I am beginning to understand the balancing act PCI is performing with XP and keeping the tiers of play as close as possible. I think there are other issues that need addressed at the same time to help with this, but that is outside the scope of the BI discussion.

That said, I think there are many ways to give 'rewards' that aren't monetary, that aren't 'one use' and that keep the flavor of the overall event intact. I've given some suggestions to PCI and I know they are having a lot of discussions around this. I look forward to seeing what's coming.

John

I know that Tony has said that there are plans to make the Fame/Reputation system useful in the near future, so perhaps a component of the reward for the BI could be reputation with Tultipet/First City. I would think this would be a logical result of the PC's participation in such a battle.

Okay I grant that there wouldn't be a lot to scrounge at Tultipet, that's trying to get blood out of a stone (no pun intended). But given we saved the First City from invasion perhaps they could cough up something. As I mentioned earlier it doesn't have to be lots of gold or magic or even xp. I'd be cool with a title, some fame, maybe a medal. All these keep the con goers and non con goers roughly in line xp wise. And titles, medals and such don't cost the First City all that much unless there are some tangible assets attached. My character for one would love having the title "Defender of the First City" having at this point saved the city twice (both BIs). Maybe induction into a group. Again nothing that provides xp or any benefit in combat/magic. Sort of like getting knighted without a fiefdom to back it up. Just my two cents.

For me, the big take-away of this discussion is that, ahem, to paraphrase, action have consequences. Decisions made by campaign staff encourage certain behaviors and discourage others. So, perhaps one way to approach the issues is to consider what behaviors PCI does want to encourage among the player base.

To address just the main issue raised here:

-- To encourage players to come to the big cons: offer exclusives with commensurate (whatever that means) rewards.
-- To keep the con-goer PCs relatively equals to non-con-goer PCs: don't offer con-only exclusives, or severely limit rewards for them (and here, I mean not just XP; once the XP "playing field" is leveled, the next issue will be that non-con-goer PCs don't have as much money, magic, fate as the con-goers.)

Just some thoughts and speculation.

Obviously, the first step is to determine what behavior you want, and only then figure out what changes will accomplish that goal.

I am new to forums, and can't seem to find a way to send you a PM.
My email was just restored on the evening of July 7th (it's been out since June 28th). I have not received my 2014 BI cert. Please tell me what to do.

D. Stephen Raymond

You need to have 5 posts (iirc) to send PMs.

Matt, I respectfully disagree that what Eric said is strictly "getting it". While I agree the experience of being at the Con and participating in the events is enriching and 'worth the trip', those "numbers on your cert" factor in to the specific experience of the characters at the table. MY XP was seeing people I generally only see once a year, interacting with them, hanging out and having a great time. That I freely admit and agree that I had 'a great time' during the Con is a service to the men and women that judged and staffed The Gathering. All of that is irrespective of the number on the cert.

The number on the cert is a measure of the character's XP. We invaded a Dwaren freakin' Enclave - sure it wasn't exactly Solanis Mor...but it is STILL the kind of thing that's only happened, what, twice in the history of Onara. That's the kind of thing songs, fables, poems, and ballads are written about. That's the kind of thing the characters will say "do you remember where you were when..." and will answer "yeah, I was leading the charge of my squad, taking the far bridge...where the hell were YOU".

To put the numbers in perspective... BEAST lost 100xp in the first module (very wrongly, we feel, because we weren't frakin' grave robbers, but that's a complaint for another time). Two standard module, run-of-the-mill fights equaled 100xp. That's the same amount of XP granted by a freakin' BATTLE INTERACTIVE. Using the metric established by the first mod of the Con, that 100xp was earned halfway through the second round.

So my question is, and will continue to be, where the Hades is my character's xp for the last however-many-and-a-half rounds?!

Look, I get the desire to not have the huge gap between the Con goers and those that play the campaign at home, I really do. And it's even a noble idea... But darn it all... We've had the new system for, what, 4-5 years now... And in that entire time, the absolute largest gap between someone that's attended every Con and someone that's never attended a Con is exactly 2 ranks. We're not even talking those two ranks being the difference between X.10 and (x+1).01, so one cannot even suggest that the tier difference could cause an imbalance. The imbalance is between those that play all released mods and those that don't (likely those that started at 1.5 and have only done the second arc).

2 ranks...in 5 years... Color me unimpressed by this supposed imbalance. So flat out, mathematically, the argument "we don't want a huge gap between attendees and home gamers" just doesn't hold any water...at all...

I think your calculations are off by just a bit. If it is 2 ranks in the last 5 years, I can't say and it is irrelevant. Going forward, there will be one con-exclusive event at ArcaniCon and Origins each year. That equates to 1 rank per year at the old xp levels. And that's not counting LARPs or other special events. 2 ranks is noticeable but not huge. I do think the xp needs to be kept down for con-exclusive events. However, personally I think the biggest "xp gap" is due to the 1.5 cert being a 1.5 cert (playing through the 1.5-cert-illegal Crusade mods gave a lot more than 4000 xp).

You guys might wanna let it ride and wait for an official response, Tony indicated a good while back that the feedback was heard and he would be endeavoring to fix that, you might actually wanna give the campaign a chance to fix it instead of running the topic into the ground.

You are correct. I forgot that the BI for the first ArcanisCon wasn't released.

To date the only exclusives have been:
A Peaceful Interlude (500xp) - GenCon BI just after the end of the crusade
Expedition of...something or another (750xp max, only 1 table got this I think) - Origins 2013
Green In Tooth & Claw (500xp) - ArcanisCon '13 BI
Vault of Larissa (650xp) - ArcanisCon '14
Origins '14 BI (100xp)


Still, 2.5 ranks difference between "played absolutely everything" and "played everything but Con exclusives" over 5 years isn't a lot. Mind, I am not counting the 5 XP per LARPs.

Also, has it been confirmed that there will be exclusives at GenCon in addition to Origins or were you assuming Origins + ArcanisCon?