XP Catchup

Message:

I added the Prank rules in R&R simply to have XP awarded at the expense of top dog. Probably was lame. I also added a limit of one prank per R&R because I don't want players (perhaps) gaining a level each hour of session by directed XP fate. The game has directed XP fate, using Ace bump and indirect XP fate, what happened may be good for growth a tenth of the time.

We did have some I DO THIS when it was straight free-style and had no connection to what the rulez allow. A bit of spell reading may be required to play. I may drop all psychic powers from Scalawags to give at least one class that is stupid easy to run.

Most of us are rising steadily (in Alpha). Solo game is pretty solid and fun in a Pandora way. After reaching level two you get some buffer on HP loss. Yet the game will always run as designed like six solo games, to a degree. There are places where being in the group does make it easier. Try solo Telepath for comparison. Yet group w/ one Telepath will gain from the ship improvements, someone else's effort gets him a heal potion, that sort of thing. XPs arrive as they arrive. Yet there were times when some players did not take risks. Do you want to board the enemy ship or not? Too often we should, yet we choose not.

Is it worth losing two characters to get that first to level two? Is it worth losing a character to get the survivors the first $100?

Finding a generic place to award XPs and adding a quest to award XPs is trivial. Quests do appear in the rulez. You'll see it more when everyone is at the level four with stuff place. How can a level one survive those Aliens or Monsters? I'm not sure. Use your Robots or Luck at any time. I went back and read Hex Crawl and that was true there too. Even if it slows play on the endless what-if, the choice is always the player. The game does punish you when your Aces are lost. In Hex Crawl you could pretend to go home. Not possible here.

Space Pyrates, not Pyros. Your granddad would kick your ass calling his pulp hero a terrorist; it was Buck Rodgers not Buck Rod-Grabber. Okay, the game is tongue in cheek, stilted but never malign.

We don't use Bio Boost enough to keep alive the level one guy who lost three of his seven HPS.

There is a place in Gygax land where three characters are protecting a fourth. Why? Because the fourth will either do the great thing or one-day will be equal to twelve of them. I don't really like that play. I don't really understand that play as real. It's the popular play and has morphed into something I barely recognize as gaming. The guy protected seems more like an NPC. Be better to story if he was. Be less often just kill that worthless twat, which is my constant feeling. Wizard play has that odd set of forced companionship.

Where was I?

What should each player get as his action. Yes, would be nice as we each roll our own Big&Little, resolve all and then pass the baton. Could be then play by email, as by the time my turn comes back around, I could take twenty minutes off. Better feeling when the rolls move fast around the table. We need to know our three required rolls. Would still have the Battle Stations and To the Death (less of that here) moving around the game table. I do sympathize with the occasional ALL I DID WAS ROLL PLUNDER (no XP). Yet hear yourself. You got loot and you faced no danger? It's not always is it? We might need to track that. You do roll after Rusty, so I don't think so?!?

The hope is for people to know the +EVENT is coming and everyone will be aware on their turn when they are rolling to finish a fight, collect a prize, finish the +Event or starting the next system Jump to Big&Little. The game use of Big&Little additionally for Implosion, Heroic Acts and generating certain treasures, can be confusing. It's why a single kind of die (D6) is tough statistically. A weaker design would have lots of D6 fluff tables. How many pencils are on the cup in the command console, style activity. You almost want people to know D4 is action, D6 is discover, D8 is injury and D20 is loot.

Hey, did I just invent yet another type of role-play game. Polyhedral Times Six Role-Play.

Last note, the game acquires more energy when we (in discourse) taunt each other with throwback to events that in truth the game could never connect. We make the Lego into house, plane or monster. Otherwise, the game is just roll D6, consult table or the piece shape you add to the center mass.

==================

All I recall from Sunday is that we got shot way-wide seven, even ten ship to ship battles. But once we buy two new PODs then next two Banditeers hit us dead center on each attack: 1-5 and 1-6. Got to be Fred setting homing beacons. He is always selling us out for a plate of lukewarm beans and franks.


Yours,