Experience points and luck
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 11:19 pm
DCC system for experience and advancement seems to focus a lot on expenditure, cost, effort, and loss - how much damage was taken, how many spells faded away, how many single-use items spent, how many characters dead. This is fine and all, a simple and functional system that makes sense and that I rather like, but I feel that one rather large factor of things has been completely overlooked - the role of luck.
You've all had a theoretically imposing and powerful final boss brought low in two turns without managing to hit anything, failing all his spell checks, and getting critted by like three party fighters. Many of you may have seen a simple, unassuming mook, last several turns and land many blows through awesome rolls on his part and terrible rolls on the party's. And then there are the moments of absolute binary, where you are either lucky or dead, such as a save-or-die trap.
How would you apply the DCC experience rules to all these? Is it still worth some experience just boldly exposing yourself to terrible danger and yet managing to clear it up without a scratch? Or should you receive less or none at all, your incredible luck holding you back and keeping you from learning anything by your own effort? Would the humble little shrooman named Neoconyd, who opened an unexpected can and utterly destroyed a high-level party, be worth a great deal of experience because of the hit point and spell loss you are suddenly forced to deal with, or just a tiny amount because you really should be able to deal with this guy by now? Is the decapitating scythe trap worth nothing at all just because the entire party somehow managed to dodge it?
You've all had a theoretically imposing and powerful final boss brought low in two turns without managing to hit anything, failing all his spell checks, and getting critted by like three party fighters. Many of you may have seen a simple, unassuming mook, last several turns and land many blows through awesome rolls on his part and terrible rolls on the party's. And then there are the moments of absolute binary, where you are either lucky or dead, such as a save-or-die trap.
How would you apply the DCC experience rules to all these? Is it still worth some experience just boldly exposing yourself to terrible danger and yet managing to clear it up without a scratch? Or should you receive less or none at all, your incredible luck holding you back and keeping you from learning anything by your own effort? Would the humble little shrooman named Neoconyd, who opened an unexpected can and utterly destroyed a high-level party, be worth a great deal of experience because of the hit point and spell loss you are suddenly forced to deal with, or just a tiny amount because you really should be able to deal with this guy by now? Is the decapitating scythe trap worth nothing at all just because the entire party somehow managed to dodge it?