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Multi-Species Parties & Game Balance


Darkholme

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auyl, I think your friend gave you excellent advice. It's true that players in a game can all be happy if, and only if, the GM makes sure that each character is able to contribute to the group's collective success or failure. However I don't think that means that trying to balance a bit PCs that have widely different abilities is an exercise in futility, especially if this can grant GMs more leeway to design settings and adventures that don't necessarily have to compensate for power imbalances between the PCs, or to restrict the range of playable characters for a purely mechanical reason.

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If you find some merit in the idea of figuring the percentage by which a starting character is superior or inferior to the standard starting human character, and using that percentage to modify (respectively, disadvantageously or advantageously) the amount of skill points the character gains on a sucessful experience roll (or, perhaps even better, the experience roll itself!), I'd be very interested in knowing how you would develop it.

In Legend I'd probably apply a modifier to the XP rolls based on the number of actions, damage bonus, and hit points. I don't think you'd need to worry about the skill percentages, since a higher skill score is automatically harder to improve. It would be a bonus just like the INT bonus, and could be talled up on the sheet before hand. 

 

Or the die for improvement could be tweked from a d6 to a d8, d10 or d12, or maybe lowered.  

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You do have a point about higher skills already being harder to improve! Aren't there other resources on which you'd base the "learning bonus", besides number of actions, damage bonus, and hit points? What about power points?

 

Ooh, I missed PP. It's a possibility.Although PP by itself isn't that useful. You need spells, so I'd probably have to factor that in. IMO that is a major problem with this idea. The game system was not designed to balance off the various PCs. I also suspect that balancing out the various PCs might end up unbalancing things later on in a different way. For example, a human with straight 18s would start off with very nice stats, but be handicapped in terms of advancement. Eventually he would be outstripped by the other PCs and become a supporting character. So I would probably have to factor in for skill scores after all, and I think that ends up being a worse situation than an unbalanced party. It would mean that those who do well and improve faster would be penalized for it. At that point the GM might just as well hand out x% per session. Yuk. 

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A human with straight 18s would start off with very nice stats, but be handicapped in terms of advancement. Eventually he would be outstripped by the other PCs and become a supporting character.

Why would the human be handicapped in advancement? Are you referring to the "slower skill gains" for more powerful races, that was mentioned upthread? Wouldn't that favor the humans?

 

The skill maximums I mentioned upthread would deal with this problem. Your total skill points would be hard-capped (or soft-capped), until the rest of the group also reached the cap, and while you're at the cap, you can re-spec things until the other players have caught up to you. After everyone has reached the cap (or is within X total of the cap), the GM can raise the cap, and you can all work toward that new cap.
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Why would the human be handicapped in advancement? Are you referring to the "slower skill gains" for more powerful races, that was mentioned upthread? Wouldn't that favor the humans?

 

The skill maximums I mentioned upthread would deal with this problem. Your total skill points would be hard-capped (or soft-capped), until the rest of the group also reached the cap, and while you're at the cap, you can re-spec things until the other players have caught up to you. After everyone has reached the cap (or is within X total of the cap), the GM can raise the cap, and you can all work toward that new cap.

 

 

1) Because I was thinking of basing the restrictions off the actual stats and derived stats rather than by race. After all, a human with a 18 INT and 18 DEX poses the exact same problem as an elf with an 18 INT and 18 DEX. Generally speaking the problems with the more powerful races stem not from thier race, but from the higher attributes that go with the race. 

 

 

2) I think the skill maximums you mentioned wouldn't help much, and would cause some other problems. Specifically:

 - By soft capping, instead of the non-humans outstripping the humans in terms of  advancement,  they would jump off to a good lead, hit the cap, be forced to  diversity while wait they for the others to catch up, the jump off to another lead. So most of the time the non humans will still be ahead.

 

-The forced diversification will eventually cause "balance" issues when the non-humans will be able to do everything better than the humans instead of just some things. . This will destroy any chance of a human securing some niche to excel in. And when the humans try to diversify the non-humans will have built up such as advantage as to put you right back in the same boat your started from. 

