Character Advancement and Awards

Character Advancement & Awards

In-Character Posting Awards: 1-5 PP per month

Characters will receive between 1 and 5 PP monthly based on their level of participation in the forum. Any character who "plays" during the month will receive 1 PP. Characters who are actively involved in threads, campaigns, and stories (10 or more IC posts with that character per month) will receive 2 PP; characters who are extremely involved in threads, campaigns, and stories (25 or more IC posts with that character per month) will receive 3 PP; characters who are ridiculously involved in threads, campaigns and stories (50 or more IC posts with that character per month) will receive 4 PP as a participation award; characters who are monstrously active (100+ posts) earn 5 PP.

• 1-9 IC posts = 1 PP
• 10-24 IC posts = 2 PP
• 25-49 IC posts = 3 PP
• 50-99 IC posts = 4 PP
• 100+ IC posts = 5 PP

New Player Boost:  New players to the site will be provided a boost to their posts for characters for the first three months they post on the site.  New players will receive double the posts for their characters during this time (similar to the boost given to GM posts). We will annotate this on the Reward Tracker.

Note: As a loose rule of thumb, IC posts should be no shorter than 500 characters. Spamming the IC threads, making little short posts and carrying on conversations one line at a time in order to boost your post count will not earn you PPs; it will just make others not want to play with you anymore.

Special Cases

Posts written entirely for Sidekicks/Minions, in which the main player character does not appear, count for full credit and are added to post count tally of their 'parent' player character at the end of the month.

Posts written primarily as a GM (when running an adventure for others) count for double credit (that is, each GM post counts as two posts); posts primarily written as or for an NPC (when running a specific non-player character to assist the GM) count as full credit. Both can be applied to any character you choose (or even broken up among multiple characters).

By default, using a retired PC or being involved in a non-canon post (such as "What if" or "Alternative Versions of...") means that posts are worth 1/2 of normal. The reason for this has been to stop over-use of such threads. 

However you can nominate one thread at the end of the month (when posting your post count) that is either a "Special Edition" (a non-canon thread or "what if" thread, or using an alternative version of your PC), or a "Guest Starring...." (a thread featuring one of your retired PCs). This can be a different thread every month. If you have more than one thread that is non-canon or features a retired PC, you can still have these posts counted, as previously, as worth 1/2 normal. 

For "What if" or non-canon "Special edition" threads, posts should be allocated to the PC you are using for that thread.

When using a retired PC in "Guest Starring..." thread, nominate one PC that all the posts are transferred to as a block. 

For GM posts in a special edition thread, posts are added to the total GM count (Which can be split and divided as you wish)

Other Contribution Awards

Refs (and Admins) who feel that a player is making a significant contribution to the site may give that player a bonus PP to apply to either of his or her characters. Additionally, characters who complete especially important, long-term story goals may also receive a contribution award.

The Interview (aka 20 Questions) counts as a Contribution Award, as it helps flesh out your character, which gives the Refs a better idea on how to challenge and reward them. Filling out the Interview earns you 1PP.

Those feeling more adventurous and tackle The Questionnaire (aka the HellQ); filling out the Questionnaire earns you 2PP.

Making an entry for the Reputation guidebook will also earn you 1PP.

Creating and submitting NPCs can earn points. The first two NPCs you submit earn you 1PP each.

With Ref approval, fanart can earn you 1PP (per month) for site service. 

Every few months the Refs offers a chance to do a Vignette. Doing one of these earns you 1PP, or 2PP if your vignette is at least 1000 words. There is also a vignette that is always active: an Origin Story vignette may be written once per character, at any time, and will count as a full vignette for that month (in addition to any other vignettes that may be available).

Note that the 20 Questions/Interview, Hell Q, Reputation post, and Vignettes do not themselves count as posts.

Contributing to the FCPbP Guidebook can earn points. Creating a page for your character -- which must be more than simply copying & pasting the fluff parts of your character sheet -- will earn that character 2PP. The content of these pages is flexible but take a look at existing character pages to get a better sense of what is expected.

