I've always thought it was done for two reasons. Most of the games you mentioned have a LOT of options for experienced character, crunchiness as people call it. Diving straight in with a high level character could overwhelm an inexperienced player who would get less enjoyment from it, by working a character up to that level of power they understand their option better.

Plus there is the enjoyment of being able to succeed at tasks they couldn't do before.

Simon Proctor
Cognoscite aliquid novum cotidie

I think it depends on the expectations and requirements of the setting. If players are expected to carry on campaigning for years, eventually reaching the dizzying heights of near-godhood, then you need to start them off fairly low down the pecking order or they won't have enough sky to climb before they're sitting on a cloud wondering what to do next. If however you don't expect the focus of your gaming to be grinding up the levels, and let's face it a lot of the more traditional RPGs do seem to be stuck in this somewhat dated vision that people only play so they can make their characters more powerful, then it's better to start people off at a more competent level. Short-run games that don't seem likely to make it as far as campaign status are better off for having more effective player-characters, unless of course the scenario specifically calls for useless lumps :D

Ash

The entire question is hugely game dependent, much of it based around "Do the rules increase in complexity as you progress through the game?" If they do, why so they do this and what does that offer to the participants?

Is starting a character who can hit 60% of the time with his bolter in Dark Heresy any more complex, in the application of the rules, than a character who can only hit 30% of the time? For many games, this isn't the case.* So why does the game behave like this: rewarding system mastery, the perceived need for more rules to cope with greater player experience and the mastery to 'get round' the existing rules, or what?

For me it harks back to Ye Olden Days of Games, when a large part of the experience was to watch a character become more powerful (for whatever thing 'powerful' in the game of your choice defines) through a long period of play.

To me, this sucks. Getting enjoyment of success only after grinding through hours of play where your character either fails or only succeeds through GM intervention. Pain now for enjoyment later, do you want guns or butter, austerity today for bananas tomorrow. If you enjoy the gradual build up in a character, going from a rubbishy rat-catcher to a knight of the realm, then go for it, but all means. But in many cases, it's an impediment to enjoyment of the game.

Games have this assumption because it is an entrenched value of many pre-existing games. It's expected, therefore it is perpetuated. The biggest RPG in the world perpetuates this system, and much in gaming stems from that. I'm not saying that this mode of gaming doesn't provide enjoyment for millions, but I see it is being one of the root causes of what you're talking about.

Cheers
Malcolm

*For many others, it is.

Contested Ground Studios

I'm not saying it's a good enjoyment. But it does exist and some people really do like that style of play.

Personally I think if that's what you want you could play WoW. I was just making the point.

Simon Proctor
Cognoscite aliquid novum cotidie

I was going to say, Simon, that I see just that in most computer games. And they certainly do have that *cool I couldn't defeat that before* moments that provide a lot of fun.

It's not generally a feature of most RPGs though is it. You don't often go back to 'starting levels' and do more, which is perhaps a shame.

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

One thing - I don't see any pain in the failing early on, only the positive of progression. I don't pick up my character sheet and say "Gee - it sucks that I didn't hit that enemy, I totally thought I would" as a low level character; I know it'll take a few shots and that's all right. But the day that I finally nail that SOB right in his smug face, well, that day wouldn't be half as awesome if it weren't in contrast to the previous days.

Its a continuing sequence of awesome contrasts with previous scenarios, which, because they are based on increased power level, can only be progressed through increasing those power levels even more.

The major issue I have with D&D-like character progression (less so in Dark Heresy because there's no codified challenge rating system) is that you never get a chance to really experience your new stats in contrast to your old before your new stats are treated as normal and the whole game gears up to match it. In that sense, your character progression is totally false, because you always fight things within a certain difficulty range of your character, whatever level your character is. The main difference is simply how highly your opponents rank in the grand scheme of the setting.

Re. Dark Heresy/WFRP, I think that hitting 1 in 3 shots if just fine, it gives the tension that being low-level evokes in these games; will you kill it in time? Who will be forced to help you, and what relationship will you have with the party member who saved your life? Once you cn kill everything in one go, what do you have left?

Shevaun

I've not read or played Dark Heresy myself, but one thing that this brought to mind is how few wounds characters could take in old WFRP. If the players in Dark Heresy have a similar low level of endurance, the low percentage chance of hitting could also be a measure to increase the survivability of scenarios and extend the length of combat scenes that would otherwise be over too quickly.

