Do characters ever train in your games, and if they do, then how?

Do characters ever train in your games, and if they do, then how?

I know RAW says that you just get XP for participating in adventures (at least in every game I've seen), and most major power-up moments are enabled by enchanted/high-tech loot, but it feels strange to me that characters don't do anything else to improve themselves. It feels especially strange because of how into training I am in real life. Plus training montages are staple scenes in so many other types of media.
If your answer isn't "no" or "I narrate that it happened between sessions" then how do you integrate it into systems that assume that it's unnecessary? Do you actually have a system that expects some form of training to happen in the game?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The problem with those systems is that they can be kind of clunky. Interesting in theory, problematic in execution.

    The closest I've done is boosting abilities that my character has used recently, showing that through experience they've gotten better at that thing.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How would you make it at all interesting? It just takes money and time. There's no actual adventure or game there.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It also takes the ability to learn new things, which is the catalyst I use to decide whether training is a blowoff or something you have to actually strategise around.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        That's not a limited resource though.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          True, but most of the effects you can get from a failure (stat penalties, boost restrictions, equipment loss, threat timers) are limited. You can try forcing a dim character to learn, but those effects are gonna pile up.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >while training you poke out both your eyes and learn nothing
            Sounds like a great mechanic that truly improves the game.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              You wouldn’t get permanent wounds from a basic failure, but temporarily losing vision from an eye scratch is totally possible. 1-in-6, if you’re using random consequences.
              > learn nothing
              Learn nothing *yet.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      That's not a limited resource though.

      >while training you poke out both your eyes and learn nothing
      Sounds like a great mechanic that truly improves the game.

      With a decent player and GM training is a good opportunity to explore the mindset and behavior of a character outside of direct external conflict. Character vs Self is a big part of narrative and storytelling (for as much as some dislike the idea) and training is one of the most direct ways engage in that kind of thing. I was reading the Ninja Crusade 2e book the other day and saw pic rel and it's the exact kind of conflict I'm talking about. You could just find some way to force the character to be alone but there are going to be scenarios where doing that is more contrived than just having a scene with the character training.
      Reducing it to mechanics makes it boring but if you use it as a caracter moment with some limited mechanical boons/banes it could be cool. Never seen it done in a game though

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah, this is what I meant by

        It also takes the ability to learn new things, which is the catalyst I use to decide whether training is a blowoff or something you have to actually strategise around.

        something to strategise around. It has a character emotion/value system, like Intimacies in Exalted. If you can apply a value to the situation (in that pic it would be something like “my personal dignity/honour”), you can exhaust it to improve your odds. Values can be refreshed in various ways, requiring both context and associated stats, so you have that to plan around. And on top of that, values can be weakened (or even destroyed) if you invoke them and fail the roll, you’re really only want to use them in important relevant moments.
        It’s a great way of creating an emotional story through a mix of mechanical and creative gameplay.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Maybe something like conditions or humanity from nWoD could also work? Find some kind of training system and have the outcome of the training be gaining a condition. If I remember correctly conditions had degrees of severity, so maybe the player "bets" a certain level of severity, goes for their training, and if they lose they get a random condition of that severity or a thematically appropriate one of that severity. Each condition in that game comes with a specific means of removing the condition or some kind of minimum duration, so then the player has reason to deal with the results of their training

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Betting consequences is certainly one way of doing it. And I actually considered that for my game, but ultimately went with a more “just one more try” style, where all consequences are essentially low level, but by repeatedly failing a single task they can stack up.
            Both approaches are push-your-luck mechanics, but to me the foreknowledge of consequences felt slightly too meta.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    elric of melnibonea add a nice training system
    with practice and research separated
    and a learning curve that allow to rapidly gain the irst point

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Do characters ever train in your games
    No they don't need to they are already training by doing. Doing and then training to do what they've already done does not make a lick of sense.

    • 1 year ago
      OP

      I see what you're saying. It makes much more sense to rush into a dangerous situation with no prior experience or physical deveopment. You're so smart, anon.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >My character immediately appears in the world with no prior background or experience in anything created wholesale from the essential saltes of creation.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >It makes much more sense to rush into a dangerous situation with no prior experience or physical deveopment
        That's where all your character's backstory comes in. They already trained and developed their abilities, that's what their powers/perks/abilities/class/whatever the system has represents.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    My high elf samurai takes some time during his rests to go through his weapon forms and he has had an archery contest with the party's ranger with the both of us describing our different methods of shooting.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Every edition of D&D has advice and rules about training, usually within the DM's Guide. The "Wait, I just instantly leveled up out of nowhere just because I got XP?! That's not realistic!!!" complaint is as old as RPGs themselves, so there's plenty of advice on how to handle that, including optional rules requiring downtime between adventures or even requiring finding a teacher willing to instruct you to obtain new abilities.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I like WFRP4 for making downtime and what you do within it (training, work, research, crafting, etc) not just a thing, but an effective minor time jump so you're not looking back and thinking, "Shit - last IC week we were barely out of character generation."

