Advancement #

Traditional, linear advancement can bebroken into two kinds of concepts.

• A character’s Level represents experience, level of proficiency, degree of mastery, etc. At each level, characters can gain extra active or passive abilities. Levels typically range from 1 to 9. You might also introduce a Level 0 for a kind of “introductory” level, or a level 10 to represent characters beyond the apotheosis for characters in the scopes provided.
• A Tier, correspondingly, is a bigger category: it’s a cluster of 3 Levels that indicates the scope in which the character is operating. There are 3 Tiers: Level 1-3, Level 4-6, and Level 7-9. At Tier increases, characters should gain some more noticeable increase in ability.

In general this works really well with more “heroic” games, where you’re expected to advance steadily as events progress. I would not recommend having two sets of linear advancement (like expected equipment by level in addition to character qualities): just pick one and put it all in there. Save everyone the headache.

Valiant Horizon #

Valiant Horizon’s tiers are Fledgling (1-3), Famous (4-6), and Renowned (7-9). At Famous Tier, they gain more a third action per turn in combat, in addition to unlocking progressively more prominent abilities through Relationships and gaining a Reputation. At Renowned Tier, they gain a fourth action per turn in combat and can gain the maximum benefits from a Relationship with the highest possible number of Bonds.

Valiant Horizon also has a Level 10: this represents heroes’ final moments before they themselves become enshrined into legend, the last thing they’re known for.

For a lot of games, though, these distinct separations don’t really make sense. This is especially true of games that are a little more “static” as to a character’s status in the world. In that case advancement might not be the traditional “gain levels”: it might be through equipment, reputation, or some other measure.

You can combine these with more linear advancement for secondary tracks of advancement.

Valiant Horizon #

Valiant Horizon’s Relationships and Reputations are both somewhat disassociated from leveling, and technically there’s no particular limit other than relationships having a cap of number of bonds equal to level. The way Relationship mechanics work, however, is largely by offering a lot of sidegrade options: aside from being able to custom-pick abilities to tailor a playstyle, this largely leads to an even more horizontal kind of advancement.

NULL_SPACE #

NULL_SPACE advances based on actions taken: specific actions advance specific qualities like gaining attributes or traits. As such, it’s quite nonlinear.

NULLSPACE is going to be a very economy-focused game (in the sense of monetary, not just mechanic): as such, it should be possible to gain large amounts of money in windfalls. The intent is that _keeping a large amount of money in a kind of savings is going to be tough, though.

In general, my preference is to focus on capability expansion (such as more active powers, more active tools, more loadout options) over numerical advancement (bigger numbers, more passive abilities). This can also be described as horizontal vs vertical advancement, but in a sense, they’re both vertical: more options is inherently more power. This doesn’t mean numerical advancement doesn’t have its place: when using linear advancement, this is best served for tiers over levels.

In general, I would caution against the “treadmill” effect: increasing HP and damage and increasing enemy HP and damage appropriately. Total//Effect works best when it’s keeping numbers pretty restrained because so much of it relies on those low, mid, high die rolls: when you start performing mathematical operations on those, you lose a lot of the punch of how quick that can be.

Valiant Horizon #

Valiant Horizon characters gain capabilities every level via gaining more Standards, Powers, and Reactions. Every tier, they gain an extra action in combat as well. They don’t gain more Vigor (HP), nor does the effect of any individual ability become augmented: instead of a numerical advancement, they gain in both offense and defense by having more ability to act. Enemies in combat do scale up their defenses but not their offense: but characters have more actions and more ability to leverage force multipliers as a result, so the math stays fairly bounded regardless.

NULL_SPACE #

Characters accumulate Attributes and Traits in a more “vertical” manner than Valiant Horizon: advancement just adds them. However, their baseline durability doesn’t really increase: only a few Traits change Health or Endurance substantially. They’ll also gain a wider complement of equipment over time, which increases their ability to react to threats, but they can only bring so much in their loadout because the amount they can carry rarely increases (and in fact most of the more protective outfits greatly restrict this). As a result, there’s always a balance, and more specialized tools and weapons aren’t always better if a situation changes.