An advancement system - Merging two pieces of MOSAIC Strict

I am working on an advancement system and I came across two MOSAIC Strict supplements that kinda clicked with my goals and with each other: Advancement, by TheOriginalCockatrice, and Experience and Quests, by SabreCat.

Here’s the VERY rough draft of joining them.

When you are safe and can recall your journeys roll 2d6 + 1 for each of the below:

  • You grew as a player;
  • Your PC was challenged;
  • You and the table had fun;
  • Your PC loses something great.
  • Your PC shares something great.

10+ Take both:

  • Get 1 Major Token
  • Get 2 Minor Tokens

7-9: Take one from above.

6-: Take +1 forward when you make this move again.

Experience Tokens

Experience tokens are a currency that players earn for character actions and can spend to improve a character’s situation or standing. You can use physical items like poker chips to represent them in inperson play, or track them as quantities on a character sheet.

Spend a minor experience token to gain a momentary or ephemeral advantage for your character.

  • In an action scene, an opportunity to strike; a convenient distraction; a favorable wind…
  • If resources are scarce, secure a meal; find a clip of ammunition; earn a few coins…
  • When interacting socially, a good impression; a contact is reachable; a rumor is believed…

A major experience token is a rarer treat that can be spent to gain or cement a permanent resource.

  • Learn a new skill, or broaden the scope or intensify the focus of an existing skill. Fantastical characters might develop a new magic spell or cyberspace hacking routine.
  • Obtain a valuable and durable tool, weapon, or piece of equipment; or promote something mundane into a signature item with special properties.
  • Gain a new friend, ally, or contact; or develop an ongoing relationship into a durable bond.

The change so far is minimal, and mostly on the move above. Where I want to take it into a different direction is in the framing.

I would like to call it Change or Growth, as I would like it to focus on personal and interpersonal struggles and the lessons learned, as suggested in a sentence further on A&Q:

A quest can instead be intensely personal, an accounting of a character grappling with a decision, responsibility, doubt, or any other facet of life that showcases their development and can be marked with a beginning and end.

And

A quest can be personal to a specific character, in which case only that character can earn tokens from it or complete it. A quest can also be shared by the group. For a group quest, anyone can perform one of its beats to earn a minor token, and when you bring the quest to a conclusion together, everyone gets a major token!

I think this is a nice and seemingly not too cumbersome system of character change over play.

I would like to know your thoughts and opinions on it.

5 Likes

This seems cool to me - definitely worth trying. The +1 prompts mix in and out of character stuff in a way that looks really fun; I can think of lots of players who’d really enjoy aiming to lose something great for both the drama and the +1.

One thing that stands out if that if you hit all five prompts, you’d roll the move at 2d6+5, making a miss impossible. In most contexts I’d consider that a problem for a pbta move. Here I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue but would probably still make it +1 for each below to a maximum of +4. But maybe that’s somewhere else in the rules already.

2 Likes

aye aye! Alternatively, some options could be mutually exclusive somehow? But I did notice that issue and yet decided to leave it in to decide what should stay or go later.

3 Likes