As a kid, we played Warhammer Quest, Necromunda, Bloodbowl and Gorkamorka. We played these games more than the big battle games, and I think we played them because of their progression systems more than anything else.
I love a progression system. I love finishing a game and immediately finding out what horrible things have happened to your precious guys, and finding out what awesome new skills they have now got access to and sweet equipment is available to buy.
One thing bugs me about every single progress system I have ever played. You read those all the lists of cool things that you can’t have yet, and you see all the awesome character and combos that they could create for you, and then you are forced to create a totally vanilla gang or character and then hope that you can work towards the ideal that you have established in you head. Even the very newest progression systems that I have read, Frostgrave and Malifaux (both excellent games), start with this assumption.
Why don’t progression systems provide a way of jumping right in? I what to skip the first three games and have some injurys and some skills and some upgrades and some neat equipment. Why not provide a way for people to jump right in to the good bit of progression systems?
That is what I want to do with Gaslands.
You should be able to choose to start a team with a certain amount of positive or negative “advances”.
In a perfect world, I would provide a system in which each player can create as experienced or inexperienced a team as they like, and the game system will provide a handicap or reward system to allow wildly different gangs to play together without the game feeling too one-sided.
My initial plan is to experiment with a system that permits teams to only field as much as the weakest gang can field. For example, if three players have teams that are worth 30 cans, 60 cans and 25 cans, the more powerful teams will only be able to field some of their team, up to a maximum of 25 cans worth.
This restiction might only apply to Race Events, and for Wasteland Scraps the system might change to one that rewards the underdog with bigger spoils, if they are able to use cunning and guile to overcome a stronger opponent in whatever objective the scrap was over.
Time will tell what the successful system will be, but rest assured that a “jump start” mechanic is something that Gaslands’ progression system will feature.