The main problem I had with Morrowind’s system was that I felt it turned into a major grind-fest. Advancing in the story didn’t really give out rewards – a few pieces of equipment, but Morrowind’s enchanting system was so broken that if (like me on my first attempt) you let your inner min/maxer loose, you’ll end up invincible way too fast. That’s why I argue for story-based advancement, a la Black Isle (Fallout 1&2, Planescape). Another system I’ve seen used is for the boss battles to give way more experience than standard battles, which solves the two main balance issues I see throughout CRPGs – the need to grind through monsters to get powerful enough to advance in the story, and the ability to grind so many monsters that the story loses any challenge. Because, at least for me, the story of a game is almost always more interesting than fighting random monsters. My favorite games are the ones where you more or less progress from puzzle to boss battle to city to puzzle without ever really noticing the random encounters (if any).

I am currently teaching some boys (ages 8-11) how to play D&D and I can see how they have been totally corrupted by MMORPGs. They see their characters only in terms of levels and points, and see everything in terms of combat. One wants to play a dark elf “necro-knight” (I still have to figure out what that is), another a paladin, another a good elven “red dragon deciple”. They of course have no notion that it might be difficult to imagine such characters adventuring together. I need to explain to them that PnP RPGs invovle a story that makes sense and that monsters don’t just hang around in well-distributed bunches waiting to be slaughtered by anonymous cool-looking heroes. Characters don’t just “hook-up” for some casual monster bashing. But at the same time I don’t want to crush their dreams about their characters. These kids aren’t exactly the coolest of the cool–more like young Napoleon Dynamites (sort of like me and my friends at that age).

Anyway, I think that levelling appeals to our inner baboon. Its like a form of abstracted dominance hierarchy. Level 3 is more powerful than level 2. But throughout our society are analogues such as pay grades in jobs, grade levels in school, getting a diploma, BA, MA or PhD. There is certainly a “DING” experience associate with these (grad ceremonies). But just like in RPGs the requirements in life to “level” are pretty arbitrary but the benefits ascribed to each “level” such as increases in pay, or better job opportunities etc are very real. Of course a lot of people refer to all this as the “rat race”, which we somehow managed to simplify in computer form for CRPGs for those who find the larger games of our society too stressful. So unless you want to be Thoreau you are stuck with a clunky system that favors min-maxing munchkins, twinkers, and DM girlfriends. Here’s to building a better system!

http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/laws.html
http://tinyurl.com/2r9c5
http://tinyurl.com/2anum

It’s amusing to try to figure out whether Puzzle Pirates is an example for or against each of the arguments being debated.

Planescape: Torment was like this as well. You did get XP from combat, but you got substantially more XP from unearthing memories that had been hidden, so the combat XP was pretty much meaningless.