Experience points are one of the most ubiquitous features of the roleplaying genre, so much so that the concept has spread to other formats of play and life. But what is this abstract concept being measured? Or to paraphrase an old expression, what is the measure of a man's worth? In modern terms, this is the difference between a seasoned professional and an apprentice. But the number of years in an industry does not denote true mastery of a trade. Where one works and the intensity of the work performed makes the difference. So, the reality is that how long a trade is practiced is not necessarily as important as how often. Experience points serve to make the distinction between a dabbler and a true practitioner. In game terms, when does a character transition from novice to journeyman to expert to master of his profession? In a level-based game, is this second level, third? How many points for a point-buy system to mark these stages: 20%, 30%? In the real world, the boundary between amateur and professional is effectively 10,000 hours, excluding hobbies this is mostly achieved with a Bachelors degree. Different games take different approaches to reach this point, but most gamers refer to it as the "sweet spot." This is the point in the game where the challenges and the characters' abilities are essentially equal. The characters are not so powerful that they can defeat the biggest monsters/threats around, but they also do not fear the weaker opponents that serve as cannon fodder. Some systems have tried to cut out all of the rigmarole it takes to get to that point. Doing so misses the reason this spot exists. A back story only informs the motivation for why a character chose the path to become an adventurer. The lowest tier of play is the origin story for the character's development of his skills and powers. As most systems provide leeway in what abilities can improve over time, the development of the base powers of a character has huge implications future choices. A trend in some game lines has been to bypass these levels as if they are just a tedium best avoided. The goal here is to cut to what makes characters "cool" and mark that as the point of entry into the game. While this is injurious to all players, novices are hurt the most. What they lose is the association of character growth in fiction to that experienced by characters rising to the higher levels of power that have become associated with most film heroes. Experience points serve as a way to measure how successful a character is in applying his various talents to ever-increasing pressures that refine and test his mettle. Players use these rewards, too. They are the boons for creativity. In fact, many games have guidelines for noncombat awards as well as for good roleplaying. This is where fiction meets the game. Readers are rewarded in fiction for sticking with a story mainly by getting to do something we all wished we could do at some point or another: know what someone else is thinking or feeling. Here, then, is where the problem begins: cinematic styles of mechanics do not denote that a game must follow a film's format, but neither do they discourage such lines of thinking. In fact, it is far better if such a game does not follow the format. To understand why this is, one needs to pull back the celluloid curtain on flim's narrative structure. Like all forms of storytelling, the method often taken is to begin in media res. Film differs in that it establishes the character's normal world so that an audience is given a sense of what skills he already possesses and what constitutes his normal world. Within the space of no more than fifteen minutes (films generally run 85-120 minutes), the film gets underway by thrusting the protagonist into the plot. Aided by dissolves, match cuts, sound cues and the like, time is compressed enough to move the story forward and preserve the narrative. Stage plays do the same thing in order to tell a story in two hours. Nearly all of the characters in these stories are experienced, however. For their relative situations, they know everything they need to in order to meet the challenges in their paths.... This isn't even half of the piece. If you want to read the rest, it's on my blog at http://skirmisher.com/blog/7 and is #10 in the series.