 

-The method can be taken advantage of if one of the PCs opts to diversify a human character instead of trying to catch up, "locking" the other PCs skills 

 

For example, lets say we have an elf in a party of humans, and that you go with a starting cap of 50%. Now the elf, thanks to superior attributes hits, 50% first, and has four sessions at the cap, waiting for the others to catch up. Now in that time he manages to cap out Spot. By then the rest of the PCs have reach 50%, and the GM raises the cap to 75%. 

One again the elf reaches 75% first, hitting the target number in 10 sessions. While waiting for the rest to catch up, he improves his Sneak skill. But, just when most of the group reaches 75%, one of the humans decides to work of his other skills, and the rest of the group is capped at 75% until he changes his mind and tries to reach 75% in something.

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Ya know, what might be a simpler way to balance out advancement would be to give the "disadvantaged" races some rerolls on their improvement rolls, or on their actual percentage increased die. 

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Hmm.

 

Your other approach might be something to consider.

 

Your example you posted, however, does not cover what I was describing, at least not the bulk of it.

 

The elf wouldn't be just working around a cap in individual skills of 50. He'd be working around a total skill value of like, 600 (to choose a reasonable looking hypothetical number). So while, yes, none of his individual skills could pass 50, the cap that everyone would have to reach before it would be increased is 600. Said elf would add up all of his skills, and all of them added together could not surpass a total of 600. Once he hit that cap, he could raise a skill (but not above 50) - but he would have to lower another skill by the same amount to compensate. (and could not lower any skill below its base value).

 

Throughout this process, you allow partial reshuffling on normal improvement rolls (with a smaller die, but the smaller "reshuffling" die would be in addition to the normal improvement roll). Once the humans have hit the cap you'd give them a bit of a reshuffling period as well. Then, you raise the cap from 600 to 700, and raise the cap on individual skills up to say, 55.

 

This means that elves would be more likely to hit the caps first, but they would not surpass the humans by a large chunk at any given time - keeping the power difference to a minimum, and not always being a thing.

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I think character balance is an illusion. As others have pointed out, PCs may start with the same values, points or whatever but, in play, some will stand above others depending on the nature of the adventure and the type of challenges present. If we think only about combat-oriented obstacles and challenges then some characteristics and skills will have a higher value. I believe you should emphasise the broader nature of BRP, promote diverse and colorful characters, and have inspiration in your players character sheets when creating an adventure.

 

The old Stormbringer was my game of choice for many years, and newly created PCs where far, very far, from being balanced. I remember having a goup of two melniboneans, two from the Young Kindoms and one Nadsokor beggar. PCs inspired challenges made room for everyone to have fun, have spotlight and make a difference. The Nadsokor beggar even became one of the most memorable and "powerful" characters.

 

Also, BRP skill checks and rolls tend to even characters on the long run.

My advice is to try the system as it is, convince your players and prepare adventures around PCs abilities. I bet that after one or two sessions where every player feels his character was of value or importance in the adventures, no one will speak about character stats.

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I think character balance is an illusion. 

Good point,. I agree. Even in supposedly "balanced" systems such as D&D, some very important factors are not considered. For instance D&D completely ignores attributes and mostly ignores equipment when balancing out PCs and CRs. 

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The elf wouldn't be just working around a cap in individual skills of 50. He'd be working around a total skill value of like, 600 (to choose a reasonable looking hypothetical number). So while, yes, none of his individual skills could pass 50, the cap that everyone would have to reach before it would be increased is 600. Said elf would add up all of his skills, and all of them added together could not surpass a total of 600. Once he hit that cap, he could raise a skill (but not above 50) - but he would have to lower another skill by the same amount to compensate. (and could not lower any skill below its base value).

 

Yuk. I absolutely detest the approach. I find it "wrong" on so many levels.  If I were a player I'd drop out of the campaign.

 

Why bother rolling for improvement if you are going to do something like this? You;d be better off just handing out a handful of percentage points each week, avoiding the rolling and just having a "balanced" rate of advancement. 

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Good point,. I agree. Even in supposedly "balanced" systems such as D&D, some very important factors are not considered. For instance D&D completely ignores attributes and mostly ignores equipment when balancing out PCs and CRs. Even then, how people play the characters can be "unbalancing". In one D&D3E campaign I was in, I had the weakest character in the group-on paper. I was lower level, had the worst AC, lowest hit points, wekest magic items, and so on. Yet I could have taken apart virtually any other character in that group without even getting a scratch. Only one other PC was able to give me a challenge when I was fighting the way I had built the character to fight. So even when characters are "balanced" on paper they aren't necessarily balanced. 

