Players Reactions to Weapons tables

[Nightshade]

Yeah. With a su[ers game I'm not worried about keeping power levels in check. That's what supervillians are for--

"Oh, no It's Roboticus! He made from invicium and immune to even the Blaster's raw energy power. We have only one chance! Quick wimpy sidekick, go fetch the lemon juice, and hurry! Or we all doomed!"

There's two problems with this:

1. Not all players will hit the power levels equally, so you have to do a lot of backflips to make sure everyone feels equally useful; its often almost impossible if the gap has gotten too large (and to make it clear, I don't care that this happens in the comics; in the comics the characters aren't being played by individual people who are mostly concerned with their own character);

2. The power level changes the nature of the campaign in ways you didn't particularly want it to; if you're trying to run the early X-Men and you end up with the late X-Men, not only does it make many potential villain designes useless and change the feel of the campaign, but it may make whole plot arcs fundamentally undoable.

[Trifletraxor]

I think we're back to the "balanced" or "unbalanced" discussion again. I'm firmly with PK here, I would not like to be anybodies sidekick. I also feel that the group dynamics flow best if no-one is hugely better than the others. If you have one high-level guy in a low-level group (I'm not talking about D&D levels here now!), you have to throw hard opposition to challenge the group. The result is that the weaker members die more often, leaving more loot to the power guy who gets even more powerfull.

Our last discussion on this topic went nowhere, but I'm sure we all will agree after another round, not?

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

I think we're back to the "balanced" or "unbalanced" discussion again. I'm firmly with PK here, I would not like to be anybodies sidekick. I also feel that the group dynamics flow best if no-one is hugely better than the others. If you have one high-level guy in a low-level group (I'm not talking about D&D levels here now!), you have to throw hard opposition to challenge the group. The result is that the weaker members die more often, leaving more loot to the power guy who gets even more powerfull.

SGL.

But is ins't really a sidekick thing, more of a focus thing. For instance, looking at the Avengers, Captain America has no real superpowers (his physical stats are at peka human, maybe slightly above), and yet he is a fomidable foe for any villain. Likewise the Waspe went from being a sidekick/airhead/girlfriend (acutally she was more a daozel in distress prisor to the Avengers) to an independent hero who could pack quite a whallop in a small package.

A lot of how these characters can coexist on a team with the likes of Their has to do with just how the comics ar written, and how superteeams can be run in an RPG.

[Nightshade]

A lot of how these characters can coexist on a team with the likes of Their has to do with just how the comics ar written, and how superteeams can be run in an RPG.

The problem is that your perception of how they can be run don't match with a lot of the rest of us here, A. It assumes a lot about various stylistic and game contract issues that just aren't universal.

[Rurik]

Having missed the balance thing the first time around I'll throw in my two cents here.

In every campaign I've played starting characters start at a predetermined level. At the beginning everyone is the same 'level'. If everybody lived forever everyone would stay pretty much the same 'level'. But people die, at least in all the games I've ever run/played, I mean, if not, why even roll the dice (O.k., I know, that is a seperate argument). So before long the party is made up of different power levels, potentially very different power levels, and that has never been a problem.

It is not fair to players who have kept alive for a long time and seen their character grow in power to say "O.k., since Bob charged through the gates of hell and died a firey death, and everyone else is now 7th level, Bob can roll up a new 7th level character". Bob rolls up a 1st level, or 3rd level, or where everyone else started level character. At first he will be underpowered, but will catch up fast. Plus, he'll get cast off loot from the more powerful party, so by second level he's got full magical plate and a sword +5.

My gaming groups have always done things this same way, and it has never been a problem. And as a GM I make sure to keep everyone included. The Dark Troll Champion and his bodygaurd may be a challenge for the powerful party members, but their trollkin skirmishers are a good match for the party noobs.

The way I see it the only way 'balance' is maintained is by never letting characters die, which is just not my kind of gaming. So unbalanced parties is the norm, not the exception.

I will also venture that if using the same character generation rules as everyone else it is possible to create characters so powerful they 'unbalance' the game from the start the rules are flawed and need to be fixed.

[Atgxtg]

Huuray for Rurik.

Game balance is really a myth. Sort of a shortcut for GMs so they don;t have to do as much work. If an X HD monster is a threat for a X level party then everything works out okay.

Only it isn't ture. It all depending on the way the GM sets up and runs the encounter. Three kolbolds aren't a match for a 3rd level fighterm unless the GM gives them magic weapons, a defisible position and surprise.

