Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

[nexus]

Do you ask your players to explain how they're characters acquire new items, powers, etc with experience points or it is: If you can afford it, you can have it? Or somewhere in the middle?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

From a player point of view, I just find it more interesting if I have to go through explaining how things are acquired.

 

Though I do admit that occasionally a new Skill crops up out of the blue as a "I knew that already but never used it before" explanation.

[CTaylor]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

It depends on the game, for my Fantasy Hero game I require them to vet every single point through me and they are very carefully controlled on what they can buy and how much. In a superhero game I could care less, it's wild and wooly. If you want to show up the next day with a third arm, hey, it's a comic book, go to it.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I usually expect them to justify it in some way, but I'm liberal in the logic thereof. Usually it's a "learn by doing" thing -- if they've been using a lot of a particular Skill in the game, for example, then they might get a +1 with that Skill.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

They have to justify it, but I don't necessarily play out the process of acquiring the new ability; I often assume that whatever training is required has been occurring off-camera.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

More often than not, many Skills can be justified with a "And I start doing this in my spare time" and after an appropriate amount of Game Time has passed (which varies based on Genre and Game) it appears when XP is spent.

[Comic]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I do what's most fun for them if it's fair for the group.

 

90% of the time, no input from me is needed, as most players seem to find their own fun while being fair without prompting.

 

If they're asking to do something that seems unfair given how the group has worked or the direction I expect the game is going, I try to balance fairness and fun.

 

Be sad for a character to sink a lot of points into abilities that won't come up, or to suddenly and inexplicably gain out-of-genre powers while everyone else has worked toward being consistent with the campaign.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I've always liked the "slow buy" approach. We had a character decide to learn some detective work type skills. Easily justified - she took courses in her spare time. The player, however, bought the skills one point at a time - first a familiarity, then a 11- roll, finally a characteristic-based skill.

 

I have a character buying +1 SPD starting with an 8- activation (roll at the start of the turn - success means he gets the extra phase that turn). He'll go through every number starting with 8- (including both 12 and 13, although there's no cost difference and 16- and 17- although it's still full cost).

 

Justification? It doesn't have to be great, but putting a focus in the blender and drinking the result tends not to give you the focus' power.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

Justification? It doesn't have to be great' date=' but putting a focus in the blender and drinking the result tends not to give you the focus' power.[/quote']

 

It doesn't? dang.

 

That power ring tasted pretty bad too.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

It doesn't? dang.

 

That power ring tasted pretty bad too.

 

Well that's different - he's suffered for his powers!

[Fitz]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I'm fairly lenient when it comes to buying new skills and powers; as long as the player has made some sort of effort to justify it in terms of the campaign milieu, and it's not too outrageously munchkin or unbalancing, I'll generally let them have whatever they want. That has occasionally come around to bite me on the bum, but not too often.

 

I'll even let them spend points on some skills in the middle of a game, such as buying up an Everyman skill they've been using previously. I wouldn't allow them to do that with a completely new skill though.

[Drhoz]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I've always tried to stay in character for my choices myself. Hell, I've even spent the last year or so of gaming slowly, slowly building up to the purchase of some followers for Vitus. I'll get there eventually. In the mean time I've got 50 unspent points lying around.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I try to have people justify it, but I'm not overly strict on it since certain characters would tend to get a learning curve advantage based on their power SFX (Telepaths and Speedsters, for example).

[Nolgroth]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

Informally I try to enforce the Familiarity to Full Characteristic skill progression. The only "problem" I found is that there tends to be a lot of down time spent traveling between action sequences. There is a lot of justification to at least buy the skill up.

 

I allow new Contacts to be purchased right on the spot. Sometimes I give away Contacts and Favors. I mean, if the NPC is going to be a regular anyway, might as well give the PCs a chance to use the NPC for their own benefit.

 

Powers and stuff are trickier and I tend to look at the overall concept. One of the characters in my game is working on an interesting concept that allows him to develop really high tech. He has purchased the Perk High Tech Access up to ATRI 13 in a mostly ATRI 11 setting. He is currently working towards ATRI 14. I have no problem with him dumping a whole lotta points into that at any one time.

