Help: Sniper Syndrome

[Victim]

I don't see how people get "plays too much DnD" from "avoids damage like the plague." I'd almost think it'd be the opposite case. Taking damage in DnD isnt't that bad. Healing is probably available, and extremely effective - none of this only be healed 1/day crap. There's no real penalty for fighting with lots of damage, unlike systems with wound penalties. And if you take too much hurting and then die, you can be brought back. I think people would be more damage adverse if coming from WW, GURPS, or Shadowrun, since characters in those games are subject to death spiral, and can take fewer hits.

Of course, I also have a problem with requiring people to act stupidly in the name of genre. Every time a villain is hiding under cover or diverting a bunch of teammates to set a trap for the sniper, is a time when they're not attacking civilians too. Batman always doesn't try to get captured and put in a death trap every other episode and Spiderman doesn't usually try to let the Green Goblin escape so he hear the master plan later. Not to mention that we're talking about a game, which is determined by luck, players and the GM instead of a comic book (complete control by creators).

Like any predictable tactic, clever enemies can exploit it. Long range sniping isn't univerally applicable, or always the most effective. I'd just include more varied tactical situations and objective so that sniping isn't always an option or the best move, just like running up and bashing people isn't always the best move.

[GamePhil]

If talking to him doesn't help, then game events should guide him away from this tendency. Negative events you have to be careful of: they shouldn't be *too* annoying, and they have to be things he leaves himself exposed to because he runs away. The press and the villains call him a coward, or he gets ambushed by the real villains while the team is distracted.

Villains playing turnabout, or Egoists blasting him away, won't work by itself, because that could happen anyway. A sniper villain could blast him whether he was in the thick of things or not, same with the menalist. But, if one of the heroes could have helped him had he been closer, that works out fine.

That's the stick, I haven't thought of any carrots yet.

[ChuckB]

Also , indoor combats with lots of civilians running helter-skelter also throws off sniper tactics (at least for heroes).

[Jhereg]

It just occurred to me, it may be less of a D&D habit and more of a video game influence. His behavior smacks of a common video game tactic.

[Mike W]

I think you've got to look at the problem on two fronts.

1. The player himself. Is this something that is ingrained in the player(i.e. does he like to play a lot of range fighter types) or is it something that is only for the character. If it is ingrained in the player, you're going to have a tough time getting him to change without repeatedly putting him in situations where he needs to stay closer to the battle - on the fringe but not off the map.

2. Create situations for him where being significantly separated from the team is a disadvantage. Start by moving some fights indoors or into more cramped quarters. If the character gets used to fighting in more cramped quarters maybe he'll move less distance away when things go back outside. Second, use large numbers of villains so his friends are outnumbered and need him to soak some damage or otherwise occupy a couple of guys. Maybe have one of the extra guys start beating on a crowd of civilians when none of the other heros can stop him. The sniper is taking a big risk firing into such a melee(it's only a matter of time until he hits a civilian after all), so eventually he has to close distance. If he does hit a civilian, the press will have a field day and maybe even the police(it is irresponsible after all). You could even take it a step further and have some villains attack a large crowd of people - disrupt a parade, concert, etc. something that would attract a LOT of people, more than could conveniently be evacuated. Bottom line - if he wants to back off 100 ft, put things in his line of fire - dogs, cars, terrified civilians, cops trying to lend a hand. Finally, start having well organized villain teams take advantage of his tactics. Intelligent villains/villain teams will scout their opposition. Have them start assigning people specifically to the hero, people who can take him out quickly. A mentalist is good. A stealth op with a BIG tech suppress gadget is even better. Um yes, Mr. Iron Man-type, that ninja just stuck a 6d6 tech suppress on your back, it affects all your powers simultaneously, so tell me, how well do you do with 20 less points in ALL of your powers/abilities. Oh and, how much did that END reserve cost again? Eventually, he'll have to move close to the action.

[JLXC]

Well since I've been thinking there is a Villian who would really annoy the player, maybe enough to make a difference. "Back Up Man" the villian who does not directly engage in combat, but uses his Ranged Missile Reflection to good effect. I dunno, making a villian just to counter the guy is weak, but the look on the players face would be priceless.

"Your long ranged attack is reflected into your fellow PC's, stunning one of them, the villians then pounce on him while one of them gives you the Thumbs Up sign"

[KA.]

If you think the problem is lack of confidence and lack of understanding of the superhero genre, for God's sake don't punish the player. Don't make up villains designed specifically to screw with his character, don't keep putting him in situations where his tactics are useless, don't single him out for less experience than everyone else if you're not specifically rewarding the other players for something they did.

