RPG Errata: Diceless Universal, Ends, and Leveling Up

Diceless Universal, by Michael Raston, is a very simple Universal Deterministic RPG. Only four pages long, the rules of the system are barely worth calling rules. Being deterministic, the rule section mostly details how the GM describes the world, and the players react. It is shared storytelling at its most basic; little more than a collaborative argument.

But I talked about that kind of play earlier. What I’d like to discuss now is the very last page, where the system details its progession mechanic: what it takes for characters to level up.

There are only eleven levels, starting at level 0 and going up to level 10. To get to the next level, your character doesn’t need to collect XP; instead, they have to change something.

To get from level 0 to level 1, for example, they have to “do something mildly interesting.” Easy enough for even the most basic character, I should think. To get to level 3, however, the character has to “do something that changes a small group.” To get to level 4, they have to “do something that changes a large group.” This escalation continues until, to get to level 10, you have to “do something that changes reality.”

Levels are an interesting aspect of RPGs, and they are handled in any number of different ways. The two big options are XP and Milestone leveling. In the olden days, XP was collected like gold, and once a character had enough, they gained a level. Milestone leveling eshews XP for narrative-based leveling: they gain levels after defeating a powerful enemy, advancing to the next chapter of the story, or otherwise reaching a “milestone.”¹

What is leveling up?

Mechanically, it’s getting “stronger.” It is a method whereby a player can feel a sense of progression and succeed at new challanges. A character at the start of the game can’t easily kill a dragon until they’ve spent time gaining levels. At the same time, when I talked about balancing I mentioned the need for players to be challenged: gaining levels is, at best, a slight of hand. It changes the game, yes, but ideally a fight between a level 1 adventurer and a goblin should be of comparable difficulty to a fight between a level 10 adventurer and an ogre.

Narratively, leveling is similarly a measure of progression, of the character gaining skills and abilities that they didn’t have before. Luke trains in the Force, Taran travels with Gwideon, Goku learns the Kamehameha…but it is an abstraction. No one ever really “level’s up,” any more than they gain or lose “hit points.” Practically, some RPGs — such as Cairn — now ignore leveling entirely, letting the story advance the character’s abilities.

As the medium progressed, designers started to experiment. XP used to be acquired exclusively through defeating monsters and getting treasure — suitable for a game all about combat and looting — but then it started to be dolled out through completing tasks. Some systems give XP only when you fail a roll, giving character growth a natural difficulty curve; you are incentivized to try more and more difficult tasks to keep improving.

Now, milestone leveling is getting its own experiments. Diceless Universal combines both the concept of milestone and power-progression. Gaining lower levels is simple enough, but as you advance in levels you have to seek out greater and larger tasks, capable of shifting greater and greater aspects of the world.

Ends, by Sadpress, has a similar narrative structure to its leveling. Being a post-apocalyptic RPG, the game is all about spending resources without an easy way to get them back. To take action, you spend your character’s stat points to achieve varying levels of success, spending more if the task is difficult. You get these points back by purchasing them on your character’s “flow.” Think of it like a skill tree.

you gain XP by taking damage and spending points. When you purchase a node, 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.

And 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.

Leveling is, partly, a way to encourage story. The need for more XP or the desire for higher levels drives our characters to fight stronger monsters and seek greater challenges. Defining the narrative milestones, as Ends and Diceless Universal do, is a facinating method of guiding player action without forcing the players into specific behaviors. In Diceless Universal, your character needs to cause great changes in the world, and ultimately all of reality. In Ends, your character needs to undergo emotional or character-defining moments.

It’s better than the usual “milestone” leveling in that it ludo-narratively ties the story to progress. Milestones on their own are intangibles, despensed at the GM’s whim. Was this monster big enough to be a milestone? Was this really the end of a quest? The GM decides in the end. With the added layers, Milestones now have the opportunity to shape the narrative, rather than merely punctuate it.

I hope that in the future, more narrative games play around with this method of leveling, and find new and interesting ways to bring narrative plot-points into their systems.