Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 10:52 pm
Conclusion of the Game
I don't know if this section got its name because you hand out XPs at the end of a session or because this is the last chunk of rules. In any case, you get XP for the following unnecessarily-capitalized things:
HEROIC DEEDS
COMPASSIONATE ACTS
USE OF ABILITIES
CREATIVE USE OF MAGIC
ACHIEVING ADVENTURE GOALS
INVENTIVENESS
ACCURATE AND CREATIVE PORTRAYAL OF CHARACTER
There is no particular explication of these categories. How 'using abilities' is distinct from 'creative use of magic' is distinct from 'inventiveness' is not addressed. It's clear that this list was brainstormed up and never edited. That said, I do appreciate the place this list was coming from, which was clearly not the AD&D-wargame place. What text we do get is confused and contradictory. One example is that of a druid who 'turns aside from the quest to help a sick child' earning 15 xp for COMPASSIONATE ACTS. Later on, they recommend an arbitrary limit of 5 points per act.
There is also a recommended hard limit of 50 points per player per session. I kind of like the implication that if you don't happen to be into COMPASSIONATE ACTs, you could just fill up your session's max on categories you are into. What I don't like is the implication of how long it takes to advance.
Back when the classes were being listed, one thing I didn't mention is that they were all statted up as Station 1 lowbies. What is Station? It's a little muddy to explain. On the one hand, Station represents the experience half of your magical skills. A magic skill has two components: Talent, and Station. A person with Talent 15 and Station 1 has the same spellcasting roll as a person with Talent 1 and Station 15.
But your highest Station is also your character Station, which is very much your level. Whenever your highest Station increases, you get a level-up where your Resistance, Renewal, Capacity, and Lifewell all go up, as well as one of your non-magical stats. Indeed, we get a little spiel where Station is supposedly an in-setting term that people introduce themselves with, like Circle in EarthDawn (that this appears in exactly none of the novels or even the fiction in this book is apparently an oversight).
Here we get into the problem: it's never explicitly stated that your characters are supposed to start at Station 1 in all their magic skills (and therefore at Character Station 1), but it is strongly implied. Which is kind of amazeballs bad, because the sample characters I've been basing my average person math on are Station 10 (one is specifically a spoiled 16-year old, the other is an underachieving field hand). I have difficulty grasping what Station 1 is supposed to represent. Grade schoolers?
Worse, to get from Station 1 to Station 10 in a single magical skill costs a cumulative 1190 xp, or twenty-four sessions worth. In twenty-four game sessions, you can be as good at one kind of magic as an underachieving field hand. To be as good as that guy in all his magic skills would take fifty-four sessions. It's mind-boggling. I can only assume that the recommended XP/session and the advancement cost table were written separately and never compared.
I'll be skipping Appendix I, it's just stats for a bunch of significant characters from the novels, and there's no point. The system's too fail to judge them as accurate or inaccurate representations.
Next Up: Appendix II – Adapting to Other Game Systems (not included: adapting to other game systems)
I don't know if this section got its name because you hand out XPs at the end of a session or because this is the last chunk of rules. In any case, you get XP for the following unnecessarily-capitalized things:
HEROIC DEEDS
COMPASSIONATE ACTS
USE OF ABILITIES
CREATIVE USE OF MAGIC
ACHIEVING ADVENTURE GOALS
INVENTIVENESS
ACCURATE AND CREATIVE PORTRAYAL OF CHARACTER
There is no particular explication of these categories. How 'using abilities' is distinct from 'creative use of magic' is distinct from 'inventiveness' is not addressed. It's clear that this list was brainstormed up and never edited. That said, I do appreciate the place this list was coming from, which was clearly not the AD&D-wargame place. What text we do get is confused and contradictory. One example is that of a druid who 'turns aside from the quest to help a sick child' earning 15 xp for COMPASSIONATE ACTS. Later on, they recommend an arbitrary limit of 5 points per act.
There is also a recommended hard limit of 50 points per player per session. I kind of like the implication that if you don't happen to be into COMPASSIONATE ACTs, you could just fill up your session's max on categories you are into. What I don't like is the implication of how long it takes to advance.
Back when the classes were being listed, one thing I didn't mention is that they were all statted up as Station 1 lowbies. What is Station? It's a little muddy to explain. On the one hand, Station represents the experience half of your magical skills. A magic skill has two components: Talent, and Station. A person with Talent 15 and Station 1 has the same spellcasting roll as a person with Talent 1 and Station 15.
But your highest Station is also your character Station, which is very much your level. Whenever your highest Station increases, you get a level-up where your Resistance, Renewal, Capacity, and Lifewell all go up, as well as one of your non-magical stats. Indeed, we get a little spiel where Station is supposedly an in-setting term that people introduce themselves with, like Circle in EarthDawn (that this appears in exactly none of the novels or even the fiction in this book is apparently an oversight).
Here we get into the problem: it's never explicitly stated that your characters are supposed to start at Station 1 in all their magic skills (and therefore at Character Station 1), but it is strongly implied. Which is kind of amazeballs bad, because the sample characters I've been basing my average person math on are Station 10 (one is specifically a spoiled 16-year old, the other is an underachieving field hand). I have difficulty grasping what Station 1 is supposed to represent. Grade schoolers?
Worse, to get from Station 1 to Station 10 in a single magical skill costs a cumulative 1190 xp, or twenty-four sessions worth. In twenty-four game sessions, you can be as good at one kind of magic as an underachieving field hand. To be as good as that guy in all his magic skills would take fifty-four sessions. It's mind-boggling. I can only assume that the recommended XP/session and the advancement cost table were written separately and never compared.
I'll be skipping Appendix I, it's just stats for a bunch of significant characters from the novels, and there's no point. The system's too fail to judge them as accurate or inaccurate representations.
Next Up: Appendix II – Adapting to Other Game Systems (not included: adapting to other game systems)