I'm thinking long-term and with GM Stories around 1-3 Steps, I worry that continuing to give out 1 and 2-pt Rewards may result in all Heros becoming homogenized in that everyone will have all Skills at Rank 1 and all 1-pt Advantages, even if they don't 'want' them. I've had some players tell me that there are skills they don't want to have any Ranks in and not everyone needs/wants to be a Linguist or Able Drinker.
That said, I was wondering if anyone has thought of alternate GM Story Rewards that don't involved XP?
Some examples I've used in the past for other games, including 7th Sea 1st...(A lot of these are 'limited' Advantages or similar)
1) [Good / Bad] Reputation with [Town / Individual / Group]: Gain (or Lose) 1 Dice from all Social Risks when dealing with the affected NPCs
2) Local Heroes with [Town / Individual / Group]: When purchasing items from the affected NPCs, you are treated as having +1 Wealth to spend each Game Session
3) Local Reputation with [Town / Individual / Group]: You are considered to have the reputation [Reputation] when dealing with the affected NPCs
4) Informant [Name]: This person will often have information that is useful if you can locate them and pay them appropriately
5) Confidante [Name]: This person can accomplish a single task for you if you are in the same location but will not put themselves at risk
6) Ally [Name]: This person can accomplish a single task for you if you are in the same location, including putting themselves in harm's way. They may also come to you if requested.
Any thoughts or have others done this?
John
I really like the idea of expanding the Favor mechanics to include individual NPCs, and could see rewarding Favor as part of story completion rewards.
I also like your idea of focusing on rewarding Reptuation or some sort of specific bennie. That's awesome. I suspect we'll see more advantages and things that we can build out as more books come out, and I'd also like to see Advantages that "Upgrade" where they can only be learned or improved through completing Stories. ;)
I'm curious...how quickly are you chewing through Stories? My impression is that Stories are supposed to take some time to complete.
Kevin
Thanks for the comments and I like the idea of upgrades. As of now, I reward about 1 Point / gaming session (Roughly 4 hours). We have only played 3 games, so it was a 1-pt reward (Intro adventure) and a 2-pt reward (2-part story) which I allowed them to spend for a 2-pt advancement or 2 1-pt advancements. This is slower than John Wick's advice BUT each gaming session most of the players are also advancing 1 step in a Player Story.
It's just that if the majority of the GM stories are going to be 1-2 pts, there aren't a ton of options for 1-pt beyond learning a new skill or having everyone take the same Advantages. So that means after a while I have to mainly focus on 2-step stories (Which is fine) but I'd like to have other rewards to give out for the 1 gaming session nights.
John
I'm going to have to go back and re-review John's advice...I must have missed that. I make story progression WAY slower than that...GM steps happen MAYBE once every 2 sessions, and I try to get at least one step for each hero's Hero Story within every 5 or so GM Steps.
The 'official' recommendation is 1 Step per 2-3 hours of game time, which for our sessions of 4-5 hours would be 2 Steps per gaming session. Since we game every other week that could add up to a lot of smaller rewards.
Sal
The recommendation in the books are not to have a lot of higher than 3 step GM stories is what I read. I could be wrong, as I'm going from memory, but I thought he recommended most GM stories be Episode stories and 2-3 steps. I'm still struggling with the new recommendations and while I realize they are guidelines, it seems unrealistic for a Season Story to be only 5 steps. I tend to think more in 1st edition terms:
7th Sea - TV Equivalent - Book / Play Equivalent
Campaign Story Arc - TV Series - Epic
Season (10-12 Gaming Sessions) - TV Season - Story
Episode (1-2 Gaming Sessions) - 1-2 Episodes - Act
Scene (3-4 per Session) - Scene - Scene
I don't really see the equivalent of a "Campaign Story" in the 7th Sea second edition. I would expect to reward Heroes 1-2 Story Steps for a 1-2 Gaming Session period. I can't see holding rewards for an entire "Season" or campaign story that would take many gaming sessions to complete.
John
I really like the idea of expanding the Favor mechanics to include individual NPCs, and could see rewarding Favor as part of story completion rewards.
I've been working on something along these lines for a blog article on expanded NPCs. I'm hoping to have it up next week. I'll let you know when it goes live.
Awesome. Looking forward to it. I've been fiddling with some stuff as well, so it'll be interesting to see your take on it.
But what a poison chalice that one turns out to be :)
Then agin, so many plot hooks from it :D
Given the nature of this campaign that probably won't be much use as I intend for them to be traveling all over Theah :) Now, some type of cool conveyance (Ship, Wagon, etc.) might be interesting.
TAJ-07: Technopriest And Justicar Of 7thSea2e
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My campaign is a theah-spanning one with only 1-2 sessions in each location, so local level rewards don't make much sense. I've been having players have two story goals: a character story goal and a GM story goal. In a 3-4 hour session they normally get 1-2 story goals (7 so far in 6 sessions). That's on top of personal story goals, where they have been hitting a step about once every other session.
In so far as the concern of there not being a lot of use for 2pt or 3pt GM story awards, why not permit your players to "save up" those smaller rewards?
It would certainly alleviate the concern of "what little thing can I buy for my PC?" while making some of the higher rewards (such as changing or increasing Traits) within closer reach for the characters. The only concern is that it could make some of the more expensive Advantages, such as Duelist Academy far easier to obtain than was probably intended, so you may need to set some restrictions on which Advantages the players can save up for.
Then again, as we get more splatbooks, we'll probably have additional low cost Advantages to choose from. Granted, I know that's not much help for active campaigns right now, but down the road it may not be quite as much of an issue.
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