Exploits and Advancement

I'm really on a roll today. I cleaned up the section on experience and character advancement. The rules for exploits are one of my favorite ideas that I'm incorporating in Van Gogh. I wish I had thought of this many years ago when I was running D6 Star Wars and players complained about spending their character points in game to do cool things instead of saving them to raise their skills (so they can do cool things later). I liked the way character points (the experience points in D6) could be used to add a temporary boost in play, but I didn't like the way that characters who played it safe and didn't do exciting (dangerous) things would advance faster because they didn't "waste" their CP in play.


I also was never really satisfied with the way some games allow a character to earn experience points and then advance in skills completely unrelated to how they earned their experience. My favorite example of this was in a D&D3 game. My friend Mitch was playing a strictly pacifist wizard. He spent every combat hiding and casting defensive spells to protect himself and the party. He never did anything violent or aggressive. After he had gained a level and was adjusting his stats on his character sheet, the DM said "Don't forget to raise your attack bonus this level" and Mitch replied "Do I have to?" Systems that aren't class-based usually allow for more player choice in character advancement than that, but they still allow for advancement in completely unrelated areas.


Some systems attempt to get around this problem by having a "checkpoint" system in which skills that are successfully used get a check mark. Later, during advancement, the checked skills have a chance of being raised. The problem with this system is that it encourages players to try to use all their skills all the time even when it's inappropriate. I think the Exploits system that I'm using in Van Gogh avoids these issues. 


Exploits can provide a temporary bonus every session until you spend them for a permanent bonus. Exploits can only be used for skills that are related to them, but they aren't specific to one skill. Unlike the checkpoint system, an exploit isn't "successful use of Fighting skill" for example. It would be something like "decapitated an orc chieftain and scattered his warband", which could be used to boost the Fighting or Intimidation skills, or the Might or Finesse attributes, or to buy any Talents related to those things.


Also included in the Exploits and Advancement section is a rule for using the Exploits of dead friends. I got this idea from Levi Kornelsen's "Legacy Pool" option in his "Death Gift" plugin at Amagi Games. I thought it was a great idea in general and a great fit for Exploits in particular. More Van Gogh rules info after the jump.

Advancement

Recording Exploits

Experience is recorded in the form of “exploits”: a single sentence that describes a significant event in the character's story which can serve as a valuable lesson or a brutal hardship that toughens them against future hardships. After each session (or after each major story arc or episode), each player records two exploits for their character: one chosen by the player and one chosen for them by another player. Characters are limited to only 10 unspent exploits at one time.

An exploit can be related to any remarkable instance of skill use whether it was successful or not. An exploit can also be any interesting scene or activity the character witnessed or took part in. The important thing is that it is memorable and can serve as an inspiration for future endeavors. Exploits don't necessarily have to be from actions that occurred “on screen”. For example, if a character was temporarily out of action because they were arrested and sat in prison while the other characters were doing more active things (like plotting to break their friend out of prison), then the character could still use their prison time as an exploit. You never know when being able to say “I was once held prisoner in the cardinal's dungeon” could come in handy. For each exploit awarded, the player must write a brief one-line description of it.

Drawing on Experience

In future adventures, the character can draw on these previous experiences by tapping an exploit and explaining how it helps them to overcome their current predicament. “Drawing on experience” in this way gives the character a +1D bonus for one roll. For example, a character is fighting a minotaur and struggling to land a telling blow so he draws on his exploit “Clove a troll chieftain from shoulder to hip in a single blow” and says “I cut a damn troll lord in half, so I can butcher a two-legged cow!” then rolls his next attack or damage roll with a +1D bonus. Exploits can only be used once each per session and they are checked with a slash “/” as they are used. They can be checked permanently with an “X” to buy an increase to the character's abilities. For example, the trollslayer in the example could cross out that exploit (along with a few others that demonstrate his growing prowess) to buy another point of the Fighting skill or the Might attribute so he can hit all of his foes harder or another relevant ability.

Use it or lose it!

If a character reaches the limit of 10 unspent exploits, they must either spend some old exploits on advances or just discard some in order to add new exploits. If it's an exploit that the character frequently draws on, it shouldn't be hard to justify spending on a permanent increase. If it is never used, it won't be missed when it is “forgotten”. (This partially simulates the degradation of unused abilities without taking away anything permanent from the character. They don't lose any skills, but they do stop getting circumstantial bonuses from exploits when they haven't been keeping in practice).

Spotlight Exploits

Spotlight sessions are the exception to the “two exploits per session” rule. A spotlight session is a special episode that revolves around one character. After a spotlight session, the character who was the focus of the episode receives three exploits. One chosen by the player and the others assigned by the other players (including the GM) as a group based on what they saw while the character was in the spotlight. So at the end of a spotlight session, the spotlit character would choose one exploit as normal and the rest of the group will decide together what the bonus exploits should be.

