Experience And Character Advancement

One of the criticism of default Wushu is that it is much more suited to one-shots or short-shots rather than long-term campaigns where character advancement is important.

See also:

Reorganization Method [comment author="DevP"]Inspired by Fudge on the Fly[/comment]

[comment author="Russell"]This is pretty much equivalent to the suggestion under "Advancement" in in the core rules.[/comment]

In between chronicles, each player should write a description of how their character has grown. They can pick a new or more interesting Flaw for their character's next chronicle, and alter and re-arrange their Traits and the values in each.

Example: My rookie bounter hunter had traits of:

Eager 5
Bounty Hunter 3
In Love 4
Flaw: Naive

After a chronicle which had disastrous affects on my personal life, I may rearrange my character to have these traits:

Eager 3
Bounty Hunter 4
My New Favorite Gun 5
Flaw: Drinking

More Stuff

Although Wushu characters might already be at the top of their game in terms of ability, there is really no limit to what other in-game objects they can acquire: money, power, connections, gear, relationships.

If you are played with some other crunchier subsystem (such as ) you can also award more Bonus Points to players, to be used on details such as Artifacts, Resources, Connections, etc.

Another Advancement Method

This character advancement method is somewhat based on the Lines of Experience from the Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game and assumes that you are using a die pool limit in your games.

After each session, each player may write down one short sentence or phrase describing something his/her character did in that session. In any later session, the player may reference one of these sentence or phrases in order to get an additional die to their roll which does not count against the die pool limit. After using the phrase/sentence, the player makes a check mark next to it in pencil to signify that it has been used and may not be used again until the next session.

Example: Wang helps his 13 year old friend defeat a Thule sorcerer who has transformed into a demon by taunting it into attacking him without spells or weapons. At the end of the session, he writes down "Taunted Thule sorcerer into attacking mano a mano." In a later session, Wang, his 13 year old friend, and their sometimes-companion Earnest are trying to escape from a German airfield via dirigible when a Thule sorcerer arrives and starts conjuring the very flames of hell. The GM states that the die pool maximum for this fight is going to be 3 dice. Wang's player narrates his action: "Wang leaps from the deck of the dirigible/ yelling behind him 'Go! Get yourselves to safety!'/ and turns to face the Thule sorcerer, 'You say that my people are Untermenschen, why don't you come over here and show me the superiority of your Master Race?'" Normally he'd get 3 dice, but Wang's player points to his sentence and grabs a fourth die.

Yet another advancement method

This one's a bit different. Instead of going with XP and the like, you go with equipment. Now, to keep one of the key things that I personally love about Wushu(kung-fu dude is equal to gunslinger is equal to samurai is equal to mech is equal to a satellite-mounted laser cannon), there is only a series of levels for all equipment. Everything within the same level is equal.

So, you've got levels. How do they WORK? Simple. For your weapon level, each yang dice will do that much theoretical chi-destroying. So, if you have a level 3 laser cannon, each yang success you get would take out three chi/threat levels of your target, assuming no yin successes. A level six orbital missilelauncher would take out six chi/threat levels, and so on.

Armor, works the same way but in reverse. Each level causes one of your yin successes to block that many yang successes. So, if we assume your opponent gets, say, six 'damage points' or whatever you call it, and you have a level 1 armor, you need six successes to avoid losing chi. On the other hand, if you have the level 6 cybernetic power armor, you only need ONE success.

Now, this can scale infinitely. You could eventually have your characters with equipment that goes up to hundreds of levels if you really wanted to. The biggest thing to remember is this: WHAT the weapon is still doesn't matter. A brawler with just his level 1 fists is equal to a rent-a-cop with his level 1 handgun, and an uber-martial-artist with his level 10 fists of fury is equal to the super soldier with his level 10 sniper rifle he can shoot one-handed.

Some people might find this useful, some might not.

ExperienceAndCharacterAdvancement

Experience And Character Advancement