Mathematics & Dungeon Questing

Well today discussion was about mathematics & Dungeon Questing. I suppose that you will wonder what a combination of themes is that. A beautiful RPG, such as Dungeon Questing, with the science of math.

If you are familiar with DQ is a classless RPG system based on skills and also is based on White Box rules. Before i get my hands on the printed books i didn’t believe that such a combination will ever exist, but Mikael Hassel did his miracle.

So every hero is buying his/her way to eternity by spending experience points on skills in hope to overcome future threats. In some point through our play session came an obvious question; what level am I? I spend some time thinking about the idea of an overall indicator such as level and here i present you my thought:

White Box has 4 different experience tables. Also as i own many of the White Box material out there, we can describe each XP table as a different gear of advancement.  
  • White Box rules as based on a 10 level progression
  • Each level you need, your current xp x 2, with the exception of the 1st level which acts as the indicator
  • Dungeon Questing uses a Experience system which is based on WB but all numbers are almost either halved (instead of d20 uses 2d6 for resolution) or divide by 10 (for the experience points)

Lets see the Experience Tables available at White Box Classes. Inside the parenthesis are the DQ experience. Of course i didn't include all the classes that are available at WB rulesets but i choose the most common four.
Table 1: Levels
Description/ Level
Thief/Bard ( Very Fast)
Cleric, Druid (Fast)
Fighter, Warrior (Normal)
Wizard (Slow)
1
0
0
0
0
2
1250 (125)
1500 (150)
2000 (200)
2500 (250)
3
2500 (250)
3000 (300)
4000 (400)
5000 (500)
4
5000 (500)
6000 (600)
8000 (800)
10000 (1000)
5
10000 (1000)
12000 (1200)
16000 (1600)
20000 (2000)
6
20000 (2000)
24000 (2400)
32000 (3200)
40000 (4000)
7
40000 (4000)
48000 (4800)
64000 (6400)
80000 (8000)
8
80000 (8000)
96000 (9600)
128000 (12800)
160000 (16000)
9
160000 (16000)
192000 (19200)
256000 (25600)
320000 (32000)
10
320000 (32000)
384000 (38400)
512000 (51200)
640000 (64000)
  
Ok under this table we got an indicator of what level our beloved hero is but how can a storyteller make a use of the table above?

Player’s requests


  • The Level of the Hero ()
  • In some circumstances we encountered the problem of what level are the heroes especially to adjust a ST with that table we found our solution to our problem (Player’s request)

And Storyteller’s needs


  • First it can act as a campaign indicator. Maybe i want a really long term campaign so i will probably use the slow progression for all the heroes. Maybe a fast & furious one? In that occasion the very fast progression will serve me well. Also to be honest, nothing will change the core DQ but it will create an differnt illusory perception of the campaign to the players.
  • Of course i support the distinction between race and class but sometimes, in some stories, i would like to have a different approach to races. Maybe i would like to add a few abilities here and there. Although levels are still iconic as DQ is still a classless & skill based game, we can add a few racial abilities which will be available at level 6 for example to indicate a racial paragon hero.  Also maybe we can say that humans use the fast progression while elves & dwarves the slow one.

As a final thought i will try to combine my high experimental Hack edition with the elegant Dungeon Questing. You can call me a madman but truly i will give it a try and then maybe the above level system are not so iconic anymore….

Take Care

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