Likewise, characters aren't designed to go up against each other. So a GM should be able to run mixed groups. Many RPGs adress the issue.

In the comics, for instace, the big bad villians that can go toe to toe with Thor, are often vulnerable to weaker characters in some way. USusally from a weakness in between the ears. Or, they have allies who are more suited towards other characters.

Reviving the Super Firends example, or, using the JLA, while there were some real brusier in the Legion of Supervillians, there were also foes for the other heroes to defeat. Often, in fact usually, the really powerful physical foes weren't the ones who were the most dangerous.

So while Mister Steroids might be slugging it out with Roboticus, Captain Hamster might be busy preventing Doctor Nefaruius from setting off a nuke.

All valid.

[Rurik]

Reviving the Super Firends example, or, using the JLA, while there were some real brusier in the Legion of Supervillians, there were also foes for the other heroes to defeat. Often, in fact usually, the really powerful physical foes weren't the ones who were the most dangerous.

How many times exactly did Gleek save the day? Quite a few if I recall. He was the pet of the sidekicks in training, not quite balanced with Superman.

[Atgxtg]

not quite balanced

Neither is anyone who remember Gleek's name. :D

Seriously though, none of the SF balanced out with Superman, Thats the point. A GM doesn't have to balance out the power levels-if he is doing something about it.

In my last Marvel SAGA campaign, I had one guy with Superstrength, who could fly, and was resistant to most weapons. Another hero had no superpowers and carried a bow with a half dozen trick arrows. Were the balanced in power? No. Did it matter. Not really Each brought their own abilities.

Sometimes the arrow guy could fire a gas arrow and take down foes meant for muscles. Or sometimes he could use his high tech skills to solve something that our resident Superboy couldn't. It all worked. And every one in awhile, kid muscles would dodge or use his wits and catch people by surprise, as it was so out of character.

[Trifletraxor]

It is not fair to players who have kept alive for a long time and seen their character grow in power to say "O.k., since Bob charged through the gates of hell and died a firey death, and everyone else is now 7th level, Bob can roll up a new 7th level character".

How about if everyone else is 20th level? Does Bob still roll up a 7th level character? A newly rolled character is never on the level of the more experienced ones, but a rarely have people roll up a 17 year old farmer in a group that's full of veterane mercenaries (even if they started as farmers).

If one guy is wastly more powerful than the rest, tons of magic, items and skills, the other characters in the group are his sidekicks. They might be usefull at some time, but they really don't affect the result that much. And they have a great chance of dying before they will ever reach his level. F.ex.: If the monsters the groups strong guy is fighting, can not be taken out by the rest of the group together - that's not cool.

Things will never be fully "balanced", and that would not be any fun either. It's the level of difference that people find acceptable we are talking about.

SGL.

[Zane]

I will also venture that if using the same character generation rules as everyone else it is possible to create characters so powerful they 'unbalance' the game from the start the rules are flawed and need to be fixed.

My experience with Superhero games is with using the HERO system, mostly Champions 3rd Ed. (this example is form that). You can have a good ruleset, but if the players conspire against the GM, they can play off of each others advantages and disadvantages to the extent that they really hurt game play. I've seen this destroy a game.

I'm currently looking at the possibility of either pre-generated characters, or characters built by the players and myself working closely to craft them. This isn't a game balance issue, this is a story-telling issue. I have a couple ideas I'm working on that would work best with pre-generated characters.

[Atgxtg]

How about if everyone else is 20th level? Does Bob still roll up a 7th level character? A newly rolled character is never on the level of the more experienced ones, but a rarely have people roll up a 17 year old farmer in a group that's full of veterane mercenaries (even if they started as farmers).

Sure. It just takes a GM who can handle it.

If one guy is wastly more powerful than the rest, tons of magic, items and skills, the other characters in the group are his sidekicks. They might be usefull at some time, but they really don't affect the result that much. And they have a great chance of dying before they will ever reach his level. F.ex.: If the monsters the groups strong guy is fighting, can not be taken out by the rest of the group together - that's not cool.

Not necessarily. Is Batman's Superman's sidekick? Usually its the Bat who is two steps ahead of the brain of steel (Yeah, he is supposed to be intelligent, but usually releies on brawn).