,

 

I don''t think "game balance" is necessarily a desirable goal, either. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Good point,. I agree. Even in supposedly "balanced" systems such as D&D, some very important factors are not considered. For instance D&D completely ignores attributes and mostly ignores equipment when balancing out PCs and CRs. 

What?

 

No it doesn't. At least not in Pathfinder. If you have PC Quality WBL (as opposed to NPC WBL) your CR is +1, and if you have a better point buy total, your CR is also +1.

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Yuk. I absolutely detest the approach. I find it "wrong" on so many levels.  If I were a player I'd drop out of the campaign.

 

Why bother rolling for improvement if you are going to do something like this? You;d be better off just handing out a handful of percentage points each week, avoiding the rolling and just having a "balanced" rate of advancement. 

Hmm. Well, (IIRC) the two methods where your skill goes up are either random chance when you roll a critical or the GM handing out X Skill Improvement rolls (Legend/RQ6). In the case of the latter, Some characters get more or less improvement rolls based on their CHA (I don't recall if this changed in RQ6).

 

The reason for an approach like this (which basically has plateau'ed skill levels) is to make sure the characters advance at a comparable rate, such that there is not a quickly widening gap in competency between players as the game goes on. Those who *WOULD* be advancing faster will frequently be slightly ahead of the curve - but not increasingly ahead of the curve, and their skill totals will be a bit more fine tuned (since they will have more opportunities to change where skill points are in case they aren't happy with where it is).

I could just give out "X Improvement Rolls, no Modifiers", or "X%/Session". That would be another approach toward the same goal, without anyone getting to periodically get a bit of a headstart and opportunities for more refined values. It's simpler, that's true.

I would still be inclined to give an overall and per-skill maximum that characters would eventually hit, after which point characters wouldn't get any more powerful - but I imagine such a number would be high, and it would be set to try to keep all the rolls from becoming too trivial.

 

As for why bother "rolling for improvement"; the d100 system has your improvement quantity be random rather than set, so sometimes it goes up a small amount, other times a larger amount, but since it will happen lots of times it should average out to the middle amount. I would be perfectly fine with just handing players that average amount every time.

 

 

Sure, If you were to sink all of your skill improvements into basket weaving, you're going to be weaker than the guy who put it into magic.

 

How was your character so "powerful" with weaker numbers than the other characters? Was this a matter of "I cast spells and they swing a sword"? Because most people agree that that is poorly handled in 3.x.

 

Out of curiosity, why don't you think game balance is desirable? I would think you would want to avoid Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit situations, because they won't be fun for BMX Bandit.

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Out of curiosity, why don't you think game balance is desirable? I would think you would want to avoid Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit situations, because they won't be fun for BMX Bandit.

 

(You weren't addressing me, but I had to chime in ... if only because of the Mitchell & Webb reference.)

 

Mathematical balancing is a poor substitute for what players really want: equal spotlight.  (Well, some want all spotlight.)  If every character has his or her own role in the adventure -- the investigator investigates, the ninja sneaks in, the gun bunny shoots, the mystic mystifies, the hulk smashes -- then most players won't care whether Alice's Angel Summoner is more or less powerful in absolute terms than Bill's BMX Bandit.

 

Granted, one doesn't want to create egregiously more powerful options.  For example, in a real game Angel Summoning would have limitiations: ritual time, materials, requirements for a sacred space, uses per day, etc.  Also, if BMX Banditry is essentially meaningless in the campaign, the GM might either eliminate it entirely or redefine it as Parkour (specialty: Bicycles).  Some balancing is good, but complex mathematical schemes can become more trouble than they're worth ... or turn the game from an adventure into a bland die-rolling and accounting exercise.

