Experience is Actually the Best Teacher

Experience points!!! Oh how I dislike record keeping. It is also one of the most engaging aspects of play – for the player. Eking out those experience points one by one by two by two. Slowly upward one grinds to the million-point mark. That is the goal of The Game right? Get more XP, get more hit points, get more levels, and get more gold? Not really. Maybe for a while it is. XP progression always provides a goal, but eventually most people like the stories and characters they create, the quests and challenges overcome, and the fun at the table. 

 

Experience points are pivotal in making the game work.

So, having given a little thought to experience over the years (and having had a few), I have come to a few conclusions about life and learning. Experience is not necessarily the best teacher, but it is certainly the best reinforcement of teaching and provides the best avenues to expand upon that which has been taught. Learning is a complicated process.

I do believe, from what I recall, that most science backs up that learning from someone is a great start but that having experience doing what has been taught is the quickest and best way to enhance that learning. Hence, in The Game, experience points and progression. Take what has been taught, apply it and become better at it. This all happens in the background of the brain as it rewires itself. Level up and up and up.

I Want to Learn More

There are two lingering issues with regards to gaming and experience. My first question is what propels someone from just a good plumber to a fantastic plumber. Is it brilliant insights or just doing the same job again and again every day? The other question I would have is how one learns new skills. Time, training, and a teacher are involved. Some subjects would be much more difficult to learn than others as well. Learning to read a new language or play the viola would be quite challenging. On the other hand, learning to change a tire on a 1998 Dodge would not. I know, I taught my 14 year old daughter. Chopping wood was another issue altogether.

 The beauty of archetypes is that this really is not a concern. You know what you know and that’s it. Though, to be honest, very few people are really satisfied with this. Its why new classes, cross classes, half classes, and other combinations are created. These meet the needs of those gamers who want their characters to do mor but do not have the either the rules nor the desire to grind it up in game.

A Solution Perhaps?

In dredging up memories from our Castles and Crusades design days, I have hit upon a few ideas that never saw the light. To wit, brilliant insights and cross-class training. The former of the two can be wrangled into a game (and is). The latter of the two is very difficult to manage. Adding time into a game would be instrumental. One has to spend time learning a new skill, especially a difficult one like reading arcane magic. I think maybe I have a solution. Its clumsy right now, but its coming.

 

Which begs the question, why are players so reluctant to let a day pass for their characters without an adventure. But that’s a blog for another day.