A lot of this is style of play. I'll admit in D&D it is tougher, since level is the dominat factor in the game. Everything is level based. RQ/BRP's more flexible nature allows for a lot more leeway.

Almost all my campaigns have been unbalanced. Much for the reasons Rurirk described. Generally some characters die, some live. Those that live tened to continue living. Those that died are replaced vby others who as often as not die too. THis is partially high skills winning out and partially better players winning out. The net effect is that within a few moths I am running a mix of one of two highly seasoned characters, along with some experienced characters and a novice or two.

It all works out. Good players are actually more danagerous when they have weaker characters. The start getting very clever.

Castle Falkenstein also did a good take oin this. SOme characters can be Dragons who, by their nature have abilties that the other characters lack, like the abiility to breath fire. CF handles it well. Since everyone know the dragon is trouble, they plan ahead for him.

In a Supersgame, that would mean that the bad guys would make plans for dealing with Thor or Superman. Plans that overlook the Wasp or that she could screw up.

Like if the bad buys toss a chunk of Kyronite as Superman, BAtman pull a spay can from his Ultity belt that firea a cheical foarm that is laced with lead.

Or he taps into Robotcus's control circusits and takes him over.

Lots of ways to run mixed power groups.

Things will never be fully "balanced", and that would not be any fun either. It's the level of difference that people find acceptable we are talking about.

SGL.

And how acceptable that level is depends a lot on the GM and how he run its.

In my old MArvel game the archer character had a entangle arrow that was simply useless against the strong character. Period. It also was useless against the superstrong villians, usually. Wrapping around a villans ankles while he is charging and holding a pickup truck, however, proved somewhat effective.

Likewise, while the archer character couldn't take a superpunch, he didn't get hit by any. For one thing a bow let him attack at range. For another he was great at dodging.

So it is really down to how the GM runs it.

[Trifletraxor]

Sure. It just takes a GM who can handle it.

I have yet to meet such a GM personally though.

Not necessarily. Is Batman's Superman's sidekick? Usually its the Bat who is two steps ahead of the brain of steel (Yeah, he is supposed to be intelligent, but usually releies on brawn).

Playing a character with INT 18 is not that easy if you don't have it yourself though. Or i Superman's player is as smart as you, then you're certainly not two steps ahead.

Generally some characters die, some live. Those that live tened to continue living. Those that died are replaced vby others who as often as not die too. THis is partially high skills winning out and partially better players winning out.

...

It all works out. Good players are actually more danagerous when they have weaker characters. The start getting very clever.

Those who die often are not usually those who play "smartest" though. One of my players, who like to play frontline warriors, dies relatively often. If he rolled up a farmer, he would die every session - not much fun for him. I could make all the opposition have an extra farmer on the team, so my farmer had a farmer to fight with, but I don't like to pull punches like that.

SGL.

[PK Games]

So every avengers adventure ends with a villain designed so Thor can't beat it by the Wasp can? So you just created the reverse effect. So instead of the powerful character winning every battle and saving the day over and over again its the Wasp? So the player of Thor feels the GM is out to get him every time.

My method allows me to have some control over creating that game balance you so often mention (as in the team's powers and skills working in tandem to create an effective team).

And to tell you the truth, if I was in a 15th level game and my character died and all the sudden I was playing a new character who was 1st, 3rd or 7th level even, Id probably quit the campaign instead of building the new character. Getting cast off treasure from other characters? Thats pathetic and not the kind of character I or any of my players would want to play.

Remember, I do invest time and effort into my games, probably more then I should. My players have always enjoyed my super hero games and it is the most requested genre for me to run by the club. And I am quite an accomplished game master, so your voice of "Takes a good gamemaster", "depends on the ability of the gamemaster" is you attacking others saying its their fault for not being able to handle different power levels.

Truth be told, some of us would rather not. Its true. Honest to god. Some of us want to be able to run adventures and campaigns where we dont have to design specific villains to meet stats, but would rather build them to fit the story. Im not going to shoehorn in weaknesses in my villains to allow the weakest character prevail where the strongest cant just to deal with a strong character. Sure it happens from time to time, but I write adventures, nor fights. Fights are part of an adventure, not always the reason for the adventure.

Sometimes a player, no matter how good they are or how much the understand the rules and your setting wants to build the 20 or more level energy blast and 20 or more level force field and it just wrecks the campaign. I allow the player to have the character they want, but i ensure it fits the game setting Im running and Im planning and Im working on.

