Ding versus Cha-Ching

(This picture doesn't really have anything to do with today's topic. I just think every entry needs a picture...and while writing I thought 'leveling barbarians' and sure enough Frank Frazetta (RIP) jumped to mind).
The last time I played D&D (Technically Pathfinder, but whatevs) was an epic cluster-fuck: where in desperate circumstances the PC’s rushed in with a feasible plan that fell apart in such an epic way that it could be likened easily to Reservoir Dogs. We ended up playing till ~330am and by the end, everyone was tired and frustrated and the session ended on a somewhat sour note as everyone had hit their limit. Everyone would have been fine the next week, but extenuating circumstances from employment and personal life stuff caused the group to disband.

We still talk and there is some rustling about eventually getting back into it, but I doubt that will happen any time in the near future. (Weep)

Instead, after a few weeks of slowly whispering the tainted words of Chaos into my friends’ ears I was able to convince some sheep to come over and play Dark Heresy. I’ve talked enough about DH to bore everyone to death, and that’s not what I’m talking about today.

The last couple of days I have, over the course of my normal meanderings and day dreaming I pondered some ideas I am going to throw into the cluster fuck that is the Northlands of Aesirholm. The ongoing ever-expanding world I’ve been fidgeting with since I was maybe 12. However, some of the ideas I had to cut off or re-think because I am now in a mindset of buying abilities with XP then an automatic updates that come with D&D style leveling.

They both have their advantages: The auto-leveling (The Ding method) still gives you some freedom in deciding feats and skills. You also have the ease of automatic upgrades based on your class that ensure a balance between all the classes. In practice I find this method a faster process since all you do is run your finger down a line on the chart and throw some points around.

Buying your levels (hereby the Cha-ching method) gives you a lot more freedom with your class and I personally think makes the whole game system and characters unique and interesting. I have yet to see any two career choices built exactly the same with the same XP presented. There are some flaws that mostly come from misprints, but by adding the dynamic of ‘elite advances’ where at the GM’s discretion you can purchase things outside of your normal career you can easily look past them. This system, I find, takes longer to level not because there is more work to do (the opposite, in fact), but that there are so many OPTIONS. Do I want this skill or that talent? Do I want to update my shooting skill or pick up another wound? Especially when you are down to the last hundred points it gets hard to choose sometimes, and every choice can influence your character’s future.

The disadvantages are a little harder to point out. The Ding system is a time-tested and proven method. It is great for people of all skill sets and play styles. If you are a power-gamer you can spend your free time running numbers and optimizing your Feat selection, while a complete newbie can just go ‘Power attack sounds sweet!’ and roll with it. This does tend to narrow your leveling options though. How many times have you seen a Ranger with two weapons fighting and what is commonly called a ‘Drizzt clone’? How many Barbarians rock Cleave and a Great sword? Exactly. If you play long enough you start seeing everyone as cardboard cut-outs with just a crudely-drawn mustache in sharpie to make them stand out.

With the Cha-ching method you have a beast that looks pretty intimidating at first. ‘Easy to learn but hard to master’ is what I keep coming back to. It is easy to figure out “I have 100xp, I can buy 100xp worth of abilities”, but with an architecture that vague unless you have a clear character concept it is easy to get lost. Even allowing people to ‘unlearn’ abilities doesn’t do too much to mitigate this initial confusion. While it may not be ideal, I think in the way it may make the characters more interesting and posses more flaws. Maybe you started as a bookish cleric only to later discover your fiery zeal and picked up an Eviscerator and some Close-combat talents. You may not be as unstoppable as someone who has been doing Combat from the beginning, but it isn’t like those knowledge skills stop being useful.

I have been rolling around the idea of both systems in my head, and think I may have to scribble something on paper for the future. I am thinking you rely on the charts for D&D and Pathfinder leveling, but instead purchase the upgrades to attack, saves, and abilities with the XP you gain. Maybe up to a maximum of +3 what your current level is. So maybe you want all the Monk saves but don’t want to spend the money on their special abilities, you can go for the saves and spend the XP on something else later. It might make cross-classing easier too. Everyone buys a transition package which adjusts the class to represent the long time it would take to start learning both things. The big problem I currently face with this though is I haven’t run Pathfinder yet, and when I was playing we hadn’t been playing long enough to get the feel of the Game’s balance. I might have to practice the actual rules for a while before I can accurately come up with a balanced Cha-Ching/Ding mutant for the series.

So yeah…that’s all I have to say about that…