 

Spotlight-balancing depends heavily on the type of campaign / adventures.  In a heavily investigative campaign skills like Persuade, Streetwise, Fast Talk, and Intimidation will be vital, whereas combat skills will at best be a fallback if everything goes pear-shaped; in dungeon-delving or action-movie campaigns combat is paramount.  Building a combat monster is reasonable in the latter genres, but largely counterproductive in the former.  (There's always the guy who'll solve every mystery with swords drawn or guns blazing; in any realistic society, such a person would become a menace, feared by civilians and hunted by authorities.)  Conversely, without someone who can gather information -- preferably everyone -- investigation scenarios will grind to a halt.

 

So, back to the original point: you could have a party of one human, one elf, one troll, and one vampire.  Assuming humans are the majority, the human can mediate between other party members and the non-adventuring world; the elf can hunt and track, the troll can explore caves and bash anything nasty, and the vampire can use her spooky powers and inhuman strength against other children of the night.  On the other hand, the human will be second-best (or worse) at everything else, the elf will prove useless in urban environments, the troll will scare away allies as well as enemies, and the vampire will leave a trail of bloodless corpses and attract Van Helsings in droves.  If the GM is down with that, great.  If the GM can't generate interesting adventures for this traveling freak show, he should encourage less extreme characters.

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I think character balance is an illusion. 

 

Also, BRP skill checks and rolls tend to even characters on the long run.

You mean that you're under the illusion that characters tend to even out on the long run?  :P

 

You're right that balance doesn't depend on just what is written on a character's sheet, and that even abstract mechanical elements cannot possibly be made to even out perfectly. Still, I don't see where the problem is. BRP  is full of optional, sometimes incompatible, rules and subsystems. In fact, a mantra that gets repeated again and again about BRP says that the game's system is so transparent and modular that you can tinker with it, adding and subtracting rules and subsystems, without the the risk of breaking it. And what we're doing here is just speculating about an optional subsystem, based on BRP (RQ etc.) as it is, for those who'd like the illusion of balance to be less remote from their actual experience of the game. I generally don't like meta-game resources like fate points, but I have no problem with the game allowing that kind of option to players that like it. Having the largest number of options isn't necessarily an undesirable thing, right?  :)

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Mathematical balancing is a poor substitute for what players really want: equal spotlight.  (Well, some want all spotlight.)  If every character has his or her own role in the adventure -- the investigator investigates, the ninja sneaks in, the gun bunny shoots, the mystic mystifies, the hulk smashes -- then most players won't care whether Alice's Angel Summoner is more or less powerful in absolute terms than Bill's BMX Bandit.

 

Spotlight-balancing depends heavily on the type of campaign / adventures.  In a heavily investigative campaign skills like Persuade, Streetwise, Fast Talk, and Intimidation will be vital, whereas combat skills will at best be a fallback if everything goes pear-shaped; in dungeon-delving or action-movie campaigns combat is paramount.  Building a combat monster is reasonable in the latter genres, but largely counterproductive in the former.  (There's always the guy who'll solve every mystery with swords drawn or guns blazing; in any realistic society, such a person would become a menace, feared by civilians and hunted by authorities.)  Conversely, without someone who can gather information -- preferably everyone -- investigation scenarios will grind to a halt.

Sure. I can agree with all of that. The mathematical balancing isn't useful in and of itself, it's only useful if it helps facilitate the spotlight balance that people want from an RPG.
 

Okay, thus far we're in agreement. Being egregiously more powerful is a problem, small scale power differences aren't such a big deal. Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit could actually work with sufficient limits on Angel Summoner, assuming BMX Bandit is sufficiently awesome.

 

 
It would be easy to generate adventures for such a "travelling freak show", in such a setting that it *IS* a freak show. Aside for the vampire, which has some, shall we say "technical incompatibilities" with civilized life (and even then, maybe he collects blood from livestock - after paying for it - rather than attacking humanoids); I would be fine with that in many campaigns. Particularly the ones where that's not a travelling freakshow at all. In a setting where you get Trolls, Humans, Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, and other creatures living about as harmoniously as people in multicultural hubs/countries in the real world do, such a group wouldn't get much more than a raised eyebrow. In which case, that human is *Just Less Good*. The Elf (regular, not gloranthan plant people) is equivalent to the human in almost all ways except where he has better stats; and I'm sure similar things would come up with some of the other intelligent races. In which case, what's the reason to play a human (I mean, yes you may still want to do it for flavor reasons, but you're doing so even though the options available heavily suggest mechanically that you should pick one of the more powerful options). I'd rather that the nonstandard races be appealing/available, but not because of mechanical superiority. I'd like playing a human to be an equally useful option to playing a troll (albeit a different option).
 
