Planning Sheet

[Keneton]

In my campaign players submit and or discuss their plans on ep spending with the G; not just as its spent, but with an overall plan or planning sheet. As many of you know, we use The Effectiveness Rating (ER) and planning sheets work hand in hand in this reagrd.

What do other GM's due in regards to planning character development and controlling what is ep is spent or unspent? How do ther GM's treat such events as character rewrites or switching disads? I have my methods but hoped to learn from others what they have tried.


:)

[Silbeg]

I was hoping that there might be some documentation for this spreadsheet, as some of the fields are not exactly self-explanatory.

Questions like "Do I calculate the move-though of this brick as his most effective attack", etc?

Generally, it looks good, but documentation would be nice.

Thanks!

Silbeg...

[coach]

Hmmm... Most of my campaigns are non-superheroic, so it's a little different. To learn a new skill, you usually have to have a teacher, which aren't always around. In general, I ask players to document what skills/abilities they are working on and then let them know when they are done. Usually, I limit it to spending 1 EP per week of game time. They can usually spend it on stuff they are currently using without needing a teacher, like if they want to buy more combat skill levels. And they can teach each other, of course. Sometimes, for harder skills, I'll say that it takes 2 weeks per point to learn a new skill. And, of course, they have to document what they are working on or they don't get credit for the time passed. They can even pre-study, if they want. That is, even if they have no EPs to spend, they can go ahead and start spending some time learning a skill and then pick it up when they get the EPs. This has always worked really well for me and we get some very interesting skill sets as people go along and find that they need new and different stuff.

[Blue Angel]

In my campaign I am the only one with a full understanding of the rules so I basicly build all powers.

The disadvantage is I build all powers.

The adavantage is I build all powers. GM review is built into the process.

[nblade]

Originally posted by Blue Angel
In my campaign I am the only one with a full understanding of the rules so I basicly build all powers.

The disadvantage is I build all powers.

The adavantage is I build all powers. GM review is built into the process.

I know how you feel. I pretty much have to build all the players' characters except one players knows the rules well enough to create his own. And with his characters, I mostly just have to go on my gut feeling and my experince with the system.

[ChaosDrgn]

Personally in the games I run I keep some of the xp's away from the players to build mystery powers and sometimes disad points to build "unknown problems." a'la Strikeforce.

I enjoy it when a player is confused on how his 6d6 EB has suddenly become pentrating or taht teleporter really does streach his "limits" by going that extra game inch :D

[nblade]

To get this a bit more on topic and to give my answer to the question.
I find that since most of the players have some sort of development plan that they have discussed with me without really asking for it.

Current Game Players

One a sort of Immortal Solider of Fortune, has plans for more gadgets and vehicle upgrades. Guess he's sort of Gadgeteer/Brick. He currently has no codename/superhero name. While we are still hashing that out, it may come down to me naming him in one of the weekly news articles I do for the game.

Klixzon, an alien cyborg. Mostly improvements in his current powers sets, the unique Sense and Full life support cost so much some of his other powers such as flight need a few more points to make them more useable.

Hubris, a sort of teleporting Martial with invisiblitly. (yes that's a stupid name, IMHO). Most of this player's plan is to improve his ability to teleport others. He sort of fills the get the person out of danger role in the group. That and a few minor power constructs I still need to think about.

Mindstorm, a EP/Mentalist. I think this player wants to work on telepathy type powers to go with his TK powers.

Only one player right now has really talked to me about.

Of course I'm fairly sure that many an XP will go to upgrading and improving thier base & vehicle. Its amazing what happends when you give the Heros for free a crapy little base and vehicle, they always want to improve it.

I guess I've been blessed with players that usually know what they want and usually have a plan for character improvement. Still it would be good to have some sort of questionare or something that would help them tell me what kinds of plans they have. Not to mention, I'd have some sort of record in my GM notebook. If I can think of the questions to ask, I'll post them.

[Syberdwarf2]

Originally posted by nblade
I know how you feel. I pretty much have to build all the players' characters except one players knows the rules well enough to create his own. And with his characters, I mostly just have to go on my gut feeling and my experince with the system.

I have the same problem. My wife, at last, finished her first character ever. Or, rather, I finshed it for her. Having never created a character, let alone having never played a RPG, I didn't want to scare her off with long discussions and lectures of base-points-times-one-plus-the-total-of-power-advantages-equals-active-cost-et cetera....
So I built the powers for her, and just discussed with her what she wants the powers to do. I figure, she'll see the character sheet, get familiar with the terms, and eventually ask 'what does THIS mean?' and go looking it up. The biggest problem, however, was writing up her disadvantages. Since these IMO seem to be the most fluid part of the character (nobody ever really plays them up ALL the time), and they have a tendancy to change as hunteds are killed, the PC has a change of heart, whatever,.... I decided to just give her character the points, and let her play the character however she wants. As she displays certain psychological traits, or social problems are introduced/brought to light, I'll write them in. That way, she can play in character with the least amount of effort, because that's how she'd have always played it anyway.

[Keneton]

Originally posted by Silbeg

Generally, it looks good, but documentation would be nice.

Thanks!

Silbeg...

I will help with E-mail questions, but the text is now the poperty of DOJ as I wrote the article for DH#3.

As for your question above. . .This is from the author (me)

·Haymakers, movethroughs, and the everyman ability of putting levels into damage (2 for 1) are not considered on Top Damage or Campaign Limits. They are however considered under Most Effective Attack.

:)

[Silbeg]

I have generally been pretty leniant on rewrites, though I do try and require that they get approval before game day (too much time has been spent in the past on character approval, and if I don't review, fatal flaws and bad, bad math gets through).

As for character switching, I have encorporated a process of character and player experience.

Most experience earned in game is assigned to the player (so that when they bring in a new character, they have a certain amount of experience already). There is experience that can also be given to the characters, specifically. If a player misses a session, his character still gains 1ep, but the player does not. After missing 2 sessions in a row, the character stops gaining experience as well.

This is still in the trial phase, and has worked well, so far. Then, again, there hasn't been a lot of character switching yet, either.

Silbeg...