Out of the box. How about a system where the players character degrades as they progress, or improve their playing skills. This way instead of the system where characters become genocidal god like warriors, they become weaker.

That seems a bit extreme. A system where the character doesn''t get better or worse in terms of skills would be better IMO, or a system where the char''s skills go down if they''re not used as often

Hmm, sounds like a concept that''s hard to pith. Still, if you could allow the players bragging rights for such accomplishments, you could hook a decent number of people. Kind of like,
"Yeah, I beat the Fairy Army with just a broadsword and steel shield."
"So what! All I used was a dagger and leather armor."
Etc.

As that demonstrated, you could have a system where the character''s abilities lessen as the player''s abilities increase. Just be aware that the curve is similar using training wheels for a bike. If you take them off too soon, the rider will just give up and walk away after falling one too many times.

Why not a game where the player''s general ability remains the same, but if they don''t use their skills their body and abilities start to deteriorate?

In other words, use it or lose it.

Merrick

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"Children come to us in a state of purity and perfection from the great undifferentiated absolute and then, like everything else on this planet, we fuck them up."

It would be important to make the difficulty / learning curve correlation right. Such a system would change the dynamic of big weapons, bigger tougher monster. even bigger weapon ...

To provide a system where as the player progressed, the world would become scarier.

:D I just had a [hopefully] billiant idea!
{Bear with me, please}
One topic that kept coming up in the discussion of using Symbol-Based Magic Systems {SMBS} is how to ballance the gameplay when there were users who know higher level spells {and thus be able to cast the spell} playing against less knowledgable users. All sorts of ideas were suggested, from causing recharge times to lengthen to only allow characters with higher levels cast higher spells. None felt to natural, and many encouraged Power-Maxing {which is a bit of a taboo around here.}

However, having the character''s level decrese with the increased power of magic cast would be perfect! Simply, a player can''t have it both ways. Either they have higher stats, or they use higher magic.
Okay, enough of my spurting.

SonicSilcion, would that be a permanent decrease (not a good idea IMO), or a temporary decrease which would slowly grow back up if no spells were cast? That way it wouldn''t penalize anyone trying out powerful spells too much.

In a temporary system, would there be a Max stat loss (25%).

I was deinately leaning toward temporary. This is because it would be extremely frustrating at the higher levels of magic [or skills, etc.] Just imagine accidentally pulling off an incredibly powerful spell, having your character''s level lowered, and then realising you have know clue what you just did. Also, there will be spells that people try, then ditch, as you said. Permanent is just to unforgiving for nearly any player.

Here''s an odd support for this idea: game noir. You''re a cursed character that knows he''s getting weaker and weaker. His job is to avenge the curse before he finally fades away.

I suppose, however, that this makes it more of a time limit game. But if you kept all the enemy levels pretty much constant, it''d be interesting to see how a weaker and weaker character could overcome obstacles. (Talk about a different sort of challenge!)

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Just waiting for the mothership...

Well if I have it right, how the possibilities of twisting it like this:
A newbie character starts off really well-equipped, with "stuff granted by the gods". Each time he wants to "level up" ( improve a stat, skill, whatever ), he is required to sacrifice one of these granted items, which then disappears from the universe. That way, beginning players are supported by nice items, while GOOD players will have to do it by themselves.

( obviously, you cannot give away or sell these gifts of god without instant death or cursing )


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~