Reward system discussions elsewhere
I’m at a writers conference right now, so I’m not doing much writing. I’ll be back next Saturday with my own thoughts about what the use is of these various kinds of experience and advancement systems, but it looks like this is a somehow timely topic. Vincent Baker and John Kim are also talking about reward systems and how they contribute to play.
- Reward systems
- “Saying it that way, and having compared to poker, makes me think this question is almost like asking ‘Isn’t flipping cards its own reward?’ Ok sure, for some folks, in need of something mindless do just shuffle cards and such, and such fiddling is the reward.”
- A few thoughts on mechanical reward systems
- “Mechanical reward systems can serve very different functions. I think a simple approach would be to consider play which has only flat awards, and then ask how you would like play to be different than that. For example, if you want to emphasize teamwork, or competition, or showmanship -- then you can try to arrange mechanical awards which highlight these.”
- Freeform Reward Mechanics
- “In the absence of agreed upon procedures, the social interactions between players become the defacto system.”
- Forge: [Frostfolk, ] Carrying on
- “At this late date, it seems to me that mechanics like Luck/Unluck in Champions or Good Stuff/Bad Stuff in Amber were kind of transitional between a D&D model and a (for example) Shadow of Yesterday one.”
More reward systems
- Level drain in Gods & Monsters
- Why no level drain? Because levels are a reward; taking them away is a punishment.
- Experience and Advancement in Role-Playing Games
- Kill monsters. Take their stuff. How has character advancement in role-playing games changed over the years? Starting with original D&D and on up through a handful of modern games, I’ll be surveying methods of experience and character advancement over the years.
More rewards and experience
- Experience and Advancement in Role-Playing Games
- Kill monsters. Take their stuff. How has character advancement in role-playing games changed over the years? Starting with original D&D and on up through a handful of modern games, I’ll be surveying methods of experience and character advancement over the years.
- Rewards and improvement in Dungeons & Dragons
- Kill monsters. Take their stuff. How has character improvement in D&D changed over the years? This article in the RPG experience series looks at changes in experience point acquisition from early D&D through later versions of the game and later games by the authors.
- Experience in Generic Role-playing Games
- After D&D, it seemed as though anyone could write up game rules and publish them—and many did. From Tunnels & Trolls through GURPS, how did these games deal with experience and character advancement?
- Experience in world-based role-playing games
- In the eighties and through the nineties, people started writing games where the world was more important than the rules. In theory, this should make for a different kind of character advancement as well.
- Experience in thematic role-playing games
- Thematic games combine a love of rules with a love of setting. In these metagames, the rules are the setting, and the setting is the rules. Further, acknowledging the rules makes it easier to remove them. Such games are usually acutely aware that character advancement is a reward encouraging the actions that incur the reward and which move the game towards a specific conclusion.
- Two more pages with the topic rewards and experience, and other related pages