Ash

I think this, as Malcolm said, is very dependent upon the game and the style of the players.

I can remember some truly horrific gaming experiences from my youth where the entire table has had to suffer sub-20% skills (usually Runequest, usually spell-related and usually deadly) There was precious little growth in these games because success bred growth but with no success, there was no growth. I distinctly remember waiting three weeks to hit something with my dagger and cast a spell in the same session. It was like a garden fete! We celebrated!

Then again, I have also played in some games where skills were so high that success was simply a matter of style rather than tension. Our recent Pendragon campaign had characters with skills in excess of 25 and one who's Sword was 33. Thats a 65% critical chance and virtually no chance of missing. Snore.

There has to be a happy medium where players can enjoy* some regular and meaningful success from the off rather than waiting those three weeks for a skill check, but are also fallible so that they simply don't walk the game (unless your game is about something over and above those sort of tests and they are ephemeral)

One thing that was returned to me STRONGLY in D&H playtests was that whilst the majority of players could see the point of playing the new recruit or the little drummer boy, they didn't want to play an incompetent - they wanted to have the same options as a veteran, but those options focused in other areas. Whilst their concept may have been a noob, they didn't want to be at home to Mr Whiffle!

Neil

* and I realise that ymmv on 'enjoy' and some people enjoy swing and miss games. Thats what WHFRP is for, after all *wink*

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

It is still true that on of the best sessions of WFRP I ever had included 4 players critically missing and hitting the same party member; that he was one of the 4 players was the icing on the cake. The chance of failure in WFRP is what makes it enjoyable. Its like Call of Cthulhu - your characters start off barely able to do anything, but when(if) they get all big and powerful they realise there's nothing they can do anyway, because their real opponents are demented Gods. I like that sliding scale; its a real experience, and a story arc in its own right.

I'm not saying that all this character progression stuff is always da bomb, but its not always bad and it is part of the overall campaign structure that these games use to get their awesome/epic on. If the GM and players remember that anyway.

Shevaun

I'm all for character progression - its a big part of my gaming experiences - but I cannot be bothered to swing and miss for three weeks on the trot anymore because I have a 12% dagger skill or what not. Progression doesn't have to be associated with competency. It can be linked to other things like reputation, standing, contacts, influence etc.

However, I'm more than aware of those people who like it the other way and like most things in roleplaying, its that broad church that makes it such a rich hobby.

Neil
aka Grug, Praxxian Barbarian, 18% Common skill - expert at charades

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

On the subject of success = improvement, I actually think that the reverse works better; that you can only improve when you attempt something and fail at it. After all, trial and error is one way of learning. This also means that the more competent a character becomes, the more difficult tasks they will need to attempt in order to get any better. This way, beginner characters learn the basics quickly, but it takes a lot of work, time and effort for a real expert to improve and also encourages the players to push themselves. I suggested this type of method for progression as one of the options in Myriad.

Ash

I was very tired when I posted my previous comment and a bit miffed at the feeling of being singled out by Mr Craig for chiding. Something I don't believe he was trying to do but I was tired.

I do think that personal growth and the journey to adulthood are archetypal storylines and the character growth systems in many RPG's mirror this. The reason these stories exist and resonate with people is that everyone can think 'I've been there.' if there is one element of shared life experience it is growing up. The thrill of finally mastering something you could not before.

Without growth and change life is stagnant and (to me anyway) boring. Creating a storytelling game where the characters cannot change in anyway seems to be missing this fundemental
part of the human condition.

Where I think the problem lies is in speed of growth (where characters go from dung herders to kings in a month) and people focussing on the mechanics at the detriment to the storytelling.

As for DH, I think if I get round to running it I'll just give all the players a bit more starting XP and tell the to try and focus on one thing.

Simon Proctor
Cognoscite aliquid novum cotidie

I think the problem I had from DH was that the characters were far more incompetant than the fiction told us they should be.

For example I was playing an experienced arbites officer, with years under his belt before he was recruited by the Inquisition. We were set upon by a few rowdies in a hick town and I decided to give them a little rough justice ... only to discover that even though they were plebs fighting with their fists, and I was a trained officer with a maul, I still couldn't hit them!

If I *had* been a newbie, or a raw recruit, then that would have been fine (though still not fun), but the game told me I was an experienced police officer, and yet I was still only able to hit a stationary target 1 in 3 times!