Memories of the Dead

This is an optional rule for use in campaigns featuring a closely knit group of PCs who were family, friends, or close comrades-in-arms. When a character dies, the group keeps the character sheet. In future sessions, any character who knew the dead character can choose to use one of the dead character's Exploits for a +1D bonus if they briefly describe how that character taught them something. Exploits on a dead character's sheet are permanently checked off so the group can only use each one once.

• "If we don't get the hypedrive fixed, we're going to be sitting ducks when the interceptors arrive."
  "I think I can fix it."
  "Since when do you know anything about hyperdrives?"
  “Remember that time Ren used an old spanner and a carbon cable to short the shield capacitors and jump start the hyperdrive?"
  "Yeah, she was an awesome mechanic."
  "Well, she borrowed that cable from me. I was using it to hold up my pants. I don't know much about hyperdrives, but I'm sure I can remember how to do a few of the tricks she showed me. Now give me that spanner and take off your belt. We used mine last time..." Then the player checks off the exploit on Ren's sheet and uses the bonus on a repair check.

Some examples of Exploits:

• “Drove a lance clear through the breastplate of Sir Rendrick the Black and threw him his length upon the earth.”
• “Survived being trampled and gored by a bull minotaur.”
• “Ran a Pandan-7 freighter through the blockade of the Dhana moons.”
• “Brought the feared pirate captain Falcon Cowl to justice and scattered his crew to the four winds.”
• “Decrypted and read the diary of mad history-professor-turned-sorcerer Dr. Jasper Greely.”
• “Retrieved the gold idol from the temple of Quetzalzacatanonga.”
• “Slid down the bannister into the main hall of the palace and bowled over a group of Royal Guardsmen.”
• “Picked Chief Inspector Patel's pocket and stole his gold watch while wearing handcuffs.”
• “Translated the tablet of Azantaj and determined the location of the legendary Valley of the Sun.”
• “Negotiated a trade agreement between the Gurthak tribe and the Vendon mercantile league.”
• “Got away with selling glass 'jewels' to the Countess Miranda.”
• “Holed up in the old mission and held off the Wayne brothers for three hours with just a rifle and a couple pistols.”
• “Watched attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.”
• “Cleaned and stitched up Pardu's wounded thigh and kept him from losing his leg to gangrene.”
• “Spit in the cardinal's face and refused to betray my friends.”
• “Stole the blueprints for the imperial military's new space station.”
• “Climbed to the peak of the great mountain, Knife-in-the-Sky.”
• “Called in the artillery strike on Frank's position when I saw the perimeter was overrun.”
• “Fought with a couple of Duke Henry's men in the chapel as Camfax Abbey burned down around us.”
• “Recited a love poem at the winter court that made Lady Han weep.”

Permanent Increases

In order to permanently increase a character's abilities or buy new abilities, a number of appropriate Exploits must be checked off with an “X”. Whether or not a given Exploit is an appropriate justification for the desired ability is up to the group of players (if there is disagreement, the GM has final say). The cost to increase a character's abilities are as follows:

• Attributes: Increasing one level costs a number of Exploits equal to the new level of the attribute (i.e. raising Might, Finesse, Cunning, or Will from 2 to 3 would cost 3 Exploits and going from 3 to 4 would cost 4 exploits).
• Skills: Levels of a skill cost 1 exploit if the new level is equal to or less than the level of the associated attribute for that skill. If the new level is higher than the level of the associated attribute, then the skill costs two exploits. For example: A character with Cunning 3 wants to learn the Healing skill. Healing 1 will cost 1 exploit. Healing 2 and 3 will also cost 1 exploit each. Healing 4 and 5 will cost 2 exploits each.
• Talents: Talents cost 2 Exploits. 

[I'm still not sure about the costs for Attributes or Talents. I thought that double the new level would be a good price point for Attributes but that would make advancement really difficult. Raising an Attribute to 4 would cost 8 of a character's 10 available Exploits and to raise it to 5 would take all 10 Exploits. Raising Attributes that high in play should take a bit of dedication and a bit of focus but that's just too one-dimensional. Considering that a player can only control 1 Exploit they earn each session, I think requiring 5 of their 10 Exploits to top off an Attribute is already fairly restrictive. Talents seem kind of pricey at 2 Exploits. That's as much as an expensive skill. Why spend 2 Exploits to get a Talent that offers a +1D bonus when you could just raise a skill (or 2!) by +1D? I decided to set the cost at 2 because the bonus from a Talent is a little more versatile than a skill because it can usually be applied to more than one skill. Also, Talents can do some things that Skills can't (like boosting passive traits or boosting an ally's traits). What do you think? Any comments from the readership? ]