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theresattrpgforthat · 4 days ago

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Do you have a ttrpg where the players can be at massively different points in their individual progression? For example, a level 1 character in the same party as a level 5 and a level 20?

Hello friend! Character progression can be a tricky thing to track in many ttrpgs, especially when your character's abilities are more narrative than mechanical in terms of how they relate to the plot.

For example, Powered by the Apocalypse games often have a form of lateral advancement, in which your character grows by taking a new character playbook, often engaging in a soft reset as they take on new strengths and weaknesses.

Other games, like World of Darkness or Genesys (Star Wars Fantasy Flight), use a point-buy system. Depending on how you spend your points, your character could be highly specialized, or much more general - specialized characters would be very good at one thing, but terrible at others, and generalized characters might feel like they are advancing very slowly.

Then there's the OSR, which houses a lot of games that don't really have your character level up at all: they may survive long enough to get gold, which they can use to buy better gear, in which case their progression is mostly a larger collection (or more high quality collection) of stuff.

With all of that said, let's take a look at some games that might be in the ballpark, and some games that might be a bit outside your comfort zone!

Cypher System, by Monte Cook Games.

Cypher System characters are built from the concept up. A descriptive sentence provides not just an easily-understood overview of the character, but also the mechanical basis for skills, abilities, and stats. And the Cypher System gives players amazing narrative engagement, rewarding player-driven subplots and giving players resources to bear on the tasks and situations they most want to succeed at.

The Cypher System does a really good job of giving players short-term, interesting abilities in the form of Cyphers, which means that once in a while, a Level 1 character will be able to do something equally cool to a Level 6 character, which is the highest level in the game. Character progression is also slightly non-linear, depending on how the players like to play.

Experience in Cypher System games can be saved up to gain better stats and new abilities, but it can also be spent to prevent disaster happening to your character through the form of GM Intrusions, or to invoke some player control over the story, via a mechanic called Player Intrusions. I don't see this form of using XP happen often when I play, but the fact that these options are available means that the system has to feel equally fun to both low-level and high-level characters, even if they're playing at the same table.

Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, by Possum Creek Games.

Our story begins in a sprawling old house outside time and space, where it’s always September 15th and there’s always room for a new visitor. A teen girl sits on the windowsill, reading a well-worn paperback and listening to the splashy-crashy rain come down. She's alone in the world, but soon enough the strangers who reside here will become her closest friends, family, and mentors.

Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast can be played in a non-linear fashion, with different players (and characters) each time. It's an excellent game for groups that have different energy levels, meet haphazardly, or maybe have too many people to all get together on the same gaming night. As a result, characters are likely going to grow at different rates, but due to the nature of the game, these characters can move through chapters at any level of personal growth. I think the result is kind of like when you play a game that gives you different results depending on what skills you've achieved at the time you choose to fulfill a certain quest, and as a result, multiple play-throughs are likely to feel rewarding, rather than repetitive.

Neon Black, by NotWriting.

Neon Black is a role-playing game about a community of poor people fighting back against tyrannical corporations and the indifference of the rich, as well as surviving in a dystopian city state. It’s like real life, but in this world you can kill the CEO’s, rob banks to pay rent, and help your friends do the same. You'll help your community, go on dangerous heists, explore artificial realities, and encounter friendly and nefarious machines. We play to find out if the community can survive amidst warring corporations, an unforgiving climate, and the negligence of the extravagantly wealthy.

Like many Forged in the Dark games, Neon Black is built around the crew, rather than the individual members that make up the crew. This means that these kinds of games are often built with the possibility of different characters showing up for different jobs, whether that's because one player has more than one character, or because different players might be available at different times. You could have a well-seasoned character who needs to lay low after pulling off a big heist, and then introduce a fresh-faced newbie to fill their slot while your older character tries to recover.

Forged in the Dark games also often care about group progression, which can add new benefits to everyone who plays. More advanced characters are likely going to have more toys to play with, but each character ability is also often specialized enough that you're only going to get to use one or two in any given session. As a result, I think these kinds of games are excellent for players who can't make it to every session.

BXLLET, by Rathayibacter.