And honestly, whats worse? a player playing in a setting he isnt interested in or a GM running a setting he isnt interested in?

It is vital that each player be important to each adventure. And sure, sometimes you may want to create a scenario or scene to put a certain character in the spot light. But But every suggestion you put forth so far has been Character A has his or her weaknesses exploited/advantages countered so character B can save the day. Which is maddening for Character A.

How about building and adventure where Character A, B or C (or even D and E) have ways to win the day?

[Rurik]

Wow. This thread is crazy, and I doubt, being mostly a bunch of old crusty gamers set in our ways for the last 20-30 years or so anyone is going to convince anyone of anything.

But I'm a gonna say my piece anyhoo.

In my eyes, you should get rewarded for doing good in games, and you should earn those rewards. In the short term, doing good at the scenario level should have some tangable reward, be it gold or magic or glory or perhaps the favor of a fair damsel or whatever. Doing good in a campaign should have rewards as well. Doing good at a campaign is surviving - if the players veer from my intended path that is not doing bad, but more on that later. Dying is doing bad. There have been some heroic and fantastic deaths over the years, and those are rewarded in their own way, as they live on forever in the folk lore of the role playing group "remember when so and so died doing such and such, wasn't that great...".

Now I haven't played D&D in years, but I'll use the level thing here because it is easy. If I take my character from 1st to 10th level I've played well and been rewarded well, and have earned what I've got. If I die I expect to start over. Again, different strokes. I'll get outfited with much better equipment because I'm running with more powerful dudes, and be at least as powerful as a 3rd or 4th level character for it. I'll go up in levels super fast because of the way XP work, and after a few sessions I'll be a 5-6th level character with good gear, and able to run pretty well with 10th level (maybe 11th now) dude. And I don't mind, because I've only been playing this particular character for a few sessions and mr. 11th level has been playing his for years - his character should be better than mine.

So most of the parties in my gaming style are say like a 10th level dude or two, an 8th level dude or two, some 5th to 6th level dude, and a noob or two.

In BRP this works even better, because Starting Dude is going to have the same HP potential as mister 100+ in his skills dude. Since the party is high level, he will quickly have access to good armor, good spell teachers, and money - unlike the original characters when they were first created as new. So they will be more powerful than a true starting character, even though their skill levels are 'starting'. And of course with BRP experience working the way it does, they will advance faster than the high skilled characters. After a few sessions they will be competant. Their skills won't be at 90+% after a few sessions, but they haven't earned it - yet.

To us, this has always seemed a natural, organic, way of doing things. Forcing everyone to be balanced has not seemed that way. It is kind of like giving participation trophies out to everyone at events - kinda cheapens the trophies for people who really excel (by the way I don't mind participation trophies for young kids, but then at some point though enough is enough - I also don't run games for kids the same way I do for grown ups).

[TRose]

Having played in a Champions for many years including one campaign based on the 1940's DC comics. ( I had a blast playing Hawkman ) I can say having characters of different power level in a good superhero games no problem with the right GM. Yes Superman /Thor are the big guys , but the big guys also tend or should draw the big guys from the other side too. So while Superman , Green Lantern and Wonder Woman is fighting the big demons the Nazi magician summoned Batman sneaks behind and pour holy water on the Demonic gate so no more demons show up and I take the Evil wizard from behind. And that how it tended to work out. The big guy draws the fire and the others then go and wrecks the evil geniuses master plan .

[Atgxtg]

I have yet to meet such a GM personally though.

THats too bad. I goot that from my first GMs. Basically it stems from your second point.

Playing a character with INT 18 is not that easy if you don't have it yourself though. Or i Superman's player is as smart as you, then you're certainly not two steps ahead.

Quite true. Thats why more than one game doesn't stat INT. Most people can oly really play INT scores about the same as thier own or a little lower. Vary too much, in either direction and it is tough. Still that is part of what the GM is for. Remember our discussion about APP in another thread? Well, it should apply to INT too. In the guy p[laying Batman is a normal Joe with a 13 INT in the real world the GM should occasionally give him an Idea roll or 3 to help be as clever at the Batman. Same with skills. If a player has Chemistry at 87%, then the character should be able to make some sort of dangerous concontion with household chemicals, even if the player can't mix Kool-Aid.

Those who die often are not usually those who play "smartest" though. One of my players, who like to play frontline warriors, dies relatively often. If he rolled up a farmer, he would die every session - not much fun for him. I could make all the opposition have an extra farmer on the team, so my farmer had a farmer to fight with, but I don't like to pull punches like that.

