[Torg] Improving Attributes in play: Edges

[Travis James Hall]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com 
> [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of 
> Benjamin Grant
> Sent: Sunday, 16 November 2008 1:50 AM
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Subject: RE: [Torg] Improving Attributes in play: Edges
> 
> >>Why? What is achieved, in terms of improving the experience 
> of the game
> >>for
> >>the participants, in allowing people to "do a little minor 
> tweaking"?

[snip lots of system analysis stuff]

Benn, nothing you wrote before the quote that follows this paragraph
pertains to my question at. Mine was a simple question that has very little
to do with the game system. Analysis of system goes to how, not to why.

> I also think that only after playing a character for a bit 
> can one sometimes discover where the character stats are "soft".
>
> I think that's my motivation.

Okay, so you recognise the issue of character concepts possibly being not
fully formed at the start of play, and you wish to improve the game
experience by allowing players to overcome this issue - keeping their
characters not-quite-finished until they have at least a little experience
playing them.

Now, several approaches to achieving this occur. We have:

1: "Edges" - 5P for the first attribute increase, 10-15 for the second
2: Tell players they will get a free attribute increase at the end of each
of the first two sessions.
3: Give an extra 10 Possibilities at the end of each of the first five
sessions, telling players that these represent things they are only just
discovering about their characters, rather than new abilities as such
4: Run the first few sessions in a very system-light style, so that it
doesn't matter if stats get rearranged a little as they discover who their
characters are
5: Run a White Wolf style prelude for each player, to help familiarise them
with their characters before they have to have hard stats for them.

Other methods (and minor variations on the above) exist, but five is enough
for now. How about you analyse those methods, to show the pros and cons of
each as regards your objective?

(Don't try telling us that players ever won't buy edge with their first 5
Possibilities. For that much, they might be able to get two skill adds.
Woot. Don't insult their intelligence by suggesting they can't work out that
this is not of comparable efficiency.)

(I'd also suggest you put more effort into comparing the costs of improving
skill values via different methods, because you don't seem to have a good
idea of the relative costs of the methods. However, that's another issue.)

Travis Hall