Do you mark experiance for rolling a miss in The Sprawl? I’ve noticed that as a common element to other games of the same system, but haven’t noticed it here. If it isn’t a thing I’d be interested to hear why from a design perspective.
Do you mark experiance for rolling a miss in The Sprawl?
Do you mark experiance for rolling a miss in The Sprawl?
You don’t mark exp on a miss in The Sprawl.
Just about every PbtA game has a different system. In original AW and in Monsterhearts you mark exp when you use certain stats. Dungeon World was the first one to introduce exp on a miss. A bunch of others followed suit.
Experience rewards drive player behaviour and character action, so what you get exp for says a lot about the game. In stat marking (highlighting), the other players usually get to choose which of your stats are marked, so it lets the other players say “I want to see you resolve problems with violence” or “I want to see you try to be sexy.”
When they made DW about missing in the final version (it was one of the last things to be finalized) they said “this is a game about learning from your mistakes.” That works well for the exploration motif that DW has.
The Sprawl uses a modified version of a mechanic called “keys” from a game called Shadow of Yesterday (and perhaps more famously now in Lady Blackbird). With keys, players get to choose little sentence-long triggers for when they mark exp, so it rewards reinforcing previously established character traits.
In The Sprawl, characters get exp from personal directives (which are keys they choose themselves) and mission directives (which are keys the MC chooses for each mission). So the PCs are rewarded for acting in character and completing the mission.
Very cool. Thanks for the insight! Its always great to see a designer who is active in the community.