SGL.

I've seen the same problem. In one local D&D group there were/are some players who charge every week and their characters are the first to drop. THe first to die, too. Week after week we had to wait while they write up new idtiots to join the group and get killed. Over and over and over. No matter how much people try to suggest to them to try different tactics (heck to try some tactics), it the same thing. It got old fast.

And that just proves the point. If you are playing a "balanced" campaign, then the smart guys are going to outlive the dumb ones. So there is no balance. You could give the dumb ones more resilient characters, I was going to make one guy a Wu the next time I ran, but that's becuase I know his limits will let me make things work.

[Atgxtg]

So every avengers adventure ends with a villain designed so Thor can't beat it by the Wasp can? So you just created the reverse effect. So instead of the powerful character winning every battle and saving the day over and over again its the Wasp? So the player of Thor feels the GM is out to get him every time.

No PK. I didn't save every adventure does that. What I'm saying is that every character can make a viable contribution. Setting everything up so that Wasp can defeat everything and Thor can't is just creating the reverse effect. That's why you don't do it.

I strongly suggest you read the comics more carefully. The Avengers isn't the Thor show. Generally there are menaces for all the characters to face, and all the characters can make contributions. If you read the comics and run like the comics are written it all works out.

For instance, the comics are very forgiving to heroes. Even if, say, Loki pops into Avengers mansion and bashes the Wasp. She is just kniocedk out for awile, or maybe has a broken arm. Six pages later when Loki has THor in his trap, the Wasp shows up and gives the god of michief a zap from her stringer than gives Thor the upper hand.

My method allows me to have some control over creating that game balance you so often mention (as in the team's powers and skills working in tandem to create an effective team).

And to tell you the truth, if I was in a 15th level game and my character died and all the sudden I was playing a new character who was 1st, 3rd or 7th level even, Id probably quit the campaign instead of building the new character. Getting cast off treasure from other characters? Thats pathetic and not the kind of character I or any of my players would want to play.

WEhy? Are you in it to roleplay or are you in it to powergame? I've been in those adventures where you get the cast offs from the 15th level characters. What happens in that in two to three weeks your a 12 th level character. By the time they make 17th level you'r 15th and at that point the differences are marginal.

Frankly you have me wondering how much role playing and setting you use. I've run and played in campaigns where some character had a higher status that others are were in charge. The knight was the leader and the toughest fighter in the group (he was one of two of our professional warriors). Does that mean no one else had anything to do no.

But then we were doing things beside room-monster-treasure.

Remember, I do invest time and effort into my games, probably more then I should. My players have always enjoyed my super hero games and it is the most requested genre for me to run by the club. And I am quite an accomplished game master, so your voice of "Takes a good gamemaster", "depends on the ability of the gamemaster" is you attacking others saying its their fault for not being able to handle different power levels.

If you can't handle something then yet it is your fault. Certainly not anyone elses. But that isn't my point. My point isn't that you are doing any thnig wrong running a street level campaign. My point is that game balance is mostly an illusion and that you don't have to run the way you choose to.

Most superhero RPGs, such as Champion, DC and MArvel all allow for mixed power level characters and give suggestions for handling them.

It can be done. If you can't do it, then it is your limitation, not a uiniversal rule. If you don't want to do it, it is your choice. There is a difference.

Truth be told, some of us would rather not. Its true. Honest to god. Some of us want to be able to run adventures and campaigns where we dont have to design specific villains to meet stats, but would rather build them to fit the story. Im not going to shoehorn in weaknesses in my villains to allow the weakest character prevail where the strongest cant just to deal with a strong character. Sure it happens from time to time, but I write adventures, nor fights. Fights are part of an adventure, not always the reason for the adventure.

What criteria do you use for your story then? If your story says "T-REx in Manhattan" and none of you characters can handle a T-Rex does the story say the T-Rex eats them?

A GM should always design the story with the abilities of the characters in mind. And adventures aren't fights. We've beentalking fights since they are a center peice of the comics, but nothing says that a character can't be useful out of combat. But a GM should make sure that every character can be useful. Otherwise you are neglecting some players.

For isntace, if someone is playing an engeiier or a doctor, then the GM should ensure that there will be times when those abilties will be important in the campaign. Not every session or every story, but at times.

