Advancement, in the form of RPG points, is awarded automatically on a time-based basis.
Our RPG system is balanced with the idea that characters are immediately awesome — that most people's character concepts can reasonably be expressed in 100 points. (Feature characters, by the way, are equivalent to PCs with a couple of months of Advancement, and PCs will catch up in points pretty quickly.)
Because characters are potent right out the gate, the rate of Advancement points is fairly modest, and it slows as the total number of points on your sheet increases. Keep this in mind as you plan what you're going to do with your points. Note these timeframes:
- The oldest characters were at around a total of 135 points in September 2008.
- The oldest characters were at around a total of 155 points in September 2009.
- The oldest characters were at around a total of 165 points in September 2010.
New characters receive accelerated advancement until they catch up with other PCs. This is fairly rapid — it will take you less than a year of play to catch up with the oldest characters in terms of points. This means that new characters are never permanently behind. Note that for new characters, advancement will abruptly slow dramatically at the point they catch up — so don't overspend thinking points will continue to come at that rate!
Gifts and stats are bought with RPG points. You will also receive Focus on a near-daily basis. Among the uses for Focus is the purchase of Lores, which are required for certain gifts, and for special Tokens, which indicate time put into IC preparations based on your skills.
The information below details how to spend your RPG points once you've finished chargen.
How to Increase Your Stats
Use +sheet/advance stat to buy one of your stats up by one rank. This will charge you the appropriate number of RPG system points. You can find out the cost of increasing your stats by typing +sheet/costs.
Stats above 10 are not currently found on any PCs, and only on rare features. However, this may be subject to alteration.
How to Buy a New Gift
Just like in chargen, you may propose a new gift, or buy an existing gift.
- Use +sheet/buy gift = reason to buy an existing gift.
- Use +submit gift = explanation to propose a new gift to the staff.
If you are buying an existing gift, you will need to meet its pre-requisites. Gifts never require training, however, although they may require certain lores (and thus may have training as a usually-optional component along the lore path to meet the gift's pre-requisites). See +reqs gift for the visual layout of the prerequisites on any gift.
Proposing a new gift is just like doing so during character generation. We welcome unique abilities. You do not need to propose specific mechanical effects, but we'd like to know how you envision it being used in play. The staff will worry about the price, the pre-reqs, the exact mechanical effects, and code support if necessary.
If you are not sure whether or not a gift you want exists, please talk a GM. We'll be happy to point you to the right place, or discuss a new idea with you.
Each character's path of advancement is entirely individual, so if you have ideas for where you want your character to go, but aren't sure what gifts are appropriate (or whether such gifts exist already), talk to a GM. Gifts are generally added as players request them or as the staff has ideas, so if you don't see something, just ask.
Further Reading
See buying-lores and prereqs for more on the subject of lores.