Linear CharGen/Geometric Advance Needn't Be Inherently Bad
Posted: Thu Mar 28, 2019 1:06 am
I didn't want to derail any existing threads with this, but I've heard this often enough...and it's worth going into a little bit.
What I'm Talking About
In a game like GURPS, character generation and character advancement are essentially the same seamless system: you spend points according to a set schedule and get the same increases, regardless whether or not the points are spent before or after character generation. This is linear generation coupled with linear advancement[/i], where the costs remain the same throughout. It is instinctive and easy to follow system; it is also generally fairly long and tedious as the point costs creep up there, as it can happen in very detailed systems.
In a game like Vampire: the Masquerade, character generation and character advancement use different systems. For chargen, you are given set amounts of points which are to be allocated to specific parts of the character sheet in discrete steps; and after chargen, further advancement happens by buying up additional points using XP, usually at a geometric rate (i.e New Rating times X). This design method simplifies chargen considerably (fewer points, fewer choices) and leads to relatively slower character growth (because the higher your numbers, the more points you need to raise your numbers).
Both systems have their strategic character-building advantages. Linear chargen/advancement offers great detail and improvement is relatively easy, quick, and can be fast if the gamemaster is generous with the points. Linear chargen/geometric advancement tends to lead to front-loaded character building, as it is generally cheaper to raise your numbers at chargen where prices are fixed than it is to raise them later on during the game, where the cost of advancement increases.
More rarely, you might see a geometric generation/geometric advance. This generally happens when you want to keep the advantage of slower PC advancement after chargen and a large amount of detail at chargen. So systems like Shadowrun4e's KarmaGen give you a shitload of Karma and then tell you to use the regular Karma advancement rules to build your character.
I've never seen a geometric generation/linear advancement system, and it's hard to think of a situation where that would be useful - unless advancement was extremely limited in certain ways, in which case it's more important to how you build your character than improve them. I could see this working for some kind of Call of Cthulhu heartbreaker, given how skills are so shit and hard to advance...but I've never actually seen such a system implemented.
Why Is All That Bad?
It doesn't have to be, but it often is. Having linear costs at chargen and geometric costs for advancement, for example, can lead to a situation where two players build characters using the same method, but one character comes out with a character which is objectively worth more points post-chargen - usually by deliberately choosing options that have a fixed cost at chargen but an exponential cost at character advancement.
For most White Wolf and Shadowrun games, this generally boils down to Attributes, which are used in nearly every dice pool roll and are expensive to raise during character generation. It makes sense when building a character to try and maximize your dice pool, which generally means mathhammering out the ideal combination of high attribute and high skill(s) for whatever you want your character to do. Especially in games where opposition is measured by how much better their numbers are than your numbers, having the bigger numbers is important - and if the situation is lopsided enough, then some character options become bad because you're spending points on something that doesn't actively increase your numbers puts your character at a disadvantage.
That segues into an entirely separate conversation on trap options and poorly-designed skill systems that don't do what you actually want them to do. World of Darkness skills, for example, are notoriously stupid. What does it mean to have Thanatology 5? What does that do for you? What target numbers are you rolling against/how many hits do you need? Most of the skills in the system are worse than useless, but some of them - Melee, Firearms, Dodge, Occult - get much more attention because of their place in important combat/magic subsystems. Those are the skills you care about...and most of the time, you still try to avoid rolling them because the systems are terrible and you're likely to fail.
You can't force every character to be equally useful. Not with linear chargen, not with geometric chargen. Any time you force a player to spend points, that's an opportunity cost, and not all opportunity costs are equal or predictable. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to identify the obviously crap options and eliminate them, or to address imbalances to make the range of creatable characters something you can actually play the game with. Which brings us back to...
Linear CharGen/Geometric Advancement
Which is basically what I went with in Space Madness! - inspired more by Shadowrun than World of Darkness, and for about the same reasons. Adding points together at chargen is a lot quicker and simpler than just handing the players a big pile of points and some limits on how to spend them; it also helps control the dynamic range of the characters that can be created. In Space Madness, you pick two backgrounds and one order - the possible base range of combinations from that is (10 x 10 x 7 = 700)...not counting character specialization, Certs, or Equipment choices. Now, you might not want to play a Belter Terran Ordo Penares with a robotic forearm in place of your genitalia, but that is an option...and from a mechanical standpoint, while probably not the most optimized character, it will still be a viable character.
700 base characters isn't bad. It isn't tremendous, but it's more than sufficient for most purposes. You look at D&D3, just the basic book, there are 11 character classes and 6 races - that's 66 basic level 1 characters before you start to factor in alloting attributes and skills, selecting feats, and actually making the "build" decisions of your character.
But of course, you don't tend to see an even distribution of characters in D&D. There are a lot more Elf wizards than there are Half-Orc wizards. This is because Elves have wizard as their favored class and Half-Orcs have an Int penalty. The Half-Orc character has to spend more resources to get at where the Elf starts out...and the Elf still has an advantage on top of that.
If you had enough Space Madness! characters stat'd out, you'd see something similar develop - there are certain combinations of background and order that lead to min/maxing of certain dice pools. More or less. I tried to balance the numbers a little to avoid too many obvious combinations specifically because of that - it's also why each cosmic force doesn't use the same skill for every power. Min-maxing in one skill (like Combatives or Visualization) will not make a character overwhelmingly powerful - but it still provides sufficient incentive for characters that want to do that to specialize their character in that fashion.
