I have a few questions.
1) It’s my understanding that the only way to get Advancements is to open new Drive books and their related Moves.
This seems not only incredibly slow, but very limiting when you consider that only a select number of Drives will mesh with a particular type of character. I can’t imagine many characters fitting into more than 3 drives over an extended campaign. That doesn’t total out to many Achievement points. Am I missing something? Do points also get handed out t the end of each session?
2) When Pushing, the rules state that on a 10+ to add the power to your profile “if it’s not already there”. Am I correct that this statement is referring to “Possible” powers? And if so, does that mean players need to Push to use their “Possible” power? If so, and they succeed, does that power become a simple/difficult/borderline power? Do you pick a new Possible power?
1) The Advancement system was very much tacked on later due to some playtesters really wanting something more. In all honesty, it’s completely unnecessary. Absolutely all growth that is important to a character and the story is reflected in Bonds for showing relationships, Drives for showing personal growth/change, and Pushing for powers.
I found that most players when they advance want to go for the +3 to moves, which is kind of a lot really (though Conditions help to bust that down a bit) so I wanted Advancement to be slow, and players wanted bennies for more “upgrades” that is more typical in other AW hacks. It really did seem to facilitate and help with players working towards opening stuff up and getting their points for future action for certain types of players; for those that didn’t care as much it didn’t hinder them at all, so I kept it in.
While some Drives only work well with one particular concept, I think if you play for long enough such that they could open up all those that match the initial concept then it might be time to try something that doesn’t match and to push them into new places. That said, if you want Advancement to happen quicker, you can give them more points for opening stuff, or give them out for doing cool stuff, or to MVP at the end of a game or however you like.
2) You use Push to put absolutely anything that’s not on your Powers Profile (but possible as per your Powers Summary) on to it. So it can refer to any level, not just Possible (and of course, Impossible is there to set the ceiling – it doesn’t change or get added to). If they get a 10+ they get to add it to their Profile so that the next time they do it, they don’t have to Push. When you add something to your Profile it doesn’t take the place of what was there before and powers don’t move up or down between difficultly levels (unless something big happens, like Dead for Now). After a few games the Profile will get to be pretty long actually.
If it’s the “if it’s not already there” redundancy that tripped you up, it’s just there to make sure people only use this move for things not already on their Powers Profile. I probably should have just left it with the trigger though.
That’s what tripped me up. I realized what you meant, but it did read kind of awkward. Really it seems like the Possible and Impossible powers should be more differentiated from the Simple/Difficult/Borderline powers, even if it’s just on the character sheet. When I was running it, it wasn’t really obvious to everyone that the Possible powers needed to be Pushed before you can do them.
On the subject of the character sheet, it needs space for more bonds. In a 5-player game there is no room for any NPCs as the 4 blank spots are automatically occupied by the other players’ characters. I will likely be making my own character sheet with more, which I’ll post here.
I wanted to ask this question, too. The game seemed to have hardly any advancement, compared to other AW-based systems. It kind of reminded me of the highlighted stats in AW and Monsterhearts, but those mean Advancement can come mighty quick.