On Wed, 23 Jan 2002 19:48:17 +0000 (UTC), andrew_byers@hotmail.com (Andrew
Byers) wrote:

> how about giving us a precis of what you would add/subtract in the article?

Basically, it's overwritten, but that's not the real problem. I've changed how I handle XPs in my games since then, although any attempt to suspend the Slow and Steady system in my games has met boycott by my players. They love it.

What I do now is require that points be dedicated in the fashion described in the article if you want to increase something - 1 point at a time, 2 points at a time for anything with double cost (attributes, some advantages - Increased Speed leaps to mind). However, I no longer require all points be dedicated each session. People can save XPs for as long as they want, but when they are spent they run into the normal limits. The allows people to hold back and increase only what they really want to increase, but still prevents them from rapidly increasing those areas over a few short sessions.

For example, we had a player save something like 7 XP over a couple sessions, only to get into a huge brawl in the next session. She really wanted to increase Fencing, Main-Gauche, Feint (Fencing), HT, and a couple other skills related to combat. So, after that session ended she dedicated all 7 points she had saved. Previously, I would have required that she spend those points instead of saving them, but I've found that leads to people trying to get a quick use of a skill in before the end of a session with few skill checks just to be able to increase something or increasing something they used but don't care to increase.

That's the primary change, and it think it makes the whole think more flexible. Of course, the system also makes attribute purchases inexorable, because once someone throws a point towards HT or DX, they are commited to increasing it at some point or admitting the point was wasted.

Oh yeah, another change is allowing people to save up XP and spend them all at once for something that couldn't be plausibly earned over time. If a PC saves up 20 XP and find some in-game reason to buy Wealth or Weapon Master or a Patron or whatever, they can. Our Weapon Master did this with a couple maneuvers and Enhanced Parry (Spear) - he took off a few months and went off to be alone in the wilderness and just train, spending the XP to teach himself Reverse Strike and buy Enhanced Parry. Had he lacked the points, he wouldn't have been able to get them, but it wasn't plausible in-game that he would need 6 more sessions of heavy combat to buy Enhanced Parry.

Third, I allow hurry-ups of learning. We've decided that it takes a month of instruction to learn a new spell; however, if you want to spend a saved XP on the spell (instead of just earning 1 xp via training) you can learn it in one week.

So that's the crux of it.