting and memorable characters' or something to that effect. But as H.S. points out above, TOR is a system that rewards generalists; a one-trick pony doesn't get very far in this game and I am eternally grateful to Francesco et al. for making that so.

But I agree with RAW the AP system sort of breaks down, due to the success rate.

This may be more of a perceptual problem than a real problem; I've yet to see a maxed out character in action. Slowing the progression down could be useful, but I was also trying to come up with a system that rewards generalists for spreading out their rolls, thus the inclusion of learn by failing options.

[Glorelendil]

To improve you need to push yourself and for me that means a successful check on TN 14 when you have 4 in a skill just won't cut it. About a 50-50 success rate would be fine to allows for earning an AP.

At skill 1 I'd say a TN of 12+ would do, at 2 you'd need a success on a TN 13 test, at 3 you'd need TN 16... but well beyond 3 it gets weird as you'd need TN 20 at skill 4, TN 23 at 5 and TN 27 at 6. You could also simply rule that you need more than half your skill dice to land on 6's. That may be easier.

But I agree with RAW the AP system sort of breaks down, due to the success rate.

A player who invests in 5 skill with all his other skills low is making a foolish mistake.

And a player who has 5 in lots of skills and hasn't permanently succumbed to shadow madness has a softie for an LM.

[zedturtle]

And a player who has 5 in lots of skills and hasn't permanently succumbed to shadow madness has a softie for an LM.

** raises hand **

Maybe I'm too nice; how much Shadow do you think folks should get in a typical session and/or adventure? My players are almost too straight and narrow; the worst thing they've ever done is confiscate some "evidence" in the form of gold coins from Hartfast without his knowledge. Of course, Hartfast was a real jerk to them.