A character sheet is, in many ways a "wish list" from the players to the GM. If someone dumps a lot of skill points into sword, bow, or Persuade that is a message from the player sayig "I wanna do this". If someone dumps half thier points into stealth skills then they expect to do some sneaking about.

Sometimes a player, no matter how good they are or how much the understand the rules and your setting wants to build the 20 or more level energy blast and 20 or more level force field and it just wrecks the campaign. I allow the player to have the character they want, but i ensure it fits the game setting Im running and Im planning and Im working on.

And honestly, whats worse? a player playing in a setting he isnt interested in or a GM running a setting he isnt interested in?

Neither. Just as long as both are interested. You continue to miss the point. I'm not saying that you must run something one way. I'm saying that you don't have to. You can run mix power levels if you choose to.

It is vital that each player be important to each adventure. And sure, sometimes you may want to create a scenario or scene to put a certain character in the spot light. But But every suggestion you put forth so far has been Character A has his or her weaknesses exploited/advantages countered so character B can save the day. Which is maddening for Character A.

Excapt I'm not saying that. I'm saying that in the comics all characters contribute. There really is not bad guy so powerful that a hero, any hero can't contribute in some way. Look, each hero has fans. With team books the writers realize that if they make one character a sidekick becuase he is 'weaker" than another character the fans of that hero won;t buy the book anymore. So they make sure that there are sotries where that character can shine.

How about building and adventure where Character A, B or C (or even D and E) have ways to win the day?

Nothing. THat is exactly what you should do. But balancing out all the characters on paper isn't doing that. Writing adventures where there is more than one way to "win" is.

[Rurik]

I have yet to meet such a GM personally though.

See, I've always seen balancing and dealing with the unexpected as part of the job of GM'ing.

Balancing is not hard - to me mixed parties mach up well to natural foes. How often do five runelords travel around without a retinue? Typically, there is a Runelord accompanied by a few bodygaurds who are pretty competant, and then some inituiates and even lay members who tend to the animals, carry the spears, whatever. A very good match up to a mixed power level party.

I like it when my players do things in games I'm running that I don't expect. Be it plot or rules, it is the very unpredictability of playing with a bunch of humans that makes RPG's exciting.

This thread is starting to remind me of the sorcery thread, and not just in that I expect it to go on for pages and pages with really nothing constructive to show for it.

Just when people started so called abusing sorcery, some people called it broken, but I just said "Long term buffs, damage boosting and Str boosting 15 on the vanguard, fine. How do I deal with it?". If they did something with the rules I never saw coming, I'd tend to think "well I'll be damned, that was clever, cool. I'll have to work on that" and hopefully next time out, I'd throw them a curveball. Same goes for plot. There are plenty of ways to poke and prod characters into doing something you want them to do, but there always comes a time they surprise you and do something you never expected. And frankly, if those situations never happened, gaming would be less fun for me.

I wish I had a gold coin for every story I so carefully crafted that never got told because of the unpredictability of humankind. But on the other hand some fantistic shared gaming has resulted from these unexpected turns.

I've played with GM's who get upset at both the situations I've described, who get offended when players do something with the rules that trashes their plans or doesn't play out their story the way they expected, and to me they are missing out on part of the pleasure of social gaming. Some go so far as to pretty much kill players for straying. Now I'll let a player die who does something stupid, but won't use death just to keep them on my track.

Regarding writing/running adventures, there are really two approaches - writing for a specific group or writing a generic adventure for any group. If creating an adventure with a specific group in mind, well then yes, you should try to make sure there is a role for everybody. When running a generic adventure, more often than not you have to tweak some things for the power level of the party anyway. I try to tailor the adventure to the party the players want to play, not tailor the party to the adventure I want to run.

All of this is with the caveat that I am discussing this all in the subject of an open ended campaign. I will use pre-rolled characters for one shot scenarios or short multi-session games, or say 'everyone roll up an ex-special forces operative and someone has to be a radio communications specialist' if the game at hand requires it (and sometimes those limited games may turn into campaigns if the players want it to - and live, of course).

[Atgxtg]

My experiences seem to be close to Rurik's.

A lot of RPgs are sort of set on the premise of mixed power PCs. When running Star Trek, the science and medical people typically don't have the combat abilties of the security types. Nor the starship combat abilities. Yet they don't die off every week, becuase the game isn't about fighting monster to level up.