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I'm doing a 3.5e game right now and i'm going STRICT with levelling prerequisites. Basically to level-up you have to:
    >Earn enough xp
    >find a feasible higher level npc for training
    >Train with said npc for 2 weeks for every 2 levels you already have (round up)
    >Expend 1000gp for research, hirelings, etc... every two weeks if training
    >Add 2 weeks of training for each skill rank, feat and class ability not directly known by the npc teacher
    >Expend 50 gp for these traits every 2 weeks of extra training
    >Double time and costs if you can't find a feasible npc to train with
    Players are b***hing about but i don't give a shit, these are DMg optional rules so still technically raw.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      So, to hit level 2, I can either spend 3k gold, 2 weeks, plus additional time and money based on how close their skill set is to mine, which depending on their skill set could easily triple the time.

      Or I can pay 4k, and spend a month training.

      I have a feeling the second will always be preferable, since you seem exactly the kind of person to go "Sorry Ragnar, all the barbarians here fight with daggers and value the arts, so it's going to be the extra two weeks for all your useful skills, as well as all those feats for your great axe. They also don't rage, instead choosing a reasoned debate, so that will also be extra for all your class features."

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You're a bit off, to hit 2nd level a pc "just" needs 1000gp (2 weeks of training for each two levels round up) and some "spare change" (50gp for any skill/feat/ability not directly known by the teacher) and the supplemetary +2 weeks for each of these extra traits, so assuming it's a barbarian it would be on the worst case scenario circa 1500gp and 5 months and an half of training (or almost a full year and 3000gp if alone).

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >They also don't rage, instead choosing a reasoned debate,
        This is awesome. I'm going to roll up a high int debate club barbarian, who, when he rages, goes into detailed philosophical rants

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This sounds very silly, but the silliest of them all this:
      >find a feasible higher level npc for training
      How did the first characters ever learn class levels at all, when there were no higher level characters to learn from?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Never mind, I didn't read it all.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    My current Maiesta character works out every morning. She was physically active and very much enjoyed being physically active before she was a maiesta and so keeps up her exercises to the best of her limited ability.

    Healthy body healthy mind, and she's a rather active mad scientist, so she considers it beneath her to waste time on brain fog induced by lack of exercise.

    She tackles learning with even greater gusto.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    This is ht only song my character will train to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p44G0U4sLCE

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      how original! Have you heard about this rare gem called "Eye of the tiger"?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        A song popular in Mexico

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Montage
        V,S,M
        to invoke Montage wizzard must oversee training of PC while holding the gem Eye of the Tiger. A Bard must also be present for ambiance and soundtrack.

  11. 1 year ago
    Smaugchad

    This game called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Note that using gold for XP is a baked in element of this and the training cost is part of the DM managing the player economy.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      RAW of what game, you never-game homosexual?

      It's funny how this thread became "have you tried not playing D&D?" in reverse.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Because /tg/ plays D&D a lot more than a handful of very loud mouth-breathing cum guzzlers want to admit.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In our setting our GM let's us pay coin to 'train' xp up to our current XP gained, cost scaling with level. Assuming our location has someone who could train a given character to start with based on their class

    So if I have 3000 XP, and I have the money to do so, I could get another 3000 XP. Then if I shank some pack of wolves and get another 300 XP, then I could train another 300.

    >TLDR: Pool of trainable XP equal to your currently earned. Pay up coin to train it. Then fight to gain not only XP, but trainable XP, too.

    Can this cause level differences in the party? Yeah.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Be me
    >Be a mid-level fighter
    >Be unarmed focused
    >Be flawless specimen of the male form
    >20 str lads
    >20 con lads
    >Adventuring party has some pretty good lads, 17yo wizard lad, 30 something barbarian fella, very lovely, mature sorceress temps when we need some extra magical muscle
    >She's the flirtatious sort, everyone likes her, wizard boy pretty obviously REALLY likes her but never makes a move on her
    >Ask him about it, man to man.
    >He is a man. Even if he doesn't believe it yet.
    >As are you. Even if you don't believe it yet either.
    >He's too embarrassed, reckons she's too good for him.
    >His arms are chicken meat, but it's this weakness of the heart muscles that concerns me.
    >My time has come
    >Slap him on the back, 8 bludgeoning damage, offer to train him in the manly arts
    [cont]

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >XP
    Frick you, play runequest

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    They don't. You don't do pushups while traveling. Soldiers aren't doing drills while in the trenches on the front lines. You won't get stronger from doing 300 pushups a day for a few weeks.
    In fact, I don't give my players XP points or anything like that. The character you make at the start is the character you'll end up with, he won't improve, he won't get better, he'll just get maimed and hurt and he might get out alive.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    RAW of what game, you never-game homosexual?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Untwist your fricking panties jackass. There's actual mechanical discussion happening in this thread.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Do characters ever train in your games, and if they do, then how?
    In between adventuring he has a membership to Gold's Pieces Gym.

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