Barf Forth Apocalyptica

barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: john anderson on September 09, 2010, 08:50:06 AM

Title: Experience Stat
Post by: john anderson on September 09, 2010, 08:50:06 AM
In the A|State hack we're looking at slightly changing one aspect of experience. In vanilla AW, one other player and the MC choose a stat each and when rolled you gain experience. In A|S we're going to try the following...

One player (and this includes the MC) can highlight 1 stat. The other highlighted stat is the defining stat for that character (Mapmaker is smarts etc). The player does not choose a stat to highlight. Other than that highlighting stats works exactly the same way.

Issue that may arise...
A single stat that max's out quite quickly.
The player loses the ability to highlight one of their own stats.

Any other thoughts?

John
Title: Re: Experience Stat
Post by: Chris on September 09, 2010, 09:01:46 AM
Issue that may arise...
A single stat that max's out quite quickly.
The player loses the ability to highlight one of their own stats.

Any other thoughts?

John

Do the stats go up when you roll them? I don't understand what you mean by maxing out. If they work normally besides this, than this isn't really an issue.

And the actual player never has the ability to highlight their own stat, so I don't really see that as an issue.

And, uhhh, why? What's the reasoning here? Are you trying to reinforce a certain class-based form of play? AW seems to accomplish the same thing by making the classes' character moves based on certain stats. So the gunlugger has several moves that use hard, making that a sort of defining stat for the character.

I think it'll work fine. The only really effect I see it having is to impose tighter control over how the character acts through every session. And then only if the player is really worried about gaining experience.
Title: Re: Experience Stat
Post by: john anderson on September 09, 2010, 09:26:55 AM
I got confused. Yeah, as per experience, rolling that stat gains you an experience check and doesn't change the stat. And yes, I got the fact that characters choose the highlighted stat as well. 1 by another player & 1 from the MC.

Why? Partly to reinforce the fact that that stat is the most important for that type of character, and secondly to focus their experience gain to that stat.

John
Title: Re: Experience Stat
Post by: chuckles on September 09, 2010, 02:31:32 PM
... and ... to focus their experience gain to that stat...

What do you mean by this? The highlighted stat doesn't focus their improvement on that stat; you could roll hard, gain experience, and take an improvement that raises weird.

This whole change is just likely to speed up improvement, as the class is likely to make a lot of rolls with their main stat if they're playing an archetypal example of that class.
Title: Re: Experience Stat
Post by: Martina on September 10, 2010, 03:00:28 AM
Since you get to mark experience whether you succeed or fail when you roll, I feel that the reason for highlighting new stats every now and then is to see other sides of the characters.
It´s also an effective mechanic for the MC and the other players to force each other to go the way they want the campaign to head? "I really need you to beat the shit out of my character´s enemies today, highlight Hard."