I had a “ur doin it wrong” realization last game – I haven’t been enforcing the Training limitation where your Crew needs to actually have the upgrade for whatever attribute you’re training.
When it came up, I said “and we’re not going to start now”, but we had momentum to keep at the time and since we’d already been saying a training downtime gives you essentially a wildcard XP, I didn’t feel it’d be fair to my players who were recovering and doing LTPs to lock them down now.
That said, what are some benefits for you know, actually using the rules here? 🙂 Is it simply more widgets to spend upgrades on? Keep PCs’ mechanical weak spots weaker for longer (WRT resistance rolls and vice and such)? I mean, it looks like there’s plenty to spend crew upgrades on but we haven’t been playing all that long either. Maybe it goes fast.
I suspect it’s for avoiding too damn fast advancement.
I sort of wish it wasn’t there at all since some of my players exclusively do that (along with vice and healing of course) instead of more interesting LTPs. I get it if you’re one XP away from another dot, but otherwise I wish they’d use that action for something cooler. Alas players gonna play their way.
I remember, back in the day, when the training dot was given at the end of the session.
Yep, everyone has their own preferences on advancement in games, and everyone has their own tipping point for what feels too fast or too slow too. I don’t mind fast advancement because I usually go into a campaign planning for something the length of an HBO season, not the Simpsons. 🙂
The cool thing is that Duskwall will still be there, so we could play the same crew for a while, or the same crew with different PCs, or start off at, like, Tier II or something with bigger, different challenges.
This is an easy dial to turn. Give a free training downtime action (or two, whatever) if you want faster advancement. Tell the players to permanently fill in a few of their XP boxes on each tracker to shorten advancement time. Etc.
The book will offer a few options like this for groups that want to adjust the pace. They’re obvious stuff, though, nothing fancy.