The Value of a Point

[LivingTriskele]

I originally posted this in another thread, but thought that maybe the idea deserves it's own. The notion of creating a point-buy system for BRP with advantages and disadvantages like GURPS or Champions (Hero System) has come up more than once. I think BRP is a solid enough system but that a point-buy component could expand its versatility (and in the process, hopefully make it more popular in the long run).

I'm beginning to work on a BRP point-buy system. I've decided to use Champions as the primary model (followed closely by GURPS). I'm beginning with BRP's Character Point Budget and combining it with the optional Point-Based Character Creation system described on page 19.

One of the bigger questions is "what is the value of a character point in BRP?"

I am assuming that the points used to buy powers and the points used to buy Characteristics are of equal value. Thus I've come up with the following starting point amounts

Normal: 10 + 24 = 34

Heroic: 20 + 36 = 56

Epic: 35 + 48 = 83

Super Human: 50 + 60 = 110

Before getting into the viper's nest of confronting derived characteristics, advantages, disadvantages, additional super powers, power modifiers, special equipment etc, I think that BRP's disparate (non-point associated) power systems (magic, mutations, psychic abilities and sorcery) need to be addressed.

At this point (and in my admitted lack of experience with the system) I'm inclined to apply a cost of ten points each for the ability to use magic and psychic abilities (like the magery advantage in GURPS). These ten point 'advantages' allow a player to purchase spells or psychic abilities using their skill points (as determined by EDU, INT and the Super Skill super power). A price of ten points may be steep-- let me know what you think.

The ability to use sorcery would also require an advantage costing ten points but as each sorcery spell is not skill-based, instead this advantage would be requisite for purchasing specific powers defined as 'sorcery spells'--only usable by individuals with the 'ten-point sorcery advantage'.

Regarding mutations, I would apply a point cost to them as if they were powers, (or in some cases disadvantages).

This is the virtual skeleton from which I plan to hang a point-buy system. All feedback is welcome.

Edited October 29, 2008 by LivingTriskele

[Kairos]

Very interesting. I was jotting some notes on this, and it occurred to me that it would make sense to try to treat all Powers as skills, like with the magic variety. That is, assign a % value to their use, thus bringing resolution back to the Resistance Table as much as possible.

As far as skills are concerned, it might be useful to employ the skill category optional rule, then apply "genre rules" to those categories to determine skill cost. For example, in a Doctor Who game using BRP, combat skills would be more expensive since the characters in that show mainly solve problems through deduction, interaction, knowledge, and generally running around, getting captured, escaping, then running around some more. INT or POW based skills would be less expensive. In a Torchwood game, you might see combat skills and knowledge skills balanced out.

[LivingTriskele]

Those are good ideas. My goal though is to make it as simple as possible by basically building off of what BRP already has, quantifying it (the hard part) in terms of point values, and then extrapolating out to include modular options that don't feel so much like disparate aspects of a game, arbitrarily added, but rather cohesive units you can either take or leave as you desire. I think that if I do this correctly there won't be a need for genre-effected prices-- that is, if I manage to make it balanced. There are probably a lot of great and original ways of doing this-- but the easiest way I can think of is just modeling it off of another point-based system.

My biggest concern is in regards to point value, which, as things develop may be a point of considerable debate. For example the 10-point cost I proposed to have the ability to cast magic spells (ala GURPS)--do you think the price is too steep? 10 points could buy you a 20 strength instead, to put it in perspective.

[sladethesniper]

I have been using a point buy system with BRP for a few years.

There are 10 Ability Levels, and they are appropriate for characters as well as NPC's. A beginning character is usually considered Average or Above Average. The Ability Level is determined by adding together all of the percentages of a beings skills, abilities, and statistic checks. That number is the Ability Level for that being.

Each point of a statistic is 5 points, and each percentage point of a skill or an ability is 1 point.

Novice, Rookie, Green, Trained, Average, Above Average, Experienced, Elite, Expert, Awesome and World Class (only for NPCs).

This works for my NPC's and for my players, but then they have been gaming with me for 10 years, so they don't make munchkins...but for new players it might be an issue...I have no system for "weighting" the values, other than the cost of the stats and skills, so it is fairly easy to make some ridiculous characters.

I would posit that the huge amount of skills, powers and abilities in BRP (like GURPS) would serve to keep super powerful characters in check, since in order to be exceptional in a few things, you would have to seriously be lacking in a many, many other aspects.

