Monday, October 6, 2025

Stalwart '85 Character Advancement

I just posted about how I had to get some clutter out of the way, and suddenly I'm thinking of Stalwart '85 and character advancement... I was thinking that in the comics, characters do grow over time, but it tends to be very slow, with gradual increases in character effectiveness and power, and (once in a great while) bumps in character growth. I was thinking of something like this to tinker with for S85 and character progression...

OPTION ONE 

After every adventure, you have a cumulative 1 in 20 chance of advancing (so after the first adventure, you would have a 1 in 20 chance... after the second a 2 in 20 chance... after the third a 3 in 20 chance)... once you are successful, this resets. If after your third adventure, you roll a 2, you'd get to advance in some way, but the chances of increasing again would be reset to 1 after your next adventure. When you advance, you'd roll 1D6 to see how you advance...

1. Shift Body +1 Die
2. Shift Mind +1 Die
3. Shift Power +1 Die
4. Shift Reflex +1 Die
5. Gain one new Gift.
6. Increase Tier/Level +1.

On average, you would advance once every ten adventures, and you'd advance your tier/level once every 60 adventures. The GM would (of course) set caps on such advancement (or not. Think of Jean Grey becoming the Phoenix as an example of a character who got a pretty significant upgrade).

OPTION TWO

This is a more traditional XP progression. You earn experience points (an average adventure grants 5 xp... you earn 2 xp for an adventure that you do poorly on, but can earn up to 8 xp for a very successful adventure). You bank XP and then spend them to increase traits or tier, or to purchase new gifts.

Traits are 10x the dice value you are moving to... to shift from Might D10 to D12 costs 120 xp.
Tier are 20x the dice value you are moving to... to shift from level 4 (D8) to level 5 (D10) costs 200 xp.
New gifts have a default cost of 100 xp.


My Fickle Muse

First of all, a brief health update: I had my second round of nuclear medicine treatments on October 1, and I'm feeling remarkably well for someone who was given less than 12 months to live 10 months ago. I'm looking forward to crossing that barrier (which is December 10, for those keeping track). I keep setting new objectives for myself: as of now, I want to live long enough to watch my daughter graduate high school in June. Once I accomplish that, I'll set another goal. 

On to gaming stuff. I've been feeling well enough the last week or two to work on gaming-related stuff, and I keep trying to sit down and work on Doc Stalwart. I still have a few miscellaneous things to finish from the Kickstarter before it is 'complete'. While the primary items (the game itself and the adventure; all of the stat blocks for the public domain characters, all of the original character drawings) are done, and I've finished the core items and some stretch goals, I have a few stretch goals yet to achieve. I don't have a dedicated web site (okay, I had a domain but didn't do anything much with it), I have yet to finish the 8-page comic story, and I still have to figure out some VTT support. So, stretch goals remain incomplete, and I'm aware of that. However, I have released several other things (a bonus adventure and some Stalwart Philes with stat blocks, a database of Doc's comic adventures), so I don't feel TOO bad about it - however, these items are still on my to-do list.

The things is, each time I have sat down to work on any of Doc's stuff, I struggle to focus, and the material I've been able to knock out is not up to my standard. I'm having trouble locking in on Doc Stalwart stuff at the moment.

However, my muse REALLY wanted to work on some Army Ants stuff (because that's how she rolls), so I ended up starting a draft of a new Army Ants RPG that is a hybrid of MTDAA Legacy and Stalwart '85. I have come to think that the basic engine for S85 is really, really malleable, and could be used for any sort of setting. You have a basic action ('attack') die based on your character's level, and you have four traits. Three traits are basically the same across games (might/body, reflex, and mind). However, there is always a fourth trait that is unique to that game. In Stalwart '85, it's Power for your superhuman powers. In the Army Ants game I'm tinkering with it's your Spirit (intuition and connection to the natural world). In a fantasy RPG, it would be magic (your ability to wield arcane or faith-based powers). In a Sci-Fi game, it would be whatever stand-in I'm using for the Force. The cool thing is, I can just set thresholds for 'activating' it, and then it's tiered already. For example, it would be easy in a fantasy RPG to say that at Magic D4, you can read magical scrolls, but you don't have any ability to use magic on your own. At D6, you can cast rudimentary spells, but by D20 you're throwing huge fireballs and raising the dead. The force would work similarly; you don't unlock "Jedi" type powers until maybe D8; D6 might be 'sensitive', allowing you to maybe sense things or have a greater connection to the Force than others, but at D8 you get to start minimal telekinesis, while by D20 you're lifting battle cruisers and surviving for short periods in space.

It's a very adaptable basic game engine.



That said, the newest iteration of Army Ants, MTDAA Final Frontier, uses a version of this system. I've got the playtest document that you're welcome to tinker with (as I am doing), and we'll see where this goes. I will get back to Doc stuff soon enough, and maybe I just have to get this out of my system. I often talked with my students about journaling helping writers because you get the clutter out of your mind and onto the page, and then you can do more focused writing. It might be that this is some clutter I need to clear before the next phase of Doc stuff hits me. Thanks, as always, for your support of and kindness towards me. It is truly appreciated.