Getting More IP

There are three ways to accumulate im-provement Points: Study & Practice, Being Taught, and Direct Experience. In all three cases, the amount of improvement is de-termined by the Referee of your game.

Study & Practice: in its simplest form, you get a how-to book and begin practicing. Study is pretty tough-you have no idea of where to begin, and no one to correct your mistakes. The biggest limit to this type of learning is that you can only improve your skill from a level of +0 to a level of +2. In general, it takes about 1 day of book learn-ing to gain 1 IP.

Being Taught: Finding a teacher is far superior to self-teaching or book learning. The teacher must have a higher level of skill than the student, and must have the time to teach you (how long this takes, of course, is determined by the Referee). But even the most knowledgeable of teachers may not be able to transfer that knowledge. That's where the skill of Teaching comes into play. The teacher must average his skill in the subject to be taught with his teach-ing skill. He may then teach the student up to that level of skill. How long this takes is, of course, up to the Referee, who awards IP over the passage of time (usually 1-5 IP per lesson):

Experience: Still the best teacher. When-ever you do something well, the Referee rewards you with Improvement Points right on the spot. The problem is that these points will be applied to the skill you were using when you got the reward. Therefore, if you want to get better in a particular skill, it's important to use that skill every chance you get. Referees should use an even hand when rewarding Improvement Points, not only rewarding players for doing things well, but also for demonstrating both role-playing ability and teamwork. In general, we suggest not awarding more than six points per skill per game session.

IP AWARD GUIDELINE TABLE