Manifest: Leveling Up

Leveling Up is an important part of RPGs. Really, it’s an important part of gaming in general; whether increasing your character’s options, adding troops to your army, or personally getting better at “the game.” While I certainly appreciate the latter form of improvement, I do want to add a more concrete mechanical form of “leveling up.”

In the 0.1 version of the ruleset, this was handled with the total of a Manifestation’s Tier and Bond. A “first level” Manifestation would only have 1 Tier and 1 Bond, while a higher level Manifestation might have 3 Tier and 2 Bond.

In the 0.2 version of the ruleset, the Tier/Bond system has been replaced with a single Emotional-stat mechanic, with Tier representing a Manifestation’s “Level.” This is much simpler and easier to manage, but what does a higher Tier actually do?

Well, the first and obvious answer is “increase LP.” LP is 2*Tier at the moment, which increases a Manifestation’s staying power. Assuming I put Tier in a Manifestation’s abilities, it will also improve their basic actions. It also makes manifesting more difficult, making higher-tier Manifestations take longer to field.

The balancing effect I want to explore is the idea that Agents can choose to either manifest a few higher-tier Manifestations, or a larger number of lower-tier. If all Manifestations are the same complexity — one ability and one passive — then the choice is two-fold: having a lot of lower-tier Manifestations not only means you can swarm your opponent, but you will have a wider variety of abilities. Fewer high-tier Manifestations not only means stronger abilities and longer-lasting units, but also limits your options.

Does this make for more interesting choices? Or just more variables in said choices?

Well, in the interest of simplicity and the next playtest, I think we can stick with this and see what happens. But, just to make sure I know what I’m choosing between, let’s look at the alternative: what if higher-tier Manifestations had more abilities?

D&D has charts detailing what each player gets when their class raises a level. Let’s play in that realm for a moment: what could that chart look like if MANIFEST used a similar method? Something like this?

| Tier || Abilities | |:—-:|———————–| | 1 || 1 Ability | | 2 || +1 Passive | | 3 || +1 Ability | | 4 || +1 Passive | | 5 || +1 Ability or Passive |

There are some things to like about this framework: Having six Tier 1s means that you just have to pay attention to six abilities, and nothing else. You don’t have to concern yourself with passives, edge cases, or anything like that. In essence, you just have six moves and a lot of drones/summons to source them from. There’s a playstyle that this meshes with.

Once we get up to Tier 2s, now we add in passives and edge cases. What counts as a passive can be worked on later — we could include reactions, summons, or anything that isn’t a direct attack — but whatever it is, it should provide the Manifestation it’s color. Now it’s not just a mobile gun, but a gun with character.

Tier 3s get another ability of some kind. This opens up player’s strategic options. Now Manifestations have two attacks apiece, and that means you could, perhaps, choose whether to do damage or inflict a condition. Maybe your two abilities let you either hit hard or hit fast. Maybe each inflicts a different condition. Now you have some strategic options.

Tier 4s get another passive, shaping them more. There will probably be some limitations, such as you can’t get two reactions or two passives, but with two or maybe three Tier 4s on the field, you have even more options.

Tier 5s are, of course, unique. This last ability could be a third attack, another passive, or maybe something else entirely. Agents won’t be able to field many Manifestations of Tier 5, so that means they’ve got to be a bit of an ogre.

What this also does is slowly introduce cognitive load. Players aren’t going to go from three Tier 1s to three Tier 2s all in one go, they’re going to level up one step at a time, meaning players can get familiar with their teams. As far as total cognitive load goes: If you have one Tier 3, one Tier 2, and two Tier 1s, that’s five abilities and two passives you need to pay attention to. Not impossible, especially if the abilities are simple and elegant.

Both of these ideas have merit, but playtesting both is where I’ll figure out which ones play better.

The Leveling Metric

But this is all overlooking one important detail. Even if I manage to iron out a perfect “balanced” leveling system, we still need to figure out how Manifestation’s raise in Tier.

There are two basic methods of pacing levels in RPGs: the XP method and the Milestone method. Giving XP is perhaps the most “game-like” method, where certain actions provide a kind of meter that can be measured to raise a level. Milestones are more story-based, requiring the GM to decide when something has happened “of significance” enough that a character should receive an increase in their abilities, usually at a significant narrative plot-point.

I’m not too satisfied with either of these methods for MANIFEST. XP feels fairly arbitrary and can result in players grinding to reach higher levels. It also mandates certain actions as “the way you get better,” which can result in the old issue of thieves getting better at hiding through the blood they shed. Milestones are a little better, but place a lot of onus on “the story,” and could get much more complicated when dealing with multiple Manifestations per Agent.

So what are some alternatives?

When I was talking about Leveling Up in my RPG Errata, I talked about Ends, by Sadpress. To repeat it’s leveling system here: You gain XP by taking damage and spending stat points. When you purchase a node on your character sheet, it raises a specific stat to a predetermined level. Your tree, however, has “gates,” purchases you cannot move past until you have done something specific. One gate might open if you “hide something.” Another might require you to “overreact.” Whether you “decide you like the new world better,” or “become a monster and then realize it,” these gates provide shape to your character’s growth and story.

That’s not leveling; you get to level 2 or 3 by purchasing it from your flow, and then you get a new character sheet with new stats, a new flow, and new gates.

I like this system, because it encourages narrative structure while still playing in the ludo-narrative. Once you behave a certain way, you gain access to different assets. This encourages certain kinds of behavior for different characters without restricting things too much.

For MANIFEST, our Agents are tied to manifestations of emotion. Surely we can hack this kind of leveling up mechanic into the system?

What if each Manifestation has four or five “gates.” These are unique for each Manifestation, representing their emotional core. If your character behaves in a specific way, that gate is “opened” and the Manifestation raises a Tier.

I like this idea, because it encourages players to behave in certain ways, but it’s also ludo-narrative in its framing. A Manifestation is concentrated emotion, and that’s going to affect your behavior. When you act a certain way, the Manifestation gets stronger. You may be in control of the Manifestation, but it’s also affecting you…

I’ll use this method for now — having five “milestone behaviors” that level up individual Manifestations — and see how that plays in later playtests. For now, I think I’ve got a good handle on the new 0.2 rules, and that means its playtesting time!