Barf Forth Apocalyptica

powered by the apocalypse => Dungeon World => Topic started by: Terwox on September 13, 2012, 04:46:48 PM

Title: Experience on a miss
Post by: Terwox on September 13, 2012, 04:46:48 PM
I can't find this in the pre-release, although I found it in the Regiment -- so, marking experience on a miss is usual?  In the level+7 to level up baseline paradigm?

I have been doing just the white wolf style three questions (info/enemy/treasure) + bond resolution + alignment at the end of a session to mark experience.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: skinnyghost on September 13, 2012, 04:49:27 PM
XP on a miss is definitely a thing.  It somehow fell into an editing void in the pre-release but has been re-added!
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: Scrape on September 14, 2012, 09:50:46 AM
To be honest, the 3question/alignment-only system is a totally viable alternative if you want a slower leveling pace or a more even party level. Sometimes the xp earned per session varies wildly, and one of my poorly-rolling PCs is two levels ahead of everyone. Xp-on-a-miss has its ups and downs.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: (not that) adam on September 14, 2012, 11:57:09 AM
yeah, it depends on personal tastes really. In our group, we love that there are pcs of different levels, it feels very old school and sort of videogame-y (in a positive way). But we also love very unbalanced parties in general (like, gandalf-aragorn-frodo, or superman-batman-robin), it makes the story more like actual movies and books, and last but not least, characters interaction and bonds are wonderfully fueled by differences like these. In DW, a character with a lot more levels than the others not only is usually the more active one (because he rolled more, resolved more bonds, and always followed his alignment), but is also the character who has seen the worst things coming by, and that counts for something story-wise!

Also, XPs on a miss prevents the "avoid the system" approach, where the players try anything to avoid moves where they have +0 or -1.
- "I do it!"
- "it's a move! Roll+0!"
- "wait wait, you're right, better try something else then"

But obviously, I can totally understand when a player sees himself two levels behind the others and feels like it's "unfair".
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: travatar on September 14, 2012, 04:32:56 PM
This may be obtuse, but so, when you say "it's a thing," does that mean when you roll a 6-, you mark xp?
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: Terwox on September 14, 2012, 06:46:11 PM
This may be obtuse, but so, when you say "it's a thing," does that mean when you roll a 6-, you mark xp?

That is correct.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: travatar on September 14, 2012, 07:48:07 PM
Cool. That does change some things!
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: Scrape on September 15, 2012, 01:22:52 AM
We had a great adventure where a PC failed almost every roll and came out nearly dead. It was hilarious and now he's two levels higher than the rest of the party. He's like the scarred up veteran so it works in that way for sure.

Being 2-3 levels higher doesn't mean as much in DW. He's got a few more Moves, sure, but the same Hp and his power level is only slightly higher. Sometimes it's silly but it totally works, it doesn't break the game and they all still adventure together fine with no imbalances.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: travatar on September 15, 2012, 01:33:44 AM
I can definitely see how it isn't game-breaking. I'm more interested to see how the rule handles the issues of narrative and flow of play. Like, do you get to say what you learn? Do you mark for every failure, or do you mark for each encounter where you blow a move like Burning Wheel?
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: (not that) adam on September 15, 2012, 01:49:35 AM
you mark XP for every miss.

It's just like apocalypse world where you mark xp for every roll (miss or hit) on your highlighted stats. Here, you mark only on a miss, but on every stat.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: skinnyghost on September 25, 2012, 10:49:33 PM
Every game I have ever played we get into this thing where a player makes a roll and blows it right at the last second and we all kind of sigh and laugh and someone says "well, at least you get XP" and we all have a good chuckle.

Doesn't matter if we've played together for ages or it's a brand new group.

I love it.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: Scrape on September 25, 2012, 11:07:12 PM
Every game I have ever played we get into this thing where a player makes a roll and blows it right at the last second and we all kind of sigh and laugh and someone says "well, at least you get XP" and we all have a good chuckle.

Doesn't matter if we've played together for ages or it's a brand new group.

I love it.

Yeah, in last night's session the Fighter hit every roll and was pissed about it, hahaha
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: LordEntropy on November 10, 2012, 04:59:26 AM
you mark XP for every miss.