-STS

[LivingTriskele]

I have no system for "weighting" the values, other than the cost of the stats and skills, so it is fairly easy to make some ridiculous characters.

Yeah, this is sort of the bane of point-buy systems--min/maxing. Sometimes it requires guidelines and restrictions on how points are spent.

I would posit that the huge amount of skills, powers and abilities in BRP (like GURPS) would serve to keep super powerful characters in check, since in order to be exceptional in a few things, you would have to seriously be lacking in a many, many other aspects.

I think this is an example of a situation where the GM has to emphasis the importance of certain (non-combative) skills. Sure you can fly and blow holes through walls. But you still have to pay the rent and your credit card bills--unless you're completely rogue/insane, in which case the game will probably be short with various government agencies intent upon bringing you down.

[Al.]

it might be useful to employ the skill category optional rule, then apply "genre rules" to those categories to determine skill cost.

This next is a bit tangental but hopefully of some use.

Whenever I do pre-gens (and the format of my club is such that this is most of the time) I allow players to choose either:

1 Fighty or

2 non-Fighty skills

and these start at 100% (or '20' in Pendragon but you get the idea I am sure)

I have found that it works brilliantly to give ownership of the sheet of paper and makes a very simple hook for the character.'a ha Sir Amic has Falconry 20 and Hunt 20 whilst Sir Vix has Flirt 20 and Courtesy 20, its like having character classes but without the you cannot do X because you are Y bit' (It also makes life easier if I have left character gen to the last minute and can basically generate two sets of game stats to reuse amongst the PCs and let the players differentiate the gamey-rulesy bits)

Maybe that could work as the 'Genre rules'?

(i.e. and off the top of my head Dr Who - choose 1 Fighty or 3 non-fighty, Torchwood - 1 Fighty or 2 non-fighty, Conan - 2 Fighty or 1 non-Fighty)

Leaving the core point buy stuff a little cleaner and more generic.

Just to muddle the waters, the 'take 100% in ...' could vary with campaign power level. Although I wouldn't.

Al

[sladethesniper]

Yeah, this is sort of the bane of point-buy systems--min/maxing. Sometimes it requires guidelines and restrictions on how points are spent.

I think this is an example of a situation where the GM has to emphasis the importance of certain (non-combative) skills. Sure you can fly and blow holes through walls. But you still have to pay the rent and your credit card bills--unless you're completely rogue/insane, in which case the game will probably be short with various government agencies intent upon bringing you down.

Well, I sort of get around this by having 14 skill lists. The first is "Universal" that are skills that every character has access to which are things like swimming, Balance, Beg, etc. (I am a big fan of "make up skills as you go" instead of a fixed "skill list". After all, Call of Cthulhu has NPC's with "flail about wildly 22% 1d2 damage", "Kick your a$$ 88% effect = death" and "eat 1d4 Investigators per round 00% effect = death" :happy: )

The Universal skills are purchased at a 1/1 cost. Then characters can pick ONE other skill list and buy those skills at a 1/1 cost. If they want skills/spells/powers from another list, they cost 2/1, and the third list they choose from is 3/1, etc. That keeps characters focused on one, maybe two types. Plus, depending on the campaign, I can allow/disallow certain lists.

Currently there are: Universal, Technological, Magical, Psionic, Empathic, Druidic, Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal, BioMagical, Elemental, Alchemical, Spiritual and Shamanic skill/spell/effect/power lists.

It works well for superhero games as well.

-STS

[marcellus praxis]

A point based character creation system including ads/disads and cost for power would indeed be a serious improvement to the BRP system.

For the cost of being able to use magic:

- in a setting where magic needs a specific training the cost has to be high so 10pt is probably a good starting point

- in a setting where everyone may use magic the cost may be 0

You may even extend this to superpowers:

- in a setting where there are few supers, to have superpowers cost xxx points

This gives indirectly xxx points of bonus to heroes without superpowers ( you may rule that superskill, defense and unarmed combat are not superpowers )

[Nightshade]

Under the current data, you're going to run into at least two problems, one more difficult than the other:

1. Relative value of stats. I've gotten arguments from people before on this, but I remain unconvinced all attributes are created equal in BRP. Now right up front, I'll admit any common metric is going to fail for some games; for example, when running a BRP based equivelent of CoC, Int and Dex are probably worth more than Con; you get into too many situations where you'll extract yourself by knowledge and speed, or not at all, in contrast to a BRP attempt to emulate RQ, where while Dex and Int are still important, the value of Strength, Con and Size tends to trump them by the simple realities of the combat system.

