Character Progression

Just like people in the real world, character's develop and change over time. RPGs typically offer a variety of ways for characters to grow and improve, and Foxville is no different. In this section we will discuss how character progression works. It's brief, but it's a question people are likely to have, so here we go!

Gaining Experience

The first thing that's important to point out is that this isn't really a fast progression game by any means. Your characters already start out above average in terms of their abilities and might even be exceptionally good in a few compared to the ordinary human, so they don't really need to improve overly much. But you will nonetheless have opportunities to do so. As the game progresses, all players receive experience points that they can use to purchase new points in Skills or pick up new Traits. Experience points are shared in the sense that all players involved in the RPG receive the same amount - each character also has their own separate experience pool, so if you have multiple characters, you don't need to pick and choose who gets something shiny and who doesn't. Unlike in Dungeons and Dragons, you don't receive experience points for killing monsters (well, kind of... more on that in a second), but instead the GM decides to award them based on the overall progress of the story and the participation levels of the players. Essentially, the GM will dish out experience to the whole group whenever she feels a certain milestone has been reached - for example, time skips might occasionally take place in the story, and this would be a perfect time for characters to develop 'off-screen' and learn new things, creating an ideal window to hand out some XP. When spending XP to level up a Skill, it costs as much as the new level - one point for level one, two points for level two, and so on. Traits cost an equal number of XP to their trait point cost from character creation.

XP is unlikely to be handed out more than twice a month unless there's a frantic level of player participation to justify it, so please remember, your skill and trait growth will be quite slow and steady. This makes it extra important that your character is 'whole' from the get go during creation, as you won't be able to rely on the game to immediately make up for any gaping shortcomings in your character's abilities. Also, if you're a new player joining the game late, don't worry! You'll get access to the same XP everyone else has available regardless of when you join us. Now then, for those predatorily inclined, there is a second form of character advancement specifically for you that leaves you with a bit more agency over your character's growth as a maneater...

Predogen Growth

Your predogen levels can be increased over time, allowing you to grow bigger, stronger, and increase your attributes beyond their normal limitations. Predogen levels are gained, simply put, by eating other characters. Whenever you do so, you gain a certain amount of predogen points, and when you've accumulated enough, you reach the next level. You must pay a number of points equal to the level you're trying to reach, so for example, it would cost five points to reach the fifth level. As for how many points you receive per meal, divide the predogen level of your victim in half (rounded down). You always receive at least one point for a meal, even when eating male characters with zero predogen levels. Do note that named player-equivalent NPCs controlled directly by a GM in a scene are worth points as normal, but NPCs played by other players as scene filler or background characters do not offer any predogen points at all.

It is important to note that you cannot eat characters 'off-screen' in order to wildly increase your predogen level in a short time. All digestions must be of either your fellow player characters, or named NPCs played by the GM in a fully-fledged RP scene. You also cannot increase your predogen level by more than two levels in a single month of play. Keep in mind that the goal of Foxville isn't to have the biggest, strongest character and be the 'best' predator around, but to have fun with the story and other players, developing your character and their relationships in a persistent, living world where consequences stay the night.

A quick warning on 'feeder' characters - creating multiple characters with with the explicit purpose of feeding the same specific predator is not allowed. While you are 100% encouraged to make a prey character who you fully expect to get caught and claimed, please make sure you're distributing the 'food' evenly into the predator population. I don't expect that this will actually be a serious problem here, but it's important to make sure everyone's on the same page.

Changing Traits

At some point during a character's storyline, you may feel that one of the traits you have taken for them no longer makes any narrative sense. Perhaps they've gotten a different line of employment, or developed an entirely new lifestyle. Maybe you've found one trait just doesn't really fit them properly and haven't gotten much use out of it. Either way, as long as you've got a good justification for it, the GM will happily allow you to exchange it and buy a new one - or even more than one, if you've decided to swap out a two or three point trait. Just ask!

However your character might progress in life, their journey is bound to be exciting.