Zeal (otherwise known as XP...was "Devoted Zeal")

Remember that when you're spending Zeal, you put points into your Archetypes, and that it costs 3x the level you're **going to** to purchase your next Archetype (so, f'rinstance, if you're at level 2 Body and you want to purchase your next Archetype, you must spend 9 Zeal. Similarly, if you're at level 4 Soul and you want to purchase level 5, it will cost you 15 Zeal).

Every Archetype you purchase gives you three Build Points you can spend anywhere within that Archetype. So, for example, if you purchase a new level of your Mind Archetype, you will have three points to spend in your Prowesses, Mind Techniques, Secular Power, Mind or Embodiment Preeminences (with Storyguide approval), Mind Professions, Resources, or Dramatic Maneuvers.

Here is a table that outlines what you can spend your Build Points on:

Body Archetype	Mind Archetype	Soul Archetype
Prowesses (Dynamic and Reactive)	Prowesses (Dynamic and Reactive)	Prowesses (Dynamic and Reactive)
Offensive Maneuvers	Dramatic Maneuvers	Defensive Maneuvers
Bully Profession	Academic Profession	Artist Profession
Guardian Profession	Investigator Profession	Rebel Profession
Criminal Profession	Power Monger Profession	Therapist Profession
Other Body Profession (with Storyguide Approval)	Other Mind Profession (wSGa)	Other Soul Profession (wSGa)
Body Technique	Mind Technique	Soul Technique
Body or Embodiment Preeminences (with Storyguide Approval)	Mind or Embodiement Preeminence (wSGa)	Soul or Embodiment Preeminence (wSGa)
Resources	Resources	Resources
	Secular Power	Devotion

And, in case you're as terrible at basic math as I am (doubtful), a table outlining how much Zeal it requires to purchase each Archetype level:

Current Level	Going to	Zeal
1	2	6
2	3	9
3	4	12
4	5	15
5	6	18
6	7	21
7	8	24

On average, you will be earning between 2 and 5 Zeal each month.

**Note: It is possible to *lose* Zeal. Usually, this only happens if you go or stay OOC frequently or for a long time.

In the copy of the rules that were brought to the game (which I think were currentish) it mentioned buying archtypes a third a time (ie I have 4 body archtypes, I can spend 5 zeal to by 1 "dot" to spend in body as long as I continue spending my zeal on body until the full archtype is bought).

I know this was a house rule up in the S'toon game, but I'd never seen it in the actual rules before. Is this a rule we are using?

This is in the current rulebook, but I have elected not to use it.

Speaking of Devoted Zeal, I just thought I'd check this again (as we're updating our characters and all).

Do we get a point of Devotion free, like we did with Adversity Zeal?

Dan: You can get up to 5 Devoted Zeal for a character background - you will get 1 if you submit your character background. You can earn up to 5 for a *Really Cool*/good/interesting/inspired background submitted within 3 months of beginning play as that character.

You get 1 Devoted Zeal for submitting your character sheet when you begin playing a new character.

On an ongoing basis:
You can get 1 DZ for submitting Endeavours
1 DZ for attending the game
1 DZ for good roleplaying
1 DZ for Costuming (not awarded every month, or with any regularity really)
1 DZ for Contribution to story (usually only one of these is given out each month)
1 DZ for Players' Choice Award

So in an average month, you will probably get between 1 - 3 Devoted Zeal, but you *could* get as much as 8 - 12 in one month (but not in successive months).

Mark: Nope

Also, there's been some question as to what happens when you retire your character or when your character dies and you have unspent Zeal left over. Or, when you first create a character and have unspent Creation Zeal.

Generally, in the first case, I've had a 'rule of thumb' that says that I will award you half (rounded ugly) of your unspent Zeal. In the second case, I've generally told you you can carry-over any unspent Creation Zeal you have left over.

