GMing: Whether to "fix the problem" or just "fix their wagon"

[tesuji]

So, say in your campaign you have this rule which if used can lead to problems. I'm not talking about combinations of three-four feats and such to get some weird sysnergy kind of thing but more if used directly "as intended" it can be an issue.

To me, that would be a case for "fix the rule". Simply change it to do what you want without the problem.
For some, it seems a preferred answer is to let the rule stand, let the player use it, and the as Gm "get pay back" by nailing them in later scenes or turning their success back on them.

EXAMPLE: Serenity RPG allows spending plot points to buy extra dice for a roll. This can even be done to extreme levels allowing Jayne the grunt to buy enough dice to, for a moment or two, be a world class pilot, a world class engineer, or a world clas sdoctor... in terms of how good his roll would be.

Take a scene from the pilot, where they are about to perform a dangerous maneuver so they have jayne carry their world class engineer from medlab to the engine room to help out so they dont explode and die.

Well, in the game, the scene could well play out as jayne says "nah leave her thereand let doc work on her. i'll do the enigne thingy" and jayne's player spends a bunch of plot points to get a great engineering roll.

So my though is "limit the plots bonus to matching your normal skill" or something like that so jayne cannot become the master engineer out of the blue. if jayne's player wants to help, he might want to spend his plots for "dramatic editing" and see if the chasing ship has engine trouble or another vessel is nearby who can help.

But, advice i get elsehwere seem to frequently be along the lines of "let it go, let him do it an then get him for it..."

let jayne get his butt kicked in the next fight cuz he don't got plots...
turn it around on him by having the ship suffer major damage and now he is in a busted engine room with no plots left...
change it on the fly to require a lot of difficult dice rolls so he cannot plot his way thru at all...
or even "bring down the wrath of the GM."

Now, I ain't your typical GM, if such exists, but i see it like this... metaphor alert...

Say the sidewalk to my front door has a loose black and people sometimes step on it and trip and fall. Thats annoying since falling ain't fun and leads to delays and such.

So i can either get the stone fixed (call the apt guys) or i can start kicking those who fall several times in the ribs, hoping the kicks will convince them to be more careful.

Rule = loose block...

So, what's your preference?

[daeudi_454]

You can only fix the wagon if you aren't riding it anywhere, hoss...
i.e. you need to state at the beginning of the campaign any house restrictions, not when they become inconvenient during play.
In your example, I am unfamiliar with the serenity system, but there should be a reasonable way o put a cap on spending plot points. If I am guessing the system correctly, then a d2 mmeans you can only spend 1 pt, a d4 being 2 pts, etc.
Just a thought...

[BlackSword]

Trying to remember, I believe Spycrat limited it to one action die per roll. That sort of limitation coule be imposed. There is also the inherent disadvantage mentioned, that if all of the Plot Die are spent for one action the player is out of luck come the next combat.

I don't think there is an issue with changing this rule even if a campaign has started, just talk with the players and say what the issue is and that you think it would be better to limit the number of Plot Devices that can be spent on a single action. Our group has done this a few times with no issues.

My preference is to change the rule (while talking with the players about it). The "hose the players at a later date" seems to me, to increase the GM vs Player mentality.

[tesuji]

You can only fix the wagon if you aren't riding it anywhere, hoss...
i.e. you need to state at the beginning of the campaign any house restrictions, not when they become inconvenient during play.
In your example, I am unfamiliar with the serenity system, but there should be a reasonable way o put a cap on spending plot points. If I am guessing the system correctly, then a d2 mmeans you can only spend 1 pt, a d4 being 2 pts, etc.
Just a thought...

Absolutely correct on both counts.

The rule change i use in in my pregame rules changes doc AND its a simple rule that you can buy no more/larger bonus dice than you have skill dice. I do make an exception for character with asset "talented" in that skill (in hero tems think of it like a talent "naturally gifted" or having scholar or some other skill enhancer to indicate aptitude beyond raw skill score) to enable the "savant" style characters who in predefined areas show unusual flashes of brilliance.

of course, one odd set of recommendation basically said making it a rule was bad and instead just refuse to allow them to spend the points ad hoc on the spot using the GM CAN REFUSE option on the fly instead of letting them know ahead of time. thqat i found odd too.

Now in my previous stargate game, this came out IN PLAy and after several instances, we talked and added the no more than skill" limit even though campaign was ongoing. So i do on rare occasions make after campaign start rules changes, but not lightly.

[Derek Hiemforth]

For some, it seems a preferred answer is to let the rule stand, let the player use it, and the as Gm "get pay back" by nailing them in later scenes or turning their success back on them.This is pathetic and immature, in my opinion.

I don't believe the relationship between GM and players should be antagonistic... it should be cooperative. The players should not be looking for loopholes and chances to "put one over" on the GM, and the GM should not be looking for ways to "get back at" the players.

