Level-based vs. purchase-based RPGs
There are a lot of RPG systems out there. I haven’t played every single one — not even close — but growing your role-playing character seems to fall generally into one of two categories: a level-based system, or a purchase-based one. I have a bit of a grass-is-greener experience no matter which one I’m working with… Though in the one system I played which was sort of a hybrid, it didn’t satisfy the way that I hoped. But knowing how the system you want to use works, and how it will shape your PCs is important to running a successful campaign.
Dungeons and Dragons is a level-based system. It’s the biggest RPG out there and probably always will be. All hail Gygax! I’m pretty sure that every role-player is at least vaguely familiar with one of its editions, so it stands as a good example of a level-based system.
RPG characters earn experience by doing stuff, though what stuff earns experience points (XP) varies a bit by the particular system and gaming group. But when you hit a certain amount of XP, you advance to a new level. Higher level characters are stronger and give you access to new powers, abilities, and so on.
What I like about level-based systems is that very smart people have already crunched a whole lot of numbers, and when my PCs level up, most of the work has been taken care of in the game system. The classes are generally play-balanced, making sure that a 10th level ranger can keep up with a 10th level paladin.
There are some exceptions. Palladium games are of the opinion that real life isn’t equal, so characters in their games level up at different rates, and a 10th level Rogue Scientist is far from the equal of a 10th level Cyberknight.
But Palladium aside, most level-based systems are pretty well play-balanced. When I’m running a level-based system, I know that if my PCs are fifth level, I can build fifth level challenges that they can take on — or warm up with something lower, then maybe challenge them with something a little higher.
As a Storyteller, level-based RPGs give me fine control over my characters’ power level. I can control the flow of experience so they’re exactly the power level I’m comfortable with, or that is needed in my story. In one D&D game I ran, I didn’t even award XP — I just leveled the characters up as they progressed through the plot. But it goes just as easily the other way: hand out whatever XP the characters deserve or earn through their actions and just level the game up with them.
But there are drawbacks to level-based RPGs. Most of them are tightly connected to a class system. After all, those classes dictate what skills you get when you level up and which new powers are unlocked. When they level up, what exactly do the PCs gain? Combat classes gain some combat abilities or get tougher, healers gain more powerful healing, and so on.
Now, I’m not dead-set against RPG classes. Classes give me a predictable and reliable expectation of what my PCs can do — not what they will do, who knows what those crazy buggers are going to pull — but at least I know up front which abilities they’re working with. And classes can provide a lot of play guidance, from suggestions in various players’ guides to the abilities each class is given.
But classes can also be painfully restrictive. If you’re a fighter, you need to be strong, and being smart doesn’t really help you. In most level-based systems, it doesn’t often pay to play a genius fighter. Your intellect is probably a dump stat — the term for a stat that is so unused by a given class that number-crunching players will quickly reduce it to its lowest level in order to bump up something else, something more important to their ability to swing an axe.
I’m certain that there’s a build out there with which you can give your fighter a high intelligence and choose all the right feats or perks to make that a killer combo. But you have to find that magic combination — and if you don’t have the system knowledge to pick that specific build, then that high intelligence is right back to being a liability.
Fantasy Flight’s Edge of the Empire offers a sort of hybrid system. At character creation, you pick a career — which functions like a class — and then you pick a specialization, which is a build. But then you spend earned XP to buy up levels in skills, or to progress down your talent tree. You can buy extra specializations, which open up new talent trees, and sort of super multiclass. No one in our group had played Edge of the Empire before, so I think I sucked at making a Fantasy Flight character. I felt like I had all the restrictions of being confined to a class, but made all the mistakes of a purchase-based system.
Let’s use that to segue into purchased-based games. In those RPGs, there are no levels and usually no classes. Since we talk about them a lot, both White Wolf’s World of Darkness and Big Eyes, Small Mouth are purchase-bases RPG systems. The experience you earn is currency which players spend to grow their character. You can buy up stats or skills, or buy new powers and abilities, and it lets you make incredibly customized characters.
In Erica’s Wraith game, I played a dead fire marshal, and I was able to construct a character who was equal parts burly, physical character (for busting down doors to rescue people), and science-based investigator (for looking into arsons). I had to split my points between those aspects of his life, but I made it work in a way that left me satisfied.
Building and growing PCs in a purchase-based system gives you a lot of flexibility. Want to play that brilliant fighter, deadly with a sword, but also a student of the Art of War and history and chess? You can do that.
Of course, you can min-max as much as in any system… But I’ve always felt more free to break molds and make characters with interesting combinations of skills.
But I’ve also seen players purchase their characters into a corner. There’s little to no built-in play balance with purchase-based systems. It’s all up to the Storyteller.
A while back, Erica ran a Trigun game and one of our players — wholly embracing Vash the Stampede’s famous pacifism — made her character to inflict no damage in combat. Status effects, sure, but no actual damage. I can’t fairly say that she was no help in combat… but when her turn came around, she couldn’t clear out any of the enemies that we were up against. It made things really hard on the rest of the group, and could be really frustrating for the player.
In a purchased-based system, unless the Storyteller provides quite a bit of guidance, any player is free to pour all of their points into stuff that will never be called upon by the campaign.
But there’s a solution. I run most games in a purchase-based system because I like the freedom. So to mitigate this lack of built-in play balance, I began giving out chapter rewards. I wanted to make sure that my players could grow their characters however they wished, but also ensure a minimum level of competency. At the end of each section of my campaign story, I added a sort of “level bonus” — usually made up of health, attack bonuses, and story-vital skills. Even if the player didn’t invest in anything else that I wanted them to, these chapter rewards made sure that they could keep up as the campaign progressed.
Level-based or purchase-based, there’s no wrong answer. Just consider what you and your players want, and which will suit your campaign best.