It's just like apocalypse world where you mark xp for every roll (miss or hit) on your highlighted stats. Here, you mark only on a miss, but on every stat.

Damn to am I right in thinking you don't highlight stats in Dungeon World? I thought you did but couldn't find it in the latest text.  Comes I guess from having read AW, MotW, MH and DW.  Get rules overlap in my brain ;-)
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: armageddonsocks on November 10, 2012, 10:15:32 AM
XP on a miss is definitely a thing.  It somehow fell into an editing void in the pre-release but has been re-added!

It seems to have fallen back into that void, because there's nothing mentioned about marking XP on a miss in the current text from the latest download.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: pseudoidiot on November 10, 2012, 10:48:20 AM
I just downloaded it and I definitely see text in there on marking XP on a miss. Page 17 of the pdf.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: armageddonsocks on November 10, 2012, 11:22:30 AM
I just downloaded it and I definitely see text in there on marking XP on a miss. Page 17 of the pdf.

Hrrrm. You are dead on the money there - I must have mixed up my pdfs. Time to purge my DW download folder and start afresh. Thanks :)
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: Natalie on November 11, 2012, 06:54:52 PM
I just want to add a note that the behaviour this brings out in some players is really funny: I play with my cousins (ages 12 through 16) and the youngest was looking at the XP bar near the end of the session going "I need to make more moves so that I can fail some of them…"
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: Scrape on November 11, 2012, 09:04:04 PM
Yeah, it totally encourages playing outside your comfort zone and trying crazy stuff despite the odds. Totally perfect for the genre.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: LordEntropy on November 14, 2012, 03:29:44 AM
Anyone think including highlighting stats like in AW would break the game any? I did add this in unintentionally to my recent DW playtest session abd so far so good.  i am just thinking that it would allow even those succesful players to get some experience, assuming they roll a highlighted stat and would avoid the failing players being the only ones to progress.  Appreciate we learn more by our mistakes but we do also sometimes learn by our successes.

thoughts?
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: armageddonsocks on November 14, 2012, 04:23:07 AM
DW operated on highlighted stats in the first iteration. It wont break anything. Good discussion on it here, with a link to even more discussion:
 http://anarchangel23.livejournal.com/437462.html
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: skinnyghost on November 14, 2012, 12:38:57 PM
Anyone think including highlighting stats like in AW would break the game any? I did add this in unintentionally to my recent DW playtest session abd so far so good.  i am just thinking that it would allow even those succesful players to get some experience, assuming they roll a highlighted stat and would avoid the failing players being the only ones to progress.  Appreciate we learn more by our mistakes but we do also sometimes learn by our successes.

thoughts?

Highlighted stats used to be the way that people gained XP in Dungeon World, but we trashed it as a system because, honestly, it was pretty bad.  People would end up with STR highlighted and just look for excuses to hack and slash everything.  It drove play into a weird space we didn't really like. 

But then, if your group responds well to it, try it out!  Maybe it'll work out for you!  It definitely won't break anything, mechanically.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: LordEntropy on November 14, 2012, 02:06:48 PM
DW operated on highlighted stats in the first iteration. It wont break anything. Good discussion on it here, with a link to even more discussion:
 http://anarchangel23.livejournal.com/437462.html

Interesting discussions,  definitely gave me food for thought.
Title: Re: Experience on a miss
Post by: LordEntropy on November 14, 2012, 02:07:57 PM
Anyone think including highlighting stats like in AW would break the game any? I did add this in unintentionally to my recent DW playtest session abd so far so good.  i am just thinking that it would allow even those succesful players to get some experience, assuming they roll a highlighted stat and would avoid the failing players being the only ones to progress.  Appreciate we learn more by our mistakes but we do also sometimes learn by our successes.

thoughts?

Highlighted stats used to be the way that people gained XP in Dungeon World, but we trashed it as a system because, honestly, it was pretty bad.  People would end up with STR highlighted and just look for excuses to hack and slash everything.  It drove play into a weird space we didn't really like. 

But then, if your group responds well to it, try it out!  Maybe it'll work out for you!  It definitely won't break anything, mechanically.

My game currently is a kind of playtest to see if I can run it competently and whether the players enjoy it.  So I will see how highlighted stats go and if they prove to be troublesome then I will ditch them.

Thanks for the advice guys.