So if you want a generally useful version, you're going to have to aim at a golden mean, and I don't think in such a golden mean you're going to be able to weight all attributes equal.

2. Value of stats versus skills. BRP, at least when using the skill bonuses, is probably one of the worst places to have to do this, because the advancement system will tend to wash out deficits in skills quickly but attributes slowly if at all. It doesn't help that the process isn't linear, since adding 50% to one skill is almost always more useful than adding 25% to two (one of the problems with the current character gen system, in fact, IMO).

[LivingTriskele]

So if you want a generally useful version, you're going to have to aim at a golden mean, and I don't think in such a golden mean you're going to be able to weight all attributes equal.

But they aren't equal now -- STR, CON, SIZ, and APP are worth a point each while DEX, INT, and POW (EDU if you're using it) are worth 3. I guess it's a rough call deciding which is worth more. In GURPS INT and DEX cost more because most skills are based off of them.

Edited October 31, 2008 by LivingTriskele

[sladethesniper]

Well, don't use attribute bonuses. Granted, when you start changing rules like that, you are changing the game to a point, and then people start getting all angry...

Basically stats are stats, skills are skills and that's it. A bit "unrealistic", but at some point you are going to have walk a line between a game and a reality simulation...and I don't have a CRAY 2, and pen and paper reality sims are not much fun (Leading Edge games, anyone?) and when compared to a game that doesn't even purport to be "realistic" (PARANOIA, anyone?), it is easy to make that choice.

Anyway, I have all sorts of "stuff" written on this, but it comes down to maintaining a seperation between stats (and rolls against them) and skills (anything not a stat, which includes magic, powers and abilities...)

When Stats are seperated from skills completely, it means that a PC has to be made carefully, otherwise they will be powerful but useless, well rounded or expert in some things and not in others.

Also, IMO, giving stat bonuses to skills seems a bit...munchkiny. I know plenty of strong people that suck at melee combat, dextrous people that suck at sports and smart people that suck at mentally intensive tasks. Why? They never practiced them before and therefore, they surely don't get some sort of bonus...even if you are a klutz, but you have ridden skateboards for 20 years, you are going to be better than a super dextrous person who took up the activity three or five or ten years ago. I would posit that skill level is more a measure of "dedication" to learning a skill and the entire body of knowledge surrounding a skill, not just swing sword 88% = 88% chance of hitting with sword.

Also, I limit skills to 99%, so tossing bonuses on would push the boundaries.

-STS

[LivingTriskele]

I was considering separating Characteristics from Skills too. It does level the playing field a bit. But I think you bring up a good point. It's worth questioning how much change is worth to make a point-buy system. I mean (bear with me, I haven't had my coffee yet) you could take the core elements of BRP and recreate into a brand new game, but that kind of defeats the purpose... okay... I need some caffeine.

[Nightshade]

But they aren't equal now -- STR, CON, SIZ, and APP are worth a point each while DEX, INT, and POW (EDU if you're using it) are worth 3. I guess it's a rough call deciding which is worth more. In GURPS INT and DEX cost more because most skills are based off of them.

I do tend to forget that the current BRP does weight them separately--but I think it also shows the risks involved in doing so. Dex and Int effect a lot of things, but in the vanilla rules, don't effect any of them strongly; Str, Con and Size effect less things, but tend to effect them dramatically. I'd tend to suggest that for typical adventure settings, the Int value is now overrated (it was a little different in the old days when you couldn't train it), and in settings with low paranormality, POW is, too. Dex is probably universally worthwhile enough to set relatively high (but not three times what Con is).

That's what makes this really hard.

[Nightshade]

Well, don't use attribute bonuses. Granted, when you start changing rules like that, you are changing the game to a point, and then people start getting all angry...

Basically stats are stats, skills are skills and that's it. A bit "unrealistic", but

More to the point, unless you're very active in use of attribute rolls, it makes some of them close to useless; I can count the number of Dex rolls I saw used in RQ over the years on my fingers (there always seemed a skill that was more appropriate) and Int rolls weren't much better. It thus tends to favor attributes that have a direct impact like Con even more.