Drama Dice and Experience

[Clay]

I was never quite happy with the Experience rules, as it was more something I included because I had to than a true extension of OVA's vibe. Because OVA lets you create the super-samurai or bad-ass bounty hunter straight out of the gate, traditional "Let's level up!" mentality doesn't really seem appropriate.

Someone some time back – if you come across this, feel free to make yourself known! – proffered the concept of rewarding Drama Dice as experience. I'm starting to like the idea of this, and a Drama Dice "pool" characters can keep around instead of just spending Endurance.

So here's a rough outline of the idea. Let me know what you guy's think.

Characters start off with a Drama Dice pool of 0. (or 1, or some other small number). At the end of Adventures, the GM may reward Players with one Drama Die if they role-played well, were good Players in general, and other such factors that GM's would normally award experience for.

Game Master's may ALSO reward a Drama Die on the spot, if a Player role-plays a Weakness in such a manner that causes serious complications for the character but greatly increases the enjoyment of the game.

Drama Dice may be kept and spent whenever. I'm thinking about recommending Players keep a number of dice set aside equal to their total Drama Dice that they may pick up and add to their rolls as needed. But perhaps simply a hit point-like tally of Drama Dice is better.

Drama Dice may also be spent, between sessions, to improve Abilities in a manner similar to how Experience works now, with you purchasing the current level for face value and also buying all levels in between. If you have a +1 Ability, it costs 2 to raise it to +2, and 5 to raise it to +3, and so on. But since Drama Dice rewards are generally much less than the old Experience system, growth should be slow even if Player's hoard their dice.

Finally, you can still burn Endurance to gain Drama Dice, if you wish, but the cost has also been increased to 10 Endurance. I'm also considering disallowing this unless your Drama Dice pool is empty, but I'm not sure.

And that's the basics of it. I'm wondering if a pool set aside goes against the grain of the game, so I'm eager to hear all of your opinions on this.

(One last thing: Lucky would effectively enforce a minimum Drama Dice pool at the start of each adventure. I would not recommended adding this number to the character's current Drama Dice pool, as this could quickly get out of hand. Lucky Dice can also never be spent as Experience.)

[calibur1]

Drama Dice may be kept and spent whenever. I'm thinking about recommending Players keep a number of dice set aside equal to their total Drama Dice that they may pick up and add to their rolls as needed. But perhaps simply a hit point-like tally of Drama Dice is better.

Drama Dice may also be spent, between sessions, to improve Abilities in a manner similar to how Experience works now, with you purchasing the current level for face value and also buying all levels in between. If you have a +1 Ability, it costs 2 to raise it to +2, and 5 to raise it to +3, and so on. But since Drama Dice rewards are generally much less than the old Experience system, growth should be slow even if Player's hoard their dice.

I ran into this same system in old D6 Star Wars, except that they were called Character Points. In the short game they worked out. The players would spend their "CP" to improve rolls at dramatic times, because character advancement wasn't an issue. In the long games, however, it brought on resentment between the players.

There was always the guy that spent his CP freely to help the group and add flare to the scene. This guy was always awarded bonus CP for doing those things, but he still spent them as fast as he got them. Consequently his character improved only slightly over the course of the campaign.

Then there was the guy that horded his CP no matter what the cost. He received considerably less CP than the other guy, but he didn't care. In the long run his character improved faster over the course of the campaign, and it was deduced that he didn't need "drama dice" because his abilities were permanently better than his companions and that made up for what he wasn't spending.

The logic...

If my Weapon Skill is 2D and I have 12 CP, then I can boost my skill temporarily to 14D once or 8D twice, or 6D three times. You get the picture.

But if I just spend my 12 CP for advancements, I permanently raise my Weapon Skill to 5D. It's not as good as having 14, or 8, or 6, but it is a consistent improvement in the long run. You can roll your 14D against me... once. But you still might fail. I will always have 5D against you!

A lot of this depends on what success and failure means in game mechanics. In games with "number of successes" having 14D is huge! In games where a single success has the consequence of either just hitting or missing, than I rather have a small permanent increase than random temporary power ups.

The lesson that was learned in D6 Star Wars was that no good deed goes unpunished. Eventually everyone stopped spending CP to improve rolls and just opted to raise their abilities. Nobody wanted to be the guy with poor skills that occasionally got a spectacular shot in. They all wanted to be the superstar that could shoot the wings off a fly blindfolded all the time.

