Milestones: What ratio of Significant to Major?

[Kiero]

I couldn't find anything on this on a search (maybe too esoteric a question), so here goes a new topic. For those confused, I'm asking how many Significant Milestones should pass (roughly) before you hit a Major one. If we're getting Significant every 2-3 sessions, would Major be every third better-than-Minor Milestone? Or less frequent than that?

For example, our first story is intended to climax with a Major Milestone (which will upgrade our Champion of God to a proper Knight of the Cross with a Sword). So I'm imagining something like a Significant Milestone on our second session, a second Significant Milestone on our fourth, then the Major Milestone at some point before the end of the sixth. So in six sessions you'd have two Significant Milestones and one Major Milestone.

Does that sound about right? Or would it be more like three or even four Significant Milestones before we hit another Major? So perhaps eight sessions (comprising three Significant and one Major) a story?

[zenten]

I was doing like 10 sessions, with significant averaging every 2 sessions.  I wasn't really keeping track though so I'm not sure if that's accurate.  I think the significant milesstones have been too frequent, and the majors have not been frequent enough.

[Dravokian]

ur dead on with the significant ones... myself i only give majors when a main story arc is wrapped up. Usually take us between 5-15 sessions dependeding on how heavy duty the arc is and how much bsing goes on in session.

[EdgeOfDreams]

My group rationed out milestones based on the power levels listed in the book.  We started at Feet in the Water (6 refresh, 20 skills), and the next one up, Up to Your Waist is 7 refresh, 25 skill points, so we had 4 Significant milestones (each giving a skill point), then one Major, (a point of refresh + a skill point.) We followed this same pattern up to Chest Deep (8 refresh, 30 skill points), then had to adjust the ratio a bit, as Submerged is 10 and 35.  I think since hitting Chest Deep we've had 1 Signficant and 1 Major, so we're at 9 refresh and 32 skills now, then we'll have 2 more Significants before the next Major.

After hitting Submerged level, however, we may change things up again - we're not sure if we want to keep playing the same characters beyond that power level, change up the campaign, or what, as we've been running this game for almost a year now.

[Silverblaze]

How long are people considering a session?  just curious.  I mean in hours played.  Also, how many sessions per week?

[Kiero]

I don't think the session length is hugely relevant; how much gets done within one depends on how much scenery-chewing people do and how good the group is at framing scenes and cutting to the next.

Our metrics are thus: we started at Chest Deep (8 Refresh, 30 points for Skills), we play weekly sessions which tend towards four hours a session.

[zenten]

We run once every two weeks (although there have been a number of cancelations) and each session is less than 4 hours.  We started in October of last year, and we're at 46 skill points and 12 refresh, started at Submerged.

[EdgeOfDreams]

My group (the one with the milestone rates I described above), plays once a week (with occasional breaks based on school and holidays) for about 3 to 5 hours each session.  That's usually enough to get through a few social/investigative scenes and one major combat scene or two minor combat scenes.  Of course, my general experience with RPG's has taught me that the amount of content or number of scenes packed into a session varies wildly from group to group and even from session to session within a given group.

[Cyberchihuahua]

I think Milestones should be set at the pace of plot, not sessions. Which means the GM needs to have at least some idea where they intend to take the story.

With the Dresden Files, Jim knows the rough beginning, middle, and end of the story. He knows that the series is going to start fairly street level, ramp up steadily up through GS, and really start getting epic leading up to the BAT. Knowing how far you plan on taking the story and what challenges you intend for the characters to face, or they could end up facing by accident, will help you plan where to place milestones, and what level they should be.

If you want to go epic, Milestones need to be fairly regular, with a number of major challenges that can be definitively overcome to justify Major Milestones. If you want to keep it street level, you might need more of a model like the early seasons of the X-Files. Most adventure/sessions will be of the monster of the week variety, with only Significant or Major Milestones around the end of each "season".

[Kiero]

My group (the one with the milestone rates I described above), plays once a week (with occasional breaks based on school and holidays) for about 3 to 5 hours each session.  That's usually enough to get through a few social/investigative scenes and one major combat scene or two minor combat scenes.  Of course, my general experience with RPG's has taught me that the amount of content or number of scenes packed into a session varies wildly from group to group and even from session to session within a given group.

This sounds a similar sort of frequency and intensity to our group. What's your rate of Milestones?

EDIT: Or rather since Chest-Deep you said one Significant and one Major, did you have another cycle of the same to take you to Submerged?

[TheMouse]

I'm a big fan of 3:1 ratios, so I like every third Significant to be a Major. Then every 3rd Major raises the cap. I haven't run a long term game to test this, but it appeals to my neuroses.

[devonapple]

How long are people considering a session?  just curious.  I mean in hours played.  Also, how many sessions per week?

Oddly enough, Your Story details somewhere (in the glossary perhaps) how long a Session is: about 4 hours.

[EdgeOfDreams]

This sounds a similar sort of frequency and intensity to our group. What's your rate of Milestones?

EDIT: Or rather since Chest-Deep you said one Significant and one Major, did you have another cycle of the same to take you to Submerged?

Our most recent non-minor milestone was the Major one about three or four weeks ago that put us at 9 Refresh/32 skills.  Since then, I think we had one session that was a Halloween one-shot (so no real advancement for our characters), and we're now two sessions into a murder mystery that has kicked off the latest story arc (it looks like some members of our party may be the killers, but under mind control with their memories wiped! Oh no!).  Our GM has said he has planned the current story arc to be a "double" length story, to allow for a Major milestone in the middle of it.  That'll put us at or very near Submerged, and then we'll kick ass and take names.

[Kiero]

Our GM has said the current story is likely to run 5-6 sessions, and will feature a Significant in the middle and Major at the end. After that I guess we'll see.

[Silverblaze]

Thanks for the replies in regard to game frequency/length.

The reason I asked about frequency and session length is simple.  Our group plays 2 games at once usually 6-10 days between games.  So 12-20 between the same game.  Games are usually 6-8 hours once everyone gets off work in the evening.  on rare occasion we'll have a full day from like noon until late.  We'll have a cook out and bull sessions scattered throughout the day, so it winds up similar to a normal session, but a little longer.  I think for that reason longer games or more frequent games can mean more content and plot progression, thus having faster milestones.  (I stress the word can)

I'm not sure i could handle a session shorter than 4 hours, I think very little would get done.  I'm apprently wrong, but I know my group isn't always on task, we enjoy each other's company and share enough hobbies for some table talk.  (not excessive in my opinion though.)

I also think without a pretty good story, a progression of character power that seems too slow the game could become uninteresting.

I prefer story, plot, and roleplaying to character power level, but if I play a game for a year and gain only 2 refresh I think I'd start losing interest unless the plot and roleplaying was amazing.

I agree that 3:1 is pretty fair, but ultimately plot should determine this.  i mean you could have 6:1 or one major right qafte4r another then a "dry spell". 

Experience/milestones will vary from group to group; I think hard fast rules on this matter would be impossible.