Creating Guidebook pages for other topics or otherwise making significant contributions can also earn 2PP for the first page/contribution and an additional 1PP for each page/contribution beyond that in a given month, up to 4PP for three or more pages/contributions. If a page has been specifically solicited by a Ref it's worth an extra point to a maximum of 5PP earned in one month. The rewards for player character pages do not count against this 5PP cap; if you're inclined to complete full pages for three of your PCs over the course of one month they are each worth 2PP for each respective character. Other Guidebook awards may be assigned to whichever character the player prefers.

Refs (that is, Staff Members, Global Mods, and Admins) earn 1 extra pp every month, because you people exhaust us.

Power Level Caps

Players start with three character slots, two at PL10 / 150PP and one at PL7 / 105PP. After gaining 10PP, their PL advances by 1. Thereafter characters' PLs will advance with every 15PP, until hitting PL 15 (at 220pp). PL advancement stops at that point, but you continue earning power points, until you hit PL 15 / 250PP (but see below).

The advancement is summarized in the following charts:

A PL 10 character's advancement would look like this:

PPs earned          Total PPs          PL

   1-9                    151-159           10

   10-24                160-174           11

   25-39                175-189           12

   40-54                190-204           13

   55-69                205-219           14

   70-100              220-250           15

And a PL 7 character's advancement would look like this:

PPs earned          Total PPs          PL

   1-9                    106-114            7

   10-24                115-129            8

   25-39                130-144            9

   40-54                145-159           10

   55-69                160-174           11

   70-84                175-189           12

   85-99                190-204           13

   100-114            205-219           14

   115-145            220-250           15

Once your character reaches 250PP (and is "maxed out"), you do not have to retire them. Any posts you make with them will be added to the posts totals for another one of your PCs. Point totals will be noted as "[points spent] / [points earned {up to 250}] [[total points earned]]".

Ex.: Doktor Archeville is a maxed out character, with 250PP both earned and spent, but his player keeps using him, and earns another 10 points. His PP total would be listed as 250/250 [260].

Player Awards

To reward longevity and commitment to actively role-playing over a lengthy span of months, players are presented with Veteran Awards as they reach milestones of Power Points earned. Each month the highest amount of PP earned among a player's characters will be added to that player's Veteran Progress. As that total increases the player will earn Veteran Awards and receive the corresponding Player Tier:

• 30PP: Bronze
• 60PP: Silver
• 90PP: Gold
• 120PP: Platinum
• 150PP: Impervium
• 180PP: Orichalcum

Players who reach a Veteran Progress total of 210PP+ are awarded the ceremonial Electrum tier, which does not bestow a Veteran Reward but does come with substantial bragging rights!

An additional Veteran Reward, separate from the Veteran Progress, is awarded the first time a player maxes out a single character at 250PP total. It is therefore possible to earn a total of seven Veteran Awards.

Beyond the three character slots available immediately to new players - two slots at PL10 / 150PP and one slot at PL7 / 105PP - each Veteran Reward may be spent in the following ways:

• One additional character slot at:
  • PL7 / 105PP
  • PL10 / 150PP
  • PL12 / 180PP
• 15PP worth of the following ranked Feats, divided as the player chooses between their characters:
  • Equipment
  • Minion
  • Sidekick

Veteran Rewards may be reallocated at any time with Referee approval by retiring a character, buying off ranked Feats with earned PP or otherwise returning the chosen benefit.

Moving Characters Between Character Slots: At any time, you may request that your character be moved from one character slot to another, for the purposes of organization or freeing up/consolidating veteran rewards. A character may only be moved to a slot big enough to hold it; if a character was originally built PL10/150PP, for instance, it can only be moved to a PL10/150PP slot or a PL12/180PP slot. A character moved in this way retains all PP earned, as it's a housekeeping change and does not modify the character sheet itself.

Titanium Time:

As our site enters its second decade (words that startle me, reader, perhaps more than they even startle you!) we've decided to go ahead and implement some rules changes (effective as of January 2018) that will benefit both those of you that have been part of this community for so many years and those of you who are lucky enough to have just joined our community. 

Maxed Characters:  When a player maxes out a character (250 pp) that character no longer takes up the character slot/veteran award that it once occupied.  The character can still be played for full posting credit, regardless of how many threads the character might be in for a given month.  Those posts can be rolled over to other PCs as the character chooses (similar to GM posts). This character level (as opposed to player) is called TITANIUM.