I’ve had this idea before too… but it seems to me like you need to have “character classes”, instead of trying to make general “life levels”. E.g., here’d be three levels for a character class of “statistician”:
Level 1: given data (small enough sample size to calculate by calculator so you don’t need a script), calculate basic summary statistics like the median, variance, etc., and be able to interpret them.
Level 2: pass quizzes to demonstrate understanding of basic fundamentals, like the difference between within-group and between-group variance, and how to tease out selection biases from treatment effects.
Level 3: given a basic, measurable phenomenon, and an associated question about that phenomenon, build a model to test it. The model needs to be plausible but not perfect. So for example, let’s say that there are a number of dots that appear in a circle, and your question is, are the dots distributed randomly or are they biased in some orientation? (Actually, maybe this would be a higher level, but you get the idea).
If people agree that these “character classes” make sense, then perhaps it’d be best to have some standardized notion of how many levels each class should have and how difficult they each should be to reach.
People who know (relatively) more about a subject should try to design some of these for various subjects. People would then choose to specialize in one or more of the classes. If others agree to make other classes, I’d be happy to pursue this “statistician” class (or pursue it along with others). Does this seem like a good idea?
Character classes are not necessary, but I agree with you that they’re better than generic life levels. Even better is a granular attribute & skill level system, such as found within the World of Darkness system (Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquerade, etc.). So strength, stamina, programming, statistics, and so forth each have their own level. When you get advanced enough in level in a narrower skill area like statistics, you can sub-specialize that skill. But I think we don’t need to worry about special cases like that for now.
I’ve had this idea before too… but it seems to me like you need to have “character classes”, instead of trying to make general “life levels”. E.g., here’d be three levels for a character class of “statistician”:
Level 1: given data (small enough sample size to calculate by calculator so you don’t need a script), calculate basic summary statistics like the median, variance, etc., and be able to interpret them.
Level 2: pass quizzes to demonstrate understanding of basic fundamentals, like the difference between within-group and between-group variance, and how to tease out selection biases from treatment effects.
Level 3: given a basic, measurable phenomenon, and an associated question about that phenomenon, build a model to test it. The model needs to be plausible but not perfect. So for example, let’s say that there are a number of dots that appear in a circle, and your question is, are the dots distributed randomly or are they biased in some orientation? (Actually, maybe this would be a higher level, but you get the idea).
If people agree that these “character classes” make sense, then perhaps it’d be best to have some standardized notion of how many levels each class should have and how difficult they each should be to reach.
People who know (relatively) more about a subject should try to design some of these for various subjects. People would then choose to specialize in one or more of the classes. If others agree to make other classes, I’d be happy to pursue this “statistician” class (or pursue it along with others). Does this seem like a good idea?
Character classes are not necessary, but I agree with you that they’re better than generic life levels. Even better is a granular attribute & skill level system, such as found within the World of Darkness system (Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquerade, etc.). So strength, stamina, programming, statistics, and so forth each have their own level. When you get advanced enough in level in a narrower skill area like statistics, you can sub-specialize that skill. But I think we don’t need to worry about special cases like that for now.