 

Another character is becoming steadily more "Jedi-like." (Different feel than Star Wars, but basically a warrior monk with an energy blade.) I don't want to give away any of that story in case the players read this, but the character has access to an unusual method of training and I allowed him to assemble most of the Energy Sword Fencing martial art from Star HERO rather quickly.

 

Another player constantly comes up with completely appropriate ideas for his character that hadn't been explored yet. If it is appropriate, I let that player purchase it for the character in question.

 

I tend to seek a balance between what's fun for the players and what is a reasonable progression rate. I also keep in mind how I used to feel when I had a concept and a certain GM was very restrictive on how XP was gained and spent. I finally gave up when I figured the "Life's a Journey" saying meant that it would take my entire life for the character to get where I wanted him. Not fun for me, so I tend to maybe even be a little bit liberal about character development.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

In our group we tend to have proposed new buys vetted by the other GMs; and our general rule is that any GM has right of veto. It's never actually happened because we tend to discuss character upgrades with our fellow players/GMs well in advance of the proposed (or actual) purchase so there's ample opportunity for GMs and players to understand if a proposed purchase is liable to run into difficulties.

 

I prefer to go the Familiarity -> General -> Characteristic Based route myself, but it's not required.

[Vondy]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I prefer that expenditures flow from the narrative or character background.

 

I do make exceptions. Or, at least, I'm pretty liberal about it.

 

In general, I like to know what my players future plans are so I can plan for them.

 

And maintain niches, etc.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I'm not handing out XP. It gives players ideas. I just update their character sheets when I feel it is appropriate.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I've always liked the "slow buy" approach.

 

I have a character buying +1 SPD starting with an 8- activation (roll at the start of the turn - success means he gets the extra phase that turn). He'll go through every number starting with 8- (including both 12 and 13, although there's no cost difference and 16- and 17- although it's still full cost). b

 

We do both those things in our games - I've had martial artists and speedsters do the activated speed thing all the time.

Justification? It doesn't have to be great, but putting a focus in the blender and drinking the result tends not to give you the focus' power.

I remember that quote from one of the older rulebooks.

I had a brick with mystic gems that gave her superstrength and defenses. I had her break them into dust, put it in a blender and made a shake out of them when I bought off my focus lim - By special effect, internalizing the focus. Just to be contrary.

[casualplayer]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I often assign targeted experience points along with the free range ones, often as Perks but other ways as well. I had a player get a bit part in a movie, his first screen work, and he nailed it with a 3 so I bestowed him with a hefty Acting Skill that materialized out of nowhere. Big bonus that the player was an amateur actor himself and was smiling ear to ear after the "gift." In another case, although the same player and character funnily enough, the character got a suit of high-tech armor that had a suite of powers and inherent disadvantages also. Net cost to the charater, zero.

 

I've rarely ever vetoed any expenditure but I do encourage the slow progression also in most case.

[Alibear]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I like to take it slow and build up to a climax slowly...

 

Wrong thread. Er, or hit 'em with a radiation accident to change dramatically.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I remember that quote from one of the older rulebooks.

 

Older rulebooks?

 

5ER p556

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

I absolutely do. The characters growth should either jive with past events, or if the player wants to go in a new direction they should inform me so that I can work it into the story going forward or in the case of really extreme "respecs" arrange a "radiation accident" type event.

[archermoo]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

Any point expenditures, whether starting points or XPs, need to have some kind of in game justification.

[Paragon]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

It tends to vary from campaign to campaign and genre to genre; in superhero games, improvement on extent things I tend to write off to simple practice and not pay attention; entirely new things I prefer to have some in-game explanation for. On the other hand, I tend to be more attentive in heroic scale games; in my upcoming fantasy game I'm using a number of the suggestions in The Ultimate Skill, for example.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Do you have players justify experience points expenditure?

 

The idea of XP is quite articifial as most pepole will reach a plateau that they cannot rise above in practice, and an awful lot of fictional characters don't seem to ever substantially change their abilities (of course others do on a week to week basis).

 

Moreover, in reality, abilities can go down as well as up if you don't use them, and it tends to get harder to improve the better you are.

 

It would be nice to see some rules to model this.