Advancement: My issues with it

So, I'm making this a new thread as the most recent one I could find is well over a year old, and necro-thread-mancy is generally looked down on.

Looking through the preview chapters, I noticed one thing that I know my group is going to pick up on and will likely cause the system to be relegated to the 'on occasion when other games need a break' slot: Progression 'options'.

Now, I'm aware that, in the grand scheme of comics, heroes don't really 'grow' in power or abilities, but I know that most of the people in my Real Life gaming group are really into seeing tangible growth, be it numbers going up, or more skills listed on the sheet, or what have you. I, what seems to be unfortunately for SCRPG, fall into this sort of group. It's why, as much as I want to love FATE/Fudge, I find similar systems are good for short term (1-4 session, max) campaigns and little else.

I guess my question is, how would one show a character growing in ways that just don't seem to be represented in this system? What if my friend makes a non-magical ninja, who after a collection or two, decides to continue being a ninja, but pick up some ice magic on the side? What if I'm playing a mage who is slowly getting into magic based technology? What if someone wants to play a skill monkey-type character, picking up (and not putting down) skills collection after collection? Changing Details doesn't seem to really cover this sort of aspect, and Major Rewrite is obviously far too much. I know some would say 'but there's between issue bonuses for this' and sure, that's nice in the short term, but I'm looking at the long term. I'm looking at the 30+ issues, I'm looking at 10 collections. I'm looking at a game that does well for 2 collections, but most groups that aren't either FAR more heavily narrative on the narrative/mechanics scale are likely to drop off for other games after that.

I know some might suggest 'well if the character grows dull, major rewrite/make a new character' which....really isn't an option, at least for me. I like grand, 100+ session epics. I like seeing the erasure marks, of seeing the barely organized list of skills and abilities collected as a player realizes what might be needed that isn't covered by someone else in the group. This game just doesn't seem to have that. Sure, we might get some use out of changing details, or if we go long enough and someone gets horribly maimed, a major rewrite, but I doubt this will be the long term, multi-month system my local friends and I prefer.

If anyone can help sort me out, maybe not correct me so much as point out where I might be missing some details, I'd love to discuss this, because, like Fate, I really want to love this system, because I really love Sentinels, but I have this horrible feeling that my group will like the system, we'll finish the starter kit, and then likely agree that another system will be our goto for supers and future Sentinels Storytelling in our part of the woods.

I understand your point of view on this. If I decide to implement “leveling up”, I’m likely to do it via the Collections. Using a Collection once per Issue, per Collection, is a pretty big bonus. Being able to say “Alright, this roll sucks, but change this die to this and now it rocks” is a literal game changer in some scenarios. So if I homebrew a leveling system, it will be at the expense of Collections. 

Off the top of my head, I would use a system like so:

1: Require the hero to have at least 2 Collections (They don’t change heroes around that much as soon as they are introduced)

2: When a Hero would receive a new Collection (at the end of six issues), they have the option to trade it in for a variety of things, such as

• A new Power or Quality of their choice, at a d6.
• Upgrade a die one size (Power, Quality, or Status) (which could change their hit point ranges)
• A Yellow Ability they already qualify for from their Power Source or Archetype 
• a Green Ability of their choice from anywhere (that doesn’t require a Power or Quality they don’t already have)

Then, as long as it is something hinted at or worked towards prior to this point, and standard GM Veto option, I think that is a good starting point for a leveling system. Just needs some power balance to fine tune it. 

Ideas?

My thought was basically what Godai said, except that I'm also planning to allow someone to trade in 2 collections to upgrade a d6 power or quality to a d8, 3 to go from d8 to d10, or 4 to go from a d10 to a d12.

I think that this allows for a slow but meaningful accumulation of power, without pushing the bell curve too out of whack unless you play for *years* with the same characters.

That is already included in his suggestion. It is his second option: upgrade one die (power, quality, or status) by one size.

I'm not sure about changing status dice, since that more or less equates to a permanent buff, while powers and qualities are situational, but I suppose I could see how it would make sense; if a character who would previously fold under pressure (small Red die) underwent some climactic event that bolstered their resolve, they might be more steeled when things get rough, increasing their Red die.

Overall, I like this idea for advancement, at a rate of one advancement per collected trade, but I would like to propose a caveat: the improvement made should be based on the events of the trade in question. Maybe it's a hurdle they overcame, or maybe they noticed that they aren't able to do something they want to, so they train to do it off-screen. But either way, it shouldn't just be random min-maxing. It should be somewhat realistic character growth.

