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I remember one player being sort of grumpy that he got a fisher, and most of his wealth was in dired fish. A few session later when the group was starving those fish came in handle. THe gaff hook made a nice grapnel, and when the group needed to boat across the water, the fisherman was pretty useful.

Depends on how important character advancement is. Some RPGs give the players experienced starting character but tend to have slower learning curves. FASA Star Trek, LUG Star Trek, CORPS, and EABA are all examples of this. Original Traveler didn't have an experience/improvement system at all! Spirit of the Century doesn't either,although it has suggestions for one. Superheor games are anoteher genre where characters stay roughly the same. Spiderman and Batman haven't really changed much. It all depends on playing style and group goals.

Probably the biggest load of BS in the RPG hobby is Taslatntia's lack of elves. They got a dozen pointed eared slender races that act like elves. Just they give them a different name. Even the species they used to use with the "no elves" pictures looked like elves.

We'll there are several methods to invoke this. Personally I'd have preferred a 1-1 basis with a CAP per attack of something like 1/2 POW. I did assume a 1-1 basis for my Spot Rules I posted a month back. Although I'dprobably use the "bump success levels" option, now that I know it exists. It worked great in Bond. I think you are missing the purpose of the points. They are not there to add to the excitement, but to help mitigate some of the extreme effects-especially when players have little they can do about them. Case in point, long ago in a campaign, the GM got a hot hand and criticalled every PC in the first two rounds of battle. No one's fault, dice do that at times. The net effect was that suddenly, the whole group was wiped out, the adventure was stopped dead, and everything was back to square one. All from what was, a "wandering monster". That's the sort of things that hero points can address. I don't think the spending 6 to alter a success level is too complicated. If you think it is, then stay clear of any of the magic sections. Functionally it is simpler than casting Protection 6, and will a shorter duration. As for it not being heroic. in what way. The idea is for the points to let people act herorically. Simply letting the dice fall where they may tends to work counter to that. If the bad guys got the hero pinned down with a machinegun, a heroic setting would have some way for a PC to move up to the machinegune nest and toss in a grenade. In the real world, that get's accomplished with a lot of luck and a lot more casualties. John Wayne might make it, but a dozen other guys get mowed down. In "straight" BRP combat. "Big John" is just an easy target. By the time he canclose the distance to the machinegune next, he will be shot of several times and be "Dead John". Points let you get around that. At least somewhat. The excitement is that the points are limited, so while John might be able to avoid one or two hits, he still has the rest of the battle to get through, and so must use the points wisely. If you give both sides the same amount of points all the time, yeah. Like I posted in another thread, if you give a squad of 20 stormtroopers points to spend, they will become an insurmountable obstacle. THe idea is that the points should either only be available to the major characters, or be alloted in proportion to the character's significance. So an extra would get not or very few, while a major villain would get a lot. My only real issue with the points is how they are regenerated. POW is okay for "Luck" points. But I'd have preferred a method of earning new ones rather than regenerating POW.

Au contraire. Assuming that a critical parry still blocks everything then upping your own success level would do the job. Once. If you got a lot of POW maybe twice.

Reminds me of my mother. Growing up my sister and I would have to explian the comics to mom, who usually missed the punchline. Usually by the time she got it the humor had worn off. I'll try something less celebral next time;) I was thinking of a strip where we interview "B;inkey" the trollkin responsible for the death of Rurik. Perhaps it can shed some "light" on the mysterious death of the well known "Lightson".

That assumes that justice has something to do with it. I think the method that the points are earned/auqired depends on whay the points are and what the represent. It they are "Luck" points I would see them as being independent of role-playing. If they are "Hero" points then I would see them being acquired through heroic actions. If they are "Fate" points then I could see them being handled out by the GM per his own criteria.

A playtester.

I think that would option 1 for me if I wanted to make a proposal or see a license. I'd think it would just about guarantee a response of some sort. Even a "call back later".

Sure, player's ability can be an equalizer, but it shouldn't have to rely strictly on this.

What rumor. It is mentioned in the old Chasoium Thieves World stuff. They created Refuge to playtest the Thieves World stuff. The name is a good clue too.

Hey guys, Triff did split off another tread for the balance ting that we all seem to be using. How about we let this one rest or go back to its original topic?

I'd say the his example supports the reverse. Bilbo actually didn't have the skills he was hired on for (a burglar). In the end his value was in common sense, an ability to think through problems, and a willingness to negotiate and solve problems through means other than bloodshed. Abilities that all gamers could benefit from having. Of course having the GM literally dump a ring of invisibility on him didn't hurt. And that is another break from the "game balance" mode of play. Give a low level character a high powered artifact.

