Comments on: Let’s sweeten all that Crunch with some Sweet20

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Sun, 11 May 2008 10:26:06 +0000

@James: I’m glad you liked that!

By: james recker

james recker — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:10:03 +0000

Coolness.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 09:46:00 +0000

We had the exact same system before and it worked well. Including cashing them for XPs. It’s a good concept.

In my quest to simplify my DM job things, I gave all players Actions points as per Unearthed Arcana and it works fine.

By: Ronin

Ronin — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:24:00 +0000

I just tought of something and I’m not sure why I didnt think of it bofre to mention. My DM gives out what he calls plots points. If you do something clever, or really in character, and as my DM puts it “amuse me greatly”. You get a plot point. These can be used to add a D6 to D20 rolls to help increase the likely hood of success. Or if spend in large amounts to effect the story. Stupid example would be to spend so many plot points to make sure sometyhing works out in your favor. Its really a subjective type on thing. Anyways at the end of a session you can only hold on to six points for the next session. Any over that are converted into so much XP per point (I forget the amount). Or you can change in plot points at the end of a session to give your self an XP bonus.

By: jerm

jerm — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:43:00 +0000

I have not played D&D with the Sweet20 stuff, but it does look pretty cool.

I gather that you’re interested in tweaking your D&D a little, but not really moving far away from it. Since you’re looking around a little, though, you want to give Donjon or Shadow of Yesterday a look. Both are fantasy role-playing. The Sweet20 stuff actually is taken from the Shadow of Yesterday, where Keys are from.

I think Shadow of Yesterday might still be available for free on the ‘net somewhere, in fact…

By: Yan

Yan — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:28:00 +0000

Men I realy would like an edit button on these comments. Oh well I deleted the previous one. Here is a more cohesive one...

The "You the level when I tell you" approach works well for most system, as long as the DM and the player have the same expectation of progression...

But, in the case of D&D their is a few spells/feats that have XP cost in their uses. What do you do in these cases?

Preventing the use of the spell/feat seam too harsh.
Removing the XP cost of the spell/feat and it becomes too strong...

Greywulf do bring an interesting point on the key system...

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:26:00 +0000

1/10th xp is way more easier than 1/13th agreed.

The short term/long term keys idea is good. It would need some crunching up but I can see it making it’s way in my crunchputer.

Like you actually close a short term key by performing it (no counter) and you get to replace it in between the game sessions (so the DM can act accordingly)… While long-term keys are as posted by Mr. Nixon… or close to.

By: greywulf

greywulf — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:20:00 +0000

Interesting idea. What’s good about it is that it gives the GM an insight into what the player wants out of the game too, which is always a good thing.

As presented, the Keys seem to be painted in too broad strokes for my liking - I’d rather have them be things that are specific to the character, and might be defined as long-term or short-term.

For example, a Halfling Rogue might have “get enough gold to buy masterwork lockpicks” and “woo the Sorcerer” as short-term Keys, and “find my sister’s murderer” and “own my own Dungeon” as long-term Keys. The short ones could change adventure-to-adventure, the long ones not.

I’d be inclined to allocate 1/20th for completing short-term objectives, and 1/10th XP for anything that works toward the long-term ones.

But that’s just me.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:05:00 +0000

Ronin: I don't know who Nixon is so I can only judge from his somewhat short document. (He did drop in a forum once to say he'd never use the XP system in D&D).

Ahhh Paladium, yes, I played Robotech when I was 14... had fun! That chart looks like what D&D 2nd ED tried to pull. Like Yan says I really want to push roleplaying to another level while making my job simpler.

But I will keep the chart handy (and scalable) for my Scene XPs, thanks Ronin.

Noah: We tried the level up at key points thing and we ended up being level 7 after 1 year and a half of playing. (Granted we missed a lot of games). I wanted faster progression and I wanted to share this progression with the group. I hope it works.

By: Noah

Noah — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:50:00 +0000

I like the ‘Key’ idea a great deal - and it very well might work for my group, especially in our (usual) long-term campaigns.

In our Friday game (a Heroic game, in antidote to our Saturday Ravenloft game), the DM said: “Everybody levels up when I say you do.” It’s worked out great - we got better at dramatically appropriate moments. Magic item creation was similarly handled: “Tell me what you want to make in the downtime, and we’ll work something out.”