So, Spike mentioned this in one of the Dark Heresy threads. To sum up, it sounds like meaning the usually "I am a new adventurer, between the ages of 16 and 21, and will learn to be a bad ass". I won't say I am tired of it but I do take a different tack in game design. I tend to shoot for a flat power curve. Sure, you can get better at skills and better with your weapons but generally, a bullet to the head is going to kill you at first level will kill you at 10th, 20th, or 100th. I have found this keeps the game exciting.

So, the questions:

1. Thoughts on power creep? Love it, hate it, don't think it is an issue?

2. Is that path tired for you? Do you have a preferred development path? Any games you would like to site that support that?

3. Would you prefer to start powerful, weak to get powerful, stay at the same power level? By power, I am not talking about improvement so much as "I die from sneezing hard when I am first level, but can deflect bullets with my teats at 10th."

Thanks,
Bill

First, good question. It's one that sort of occured to me when I read that

1. I wouldn't call what you are describing "power creep". Or wait, what are you calling "power creep"?

2. It's a tired path. One I'll revist from time to time. But one I'm happy to get off when I can.

3. I like the flatter power scales. It has a lot of advantages, such as it's easier to play different characters without one totally dominating. Or maybe I'm confusing that with something else but it seems that way to me? I don't like dead flat though, or I guess more to the point I like to see change.  It also makes it easier to know what I'm getting with a given game.  If I want something different (and I really like different levels) I go somewhere else.  I'm definately OK with people that kick ass still occationally getting a bullet to the head and dropping dead.

Lately I've been on a real kick for power levels that are different outside of combat. I like playing General Hardass or the Archduke of Canterbury for a change-up.

Hate power creep love games where you start out and generally end at the same physical level it's your skills (and possible super powers) that generally set you apart.  You aren't a better fighter because you can take more damage and hit ubber harder, you are a better fighter because you are better at defending yourself and you do more damage because you are more skilled at attacking and hitting critical areas.

Which pretty much sums up why I love the Warhammer mechanics.  Your character actually gets better in a more realistic level.  You aren't a statistical God you are just damn good at what you do at higher levels.

Quote from: kryystYou aren't a better fighter because you can take more damage and hit ubber harder...

I remember from the "Death in 4e" thread that in D&D it is sort of semi-illusionary that that is what's happening. At least on the taking damage side and probably on the hit ubber harder side too. Because it's not real damage it's this quasi-defined Hit Points concept that increases.

Basically 4e is going to actually straighten the moderate bend in the curve that existed in D&D prior and make it mathematically offical that you don't actually take more damage. You just deal with bigger numbers.

And someone mentioned (and I forget who, it might have been Balbinus, and please pipe up and correct my paraphrasing if I'm off here) they had reworked AD&D 2e so characters had a fixed number of damage instead of increasing HP per level. Which is the natural progression beyond what's happening in 4e, the removing of the extra digits in the math.

Flaten the Power Curve.
I agree that experience should give you more skill and increase your 'super powers' be they spycraft, kung fu or magic.
I even think that you could have a character who's experience means they can bounce bullets (I had a Gangrel in  Vampire game i was runnign who spent all his experience being able to bounce bullets) but that has to be a reflection of a skill they work to improve as opposed to just an accident of experience.

"power creep" is a particular term; it refers to a situation where an RPG product line continues to release new books of setting and rules where everything gradually becomes more and more powerful than in earlier products.  Typical examples of this are RIFTS (where each sourcebook tends to present bigger guns that do more damage than ever before, and now OCCs that are way more powerful than the ones presented until that time), and D&D (where in each of the guides and manuals you end up with new feats that are more broken than before, new magic items that are more powerful, and new prestige classes or special abilities that are more and more broken).

What you're talking about here isn't power creep, its the Hero's Journey.

RPGPundit

Pundit is right about the terminology, this is Hero's Journey, power creep is as he describes.

That aside:

Quote from: HinterWelt1. Thoughts on power creep? Love it, hate it, don't think it is an issue?

I dislike it as a rule, not always, I like it occasionally, but mostly it bores me.  When I play a game, usually I want to play the thing that attracted me to that setting (which may be weak, powerful or whatever).  I don't want to play something which in a couple of years may allow me to play what I came to the game for.

Like trad fantasy, if I want to play a subtle and mysterious wizard I want to start as one, I don't want the chance to be one in two years time.

Quote from: HinterWelt2. Is that path tired for you? Do you have a preferred development path? Any games you would like to site that support that?

So tired it's passed out on my sofa and a bucket of water won't wake it up.  It's a default assumption for many rpgs, even where it makes no sense at all (see Dark Heresy for example).  I prefer flatter paths where there is change, but not necessarily advancement.  Traveller for example.

Quote from: HinterWelt3. Would you prefer to start powerful, weak to get powerful, stay at the same power level? By power, I am not talking about improvement so much as "I die from sneezing hard when I am first level, but can deflect bullets with my teats at 10th."

As you put it here,  I prefer to stay at much the same level.  I like games where a dagger is always a threat, where a punk in an alley with a knife could kill me even when I'm a veteran (though he's probably much less likely to then).  This is why I like BRP so much in part.

I enjoy the DnD game I play in, but my general tastes don't run that way, but then like most folk my general tastes are not the entirety of what I enjoy in gaming.