If a particular rule is broken (or not ideal for the game you want to play), it should be changed. There may be disagreement over whether or not the rule *is* broken, and you may have to work through that disagreement to a compromise. But to let it stand, and then back-stab each other for using it, strikes me as junior-high crapola of the most obvious kind.

[Cancer]

We haven't played the system yet, so I don't have a good feel for it.

My experience with systems that use largish numbers of "* points" is that once the feces hit the fan, characters more or less have to spend such points pretty heavily to deal with Big Bads and whatnot. Consequently, deciding when to spend those points is part of the game, and setting the level of opposition so that those points get spent at a fair rate by everyone in the team is part of the encounter design. In other words, the kind of thing you're asking about is an intended game system mechanic that you haven't got fully digested yet.

Overspending such points on strange things is just a sign that either the players haven't figured out what's going on, or the GM hasn't got the level of opposition set right. Probably the most likely situation of the latter is that the encounters are too homogeneous in type, and there are a few PCs who have "nothing to do". So, they spend their points in odd ways because their alternative is to sit silently in the corner and read comic books while everyone else plays. This will happen to your social-interaction specialist characters if all you throw at the players is a bunch of gunfights, for example.

[ghost-angel]

Any GM that assumes the "Let 'em have it and get 'em later" mentality needs to be beaten to death. Several times.

Don't Be That Guy.

If you percieve your game is broken somehow, talk to everyone, get a concensus and change it - even if it's mid campaign, sometimes you can't tell until after it's been used a few times.

[Chuckg]

There was a similar mechanic proposed by S. John Ross as an unofficial rules change to GURPS 3e. It also allowed people to grow competence in skills they didn't otherwise have... or, more accurately, to retroactively buy a skill with experience point debt and then go 'I knew this all along, I just didn't tell you guys until now.'

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/blackops.htm

The relevant parts are here, re: how he recommended administering it.


[...] There are, however, a few restrictions:

Necessity Is A Mother: There needs to be a REASON for the skill to pop, retroactively, onto your list of abilities. There should be a plot-related challenge to overcome, or at least a potential romantic partner or employer to impress. It should also fit your character concept (of course, if your character can justify even HAVING this advantage, that won't be a problem very often).

Earn What You Learn: If you haven't paid off character-point debts from previous sessions, this advantage is "frozen" until the skills are all paid for. Debts accrued earlier in the SAME session are no problem.

Thou Shalt Not Steal Thunder: If the PCs are together when the problem crops up, and somebody in the party already has the skill you want, or can already handle the problem in some other way, then he gets his chance first. This advantage can never be used to rob the spotlight from another PC. On the other hand, it CAN be used to Keep Up With the Joneses. If everybody in the group knows Scuba and goes for a dive, you won't get left high and dry on the quayside unless you decide, for character reasons, that you don't want to have known the skill (whether you can suddenly know Scuba in a future adventure is then a GM's call, since that kind of consistency is only a requirement in some cinematic genres).

Maintain Thine Idiom: If there is another character in the group with this advantage that would be more appropriate for dealing with the problem than you, once again you are required to hang back and give him his shot. If you're the Combat grunt and he's the Tech geek and the skill that's needed involves rescuing a crashed hard drive, the geek gets to go first. (Special note for Black Ops campaigns: when there is no clear "appropriate" PC in the party, the Secop always gets first crack at it, since the Secops have access to the broadest curriculum in the Academy).

Tech Levels and other campaign-based restrictions still apply: This advantage won't let you "learn" any skill you couldn't learn otherwise. This advantage will never grant manuevers, psi skills, spells, or other supernatural abilties, either (except perhaps in Very High Mana worlds where every illiterate peasant is assumed to know a spell or two - GM's call). It WILL grant skills that normally require prerequisites, ALONG with the prerequisite skill at the minimum required level (which also goes into your point debt).

Outside of GURPS Black Ops, this advantage should be restricted to cinematic heroes and heroines who have received intensive, broad training, or at least to very talented showoffs. Characters with a clearly-defined, narrow range of abilities (a classic medieval fighter, for instance) have no reasonable use for this advantage, even in a cinematic game. The best examples of fictional characters with this ability are probably James Bond and "Cornfed," the pig character in the Duckman animated series.

[Supreme Serpent]

I think it partly depends on the type of campaign you want to run what kind of limits you would want to put on it.

Personally, if someone was doing something far outside their realm of expertise, I'd need some kind of explanation/story as to how they're "fixing" the problem. To use the Jayne example, perhaps his carrying the engineer back WAS the rationale for his spending the plot points, or perhaps the GM allowed him to spend the points to help the engineer's roll. Alternatively, Jayne could have said something like, "I look at it confused for a moment, mutter 'Ah hell with it', pull out a random red wire and kick it *hard*. It works in the vids, right?" Of course, if you want a more grim & realistic game without such moments of pure luck and levity, such things might not be for you.