The world was broken, a long time ago. We've fought hard to build something better in the aftermath, but we're haunted by the ruins, weapons, and monsters of the past. Will you scratch out a corner of paradise, or will you give in to the temptations of the gun on your hip?

[BXLLET> is a game about systems of violence and power in a world rebuilding itself. As wandering gunslingers, you'll travel the world and do what you can to help the people you encounter. You'll become more powerful the more bullets you carry, but you'll also struggle with the responsibility that power carries with it. Violence will come easily to you, but can you feed crops with rivers of blood?

This game deals with issues of gun violence, exploitation, and apocalypse, and those sensitive to those issues should go into this fully aware. It's not a game for fascists, bigots, capitalists, or their lackeys, and shouldn't be approached from a perspective that boils the complexities of the world into "good guys with guns vs bad guys with guns."

Because your experience in this game is also the method by which you kill people, BXLLET expects some characters to have access to more special abilities than others, depending on how prone they are to violence. Not only that, your character can actually drop in ability just by shooting something, because as soon as you use a bullet, you lose the thing you need in order to access some of your character abilities. The game itself is a statement about violence and guns, so I think it's really interesting how those thoughts are incorporated into character growth (or perhaps, depending on how you see things, the lack of it).

Harvest, by gamesfromthewildwood.

Harvest gives us laden orchards and barren fields; desperate fervour and doubts grown thick as weeds; calves born and pigs slaughtered; proud traditions, failing wealth, and hostile stares; juice-stained lips and dirt under nails; and always the questions echoing down through the generations: ‘Whose blood must be spilled to feed the land?’ and ‘Whose hand will hold the knife?’

In Harvest, you play the residents of a remote island community stranded somewhere off the British coast around the end of the eighteenth century. On the mainland, old traditions are fed into the engine of Empire—languages crushed and folkways flattened under the imperial heel. Trains chew through the countryside as industry marches grimly on-wards. Yet here, separated from towering smokestacks by the fathomless sea, they survive unchanged.

Horror games in general have the opportunity to give you vastly different character experiences, depending on the choices characters make. Harvest is a Belonging-Outside-Belonging game, which is a rules system that typically doesn't see a lot of character level-ling at all - but what it does have is a token system.

Tokens are resources that can be spent for a significant benefit, and in Harvest, one thing you can use them for is to protect the community and help it survive, but another thing you can use them for is to activate dark and terrible powers. Typically in order to gain these tokens, you have to play into the tropes of your playbook, or do things that bring the narrative towards a conflict-ridden climax.

The biggest downside for games like this is that I think they're not really built for a campaign. Character progression can look very different, but it all happens in the short-term: in this game's case, over 3-4 sessions.

Kresnik|Kudlak: Those Whose Souls Leave, by Tegeljerk.

Kresnik|Kudlak is an apocalyptic supernatural dramatic thriller setting. In an alternate time at the end of the Cold War where the greying phenomenon threatens to plunge the globe into winter forever. The colder it gets the more haunted the world becomes.

The players take on the role of spirit powered Kresnik who help their communities navigate this apocalypse. They will pit themselves against the threats of change, helplessness, isolation, violence, and the unknown. Can they eek out success in the face of a uncaring world? Will they freeze? Or will they break and fall between the cracks, becoming a monster, a Kudlak?

An alternate take on horror media, Kresnik|Kudlak is all about pitting your characters in between two states of being: a Kresnik, who has the resilience to survive in a changing world, and a Kudlak, a monster too exhausted to try and take care of their community. This game doesn't really seem like it has typical character progression: rather, your common goal is that of changing the community around you, while trying to avoid the definitive end stat that is becoming a Kudlak. Any game that has options is also a game that allows players to interact with the world as two characters at very different stages of growth/decay.

For Further Reading…

Liminal Horror, by Goblin Archives.

Failure as Growth Recommendation Post

Helpful Detriments Recommendation Post

Games with Two Sets of Players

Asymmetrical Games Recommendation Post

Deteriorating Characters Recommendation Post

Collecting Curses Recommendation Post

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#difference in levels #tabletop games #game recommendations #indie ttrpgs #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg

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