Wednesday, November 28, 2007

About those side trips in the past 6 posts


There were 8 PCs in the game. 2 had pissed off Izzy, their NPC mentor. Those were the two responsible for the Proclamation of Diswelcome. So, I wanted to do something nice for the other 6 PCs. And so did Izzy. So she took them traveling in Europe and in time.

Continuum has a pretty unique skill system. There is no such thing as experience points. Skills are earned via time and study, and via rolling the dice. The more you try something, the more the relevant skill and stat improve. This is true whether that's in-character and on-camera, or from the GM waving their hand and saying "6 months pass". And since PCs are time travelers, even the players can do the hand wave thing.

Different PCs got different numbers of skill clocks. Several factors went into that:
  • Some skills take longer than others to gain a clock. Like 15 days vs 120 days.
  • Izzy had the teaching skill. Any skill she possessed she could teach at a faster rate.
  • Skills were of course tailored to what the character had expressed an interest in, and whether they'd expressed the interest in front of Izzy.
  • If Izzy liked the PC, she spent more time with them. This isn't the same as the GM liking them. Liam was keeping me in stitches every session, but Izzy hated him. He didn't even get a vacation.
  • Rob's character was quite aged, and so she couldn't give him long - he might die of old age before reaching Span 2.
  • Sarah's character was in need of some time and resultant maturity, so Izzy forced herself to chaperone closely and spend as long as she could stand with her.
  • Eddie's character was a narcoleptic, and so learned the fewest new skills. He also ended up with a sloppy span book - which, trust me, his already was without the GM screwing him further.
Note that Continuum is an odd game, and this campaign was no doubt stranger than normal, even for it. Dancing and obscure Languages / History / Local Knowledge skills had the potential to pay off big. Few did after that point, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility when I was writing up those cards. Had we stuck with this game instead of going to Amber...

This was a quite refreshing way to handle giving the PCs bonuses. In any other game, this would have been several sessions worth of experience, with no way for those who lagged behind to catch up. Accusations about favoritism and unfairness would have been warranted. But in Continuum, anyone can master any skill in a single session. All they need is the Time. Correction: All they need is the Age.

The one area I had to be careful with was Attribute clocks, since you can't fill those in automatically by spending time off-camera. To be realistic, at least 4 out of 8 PCs probably warranted a lot more Quick Clocks, but I didn't want to leave the others in the dust. This was intended to reward characters, not penalize players. (Strange distinction, eh?)

3 comments:

rbbergstrom said...

P.S.: In case someone's looking at this months from now, and doesn't have the posts displayed in chronological order: The 6 side trips all have the short bus spanners label and date to wednesday, nov 28, 2007. That should make them easy enough to find.

Jeremy Rice said...

Had we stuck with this game instead of going to Amber...

Sorry!

rbbergstrom said...

Don't sweat it. That group of players really wasn't ready for Span Two anyway.

But you (or at least your wife) should feel guilty for depriving me of the Firefly / Dogs In The Vinyard cross-over with rotating GMs. That would have been sweet.