There is a suggestion 'on the board' that I limit that to a maximum of 8 unspent Zeal that you can then use for your next character. So the 'rule of thumb' would then be "half your unspent Zeal to a maximum of 8" to be used at character creation.

Thoughts?

Hrm. I will leave it up to Dave the Math ...uh... Guy... to explain the ins and outs of 8.

I think it had something to do with 9 being ...um... greater than 8 and ...uh... less than 12?

((Dave!!?? Haaaalp??))

Possibly because 9 is waaay more useful than 8? (Being a power of 3).

Thing is, people with a lot of unspent zeal are the ones who've been playing for a while with an underpowered character. Sure, this "rewards" not spending, but so what? Not spending your zeal kinda sucks. Let them finally use some of that zeal they've been ignoring. Not like they didn't earn it.

Apparently, I've been being waaay too kind to folks. There actually is a directive that you cannot retain *any* of your Creation Zeal.

Laura: the thing is, it's the player's choice not to spend their Zeal. Which means the player has chosen to continue to play an 'underpowered' character. Sure, you've earned the Zeal, but if you're not using it anyway, what does it matter if you don't get all of it when you play a new character? (I don't say this to be snotty; I'm genuinely asking a question.)

Another suggestion is to retain all of your unspent Zeal and have the Storyguide dole it out a little bit every month, so that you're *guaranteed* a certain amount of Zeal over the course of playing your character.

The "rule of 8" was actually to address the second point, not the first, and I'll explain why in a moment.

As for the first point (carryover zeal), I am of two minds on this. Normally I believe that if you don't spend points on a character, too bad, the points are lost. In this game however, players (full disclosure - including me) were asked by the storyguide to keep playing existing characters from Mike's game so there could be some continuity. In at least one case (possibly others as well), players chose not to bring in a new character when the game started largely because they were told that all the zeal they earned on the old characters could be transferred to the new ones. I think that offer from Jill to transfer all the points was made when the thought was that most of these characters would switch out after 2-3 months. With them having been played for as long as they were, half zeal seemed like a good comprimise.

As for the second point (unspent creation zeal). My understanding is that any character that starts with 6 archtypes in a category is considered "mature". As such there is a large incentive to start with 5 archtypes and buy up to 6 during play. If all unspent creation points can just convert to zeal, then there is nothing stopping a player from leaving 18 points unspent and just buying the 6th archtype immediately after the first game session. That being said, if all creation points disappear if unspent, it means certain "builds" are weaker than others because the player is left with leftover points but all archtypes are too expensive to buy.

That didn't really answer "why 8". Unless a player is really trying to find a build (using transgressions and 1 pt expenditures through hallow etc), 8 points is the maximum amount of points a player can have left over without being able to afford another archtype. For example, a well rounded fallen (4,4,3) costs 69 pts leaving 6 left over. A more specialized fallen, lets say with a 5 or 6 in an archtype will probably have at least one 2 somewhere and if they had 9 pts could always increase that. 8 is also less than halfway to the 18 points needed to reach a 6th archtype. Using 8 as the cut-off means that even with a great background, most characters will need a minimum of 2 months worth of xp to reach a 6th archtype (without starting with one) and characters without a great background are going to need 3 or 4 months of playing.

Thanks, Dave.

I would like to just repeat that I surround myself with people who are smarter than me and more capable than me. Partly because I hope they will provide me with many opportunities to learn new things. And also because I have a most likely unrealistic belief that in comparison, folks will also assume I am terribly clever.

Point of clarification - the request for keeping existing characters wasn't to provide continuity from the previous game. It was primarily a) because I really liked the characters, and the dynamics between them; and b) because I thought it would be a Good Idea to have folks who'd played the game in the positions of authority that they had to continue to do so to provide leadership and/or a starting point for the game, based on its own history (which is separate and different from that of the previous game).

Granted, I could have asked the players (Dave, Vince, Mark, and Janice) to make up new and different characters who would then take the same positions, but I thought it would be easier in the long run just to use the 'same old same old'.