I’m also going to enforce no more than one d12 Power, one d12 Quality, and one d12 Status. No Uber-god heroes being the best in the universe at more than one thing. 

I believe Christopher made a point about advancement earlier: Superheroes in comics do not, in general, get more powerful as time goes on. Their focus and powers shift as time progresses, but they aren't strictly advancing, since they start out super-powerful.

From a game design perspective, if you start with a character with such awesome power, there's not much headroom to go up, especially since campaigns become boring if the charcaters can do everything.

This depends on the particular heroes, and the timeframe you’re looking at. I’m familiar with only a few Marvel heroes myself, but:

The early X-Men definitely gained in power, for a while anyway, as they trained. Iceman in particular learned several new tricks and even changed his appearance by hardening his ice coating, but Jean Grey also learned to use her powers in new ways, and Angel and Beast improved their skills. (Cyclops was also training, but aside from some minor improvements to his hand-to-hand skills, it didn’t really show.)

The Fantastic Four, too, learned new tricks. The Invisible Girl couldn’t even make forcefields at first, or make anything invisible other than her own body. Mr. Fantastic got even stretchier and The Human Torch learned to make different shapes and attacks, including his “nova” burst. The Thing didn’t gain a lot of skills, but his body kept changing; he’s closer to a respec than advancement.

Spider-Man got mostly minor upgrades, mostly due to tech. He invented different webbing formulas, improved the delivery system multiple times, and invented supplemental tools like the spider-tracer.

Now, granted, most of this improvement was early on in their careers. The ones that changed later on tended to be transformations, rarely simple additions. In 40+ years they did most of their improvement in the first 10, if not the first 5. They do continue to evolve, just more slowly. (I know Superman has been gaining new powers throughout his career, with a Super Nova power added as recently as a few years ago.)

For established heroes like the Freedom Five, sure, they shouldn’t really be improving much. They’ve left that behind them. But Daybreak absolutely should.

Here's a thing I'd like to try that should help with Advancement. 

In addition to the things listed for Risky actions, I'd add something like

+ Power Stunt: Use a Power as part of a Basic Action to mimic the effect of another power. 

I've been re-watching the Flash on Netflix, and he does that all the time. "I use Speed to create a vortex of air or throw a lightning bolt or phase through a wall or time travel." 

So Flash's "player" doesn't buy Phasing or Air Control or Electricity Control. He just uses Power Stunts (and the GM lets him get away with all kinds of stuff). And as he gains collections, he can do Power Stunts for free. 

Except that the base claim there is false.

Most do, in fact, add new abilities as time goes by, until they get reset by a universe reset. 1970’s Spidey was competent than 1980’s spidey… and 90’s spidey was way more potent than 70s… but it’s slow, and mid-90’s, spidey got a reset…

The exceptions, however, are the peak - Supes, Batman, and Wonder Woman hit their peak, and stayed there, with little more to add. And in those cases, they got toned down in a reset, then grew back to power.

Also, Comic Book heroes don’t exist solely in Comic Books these days. And their power DOES grow, movie to movie, in the franchises.

What they generally don’t do is get better at their peak abilities. But, again, there are exceptions: Storm, Jean Grey, and Rogue from the X-men; Black Canary, The Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern from various DC…

Essentially, Flash doesn’t improve his dice any on his speed, but keeps adding more, and more, and bigger abilities to make use of that speed…
I’d say, however, that a number of DC characters have D16s or even d20’s in a peak ability. SC seems to be avoiding the cosmic power levels. And that’s a good thing.

Coupled with this, look at how often heroes are powered up and powered down throughout comics.  Cyclops is a pretty good example of this, in many ways.  At his default, he's barely above a street-level hero, with a singular Blast ability.  During Avengers vs. X-Men, he became host to the Phoenix Force and was literally rewriting reality.  That's a huge gulf in power disparity (and, in SCRPG terms, likely a complete rewrite of the character sheet).  