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

I have actually played Dark Heresy recently and to be honest the game was ruined for me because of this phenomena.

Not only does it stink of whiff it does not even match up with true 40K - where BS3 hits 50% of the time!

The other crap thing about starting characters is how similar they all seem in play - especially in combat. Thankfully I'd rolled a psyker so I could actually do some unique things.

The final fight was a massive anti-climax - I spawnily rolled 05 to crit the demon in the eye in round one. There was little sense of achievement - I just rolled well.

Combat is so random in DH, there's no real gaming buy-in which makes it a bit dull. The improvement was also pretty dull, an advance well whoopee. The rate you actually get to make meaningful character development choices is so sloooow.

Crappy characters does not equal fun in my experience.

It's not even good Simulationism (to risk dipding into Forgian theory).

+++
JoE
+++

Prince of Darkness Games
Rock N' Role-Play....

I know where you are coming from totally Joe. I enjoyed the chance to play in the 40k world ... but as a play experience it was distressingly dependant on the GM, because we couldn't actually do anything ourselves! Without lucky breaks and co-operation we would have been screwed.

I used to play 40k with my own system, which was based much more closely on the Necromunda rules, and as I remember my average starting gangers were more competent than DH acolytes

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/

Low skills suck. Low achievement rate sucks.

In games like WFRP, Dark Heresy, Runequest 2, hell even Unknown Armies (if you play it Street Level), you have skills in the 20-40% range and as mentioned above that gives you a ratio of two fails to one success. Who wants to play in a game were you fail most of the time?

It encourages GM’s to ask for multiple rolls (e.g. the Cthulhu chestnut of “make a Spot Hidden roll, okay a Luck roll then, okay, give me an idea roll… somebody?”), and limits the number of times you can go to the dice, because your players die rolls aren’t good enough to risk it. It takes control away from the players and they end up sitting round listening to you tell them what they can’t do.

It way well be true that in a tense and dangerous atmosphere, with the lead flying and the street only lit by moonlight, that your ganger has a low chance of succeeding and that 25% in Firerams “realistically” represents his chances of hitting. If it takes two or three shot to take someone down, you’ve got a dozen sets of dice hitting the table to take out one baddie and a lot of players looking irritable because of all the manual labour and very little coming out of it.

Low skills = lots of dice rolling to no effect. Dice should be rolled to make a difference in the game, to take the plot down one of two different directions, to see if you kill him, or he’s going to kill you, to see if you get that extra information which will make you feel special. If most of the time you’re rolling dice and nothing happens its BORING. Why are you rolling them, for the sound they make?

My weapon of choice for a crunchy game is Savage. A reasonable starting character will have d6 in what he wants to do (plus a d6 wild dice – roll them both and pick the best) and he needs a 4 usually, so 75% success rate, with bennies to get a re-roll* if the player thinks its really important to succeed and Raises giving you the chance to succeed really well. GOOD!

When a player has put d6 or d8 in Lockpick, he’s telling you he wants some locked doors and treasure chests, at which point he’ll shove everyone else out of the way, put on his lucky gloves and roll his key (pun intended) skill to get the job done, to the adoration of his fellow gamers. If he sticks all his points in and has 30%, his key skill is marginalised and probably won’t work anyway.

Re: progression. Yeah, its old school bust I still like it, depends on your game I suppose. You should still get mooks to face, only now you can push them around, and tasks that were previously unattainable (but well foreshadowed) can now be accomplished with a good plan and some lucky dice rolling… maybe it’ll go wrong, but the occasional failure at dramatic moments is GOOD! Persistent failure is BAD!

In summary:
Your player characters might be poor at some things, but they should be competent (or really good) at some key areas. Ming the Merciless is shit at Fighting, he fucks it up a lot (2 times out of three), but he’s got Intimidate and Taunt up the ying-yang and can mock your ass nine times out of ten.

Rolling lots of dice to determine outcomes, when the outcome is “you fail”/”nothing happens” is pointless and DULL. Its nearly as bad as Heroquest, where you roll a die and never, ever fail. What’s the point?

Hope that helps clear things up.

*okay, so you get Fortune points in WFRP/DH, but rerolling against 30% sucks ass compared with rerolling at a 75% hit rate

I couldn't agree more :)

http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/