I only mention this because I want to make it clear that story-wise, there is no 'continuity' between Providence and On Wings of Fire.

Thanks for the clarification. I meant more continuation of relationships between the characters "in power" rather than storyline continuity.

I figured.

I can't help but notice I was able to read *every single word* of your latest post. <grin>

It's perfectly true that that was their choice, I'm just not sure why they would be penalized for it. Given that you *are* giving us some (thank you) I don't understand the rationale for limitting it. The people that it hurts are the ones who (by their own choice, granted) have been underpowered. I don't have any strong arguments as to why not limit them except that it seems a strange choice of people to penalize and I don't see what the point is.

Dave seems to be saying a limit of 8 CREATION zeal, though, which is different.

Also, this is all just my opinion. I don't feel particularly strong about it, probably mainly because I spend my zeal.

I can't help but notice I was able to read *every single word* of your latest post. <grin>

Is this a commentary on my usually over-lengthy posts?

No. It was a commentary on the fact that you didn't speak Canoe this time.

::sigh::

So, to be clear, Dave: are we talking about capping the amount of unspent creation zeal that becomes creation zeal for the new character, or the amount of total unspent zeal that becomes creation zeal for the new character?

(Jill: computer talk can be just as bad, y'know. Quite aside from the obvious stuff like private members & dangling pointers. "We're going to use agile methods and a modular approach." "Just pass the onkeypress through setTimeout." "Be careful: you can't deep copy ref cursors.")

oooh. Agile methods...



Oh, I'm sorry. What were you saying?

So my suggestion to Jill was that if leftover creation zeal that can be left unspent at character creation be capped at 8. This means when building a new character, you couldn't leave 20 points unspent and then use them all as zeal once the game began.

For carryover zeal (ie zeal that was unspent on a previous character), I hadn't made any suggestions one way or another with regards to this. Capping this at 8 would seem like a random # to me. I have opinions on what I think is a fair system of how carryover should work (not surprisingly it would involve me getting more than I currently am), but I've tried to bite my tongue on this one since it weemed like everyone was pretty content with the keep half system.

Oh. Well, I wouldn't have a problem with that at all.

considering I am the kind of guy who tries to use all his creation zeal up (on techniques and similar such things) I also have no problem with that.

I'll think about this, because the guideline is that you don't get to 'carry over' any Creation Zeal.

As for unspent Zeal, this is my reasoning for it: in most other games, if you lose your character or retire him/her, your XP is basically tied to that character and you don't get to bring any of it to a new character. I know that you earn Zeal at a slower rate in a LARP than you earn XP in other games (which generally tie 'XP' to 'levelling up'). That's why I'm willing to offer 1/2 your unspent Zeal when you retire your character or get killed instead.

There are other reasons that I would prefer to explain in person, as well.

Thanks for your input!

cenobyte wrote:I'll think about this, because the guideline is that you don't get to 'carry over' any Creation Zeal.

As for unspent Zeal, this is my reasoning for it: in most other games, if you lose your character or retire him/her, your XP is basically tied to that character and you don't get to bring any of it to a new character. I know that you earn Zeal at a slower rate in a LARP than you earn XP in other games (which generally tie 'XP' to 'levelling up'). That's why I'm willing to offer 1/2 your unspent Zeal when you retire your character or get killed instead.

Actually, in most other games I play, you bring in a subsequent character at either half or full value of the current XP level in the game. Also, most of those games don't tie XP to levelling up. About half of those are house-ruled to included carryover XP, while the other half have it in the rules.

I really don't have any preferences, BTW. The issues of "carryover" XP in LARP and in tabletop are vastly different. My point is that you should base the logic of Zeal carryover on what you want the effect to be, rather than 'what other games do'. By that logic, the other LARP in play in the city gives your full accumulated character points (spent or unspent) to you when you start a new character.