Part of the issue here is that any major character in comics is precisely as powerful as the writer wants them to be.  While Batman might mow through hordes of mooks in one book, a single guy with a gun might take him down in another, depending on how the story unfolds.  It became a running joke in the Justice League cartoons (the Dini/Timm-verse) that Superman often got "Worf-ed" at the start of fights, simply to show how dire a threat the JL faced.  As the show went on, though, that changed to the point where Supes even noted (in the series finale) that he finally gets a foe that he can cut loose on:  "I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard. Always taking care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die. [Punches Darkseid again] But you can take it, can't you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose, and show you just how powerful I really am. .  Is that an example of powers increase or simply a course-correction in terms of the script-writing?  Likely, just a little bit of both...

The catch to all of this to me is that most* of the "new/better" powers/qualities/abilities for supers seems to be in their solo books. The hero needs something more/different than they've ever needed before, with no likely other sources of assistance, so they invent a new way of using their powers/qualities, or push themselves to the limit to get a boost in an area.

SCRPG seems to be intended for Team Books. I'm not as intense a comics fan as many people here, but my perception is that most of the team books feature the heroes using the well known powers and qualities in conjunction with their allies' to creatively defeat the challenge. There's rarely an instance of everyone getting individual power boosts (unless thats the specific plot device, maybe like the Injustice plot?), because everyone's intended to work together.

I'd personally love to see an "advancement" that works with tag-teaming specific powers/qualities together between teammates. After a particularly grueling fight, the heroes say "That time when you had the villain trapped in your oil, then I set fire to them was cool, we should practice that", and the first one gains a new ability that says something along the lines of "if the next person in the turn order uses Elemental Manipulation: Fire powers against this target, they use their max + min die" to show that the team has practiced this ability. Currently this could be done on the part of the second player by pushing a risky action, but it would be cool to see a "set-em-up knock-em-down" team-based mechanic among characters who have worked together.

Conisdering I'm mostly going to be gm for these anyway, I might just work with my players to do this anyway. =]

It's also worth noting that this is the base game and they've said several times that they want to start off with "here's how the game works" content and add additional options as they go.

I could totally see a development later where they introduce Abilities that are built for multiple heroes to use together - like the Fastball Special was a specific, signature move for the Wolverine/Colossus team-up.

I think you represent a Fastball Special by Colossus giving Wolverine a Boost and then passing initiative to him. 

The way things are now, yes I agree. But that doesn't mean there isn't design space available for such things to be added in later products.

Colossus: Ability - Fastball Special (windup): Boost Wolverine using Strength. Use your Max die.

Wolverine: Ability - Fastball Special (delivery): After being boosted by Colossus' Fastball Special, Attack or Overcome using Close Combat using your Max die.

Something like that. Sure, Colossus could do that with pretty much anybody tough enough to survive landing on the other side and Wolverine could probably do it after being thrown by any other strong character, but having something specific to the two of them due to how often they'd performed the maneuver could be an interesting mechanic. Abilities are supposed to represent things that you've practiced and I think this sort of team-up move can fit into that category of action.

It could just be that Colossus has an attack that throws something, and the GM is willing to allow Colossus to throw Wolverine and do damage using him, pass iniative off to Wolverine, and then have him then make one of his attacks (like a double-claw attack or something). 

We don't need specific abilities for every thing a hero can do, if we can describe it in the context of generalized abilities. :-) 

For what it's worth, the Fastball Special isn't always just Colossus/Wolverine.  She-Hulk's done it, as has The Thing.

Maybe something like:

Fastball Special:  Choose an ally.  Boost that ally using Strength.  That ally immediately moves to an enemy within your visual range and makes an Attack using Close Combat against that enemy, using their Max die.

I agree completely with that last point. I think advancement will all depend on how the team fits in to the story; Are they established heroes or not?

I think as the game is built around teams of heroes, the main focal point for their advancement is usually slightly more control over their powers or new ways to use them. This should be more about using abilities than anything else really.

In this session with Games Trade Media Christopher explains the advancement/progrsssion in the system if that helps at about the one hour and twenty nine minute mark of this https://youtu.be/DoHjb_MUwoI

Christopher also said that the base game dose not include a "nemisis" mechanic despite it being a part of the card game but that they hope to add a Nemisis mechanic sub ststem to the rules set in a latter book, they could do a power increase rule set as described.

DC comics character from Teen Titians and Young Justice are also examples of heroes that have gained in power and skill in comics

The old TSR marvel game also mentioned She-Hulk at one point haveing a specific max lift (STR) and in later comics showing a (higher STR) by using Thing's whieght machine ( of course in that game noticable character advancment was super hard )

Yellow-box, yes. Improvement was extremely slow. it was quite expensive to raise abilities, and the jumps were large.
AMSH (reddish box), it was 2-5 sessions per improvement, but that improvement was, if on the higher abilities, small; further, the costs were lower than yellow-box…
Heck, I’ve run 5 hour sessions of AMSH where the PCs managed to get upwards of 300+ Karma each… which is enough to raise secondary ability or an attribute a small bit…

And small but constant improvement is the appeal of a number of game systems; it was a good move by TSR to incorporate it into AMSH.

SC doesn’t have any way to make improvement all that small-but-constant. On the other hand, it’s far less table dependent. Tradeoffs.

Our GM threw unbalanced challenges at us a lot so we had to spend most of our KARMA improving rolls and could not keep long enough for advancement
Same thing happened in his WEG Star Wars game

I have been working out a rough cost I would probably charge for increasing Qualities, Powers and gaining/upgrading Abilities and Status Dice.

New d6 Quality:  1 Collection.  New Qualities must be available to Character's Background or Archetype.

Existing Qualities: Equal to the current die's cost (d6 = 1, d8 = 2, d10 = 4)

New d4 Power: 2 Collections.  New Powers must be available to Character's Power Source or Archtype (unless approved by Game Master if in-game event would allow access to another Power Source/Archetype; any event that could lead to a Major Rewrite of a character may justify such access).

Existing Power: Equal to the current die's cost (d4 = 2, d6 = 4, d8 = 8, d10 = 16)

New Ability: Green = 1 Collection, Yellow = 2 Collections, Red = 4 Collections.  New Abilities must be available to the character's Power Source or Archtype. 

Upgrading Existing Abilities (Green -> Yellow or Yellow -> Red): Equal to the Color being upgraded from (Greens cost 1 Collection to upgrade to Yellow; Yellows cost 2 Collections to upgrade to Red).  Note that Upgraded Abilities still use the Power or Quality the ability previously used and additionally need to affect at least one action it could before (If it Boosted before, the upgrade needs to be able to Boost as well, but an Ability that Boosted and Hindered before only needs to Boost or Hinder as part of the upgrade, not both).

Status Dice: Green - Equal to current Die (d6 = 1, d8 = 2, d10 = 4); Yellow - Double value of current Die; Red - Triple Value of current Die

So to put this into some perspective:

It would take a Hero roughly 8 Collections (48 issues) to advance a brand new Quality (Skill) from d6 to d12... roughly the equivalent of 4 years of monthly comics or almost 1 year of weekly sessions.

It would take a Hero roughly 32 Collections (192 issues) to advance a brand new Power from d4 to d12...roughly 16 years of monthly comics or almost 4 years of weekly sessions.  Additionally, since Powers are technically outside of what humans are generally capable of, they start at d4 rather than d6 that Qualities (Skills) would start at (sorry... no, you do not get to try to fly without the power).  Now this may seem like a hefty cost, but the truth is that it often takes a lot for a character to gain a brand new Power they didn't have before... and this reflects how hard that will be.

Learning new Abilities can be quite difficult... especially if the Ability is fairly difficult or powerful and only marginally easier to hone/adapt a trick one already knows to work in a new way (as doing so requires one to develop the reflexes to use it in that way rather than the old way).  Additionally, depending on how one chooses to adapt their existing abilities, they may loose some (but never all) of what it might have done before.  While an Attack will almost always still be an Attack if upgraded, it may gain Defense or Boosting aspects... while an Ability that could Boost and/or Hinder before upgrading may focus of either one of these aspects (or in rare cases still do both).  However, regardless of what the Ability upgrades into, it will still use the Power or Quality it did before.

Upgrading Status dice can be quite costly, depending on which die one is upgrading... it is easier to do more when one is fresh than it is when one is exhausted and/or in serious pain... thus increasing Green Status dice is easier than Yellow which is in turn easier than Red.

Of course, as per the established rules, one can make changes to characters when they gain Collections (without spending them).  In the case of Major Rewrites after Collections have been spent on Advancement, the Collections spent will be lost as most Major Rewrites will often involve redefining the character into something new and are most likely the result of a major in-game Event (such as OblivAeon; Incusion/Secret Wars/Battle World or Crisis on Infinite Earths/New 52 type deals).  In effect, Major Rewrites are recreating the Hero into something new and different (not unlike how Superman was dramatically changed in overall power levels and personality in the New 52 after Flashpoint was resolved... and the Superman there was a vast departure from what he was before Flashpoint).  On a positive note though, in many comics, the previous version of a character isn't always lost, so it is possible (and advisable) to keep such characters incase there is a reason to bring them back (much like the pre-Flashpoint Superman was brought back when the New 52 Superman had been killed off).  Additionally, only Collections spent on advancement before a Major Rewrite are lost... Collections that haven't been spent yet are retained and can be spent after a rewrite to advance the rewritten character (and gain some of the advancement improvements that may be appropriate).

Yes, some of this does sound extreme... such as the cost for new Powers (and having them start at d4 rather than d6), but over all, I think this will help balance the power gained with the amount of effort needed to reach such levels of power (while encouraging players to improve what they have already rather than always gaining new Qualities, Powers or Abilities).

The only issue I see with this is that not having an appropriate die for a category already defaults to d4. Personally, I wouldn’t put in an option to purchase powers at lower than d6 because of that.

What exactly do you mean by "upgrading" a Green to a Yellow or Yellow to Red?  That makes a move strictly worse, as now I can't use it freely until later in the fight.

I was simply thinking players would purchase new abilities for 1 Trade each; the greater potency of Yellow and Red moves is offset by the usage restrictions so they're all pretty balanced options.

I'm also curious why you have upgrading Powers be more expensive than Qualities?  Mechanically it's the same boost to your expected values, and having the power at all, whether it's at d6 or d12, already gives you all the 'narrative' options.

I see arguments for and against the increased cost and lowered to d4 for powers but not on qualities. Sure you may not genetically learn how to fly but you could now have a sweet antigravity belt, or a new magical incantation, maybe your flight is a new Schbatman style glide using your cape so why can’t you get. This holds true for almost every power described in the game flavor it how you will to fit the style of game you want to play. 

From a mechanical point of view the d4 exists when you have to default on an ability or power for your dice pool. I think we all can agree that the athletic and mental powers exist on every hero at d4 or higher levels unless otherwise stated. So what about those do they get the d4 and d6 costs as well? If they do have to take both then you discourage those abilities in particular from ever being taken. If you don’t they become the bargain this is what you should take powers.

 I don’t have any real answers just some food for thought.

Nope. We cannot. I have a very different conception of it.

I do NOT see it as any specific powers from the list; the rules say those begin at d6. I can see allowing a d4 if they;'ve been suppressed… but… otherwise, it’s only those kinds of things a normal human can do without special competence (which is what d6 is specified as)…

Minor correction: d6 is, per various places in the rules we’ve seen to date, “above human average”, implying d4 is human average. (For example, see the first paragraph on page 23 of Chapter 2. Also, page 49 of Chapter 3 has “Powers rated from [d6] (above average)…” and “Qualities rated from [d6] (solid competency)…”.)

I’d also suggest listening to yesterday’s Letters Page episode as they do discuss what the die sizes are supposed to represent. 

For my mind, the Collections present enough in the way of advancement. I generally engage with character advancement between sessions as a way of solitary roleplaying and remaining engaged with the story between sessions. Build plans and the like represent, to me, the plans and intentions of the characters and help me define their story. The ability to adjust stats one way or another gives me plenty of room to deal with character development. Most importantly, there is no built in end state so you can keep the same character in different flavors for as long as the character is fun for you as compared to things like D&D where you will eventually run into a ceiling and it is generally felt that the most fun is had between levels 5 and 15. There's a lot ways to try new things as this game is designed and I quite like that.

Given that you roll a d4 when you have no approptiate Power or Quality, the only "benefit" to explicitly having a d4 power would be the ability to take actions that normal humans can't.  As described, none of the Athletic or Intellectual Powers grant such abilities - in stark contrast to all the other listed powers.  So I think it's fair to say that all heroes effectively have all Athletic and Intellectual Powers at d4.

Disagtree.

Lightning calculator isn’t just doing math. it’s doing math at speeds involving savantism. It’s a mental ability.

And as for the physicals - not having them does not add 4 to your condition monitor - but having them at a 4 would. therefore, no, they CANNOT be presumed to default to 4

Gonna point out real quick if you have no Physical Powers or Mental Qualities you get 4 for your Condition monitor. So it is like having a d4.
See pages 6/52 and 73/119 in the play test character creation chapter three for the exact way to determine condition track.

I stand corrected.

I agree with some of the others that the biggest example of "leveling up" in comics is learning to use powers in new ways. In SCRPG that woud be more abilities not raising dice values.

In the preveiw you are allowed to rewrite your character sheet after each collection or more often if needed and in the recent RPG podcast Christopher talked about changing between games so we could change out archtype and selected powers each game to look like a character with a wide array of tricks.

is Batman stealth or martial arts or freaky smart/perceptive this adventure 

is Flash a Speedster or an Elemental Manipulater (velocity/momentum)

is Flash Accident Origin (chemicals + lightning bolt) or Mystic Origin (connection to the Speed Force)

it's not great and i hope for future rules options but it is a way to show an old dog learning new tricks after a fashion ( or S'sdary the bloodie )

An earlier episode saw the team in a major arguement and Superman basically stated he jumps into combat headfirst to take the big hits so his allies don't get hurt. In the Dini/Timmverse, Superman is the party Tank.

My 2 cents on this discussion: I'm happy with collections as character advancement or major rewrites if the player desires such a thing. I'm not a fan of levels or xp gains, it leads to players always wanting to level up or gain additional xp. The focus should be on the narrative and fun not on leveling up. I generally don't enjoy getting to a point where the dice are too strong in the player's favor and it requires gods to challenge them because either I feel like a jerk for giving them a challenge that could very well TPK them or they complain the opposition is always strong. I much prefer this advancement over anything I've seen thusfar.

I'm stuck in quarantine and the PDF is coming out in a couple weeks, so I'm pulling a 6-month necro.

If you were looking to trade Collections for permanent increases, which do you think is more valuable/powerful overall: a permanent die size increase on a power or quality, or a new ability?

I'm torn (especially with limited play experience).  I can make a case that either is more unbalanced.  I think new abilities is more desireable, but too many new abilities will clearly create its own problems.

Depends on the ability.  Yellow abilities are the most valuable, Red are the most versatile.  If they come from the characters' existing Power Sources and Archetypes, it's not too bad, as whatever it is would be a 2nd/3rd choice anyway.  But an off-chart Yellow could potentially lead to broken combos.

I believe that picking a Green or Yellow ability from the heroes current Power Source or Archetype could work. Green abilities are what you can always use, and I agree with MindWanderer about Yellows. The second most used abilities on a hero, but their greater capability in general makes them likely the most impactful to get more of.

I disagree that they're the second-most used--or if they are, it's by a small margin.  With the default scene tracker, the scene turns yellow during round 2, which means that heroes will have only 1-2 actions while it's green (and 4-6 while it's Yellow).  Typically Yellow actions are more powerful, so they'll favor those.  Some Green abilities will continue to see full use (Principles, Innates, and Reactions) but they'll use the rest sparingly.  Unless you let players pick a third Principle, a Yellow ability will typically see the most use.

Giving this some more thought, it definitely seems Yellow abilities are most powerful.  After that, though, couldn't a case be made that Green abilities are more useful than Red ones? Aside from injury, a hero only gets 2 rounds with Red, but 8 rounds with Green.  Even accounting for the increased power of Red, it seems another "permanent" ability would be more powerful.

I think the logic for Yellow>Red>Green is that once you are in Yellow Zone, you can always take a Minor Twist to use a Red Ability.

I keep forgetting that.  Not sure I even like that rule.

I definitely don't like that rule, especially for Reds that have long-term effects (e.g. Summoned Allies and persistent boosts).

Also, with just the scene tracker, you spend the same amount of time with Red as with Green as your best-rated ablities.  With just the normal scene tracker, you spend 1-2 rounds with Greens only, 4-6 rounds with Greens or Yellows, and 1-2 rounds with Reds, Yellows, or Greens.  However, you can reach Red with your health as well.

I try to choose Green abilities that have lasting impact even when you have access to rerolls.  Innate and Reaction abilities are the best, but niche abilities are good, too.  Unless they're just amazing.

It's been 6 months; I figured I'd resurrect this thread again.

I now have several months of play experience under my belt and I can offer some thoughts on advancement based on actual play.  As usual, YMMV, IMHO, etc. etc.

I *do* think that anyone who wants to run this as a long-term campaign (i.e., more than 30 or so sessions of play) will want to include some sort of more detailed advancement system.  I've read over and collated all the thoughts in this thread and have arrived at some conclusions.