I'd say that you probably get a better tale that way. A lot of the balance issues are combat related, and a hold over from the hobby's origins as at outgrowth of wargaming, where balance is vital. But the storytelling and interactive play origins or RPGs go back far further and generally don't involve carbon copies adventuring together. And difference is a gap that can be exploited to "unbalance" a game. Historically many bad-asses were taken down by people who didn't match up to them in terms of skills or abilities but who beat them through luck, good planning, or just catching them unaware. I've had groups take out much larger, more powerful and better skilled opponents that way.

Whadido?:confused:

Careful., we don't want any flame wars. As we all are aware, few topics raise national fever to the level that baked goods accomplishes. Think of the coutliess lives lost during such conficts as the "French-Italian bread war, or the German Pretzel crisis, preciptated by somone being lye carelessless. Best to let tempers (and cookies) cool a little before eating.

Argh. Someone emailed me a list of the uses and I can't find it! I recall that there were a few other uses, such as altering the success level of an attack. I think there was a option to turn a success into a failure, and that it was usually cheaper than buying off damage point by point. I think it was 7 PP.

Yeah ditto here. I have seen some games differentiate the points somewhat though. For example, the James Bond game gave heroes "hero points" and villains "survival points". The distinction being that survival points could only be used defensively. That made a lot of sense too, since if a PC spends 3 points to blow a bad guy away it doesn't disrupt the campaign as much as the bad guy spending 3 points and blowing a PC away. Especially since the PCs would be spending points going through the adventure to get to the bad guy, while the villain was usually safe "off camera". Most games also tend to limit the points to significant NPCs though, or limit the points for extras and other minor characters. Otherwise a squad of 20 stormtroopers becomes almost unkillable. Twenty guys even with 8 POW for being clones probably have a big advantage over a group of PC heroes. Generally the idea behind hero points is to tone down the lethality a little for the players to allow then to act like larger than life heroes. Handling out the same number of points to every NPCs does just the opposite.

Now that is a very good point. I think the idea of using POW was to limit it. Characters would have to choose between luck or magic. But POW storing devices opens up a whole 55 gallon can of worms. I'd prefer Luck Points, and keeping them separate. The maybe allow some items that give more luck points, such as a rabbit's foot or horseshoe.

Agreed. They are two separate issues that are lumped together under the same heading.

I think a lot of the "problems" from balance are actually self-made. Characters will differernt skill levels can interact and characters with 30-40% skill levels can contribute. A lot of this is about what sort of emphasis is on the campaign. For instance, a few people didn't like the Star Trek RPGs because it was "unbalanced/broken". You could write up a begging character who was a combat monster. Quite true, except that the adventures were not driven by a series of combat encounters. There are a bunch of other things that come up in the adventures, such as technical skills, diplomacy and other things that all play a big part. The combat monster doesn't dominate because his abilities don't cross over into all aspects of the game. The main reason why such thinking isn't universal is that the largest RPG outthere is entirely obsessed with "balance". In D&D everything is designed around the level of the PCs. Everything from how much gold to give out, to the Hit Dice of the Monster to the plusses on the weapons are based off on the PCs level. Even skill bonuses are limited by level. That's not true in skill based games. But it depends on where the GM puts the emphasis.

We're 3 weeks into it. I'd say we'd have to progress through a little more than that to give up on the rest of year.

My most successful CoC character, and my last, was someone who didn't believe in the mythos stuff, steered clear of books with arcane knowledge and spells (not that it was anything helpful to PCs anyway), and was the only character in the campaign who not only survived, but ended up with a higher SAN than when we started playing.:thumb: The goal of the game seems to be to withstand enough encounters with supernatural creatures to go permanently insane and start up your own cult[/i} to worship supernatural creatures. :confused:

I believe it was a common theme in the stage plays of the late Victorian era. Not surprising considering the audience for such things. It's important in horror RPGing in general. One problem with horror RPGs is that thanks to the nature of the game, the players are sort of forwarned and expect to see monsters. That throws off a lot of the fear on the supermnatural. Instead of being afradi of having the vampire turn them into souless monsters or the werewolf rip[ing them apart, the PCs start toting around garlic, crucifixes, hammers, stakes, and assault shotguns loaded with silver buckshot. By defination is become impossible for it to be horror anymore, since the players know what to expect. So a GM has to surprise them with what they don't expect. My best horor adventures were in "normal" RPGs where the impact was greater. One of my favorite CoC adventures was one where the GM didn't use any Mythos stuff or monsters. We were up against gangsters (they didn't know what the funky statue was for, just that it was worth big bucks). It really threw the group for a loop. Deep Ones are known to call you up on the phone and do a drive by shooting. Or wire you car with explosives. Or bribe officials. We was scared. :eek: