So what are some intelligent ways to replace leveling?

[SkepticsClaw]

It would be possible to have an RPG with no attribute advancement at all. First, allow the player to build the character in a lot of detail at the start of the game, with craploads of stats and skill choices.

Then, instead of personal improvement, the game could focus on the acquisition of social power. The 'RP' in such a system would come about because different builds are more or less effective at certain actions in the game - a warrior build can gain fame by battling and slaying many enemies, a merchant by making huge amounts of money with wheeling and dealing, a thief by looting valuable treasures, a wizard by uncovering and collecting folios of powerful spells and magical objects, a rogue by profiting from confidence tricks and double crosses. Alignment of your character would affect the way certain groups would see your character and thus alter the flow of possible roleplaying options in a similar way.

With acquired wealth and influence, the player can then hire retinues, build a house, enter politics or do any number of other things and thus advance to the 'higher levels' of the game, which rather than being the same old 'now you can kill a bigger monster!' would instead be more about organising your greater resources in order to further extend your influences.

To be honest I might kill somebody if I thought it would help get a game like that.

 

[deuxhero]

What is an intelligent way to replace the ball in a sports game

How about a puck eh?

 

[Gord]

I would leave room for improvement of at least those stats and skills where it makes sense, like strength, wisdom (passive increase through experience?), fighting/crafting/thieving skills or really any skill you can learn/train to advance your prowess.
However if a minimum amount of realism is your goal then this advances shouldn't be too big and/or happen too fast.
A trained soldier shouldn't magically grow in skill from barely able to hit a barn-door to being able to take on an entire army alone.

All this can happen without direct influence from the player and instead been driven by, as others suggested, the players actions during the game.

The 'RP' in such a system would come about because different builds are more or less effective at certain actions in the game

Class-specific content is unfortunately pretty rare. Gothic series had some (which in Gothic 2 amounted to different ways to acquire the Eye of Innos). Drakensang 2 has a bit (different starting quests and some stuff later).
NWN2 and esp. SoZ make some use of social skills with different outcomes for different skills.
Still I would love to see more games that react more to the class you chose.

 

[SkepticsClaw]

content is unfortunately pretty rare. Gothic series had some (which in Gothic 2 amounted to different ways to acquire the Eye of Innos). Drakensang 2 has a bit (different starting quests and some stuff later).
NWN2 and esp. SoZ make some use of social skills with different outcomes for different skills.
Still I would love to see more games that react more to the class you chose.

Amen to that. Funnily enough there is a board game with more bloody role playing options than most computer RPGs, which to my mind is frankly pathetic. It's called Magic Realm, and is notorious for being rather complex and having awfully written rules which were nearly impossible to understand.

However, the game world is robust and challenging enough to sustain solitaire play, and each different character class must pursue a very different strategy to achieve their (pre-chosen) victory conditions. Some characters must rely on their charm and wealth to employ a hoard of followers to dispose of encounters, others specialise in the acquisition of knowledge (mechanised as magic spells). Even the fighting characters are all strategically distinct in the type of enemies it is wise for them to take on - the White Knight is an expert dragon slayer, but is in trouble with goblins because they are too small and quick for him to hit in his heavy armour and great sword. Some characters are keen-eyed more adept at finding hidden treasures. The Dwarf is a natural caver. Some characters are good at sniffing out secret passages in order to skip large or dangerous sections of the map. All these different characteristics must be used by the player for success, especially in competitive play where it is the player who best works with his character's natural skills and talents who will have the advantage.

It's a pretty excellent design, though the board game nature of the thing means it's limited. This ruleset was created without aid of computation in 1978 and with no human DM, and yet the modern POS computer games we get have less than a fraction of its strategic and roleplaying depth.

 

[oneself]

If there is any kind of character progression, you can make an argument that you are leveling up.

Though if the progression is not in the shape of a tree but omnidirectional, and you have to make certain compromises. You cant technically consider it a level up, as long as there is no overall increase in the power of that character

Or you can avoid all this hassle by improving the item at your disposal/having more items at your disposal

 

[jagged-jimmy]

The alternative for a leveling system is not being a RPG.

Alternative: play an adventure gaem.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I think you could do away with leveling in a strategy RPG.

If you look at the world today, it is arguable that the most elite troops are not those who have fought the most battles, instead they are the ones with the best training (although fighting in a few battles as well may help).

As such, troop skill progression could come primarily (or exclusively) from training, rather than from in battle skill gains. IE: you build a firing range, then set someone to train there, they will eventually reach a plateau of say 65 with rifles, after an amount of time determined by training schedule, resources available, potential, etc.

More advanced training facilities, methods and superior training staff could push that higher as they became available.

Of course, the player would also need to balance this with other training (other skills, physical training, etc), as well as time for that soldier to actually be used.

Additional progression would come from equipment and cybernetic implants.

I would see battle hardened soldiers as having higher effective morale, better reactions to fire and more resistance to panic, but not necessarily significantly higher raw skills, although I do think veterans should probably get a few more points than rookies of the same training level and potential.

As a bonus this system would also make a lot more sense than traditional systems which encourage you to fight tons of needless battles in an attempt to get stronger.

 

[DraQ]

A game without *any* character progression at all (i.e. all means of overcoming game challenges are available to the character at the start of the game equally well as at the end), now that would be quite hard to make an RPG out of, imho.

Well, not all means are tied to the character - items, and resources, for example, spatial position ("you need to cross Mountains of Peril(TM) and the Plains of Despair(TM) blah blah") and various gameworld triggers, reputations and so on.

All the other genres can do without stat advancement, why not RPGs? Stat advancements are not what makes an RPG, character determining gameplay opportunities is, and you can just as well build a character up front. They are Role Playing Games, not Stat Incrementation Masturbations.

It's not perfect, because ideally you'd want some progression, as you can hone your skills IRL (through use based and training ), but static build can be perfectly sufficient for a scale and scope of even an open ended RPG and has advantage of not requiring to take into account often unbounded growth of the PC when balancing the threats and power of various creatures and NPCs.

 

[Waterd103]

I like how wonderboy 3, the dragons trap do it.