Editing Linear Build Quadratic EXP (section)

==Examples==
* [[White Wolf]] - All of their games have this problem to one extent or another, but ''[[Exalted]]'' 2E was easily the worst, due to its epic scale and byzantine rules.  Basically, if you didn't have Dexterity 5, Willpower 10, and two [[alignment| Virtues]] at 5 at character creation, you were probably fucked without lube long-term if even a ''single'' member of the party did too, or the Storyteller would start having to struggle to present problems that left you relevant compared to your better-prepared friend. Third edition conspicuously refused to fix the problem, with one of the devs infamously declaring, and this is a direct quote, [https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?768985-Exalted-Why-is-Everyone-Praising-3e&p=19548177#post19548177| "We have a policy not to give people bad rules just because they think they want them."]  [[Troll| Holy shit.]] This seems to have been fixed for the 2nd Edition of Chronicles of Darkness by simply making the 5th dot in a skill cost as much as the 1st.
* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' - Every edition but Fourth used a "priorities" system that was, arguably, an ''even worse'' version of this problem, and 4e, while it had a few handrails in place to stop this kinda thing, still held onto the BP system.  Fifth edition, being a warts-and-all grognard edition, naturally brought back priorities instead, erasing even the mild progress this represented. Or not entirely, since they propose an alternative 'Karmagen' system that basically gives a pile of XP to upgrade your character with. Incoherent pricing of race/abilities/... sadly turn it into another problem altogether rather than fixing chargen. 
* ''[[Savage Worlds]]'' - It is much harder to advance stats during the game, and learning a completely new skill during game is twice as expensive as advancing an existing one, so unless you're making a character for one-shot adventure or you want to get gimped in long run, every character creation process will look like this - you advance stats as much as possible, then you buy every skill that looks useful to your class or concept at lowest level possible.
* ''[[GURPS]]'' - And ''GURPS'' completely avoids all this bullshit by just giving you a pile of XP at character creation rather than parceling out into BP and other stuff. Pretty much the only difference between character creation and character progression is that you don't get points for disadvantages obtained in course of a game - if someone chopped off your hand or you became addicted to crack, it won't suddenly make your character better at other things, he will just cost less points from now on. Granted, because of this, character creation can take forever, especially if GM allows too many splatbooks, but there are tools to speed it up - first, there's GCS editor that really helps with chargen, second, there are character templates that can really sped things up for new players, albeit you aren't guaranteed to find ones that suit your setting and power level and the ones that exist may not be perfect either.
* ''[[Star Wars Roleplaying Game| Fantasy Flight Games' ''Star Wars'']]'' - It ''does'' have the problem, but it deals with it in a somewhat creative way: once your core [[stats| attributes]] are "set" at character creation, they are '''set''', with only a handful of expensive and limited items and a couple powers at the very bottom of your class's power tree able to increase them.  And the game ''deliberately'' tells you to raise them as high as you can.  It's not a perfect system, but it helps.
* ''[[7th Sea]]'' - ...Well, the drama die system has more problems than just this, but for the most part, it's remarkably stable at build.  All five stats are important in combat, so it's hard to just [[dump stat| pick one you don't give a shit about and leave it low]], and the build costs, while about half of the cost of spending XP, are otherwise paid at about the same rate.  The one exception, advanced knacks, are deliberately pricier at character creation and ''cheaper'' afterward, removing the issue altogether.
* ''[[The Dark Eye]]'' has the same attribute improvement cost after character creation, and even caps attributes during it to prevent overinvestment. This problem instead shows up in the many, many advantages are only obtainable during character creation.
* ''[[Risus]]'' was only recently researched, and it has this when using Funky Die (arguably better than normal die rules). You have 60 points to distribute between Cliches, and Dice costs as much as its highest die (d6=6, d60=60). [[Talk:Risus#Optimized_Funky_Dice|And turns out, putting all points into 1 enormous dice is better]]: such character level-ups quicker on most rules/game modes (and doesn't fall back in others), is more useful in team battles, benefits more from Dice-increasing effects (like Extraordinary Equipment, No Cliche Bonus, Vengeance Bonus, Pumping), and after levelling-up is tremendously more powerful than character with many small dice. For comparison: on "Campaign" level-up rules, PC with 1d60 will get to 6d60 in '''5 level-ups''', while PC with 6d10/4d12 will get to 6d60 in '''roughly 50 level-ups'''.

[[Category:Game Mechanics]][[Category:Gamer Slang]]