BRP Campaigns and balancing character generation

[rleduc]

I would like to hear you thoughts on balancing character generation in my campaign. I have this “world” that I have been running since about 1981. It is an old friend to me. I’ve probably run no less then 30 campaigns – each time I tweak the world and change the mechanics – but it is recognizable one incarnation to the next. It started as an Aftermath world and has been run as Aftermath, BRP, Morrow Project, GURPS, GURPS/Morrow Project and GURPS/BRP. With the current release of BRP out, I would like to develop a form that conforms to the rules as printed (this would allow me to say I’m running a BRP game and not “some hybrid game based on a bunch of homebrew…).

So the game is set in a post apocalyptic world twenty years after the end of a fifteen year series of global wars (long story that is not relevant here), anyway characters of different ages have access to different things. Characters from before the start of the wars have access to a lot of skills and knowledge, characters who fought in the wars have access to cybernetics as well as somewhat less pre-fall knowledge while younger characters have access to very little knowledge but all sorts of bioengineering that was being introduced just before the fall.

When players are making new characters they pick an “age category” for the PC and this choice determines what is available to the character. In a BRP Supers game everyone gets a pool of points of a fixed size to buy powers; similarly my current plan for this game is to have a POW-based pool with three price lists based on the age category. Does anyone have other ideas on how to approach this? Particularly, any idea that could be judged “more consistent” with the flavor of the new BRP rules?

Thanks,

Rich

[Shaira]

When players are making new characters they pick an “age category” for the PC and this choice determines what is available to the character. In a BRP Supers game everyone gets a pool of points of a fixed size to buy powers; similarly my current plan for this game is to have a POW-based pool with three price lists based on the age category. Does anyone have other ideas on how to approach this? Particularly, any idea that could be judged “more consistent” with the flavor of the new BRP rules?

Hi Rich,

I was unclear from your post whether or not you already have the BRP rules. Are you just using Super Powers? Or would you also be bringing Mutations in?

It occurred to me that you could determine the type of powers (Super or Mutation) the PCs get via age category - and you could make shortlists of available super powers or mutations by age category also.

Also, the "Normal / Heroic / Epic / Super" campaign power distinction would be useful in determining how many points each age category might get for their powers; either you could use the rules as written, and say something like: "Young" age category PCs get Epic points for Mutations and Normal points for Super Powers; "Adults" get Heroic for both; "Venerable" get Epic for Super Powers, Normal for Mutations; or, you could roll your own, and just say each age category gets so-many points for Mutations, and so-many for Supers, etc.

That would maybe be more along the lines of how the rules-as-written might do it, IMHO, but I'm sure your POW-based pool would work fine.

Cheers,

Sarah

[rleduc]

Sorry about the lack of clarity. Yes I have the PDF and I am attempting to port old homebrew material to the BRP cannon. Since I never run BRP above the “normal” level the guidelines for mixing powers within the Normal/Heroic/Epic/Super levels won’t work for me.

The core of my question could be addressed by answering the following:

Assume you wanted to run a first level version of the “Wisconsin” game (and since the last time I played D&D was 1982, please excess my archaic terminology), but you were to run it in BRP. It is clearly a “normal” level game – how will you balance the different “classes”. Fighters and thieves take care of themselves. As a player I add skill points to either fighting skills or thieving skills, or whatever combination I like – but what to do with the Magic Users? Clearly, as GM I can not drop them to “less then normal” development but with magic – likewise for those using Allegiances.

Of course, my interest is in the Post Apocalyptic setting, but the problem is the same.

In CofC or Supers all characters start with access to the same list of things to buy. You buy skills for your investigator or powers for your super hero – then you are set to go. In many gaming settings, there are logical distinctions between characters that open or close sets of powers, skills or abilities (collectively, I’ll call them Benefits).

It is easy to develop a solution to this issue – for me I am planning on having a pool of points that are used to buy Benefits. And for each logical category there will be an “opening cost” which must be paid to start buying the benefits – in the D&D example, (and I’m making this up without too much thought) let say you get 10 “Benefit Points”. It might cost 3 points for your character to know how to use magic – this imparts some basic abilities like, perhaps, literacy and Knowledge (Secret Rune Writing). Additionally, each Magic spell costs one point. Likewise, being in Allegiance with a deity might cost 3 points and each magical power an additional one point. Lastly, there would need to be some benefits for non-spell users to purchase – maybe +20% to a skill costs one point or freedom from the 75% skill cap might cost a point. With such a system I could start with a magic user with seven spells, or a magic user-cleric with a few spells or an almost heroic fighter with over 100% in a weapon etc.

In my PA setting – the player picks an age category and this opens or closes classes of benefits that can be purchased as appropriate for the PCs age – biomodifications, cybernetics or advanced skills.

The heart of my question is “is there a more BRP-like solution to the issue of non-uniformity of benefit availability”?

Hoping that this is clearer,

Rich

[Nightshade]

I suspect its going to be hard to balance even the modified Magic casters with non-casters in BRP; though the former don't start out with much loiter time (they don't have enough POW to use the upper end of their capability very often from what I've heard fo the rules), within that loiter there's some capability that's hard to even vaguely match with a fighting specialist, and his skill is only going to impact it so much.

I suspect manipulating the available attribute points is a far better way to balance spellcasting and non-spellcasting types than anything to do with skills (which are ephemeral in how long they'll be lower given the way advancement is handled in BRP systems).

A similar problem will apply to access to any of the paranormal systems, I expect though some are more severe than others (I can't see any balanced way to have only _some_ characters have access to Powers for example).

[GerallKahla]

You can always create a billet of characters to be filled for the table.

If you know the biological-characters are more powerful, you can stat them up at Epic, and then say the remainder will be other types topping out at a total of 1000 points or something. 3 Heroics are left to build - who wants them?

There are different ways of looking at it. In the end, to create challenging encounters, you'll need to add up the opposition to the point-total of the party, maybe plus 5 or 10 percent. To ensure each character (regardless of point-value) is useful and contributes, make sure to include challenges for the party which include their skills and powers. (Basic GM'ing advice, but it bears repeating.)

That's the rough side of point-buy systems - you feel compelled to balance things. Some of my most memorable games have been where the PCs were completely out-classed, out-gunned, and out-run.

And, to be fair, in the original versions of many BRP games there was no real balancing mechanism. If you chose to play a Kzinti, you got to mop up when close combat came callin'. It was just that simple. "I'm a Dark Troll and I'm twice as strong as you." *SPLAT*

Regardless, what are your table of players like? Are they concerned about each having as many shiny points and powers as the others, or could they be called upon to create a group whose focus was less synchronized?

[Nightshade]

There are different ways of looking at it. In the end, to create challenging encounters, you'll need to add up the opposition to the point-total of the party, maybe plus 5 or 10 percent. To ensure each character (regardless of point-value) is useful and contributes, make sure to include challenges for the party which include their skills and powers. (Basic GM'ing advice, but it bears repeating.)

The one problem with trying to balance for groups that have significant discrepencies in fighting power is that you have no guarantee that even if you try to direct opposition at their appropriate numbers it'll work out that way; that's especially bad if the tough guy (or guys) in the group happen to go down before their opponents do. BRP based games tend to be a bit unforgiving; if you've got an opponent out there who's capable of giving the Great Troll fighter a run for his money, if the great troll goes down there's an appallingly good chance he'll simply scythe through other characters unless someone gets lucky quickly.

This is why, in the old days, we tried to make sure there was enough downtime in RQ that if a character was a bit underpowered skill-wise they'd tend to even up a little; because otherwise they were liable to get killed from just being in the wrong place.