So yeah; I'd like to either have a bunch of races that are closer in power to eachother such that I can pass my players a list of "pick one of these 12 races to play as" or a means of counterbalancing for more powerful races so I can give them a "tell me what you want to play as, and so long as it fits the setting, go nuts".

 

 

Absolutely MatteoN. Well said. I'm not going to tell people they can't run their Humanocentric games, but I see value in having better support for multi-species player parties/multispecies settings than is currently available.

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What?

 

No it doesn't. At least not in Pathfinder. If you have PC Quality WBL (as opposed to NPC WBL) your CR is +1, and if you have a better point buy total, your CR is also +1.

I mentioned D&D not Pathfinder. But even in Pathfinder CR is still mostly a joke, 

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How was your character so "powerful" with weaker numbers than the other characters? Was this a matter of "I cast spells and they swing a sword"? Because most people agree that that is poorly handled in 3.x.

 

Out of curiosity, why don't you think game balance is desirable? I would think you would want to avoid Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit situations, because they won't be fun for BMX Bandit.

 

It was a matter of knowing what I wanted to do with the character, and gearing my development towards that goal. I was playing a Grey Elf wizard with a  high INT and DEX, who used a bow. Between my natural talents, chosen feats, magic items that meshed with my concept, the and spells I knew, I could keep any of my fellow party members at range, where I had a dominating advantage. Now, if I were dumb enough to stand there and trade blows with one of the "tanks" I'd have been dead meat, but I wasn't that dumb. 

 

As far as the game balance thing goes. Why won't those situations be fun for BMX Bandit? I think the problem is that people erroneously view the situation as a competition between player characters and that everybody's has to have the same number of pieces of candy, or somebody will be upset. That might be true if the players are six year olds but shouldn't matter with mature players.

 

It would be like a superhero campaign where Batman complains to the GM that it it unfair that Superman can fly, is super strong, invulnerable, etc, etc., while he doesn't have any superpowers at all!

 

I don't even think you need "Spotlight Balance". Not everybody wants to be in the spotlight equally. They just need ways to make meaningful contributions to the game.

 

What "game balance" really does is just force everyone to contribute to the campaign in basically the same way- and are all centered around combat. Because that all that D20 is about. Combat and character advancement geared towards combat. It causes problems, too, since opponents and battles are judged more in terms of CRs and levels than in terms of planning and tactics.  .  

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Sure, If you were to sink all of your skill improvements into basket weaving, you're going to be weaker than the guy who put it into magic.

 

Not in a basket weaving contest. Just what makes a character strong or weak is dependent on the situation. You seem to think it is all about combat, which is true for D20, but not necessarily true in BRP or related games.

 

And before you go into the "basket weaving is boring" argument that many use to sell combat, I'll say it all depends on the situation and how the GM runs it. In the end we are all just rolling dice. The characters might be swinging swords, casting magic, .trading insults, or even, yes, basket weaving. It's not the task being attempted that makes it interesting, but how it is handled and the stakes involved. Combat is exciting in most games because it is a drawn out processes with success measured in degrees, with the characters' well being, possessions and lives at stake- combined with good potential rewards. Basket weaving is boring because it is usually handled swiftly (no chance for any tension) with minimal risks, and negligible rewards.  But that's only because people  run it that way. 

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Not in a basket weaving contest. Just what makes a character strong or weak is dependent on the situation. You seem to think it is all about combat, which is true for D20, but not necessarily true in BRP or related games.

 

And before you go into the "basket weaving is boring" argument that many use to sell combat, I'll say it all depends on the situation and how the GM runs it. In the end we are all just rolling dice. The characters might be swinging swords, casting magic, .trading insults, or even, yes, basket weaving. It's not the task being attempted that makes it interesting, but how it is handled and the stakes involved. Combat is exciting in most games because it is a drawn out processes with success measured in degrees, with the characters' well being, possessions and lives at stake- combined with good potential rewards. Basket weaving is boring because it is usually handled swiftly (no chance for any tension) with minimal risks, and negligible rewards.  But that's only because people  run it that way. 