[Oni]

If you go this route, I would suggest that you make Drame Dice an alternate award for XP in games where advancement is not really appropriate to the genre, or should at least be slower. That is to say Drama Dice shouldn't be able to be spent as XP, but they still make a suitable reward when XP is not really needed or wanted. So you can award XP, Drama Dice, or some combination thereof but the functions should remain separate to combat the problems calibur1 spoke of. As a reward for playing on weakness in particular I like as it encourages being in character. Kind of beginning to remind me of Hero Points from M&M, and that's not a bad thing.

[calibur1]

If you go this route, I would suggest that you make Drame Dice an alternate award for XP in games where advancement is not really appropriate to the genre, or should at least be slower. That is to say Drama Dice shouldn't be able to be spent as XP, but they still make a suitable reward when XP is not really needed or wanted. So you can award XP, Drama Dice, or some combination thereof but the functions should remain separate to combat the problems calibur1 spoke of. As a reward for playing on weakness in particular I like as it encourages being in character. Kind of beginning to remind me of Hero Points from M&M, and that's not a bad thing.

I like the way Hero Points (ie drama dice) and Power Points (ie XP) were kept separate in Mutants & Masterminds. Any smart GM would award a slow progression of PP to allow that gradual improvement of characters and give out HP like "bennies" for good role-playing and accomplishing short-term goals.

[Clay]

Ah, yes, very true. I remember being very annoyed at the Star Wars RPG for this reason. It just didn't make sense to spend "valuable" XP on a die roll. Somehow I managed to not think this way by calling it "Drama Dice" instead of "Character Point." Oy. Bad design decision averted.

That said, what do you guys think of a permanent Drama Dice pool? Good idea? Or should it simply be left as an Endurance expenditure?

[Father of Dragons]

Ah, yes, very true. I remember being very annoyed at the Star Wars RPG for this reason. It just didn't make sense to spend "valuable" XP on a die roll. Somehow I managed to not think this way by calling it "Drama Dice" instead of "Character Point." Oy. Bad design decision averted.

Similar changes have been made in Savage Worlds and the Cortex system for similar reasons. Hero points == experiance points is one of those ideas that a lot of designers try, and think better of.

That said, what do you guys think of a permanent Drama Dice pool? Good idea? Or should it simply be left as an Endurance expenditure?

I like the idea of a pool. Each of PDQ# (where they are called style dice), True20 (where they are called conviction points) and Spirit of the Century/Fate 3.0 (where they are called fate point) use pools of hero points that can be earned by disadvantaging yourself, and burned for various advantages or effects. It's one of those ideas that is getting moderately widespread because it works, particularly for a cinematic game.

[calibur1]

That said, what do you guys think of a permanent Drama Dice pool? Good idea? Or should it simply be left as an Endurance expenditure?

I like having to burn Endurance for Drama Dice and the GM handing them out as short-term rewards in lieu of XP.

[otaku-banchou]

If you were going to use a drama dice pool, you could add other uses for drama dice. For example; for a number of drama dice, once a session when you run out of health and endurance you can bring yourself back with 5 health and 20 endurance, enough for one final attack.

Something like this, along with the normal use of drama dice and miracles and possibly some others uses could increase the cinematic feel of the system.

If you were going to make a pool of drama dice, I don't think you should also be able to burn endurance for drama dice. Instead, at the start of each session, each character starts with 4 drama dice, which lucky would add to, plus any extra dice that they were awarded but didn't use.

[Erinak]

Here is some interesting review on a system that used drama dice for xp:

http://gamingoutpost.com/articles/unreg ... ers_guide/

See the third paragraph in the Mechanics section.

Summary - expending drama dice in that system you did not get them back, they were spent and gone - so it encouraged players to hoard drama dice and use them solely for XP.

It may work better if you get all drama dice back (eventually) after use, then the player could make the decision to spend them permanently to improve their character and not worry about losing XP by using drama dice for stuff like staying alive.

How would that work for luck though? Maybe drama dice from luck are regained faster or another mechanic put in place for luck? <I'm a bit unclear what Clay mentioned about it in the op>

Miracles were strange to work with - we played that a miracle was a success by 1 always, which kind of left much to be desired if it was used for an attack roll. Damage = 1 x Damage Value was not exciting use for a miracle. I thought of an idea that miracle could buy an extra die and player dictated what the die result would be - seemed to work better but still you could get a series of lousy rolls and still end up with nothing.

I recommend having dynamic uses for endurance, but not so many types of uses it become complicated to figure out how best to use it. Sometimes having too many choices means no choice is made.