Ditto for the the GM having to adpat. I once messed up an adventure big time. After working out this pseudo fantasy world for the Away Team to explore, complete with Dragon, I completely forgot about putting something in the adventure to prevent them from using the transporter.

Well, when twenty minutes into the adventure they decided to transport direct to the source of the problem/final destination of the adventure, bypassing all the things I had planned, I thought for a second, shrugged, and let them succeed. They were quite happy too. Any feeling that they had lost out was more than drowen out at their pride at being clever-or at least catching me with my guard down. They got full XP awards too. And rightly so. They shouldn't be penalized for the GM's error.

[Zane]

:focus:

Amazingly, our group is looking at its another session tomorrow (two Saturday's in a row :eek:)! So I'd like to let them know what people think. Does everyone agree that the following pretty much sums up the basic thread.

~60% Think the weapons table is fine, and don't care about more detail.

~40% Think more detail is needed. (Just giving a damage table for ammo types like in Cthulhu Now or Delta Green seems to be a well received idea, and should probably include a few real weapons with such a table.)

~5-10% think the existing gun tables need totally thrown out, and new, more realistic ones take their place.

[Trifletraxor]

Damage for ammo types. Maybe up the damage a bit for revolvers, or increase the malfunction chance for pistols, to revolvers doesn't become totally useless.

SGL.

[NickMiddleton]

I have this little rtf file I found some where on the net you might be interested in Zane:

"Ultra Modern Firearms Resource Data for Call of Cthulhu

This data has been extrapolated from Delta Green and Ultra Modern Firearms and portions may be © Pagan Publishing, 1998, and © Chameleon Eclectic, 1998."

It basically has big tables of modern small arms, with damage done by round in separate tables andis clearly cribbed from the Pagan and CE books it mentions.

Since I'm unsure of its provenance (i.e. whether it infringes copyright by copying text from pagan or CE books) as they say I'm a little wary of just posting it up, but PM me and email address and I can mail it straight to you...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[Atgxtg]

Damage for ammo types. Maybe up the damage a bit for revolvers, or increase the malfunction chance for pistols, to revolvers doesn't become totally useless.

SGL.

I wouldn't say the are useless-they still do damage. Only that they might not be on par with pistols. Still older pistols were a bit less relaible than revolvers.

[Nightshade]

It is not fair to players who have kept alive for a long time and seen their character grow in power to say "O.k., since Bob charged through the gates of hell and died a firey death, and everyone else is now 7th level, Bob can roll up a new 7th level character". Bob rolls up a 1st level, or 3rd level, or where

My honest reaction to this is "nonsense". Unless everyone is competing, what someone gets as a new character who lost their old one doesn't matter a single damn bit to me; the only issue is whether for some reason he's encroaching on my utility in the game. And I'd be very ticked if I was stuck with a lower powered character who therefor had less to contribute to the game because everyone else had left them by.

This is less of an issue in some games than others, but I pretty much promise you that I've never seen a campaign where people expected a starting character with 30-40% skills to be able to be usefully played with those in the 90%, and adjusted accordingly; in games where the power gap is larger than typically the case in BRP, this was even more true.

The whole point with BRP games is that usually game balance _isn't_ a big issue, not because it doesn't matter to people but because the advancement system tends to self-adjust the problem relatively quickly. But the idea no one who plays BRP games cares about it is a silly one. Some don't, but trying to universalize this is not serving any good purpose.

[Nightshade]

My experience with Superhero games is with using the HERO system, mostly Champions 3rd Ed. (this example is form that). You can have a good ruleset, but if the players conspire against the GM, they can play off of each others advantages and disadvantages to the extent that they really hurt game play. I've seen this destroy a game.

I'm currently looking at the possibility of either pre-generated characters, or characters built by the players and myself working closely to craft them. This isn't a game balance issue, this is a story-telling issue. I have a couple ideas I'm working on that would work best with pre-generated characters.

Any build system that has a wide range of power options will create some, not entirely avoidable problems here. Some people clearly don't have an issue with that (A and Rurik seem to be among them) but I don't think their view is even close to universal here. That said, the idea that the game system can avoid it completely, especially in wide-open games like a superhero game, is not fundamentally reasonable; there are too many moving parts and interactions for the game system to do all the balancing for you. The difference is whether you simply don't care because you figure you'll fix it at the GMing end (which I find an intolerable expectation as it requires me to distort the hell out of how I intend to run my game) or do so by applying guidelines and oversight during character generation.