And if more supplements were ever made to Space Madness!, whatever balance I tried to strike might be thrown out the window...but I think that by itself, there can be certain advantages to linear chargen/geometric progression. It doesn't automatically have to be the worst of both worlds.
What I'm Talking About
In a game like GURPS, character generation and character advancement are essentially the same seamless system: you spend points according to a set schedule and get the same increases, regardless whether or not the points are spent before or after character generation. This is linear generation coupled with linear advancement[/i], where the costs remain the same throughout. It is instinctive and easy to follow system; it is also generally fairly long and tedious as the point costs creep up there, as it can happen in very detailed systems.
In a game like Vampire: the Masquerade, character generation and character advancement use different systems. For chargen, you are given set amounts of points which are to be allocated to specific parts of the character sheet in discrete steps; and after chargen, further advancement happens by buying up additional points using XP, usually at a geometric rate (i.e New Rating times X). This design method simplifies chargen considerably (fewer points, fewer choices) and leads to relatively slower character growth (because the higher your numbers, the more points you need to raise your numbers).
Both systems have their strategic character-building advantages. Linear chargen/advancement offers great detail and improvement is relatively easy, quick, and can be fast if the gamemaster is generous with the points. Linear chargen/geometric advancement tends to lead to front-loaded character building, as it is generally cheaper to raise your numbers at chargen where prices are fixed than it is to raise them later on during the game, where the cost of advancement increases.
More rarely, you might see a geometric generation/geometric advance. This generally happens when you want to keep the advantage of slower PC advancement after chargen and a large amount of detail at chargen. So systems like Shadowrun4e's KarmaGen give you a shitload of Karma and then tell you to use the regular Karma advancement rules to build your character.
I've never seen a geometric generation/linear advancement system, and it's hard to think of a situation where that would be useful - unless advancement was extremely limited in certain ways, in which case it's more important to how you build your character than improve them. I could see this working for some kind of Call of Cthulhu heartbreaker, given how skills are so shit and hard to advance...but I've never actually seen such a system implemented.
Why Is All That Bad?
It doesn't have to be, but it often is. Having linear costs at chargen and geometric costs for advancement, for example, can lead to a situation where two players build characters using the same method, but one character comes out with a character which is objectively worth more points post-chargen - usually by deliberately choosing options that have a fixed cost at chargen but an exponential cost at character advancement.
For most White Wolf and Shadowrun games, this generally boils down to Attributes, which are used in nearly every dice pool roll and are expensive to raise during character generation. It makes sense when building a character to try and maximize your dice pool, which generally means mathhammering out the ideal combination of high attribute and high skill(s) for whatever you want your character to do. Especially in games where opposition is measured by how much better their numbers are than your numbers, having the bigger numbers is important - and if the situation is lopsided enough, then some character options become bad because you're spending points on something that doesn't actively increase your numbers puts your character at a disadvantage.
That segues into an entirely separate conversation on trap options and poorly-designed skill systems that don't do what you actually want them to do. World of Darkness skills, for example, are notoriously stupid. What does it mean to have Thanatology 5? What does that do for you? What target numbers are you rolling against/how many hits do you need? Most of the skills in the system are worse than useless, but some of them - Melee, Firearms, Dodge, Occult - get much more attention because of their place in important combat/magic subsystems. Those are the skills you care about...and most of the time, you still try to avoid rolling them because the systems are terrible and you're likely to fail.
You can't force every character to be equally useful. Not with linear chargen, not with geometric chargen. Any time you force a player to spend points, that's an opportunity cost, and not all opportunity costs are equal or predictable. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to identify the obviously crap options and eliminate them, or to address imbalances to make the range of creatable characters something you can actually play the game with. Which brings us back to...
Linear CharGen/Geometric Advancement
Which is basically what I went with in Space Madness! - inspired more by Shadowrun than World of Darkness, and for about the same reasons. Adding points together at chargen is a lot quicker and simpler than just handing the players a big pile of points and some limits on how to spend them; it also helps control the dynamic range of the characters that can be created. In Space Madness, you pick two backgrounds and one order - the possible base range of combinations from that is (10 x 10 x 7 = 700)...not counting character specialization, Certs, or Equipment choices. Now, you might not want to play a Belter Terran Ordo Penares with a robotic forearm in place of your genitalia, but that is an option...and from a mechanical standpoint, while probably not the most optimized character, it will still be a viable character.
700 base characters isn't bad. It isn't tremendous, but it's more than sufficient for most purposes. You look at D&D3, just the basic book, there are 11 character classes and 6 races - that's 66 basic level 1 characters before you start to factor in alloting attributes and skills, selecting feats, and actually making the "build" decisions of your character.
But of course, you don't tend to see an even distribution of characters in D&D. There are a lot more Elf wizards than there are Half-Orc wizards. This is because Elves have wizard as their favored class and Half-Orcs have an Int penalty. The Half-Orc character has to spend more resources to get at where the Elf starts out...and the Elf still has an advantage on top of that.
If you had enough Space Madness! characters stat'd out, you'd see something similar develop - there are certain combinations of background and order that lead to min/maxing of certain dice pools. More or less. I tried to balance the numbers a little to avoid too many obvious combinations specifically because of that - it's also why each cosmic force doesn't use the same skill for every power. Min-maxing in one skill (like Combatives or Visualization) will not make a character overwhelmingly powerful - but it still provides sufficient incentive for characters that want to do that to specialize their character in that fashion.
And if more supplements were ever made to Space Madness!, whatever balance I tried to strike might be thrown out the window...but I think that by itself, there can be certain advantages to linear chargen/geometric progression. It doesn't automatically have to be the worst of both worlds.