<That being said - I liked the idea of awarding drama dice over xp, as long as they aren't permanently lost using them for drama stuff>

I had to work out an XP system in our group - I found awarding 2-4 XP per session was a 'comfortable' zone for awards, but if following the book it made for too rapid advancement. I used a simple twist on the book rules where xp cost to raise an ability was 2x the level of the next ability level, so raising from 2 to 3 would be 6 XP and I could scale that multiplier up for games with slower advancement to x3 or even x4. If you use drama dice because they would serve a dual purpose and not just be a counter statistics - you could award far fewer and it would still feel like an award.

I agree that it's nice to feel you don't have to advance a character - but for many that is also part of the fun to see them grow in power and an XP or award system is needed for consistency.

Still one player once expressed to me there was 'no sky' to raising abilities, once you reached that level 5, that was it. I've been toying with an optional rule to give small perks for levels beyond 5, such as giving a fixed bonus to die rolls concerning that ability, reducing some of the randomness of the dice system as a reward. Did not have to be a big perk as even small advancements give a feeling of accomplishment to players.

[Joe_Mello]

I sort of liked how the old way worked. In RP practice, it was like the character yelled at the problem until it was solved (or he just put more effort into to it, but yelling at it is funnier) but the character would be markedly worse for wear because of it.

The way I could see me using Drama Dice over a prolonged campaign is that Lucky (and its non-existent parallel, Unlucky) awarded dice per "day", and at the end of the "day" all free dice and EP spent on dice would refresh. XP (still optional, by the way) could then be spent on ranks of Lucky or Vitality if the player wanted to get more drama dice.

[Clay]

Joe: I've pretty much come to the same conclusion. I've been reading a bunch of "new-fangled" RPGs lately (like Spirit of the Century), and it's led to a period of design confusion in my head. But I had Doctor Tomori check it out, and I'm all good to go.

I still may include a note of offering Drama Dice as "bennies" somewhere in the GM's section or under Experience, but I've dropped any sort of permanent pool.

I think the solution to the XP system is to simply to REDUCE the amount the book encourages handing out. That or double the costs as Erinak recommended.

I'm sorely tempted to say "You get XP through RP. If you RP meeting a ninja master and tutoring under him, you raise your ninja-ing abilities" and calling it a day. But I'm suspicious that won't fly, as I felt when I first wrote the book. That, and it certainly doesn't account for "downtime" between seasons and episodes.

BTW Erinak: If you check the post about Scale, you have a new opportunity for breaking the OVA "ceiling" per se. Either have Players start at +1 again in a new scale, write +6 down, or just make it REALLY EXPENSIVE to jump scales.

[Oni]

Hurm...maybe it could fly, depending on how you put it.

Characters grow as is appropriate for the type of series they're part of. Experience Points should be rewarded when growth of the characters is appropriate to the series. In some series characters steadily grow stronger, others only in leaps and spurts. For some it is appropriate to be able to vastly improve their abilities and for others it makes sense that they change very little over time. The players and GM should decide what time of series they would like to run at the outset. The GM can then award experience as often and as much as is appropriate for your series. It is recommended it be kept roughly even between all the players characters so that no one feels left behind.

I might recommend the you change the experience cost to increase the GM's control how they disperse experience. Currently handing out just 1xp is quite a bit. If you multiply the cost by 10 however 1xp becomes a much smaller increment. The benefit I see to this it allows you a GM to regularly reward experience (players like their experience) without it escalating as quickly, and for those that wish a faster pace they can simply award more as appropriate for their game.

I think things like good roleplaying can be rewarded with Drama Dice and being inventive is its own reward.

[Clay]

I thought about x10. It's not quite as elegant as saying "An Ability costs whatever Level you're trying to buy" but it certainly allows Players to get the feeling of getting something every adventure without shooting up their capabilities in short order.

Encouraging variable growth options is also interesting. Thanks

[Cloud]

For all their bells and whistles, the new fangled rpgs aren't always perfect.

[Erinak]

BTW Erinak: If you check the post about Scale, you have a new opportunity for breaking the OVA "ceiling" per se. Either have Players start at +1 again in a new scale, write +6 down, or just make it REALLY EXPENSIVE to jump scales.

I read about that in the blog and excited to see how it reads in the revised. I just wonder something - obvious how it works for abilities that grant dice for success rolls - there will be a way to scale other abilities such as those that add fixed values like endurance and health?