Quote from: RPGPundit"power creep" is a particular term; it refers to a situation where an RPG product line continues to release new books of setting and rules where everything gradually becomes more and more powerful than in earlier products.  Typical examples of this are RIFTS (where each sourcebook tends to present bigger guns that do more damage than ever before, and now OCCs that are way more powerful than the ones presented until that time), and D&D (where in each of the guides and manuals you end up with new feats that are more broken than before, new magic items that are more powerful, and new prestige classes or special abilities that are more and more broken).

What you're talking about here isn't power creep, its the Hero's Journey.

RPGPundit

I am sorry. I missed that day in gym class...I don't own that glossary...

Anyways, some other posters seem to understand what I was shooting for in context. For those who don't, (I don;t have the Super Secret Designer's Code Book) I mean "power creeping up over the life of your character in an extreme curve". I have no idea what "Hero's Journey" is.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltI am sorry. I missed that day in gym class...I don't own that glossary...

Anyways, some other posters seem to understand what I was shooting for in context. For those who don't, (I don;t have the Super Secret Designer's Code Book) I mean "power creeping up over the life of your character in an extreme curve". I have no idea what "Hero's Journey" is.

Bill

Bill, Hero's Journey is power creeping up over the life of your character in an extreme curve, think classic DnD.

Bugger, we have jargon too, now I'm going to struggle next time I criticise the Forge for using it...

Quote from: BalbinusBill, Hero's Journey is power creeping up over the life of your character in an extreme curve, think classic DnD.

Bugger, we have jargon too, now I'm going to struggle next time I criticise the Forge for using it...

Oh, no problem. Wasn't meant as snarky, just saying "I did not know that was a reserved phrase, here is what I meant".

I find "Hero's Journey" just a little positive for what I am trying to express here. It sounds like a happy-happy thing and I am not sure anyone would view it that way. Let me stress, to a lesser extent, I am confident that this is viewed very positively and have no problem. I don't really have examples of published rules but plenty of 2nd ed AD&D games I played in had the point where nothing could touch you. Maybe that is hwat you mean by "Hero's Journey" but it is a negative in my book when carried to an extreme, which is where I am shooting for.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltI have no idea what "Hero's Journey" is.

Luke Skywalker.  Farmboy to Savior-of-the-Universe.  Meet a couple of wise masters on the way, fall into temptation, return to the fold with the rewards of the tanscendant.  That sort of thing.

To my tastes, I can go either way, either starting out as a meek spear-carrier and rising to take my place among the heroes of legend (Luke Skywalker), or starting out competent and staying that way, but allowing change as a person (Han Solo).  What I don't enjoy is, as Balbinus suggested above, constantly chasing the carrot at the end of the stick in hopes that I'll someday get to play the character that I want to play, or -- and this is sort of the flip-side -- achieving such a state of profound advancement that I am no longer playing the character that I used to enjoy.  Both of these are potential pitfalls of level-based progression.

!i!

Quote from: HinterWeltOh, no problem. Wasn't meant as snarky, just saying "I did not know that was a reserved phrase, here is what I meant".

I find "Hero's Journey" just a little positive for what I am trying to express here. It sounds like a happy-happy thing and I am not sure anyone would view it that way. Let me stress, to a lesser extent, I am confident that this is viewed very positively and have no problem. I don't really have examples of published rules but plenty of 2nd ed AD&D games I played in had the point where nothing could touch you. Maybe that is hwat you mean by "Hero's Journey" but it is a negative in my book when carried to an extreme, which is where I am shooting for.

Bill

To go back to your original post, it may sound happy, but to folk like me who are heartily sick of it as a paradigm of rpg design it's not a happy phrase.

If I could remove one design element in rpgs, it would be advancement.

In fact, I'll start a new thread on that very topic

Quote from: Ian Absentia...achieving such a state of profound advancement that I am no longer playing the character that I used to enjoy.

That's the killer there. The other you can sort of fix in a lot of cases by saying "screw 1st level, lets start at nth level". As long as the game still functions well at nth level.

But then those steep power curves kick in and soon you are out of there. You could eschew XP and stay at nth level but usually that sucks too because you get near complete stagnation. Little or no meanigful [to me] change. Perhaps partially because the game was built around the carrot being the draw? *shrug*

Quote from: blakkieYou could eschew XP and stay at nth level but usually that sucks too because you get near complete stagnation. Little or no meanigful [to me] change. Perhaps partially because the game was built around the carrot being the draw? *shrug*

So what's the "carrot"?  Is the reward a semi-tangible commodity, like XP that make your character more powerful?  Or is the carrot the act of adventure itself?

Unless I'm mistaken, this path is taking us dangerously near the "Roleplaying vs. Roll-playing" argument.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaSo what's the "carrot"?  Is the reward a semi-tangible commodity, like XP that make your character more powerful?  Or is the carrot the act of adventure itself?

The carrot I speak of is change. Of new shining things your avatar can perform....to accomplish a new and different adventure. In the parlance of MMORPGs, bigger and better rats to wack.

There are multiple carrots but when one goes missing, one that a game leans on heavily, I think I'm allowed to notice.

QuoteUnless I'm mistaken, this path is taking us dangerously near the "Roleplaying vs. Roll-playing" argument.

Duely noted, let us be careful not to step over the edge.