Haha.

I'm now picturing High-Tension Basketweaving Deathmatches.

This sounds like a Ranma 1/2 episode plot. :D

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I don't think racial balance is as important as racial desirability. To me every race should have something that makes them interesting and fun to play.

 

In a game where every race has several special abilities, I do add one or two to those that don't, but not so much to bring balance to them as to "fix" what to me is an oversight. I don't however have some point system that says, "there, now everything is equal".

 

It really comes down to what a player is looking for that determines how balanced a certain race is compared to another. Sure, that half-orc fighter may not be balanced with my half-elf thief in a fair fight. But my half-elf thief doesn't fight fair. :)

 

Of course, I don't think any one race should be better at EVERYTHING. But, that isn't typically the issue. I usually find that when someone says that race "A" is unbalanced when compared with race "B", they're only thinking of combat, and even then usually only the "blunt force" parts of it. I can design a little halfling slinger that can pick apart your half-orc barbarian without them ever laying a hand on me. But on paper, I would have bet on the big guy. :)

 

So to reiterate, exact balance shouldn't be necessary, as long as everyone feels they can contribute and has fun doing it. All races should have something to offer. However if a player finds himself sitting out 90% of a game session because his character is inferior to the others, is that the fault of the game, or is the game master not doing his job and finding ways to let all his players shine?

 

Rod

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Haha.

I'm now picturing High-Tension Basketweaving Deathmatches.

This sounds like a Ranma 1/2 episode plot. :D

How about a group of characters has only so much time to build a balloon and basket to escape in before a horde of nasties get them? 

 

Part of the problem I've seen in balanced games is that the players soon expect everything to be balanced, and end up taking on situations they shouldn't based on the "logic" that if the GM put in in the adventure then it must be balanced for the party. 

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So to reiterate, exact balance shouldn't be necessary, as long as everyone feels they can contribute and has fun doing it. All races should have something to offer. However if a player finds himself sitting out 90% of a game session because his character is inferior to the others, is that the fault of the game, or is the game master not doing his job and finding ways to let all his players shine?

 

Rod

Exactly. Most of the "problems" arise when multiple players are trying to contribute in the same fashion, and it degenerates into some sort of contest.

 

Depending on the players, characters, expectations and goals, players can have fun contributing in different ways or even by playing sidekick to another PC. A lot of the time a PC can get overlooked if he is teamed up with a higher profile character-such as the Hulk, a Jedi, or a Rune Lord. This can give the sidekick all sorts of opportunities that the "danger magnet" is never going to get. And that can be very fun. But it depends on how the GM runs it. 

 

 

We've had fun running games where the tech/magic oriented characters have to complete some task (defuse a bomb, open a magical gate,etc.) while the grunts are busy holding off the advancing (unbalanced) enemy forces. 

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So, back to the original point: you could have a party of one human, one elf, one troll, and one vampire.  Assuming humans are the majority, the human can mediate between other party members and the non-adventuring world; the elf can hunt and track, the troll can explore caves and bash anything nasty, and the vampire can use her spooky powers and inhuman strength against other children of the night.  On the other hand, the human will be second-best (or worse) at everything else, the elf will prove useless in urban environments, the troll will scare away allies as well as enemies, and the vampire will leave a trail of bloodless corpses and attract Van Helsings in droves.  If the GM is down with that, great.  If the GM can't generate interesting adventures for this traveling freak show, he should encourage less extreme characters.

This is where teamwork comes into play.  The vampire doesn't leave a body trail because the troll helpfully eats them.  The elf helps fund the party in cities because people mistake her for a Sixties era folk singer (see the puff piece in Mother Earth News).  She maintains her status as a "master tracker" by secretly using a GPS device she filched off a guy who tried to pick her up.  It routinely takes her the long way around to places that don't exist, generating plenty of adventures for the party.  Elf and vampire take turns charming potential allies so that they perceive the troll as a Lon Chaney, Jr., style tough instead of a monster.  Meanwhile, all three of them perform conspiratorial back flips to keep their human front man from realizing what they're really up to when he's looking the other way.   >:>

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