OK, so I am a little lazy, have a short attention span, and currently work 2 jobs and have 2 kids under 3 at home. But, I'll be damned if I am not playing a game every week. However, this means I really don't want to spend my time over-seeing levelling up etc. as a GM
So, I am considering taking the DPs away after first level and making skills a completely linear development. Characters would simply gain +1 to favoured skills every level and +1 to standard skills every 2 levels.
If I were to do this- any suggestions on how to handle talents? Any insight into the other areas that might become an issue?
One of the things to remember is that while the number of Character Points remains the same every level, the cost of skills per rank increases based upon how many ranks that they have. So, if you follow the idea you outline above, you are essentially increasing the number of Character Points you give them each level.
One possible alternative, is to use the XP table from Libram Novus #6, where you award Character Points instead of XP. This would allow them to increase skills and get talents and other options at a more organic rate -- but likely not the option you were looking for..
Another idea would be to basically swipe an idea from RuneQuest and then adapt it here....
Tick Progression
- Any skill used during a given session gets a tick mark put next to it. (you could even create a simple tracking sheet, where you keep the tick marks - column for each PC, row for each skill). GM may award bonus tick marks for special circumstances (i.e. a really really outrageous or funny roll/result).
- When character goes up a level, the player gets to roll against each skill with a tick mark (2d10 roll, no modifiers, yes it can explode -- TN of roll is the skill's total bonus). Roll higher, and you increase skill by 1. (and the next roll has to beat the new total to make it go up any further). If a skill has 5 ticks, you can try to increase it up to 5 times. Takes maybe 5 minutes to go through
- Spells, Talents, and Combat Moves -- a player may trade in tick marks for 3 character points per tick, and then use those to purchase Talents, Spells or Combat Moves. Any character Points not spent are lost once development is done.
- NOTE: When trading in tick marks for Character Points, the ticks ALWAYS come from the skill with the most tick marks (if tie, then from combat skills first, if multiple combat skills in tie, then use primary weapon first)
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This idea keeps the "diminishing" returns in place by naturally making it harder to increase skills that have better bonuses. This also allows for giving up the chance of increasing some skills to go for other options that are not skills.... (essentially the same process that now occurs....)
