Mechanics Part 2

We've looked at how levelling works in a few real games, so how does that translate to a Game of Life?

Gaining Experience/XP

To gain XP, I will complete tasks. To keep things simple, each task is worth 1 XP.

XP will be tallied the day XP is earned or, at latest, the day after. This is to make up for potential late nights where I may have been on top of everything through the day, but had an event to attend to that got me home too late.

I can earn bonus XP by completing Quests and Achievements, which we’ll talk about later.

Levelling Up

At the beginning of the year, all my jobs will start at 1. As I do tasks and quests, I will gain XP. This will be tracked in my paper planner daily. Weekly, I’ll add up my XP and see if I level up any jobs.

In order to level up, I must earn XP, that is do tasks, equal to the XP needed. By default, the first level needs 15 XP to level up.

When I level up, I can make a judgement call and increase or decrease the number of XP needed for the next level.

Ideally, I want to go up about two levels a month. This will allow for regular level ups, which increases motivation to keep going and keep tracking, while also allowing for enough challenge and flexibility. This is also going to force me to make regular reviews of how I’m doing and how well I’m progressing.

Tracking your XP

I’m using a paper planner to track my experience and tasks. As with everything else in this, do what works best for you.

Here’s an example of how it looks tracking 3 jobs over 5 weeks.

Every job starts at level 1, with 15 XP needed to level up. As XP is gained per week, we add it up and track it, with XP carrying over from week to week. The number /15 is the accumulated XP since the last level up, showing how close I am to the next level. As I gain XP week after week, i add that to the accumulated XP.

Job #1 levelled up twice, and seems to be about on track. 5 week months are not the norm, so I think we’re ok keeping it at 15 XP per level for now, though I may want to change it later.

Job #2 is levelling up WAY too fast. It’s either too easy to get XP, the XP per level really needs to be increased, or it might not be worth tracking as an indicator of change. Job #2 needs to be reviewed and see if it’s actually something you want to move forward with.

Job #3 is going up, if a little slow. You might want to look more closely and see why it’s going too slow, and if it’s moving at the pace you expect. If this were a workout tracker, and you are already doing the number of workouts you want, I might leave it or adjust down the XP per level so I’m staying at 2 levels a month.

Getting the mechanics of your system out of the way is the key to getting this to work for the long term. Keeping it simple to start is also really important, as it’s going to make it easier to find the flaws and make adjustments to the system and to how you interact with it. This is my first time doing this, so I’m basically beta testing right now.

Next time, Character Creation.