tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post8739417430690880499..comments2024-03-07T16:20:50.007+00:00Comments on Librarians & Leviathans: Advancing IconsShimmin Beghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-40801557573803674562014-10-30T14:53:02.849+00:002014-10-30T14:53:02.849+00:00I think this is basically what you're aiming f...I think this is basically what you're aiming for. Although, I think it depends on what kind of campaign you want. Escalating challenge is a bit of a Buffy thing, where you're basically always facing something bigger than last season. A lot of iconic characters, especially those that tend towards one-off stories rather than storylines, are perhaps more inclined to hop about in terms of the technical challenge they're facing? I'm not sure that Sherlock started with easy stuff and escalated, for example. Maybe that's a detective trope, though, rather than a general rule.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-80570280639569531832014-10-30T14:50:02.884+00:002014-10-30T14:50:02.884+00:00Oh, another idea just came to me, which might be n...Oh, another idea just came to me, which might be nice for that continuity-evoking feel that some iconic characters have. You could borrow a leaf from <i>DITV</i> (or indeed, <i>H&H</i>) and have a sort of Wot I Learnd mechanic. Let's call it "As You Will Recall, Watson" (AYWRW). Simply note down one or two things about each 'case', be they contacts, facts, items acquired or whatever. You can then evoke these for a very minor benefit in future cases, rewarding you slightly for building the character's canon a bit, but hopefully not being significant enough that people will tie the game in knots to eke the benefit from improbable things.Shimmin Beghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10350037986748679919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-533573536330092840.post-14560382925511036652014-10-30T14:42:55.752+00:002014-10-30T14:42:55.752+00:00Like you, my first instinct for "how to advan...Like you, my first instinct for "how to advance an iconic character" is "don't". Sherlock Holmes doesn't strictly get *better* at solving crimes in any meaningful way.<br /><br />Indeed I wonder if the solution isn't some kind of inversion of the "running to stand still" effect you get in D&D 4E. A sense of progression for an iconic character comes from their facing greater and greater challenges, all of which they overcome with, in essence, the same abilities they started out with. So while in 4E D&D you're always aiming for an 11+ on a D20 because your enemies' ACs increase at the same rate your abilities do, in an iconic game you're always aiming for 11+ on a D20 because while the challenges you face escalate, they always prove equally amenable to the methods by which you approach them.Dan Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05711867728179306264noreply@blogger.com