Level advancement

This idea actually will be used by me in the (still) untitled fantasy heartbreaker that I mention from time to time. Thus, if you want to use it for your game, please credit me appropriately.

The idea is straightforward. Let’s talk first about game systems with levels. How do you advance? Usually you get awarded with “experience points” (there are multiple names for them, let me just use XP for brevity) for some actions the character undertakes in the SIS. You can also be punished for something by getting your XP reduced or lose it randomly to a level-draining monster (the latter being not a part of advancement system, but rather another way to scare the player). When your XP reaches a known value, you gain a level – a lot of your abilities take a boost, you learn new spells, have widened memorise facility, acquire feats, etc.

So, I was thinking… why would you go through all such trouble of earning abstract XP to exchange it for something you really need instead of just earning that directly?

I’ve tried this in my ongoing games, and it works nearly perfectly. For instance, if a character will get a new feat on the next level, we introduce a story arc for doing something that corresponds to that feat in the game reality, and the character is slowly working from “I can’t” towards “I can”. When all such things are completed, it’s usually time to get a level anyway – which means just raising some of the numbers here and there.

In the current project, I’m trying to make a system that goes all the way here. That is, you have a list of things a hero must accomplish to gain a level. When you’re done, the level is yours. Here’s a spoiler copy-pasted from the PDF draft about what :

• Boost an ability
• Learn a new skill
• Improve one of the old skills
• Overcome one major obstacle
• Meet one new key NPC
• Research or be taught all new spells
• Invent a signature move
• Remove a flaw of an existing signature move
• Build up authority
• Experience something completely new