1) You could just skip thinking about this all together, even in a long-term campaign.  At the 48-issue mark, however, your heroes will be able to use a Collection every single round of an Action Scene.  I'm not saying you couldn't challenge such heroes, but I think it would be a little dull.  Sure, you can use Collections for other things besides maxing out die rolls, but the mileage of the other two options seems like it would vary a lot from group to group.  My group often forgets collections, but when they use them, it's always for a max die (and I don't think it's ever worth spending it to avoid a Minor Twist).

2) I don't think Status dice should be changeable.  It would make more sense to allow someone to change Personality in lieu of changing a Principle instead.  But changing the level of status dice is a permanent, every roll upgrade that doesn't make a lot of narrative sense beyond, "I'm just that good now."  But if that's the case, it's a waste to want to increase any Power or Quality. 

3) I don't think you should be able to acquire new Abilities.  Abilities are so powerful and so defining of a character in play that adding a brand new one without losing old ones is an exponential increase in options and power.  The default villain system could not keep up with this.

4) That leaves increasing Powers or Qualities, and maybe adding Powers and Qualities.

4a) It doesn't matter much mathmatically whether you're increasing a d8 to a d10 or a d10 to a d12.  Yes, the max increases, but the chances of that coming up are significantly less than in a single die roll.  If you raise something one die, and then use it every round of an Action Scene, it would average about a +2 to +2.5 increase overall (average a .33 increase per roll).  It *could* be a +16 overall (max on every roll)...or it could be a +0.  Compare this to a Collection, which can often be used for a single +7, 9, or 11 (presuming you're increasing a rolled 1 to a max result).  Therefore, I think you could safely say that increasing a Power or Quality for the permanent cost of 1 Collection would be pretty balanced.

4b) Getting new Powers or Qualities is trickier.  They increase flexibility but the descriptions are so wide and vague that most heroes would rapidly reach a point of diminishing returns.  E.g., do I really need Leadership when I can just justify Conviction to command people?  I think it would be fine to spend 2 Collections to add a new d6 Power or Quality that comes from a character's Background, Power Source, or Archetype, and allow him or her to change out an existing Power or Quality attached to an Ability for this new one (but why would you trade out for a d6?)

5) I'd put limits on spending Collections this way.  I wouldn't allow it all until the hero had earned 3 Collections.  I could see further restriciting any permanent increase to needing a narratively good reason to do so.  I'd also only allow one increase per Collection earned (i.e., you couldn't "save up" Collections and then "spend" them all at once to upgrade everything.

Overall, you can see my ideas are conservative.  I want to expand the possibilities for long-term character growth, but I've come to see that the system works pretty well as written.  I'd love to hear comments on this before I present it to my players, but I think I'm pretty confident about what I have here.

I think the main problem is balance.

As your heroes grow stronger, so must your villains and challenges, or you'll end up in a game with very little suspense.

So in the end, after reducing fractions, you'll end up right where you started. And that is a good thing, because everything else would ruin the game.

My conclusion is, advancement is all about having a feeling of advancement, but without actually touching the mechanical balance.

And that is something a makeover or retcon does nicely. Keep the dice, but change a few names and parameters so that they look more powerful. Like, echange your gutter-learnt brawling for Iron fist's mystical power punch. Same dice, but feels like a big step up. Ditch Speed for Teleportation, or Fire for Cosmic Power; whatever suits you - effectively do the same but in a more flashy way.

Perhaps it was  a case of TL;DR, but *in general,* I agree with you, der andere jan.

However, if you're concerned about balance and lack of suspense, then a long-term game (again, probably more than 35 sessions, definitely more than 50 sessions) has to address the Elephant in the Room that is accumulated Collections.  

I noted that some groups like spending Collections to change the narrative, but undoubtedly most groups use them to max dice.  When every roll (or even almost every roll) in a scene can be maxed out, you'll have a balance problem.  Hence, my conservative idea to remove a few Collections to occasionally increase a die size.

There is another caveat to this: if you run multiple Action Scenes in one issue, this means the heroes can't max out every roll.  This may be another consideration.  However, I've run 8 sessions with my group, playing 4-5 hours, and we've only once had time for 2 Action Scenes in one issue, and that's because one scene was so easy they'd never use Collections in the 1st place.