I got kind of lazy with my original version of the character advancement in Slime Story. I did the thing where characters accumulate points and then spend them piecemeal on whatever they want to improve, like in a White Wolf game. (I also did that with Tokyo Heroes by the way.) There was some neat stuff with how you got those points–a combination of video game style achievements, deepening connections with other characters, invoking characters’ issues, and achieving goals–but the way you used them was still just lazy design.

That’s why I’ve wound up giving it a level-based mechanic, which is a bit Savage Worlds and a bit D&D4e. There are one or two other uses for Character Points, so characters don’t level up automatically, but instead spend points to gain levels between episodes. Having what characters gain at what level be predefined makes character growth a little more interesting. There was a time when I disdained classes and levels as artificially limiting, but just throwing points around more or less like in character creation is really boring and lazy (if functional). Levels aren’t the only way to go–not by a long shot–but they seem to be a good fit for Slime Story.

Anyway, this was another one of those things I thought up in the middle of the night and implemented right away. At this point a playtest draft (albeit a simplified one without many Talents or monsters included) will just be a matter of filling in some necessary details, more equipment and such than rules per se. If I don’t get distracted by other stuff (which is a very distinct possibility) I’ll be posting it up in the next week or two and hopefully doing some playtesting myself in the near future.

And Some Other Stuff

• Guy Shalev has a blog called Geekorner-Geekulture which deals mainly with anime/otaku stuff, including regular features on anime/game/etc. figures (and his obsession with Saber from Fate/Stay Night). Not wanting to start up yet another blog myself, I’ve started contributing posts there, which will all be under the “Ewen’s Corner” tag. Most of these will be reviews of strange manga I’ve read, but my first post is about my experiences commissioning custom plushies.
• I’ve started a second podcast, called Trapped Inside the Dream Forever. It’s all recordings of my bizarre fiction writing (and probably some of my poetry too at some point). So far it’s updating every Friday, but that’s because I still have a big backlog of stories to record. If anyone thinks they can do better recordings than me and wants to do so, let me know.
• I may have inspired Ben Lehman to make a new game, for a second time.