Here we have a quite interesting discussion on experience, taking place in the Talisman-Group on 25.4.2001. Message: 1 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 07:06:18 EDT From: kulkmann@aol.com Subject: Re: Rules on experience Hi Jeff ! Well, the rules can be easily summarised: Whenever you kill an enemy (strength or craft), you gain experience points corresponding to their strength/craft values. Whenever you have 7 Experience points, you may spend them for either: 1 Craft, 1 Strength, 1 Life, 1 Talisman This way you will not lose any excess experience - it is just kept until you have 7 again. I have added a bit to these rules to get the game faster and more balanced: - you may never have more than 6 Lifepoints - one step to prevent Superheroes. - Likewise, Strength and Craft are limited to natural values of 8. They can only be increased further by weapons, spells, etc. This rule forces players to proceed to the Crown (or Dragons Tower) from a certain point onward, since they cannot get much better. On the other hand, the Inner Region (the Tower) still remains a challenge. This are nearly the only rules-adjustments which I use constantly in play (leaving apart some rules making a horse more interesting). If you want, lower the experience level for advancement to "6". This makes the game even faaaaster!!! Greetings from Germany, Frank ----------------- Message: 2 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 12:31:29 +0100 From: "Mr R S Horton" Subject: Lives and Death Dear All > I have added a bit to these rules to get the game faster and more > balanced: - you may never have more than 6 Lifepoints - one step to > prevent Superheroes. I have played a couple of times with a more unusual rule adaptation and wondered what the rest of the group thought: - No character can exceed four Lives at any time. - If a character loses their last life, they must make a pact with Death in order to remain in the game. Death will gift them with as many new lives as they like (up to the limit of four), but in return they must take five lives for every one they recieved. This can be done by killing enemies or other characters, but no benefits or experience points can be gained from lives taken on Death's behalf. - The killing of undead creatures (zombies, vampires, etc) or any Inner Region creature (as they are party within Death's domain already) does not count towards repaying a character's debt with Death. - Characters cannot choose which lives taken are to repay Death and which are not. All suitable lives taken until the debt is repaid in full will be used. - Whilst a character owes a debt to Death, they will be of Neutral alignment. - Any character who enters the Crown of Command and still owes a debt to Death will be thrown into the Horrible Black Void. This rule adaptation was brought about to stop players from dying early and then re-entering the game with a much better character and romping their way to victory. It also tended to make players more adventurous and led to a faster game. Thoughts? Regards Robert H --------------------- Message: 3 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 09:12:36 -0400 From: sam.wallace@bankofamerica.com Subject: Re: Lives and Death Hi Robert H, We are experimenting with a restriction on the number of Lives a Character can have (double the base amount) and stipulating that certain things permanently reduce the base number of Lives (e.g. the Crown of Command). When a Character's base number of Lives reaches 0, they are dead and gone. My wife has instituted a rule that you can only play with the original Characters that were dealt to you. This is both to make sure that pretty much all of the Characters get a fair shake, but that players do not engage in just the kind of tactics you described. I can see how the way you play hangs together pretty well, but do you ever run into a situation where a Character is consigned to a Purgatory of being too weak to advance and so getting killed and needing the lives to repay the debt and not advancing so it is too weak to advance and so on? That is the only real draw-back to the idea that I can see. Happy Gaming, Sam ------------------ Message: 4 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 09:23:32 -0400 From: sam.wallace@bankofamerica.com Subject: Re: Rules on experience Hi Jeff, Every time I read a message like yours, I want to point to my site where I have all of the rules so you can look at them more directly. Unfortunately, my site update has been delayed a bit. I do have all of the 2nd Edition rules there and will have the 3rd Edition set, as well (they are ready to go) as soon as I can find time to get organized. Frank did a pretty good job of explaining experience as it is laid out in the 3rd Edition. The only thing I want to add is that there are a few 2nd Edition Characters, mostly home-made, that would lose some of the advantage of their Special Abilities if you implemented the rules without modifying either the SAs or the rules slightly. This is because they were created with the 2nd Edition rules in mind and granted them the ability to count Enemy Spirits towards advancement of Craft, but not at the same rate as the newer rules. I personally think it is more logical to keep Craft Enemies for Craft Experience just as Strength Enemies are kept as trophies in the "official" 2nd Edition rules, but I can see that it would make the system slightly more cumbersome. Happy Gaming, Sam ---------------- Message: 5 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 14:53:48 +0100 From: "Mr R S Horton" Subject: Re: Lives and Death Dear Sam > We are experimenting with a restriction on the number of Lives a > Character can have (double the base amount) and stipulating that > certain things permanently reduce the base number of Lives (e.g. the > Crown of Command). When a Character's base number of Lives reaches 0, > they are dead and gone. My wife has instituted a rule that you can > only play with the original Characters that were dealt to you. This is > both to make sure that pretty much all of the Characters get a fair > shake, but that players do not engage in just the kind of tactics you > described. I have always played that a character's maximum number of Lives was four - treating it as health, so that you cannot exceed 100% healthy. This has led to a great deal of death and reincarnation in my games. Although we have never managed to get through the entire character deck in a single game, there have been occassions when it felt like it. > I can see how the way you play hangs together pretty well, but do you > ever run into a situation where a Character is consigned to a > Purgatory of being too weak to advance and so getting killed and > needing the lives to repay the debt and not advancing so it is too > weak to advance and so on? That is the only real draw-back to the idea > that I can see. That situation has arisen, but has usually been countered by the weak Character hanging around the Outer Region or entering the Dungeon, trying to pick up victories over easier Enemies. This had varying degrees of success. The more vindictive players had a tendancy to pop down to the Outer Region and kill the weak Character just after they had repaid their debt to Death, thus restarting the cycle. Not me, of course :-) Regards Robert H -------------------