Those are just going to make things worse.

If it's a lack of confidence, you need to set up situations where he can take on opponents without needing to snipe them. Probably ones he does not feel threatened by -- like thugs. If he doesn't take the bait, add in something like a hostage or DNPC needing rescue to motivate him.

Once he's confident in close combat, you can start hitting him with some attacks that do some damage but don't take him out of the fight. Something spectacular with lots of knockback would be a good choice, since the knockback always makes the attack look impressive even if it doesn't do much damage.

Once he's used to success in close quarters combat, you can whallop him with a big bruiser attack, so he can learn that sniping is sometimes good tactics.

Lightray,
I agree completely. My player was also afraid of "dying" every time he took damage or was stunned. Designing villains to target hiw weaknesses would just have made him more paranoid. (I am not saying that I never do that now, but it is not a good cure for paranoia.) Helping the player to realize that every combat is not going to kill his character is a good way to help them get into the genre.

Trebuchet and Dragon,
Thanks for the praise on my previous post.

KA.

[Javed]

nuke him frim orbit, it's the only way to be sure.


More seriously... our group mentalist does this kind of thing - sits in the coffee shop on the other side of town and uses Mind Link with powers usable through the mind link on the enemy. No danger to him. yeesh. Let me know if any of the suggested tactics work at all so I can give them to our GM to get our own Sniper Type into the fray.

I liked one of the first suggestions about adding a better counter-sniper.. give them full invisibility and an Inivisible Power Effects Naked Modifier for firearms .. then have the uber-sniper hunt him down.

Specific to your problem, how about a counter sniper who goes against Mind Guy's rep? Invisible and invisible power effects. Area effect ego attak. Mind Guy is probably well defended enough to not feel the attack. However, when he blasts off, so does the sniper, and everyone in the coffee shop clutches their heads, leaving him visibly unaffected. The press can probably milk that for all it's worth.

[Trebuchet]

Lightray,
I agree completely. My player was also afraid of "dying" every time he took damage or was stunned. Designing villains to target hiw weaknesses would just have made him more paranoid. (I am not saying that I never do that now, but it is not a good cure for paranoia.) Helping the player to realize that every combat is not going to kill his character is a good way to help them get into the genre.

Trebuchet and Dragon,
Thanks for the praise on my previous post.

We have a similar but somewhat different problem in our campaign right now. We have a teleporting 40 STR demibrick with very good defenses (second only to the team brick's) who just can't seem to make himself jump into the fray and melee. His best attack is an Offensive Strike for 14d6 (He's got a Boxing MA package with a couple of DCs), but he also has some good ranged attacks which he tends to use instead of his fists. It's the player who lacks the confidence. The one time he tried to jump in close he got one-punched by Durak (No surprise since Durak is really tough and rolled good to boot. Anyone on our team would have been flattened by that attack of Durak's.)

After reading this thread I've decided I'm going to try some confidence-building exerises instead of penalizing the player. I think the real problem is he just doesn't realize how tough he is. But I think if I have some tough guy brick slam him into the ground with a Buick and the character climbs back out of the wreckage maybe he'll get the idea. Some thugs blazing away ineffectively with assault rifles might reinforce the point. I hope once he realizes how really tough he is he'll get into it more.



I'm happy to give credit where credit's due, KA. I've sent copies of your comment on four-color gaming to all the members of our Champions group. (We run a 4C game, and it never hurts to reinforce the fundamentals.) Based on the replies so far, most of them thought it was good too.

[Vex]

I don't see how people get "plays too much DnD" from "avoids damage like the plague." I'd almost think it'd be the opposite case. Taking damage in DnD isnt't that bad.

You may think that, but my group of hard core D&D players don't think that way. I am running an Exiles campaign and they are in the process of building their own "enemies" by making the campaigns "Weapon X" team. The problems I am running into are:

1. Characters with high defenses. Even though they have read the section that says 12 DCs and 80 AP is max, they want to give their characters 30 PD and ED (OIF and Visible....yes I know it isn't legal). One of the guys is building Ash from the Army of Darkness movies and he has 30 PD and ED all Resistant because "he can take superhuman amounts of damage".
2. It says 12 DC is max so you are an "idiot" if you don't take 12 DC.
3. Besides everything running at 12 DC, every character should have a multipower with every form of attack they can concieve. One guy wanted to build Aphrodite 9 (I think a "generic" female robot with two blaster guns) and another of the players was saying to not buy the guns that way but to buy a multipower with grenades, grenade launchers and all kinds of different guns so that the character can have an area of effect radius attack, a one hex attack, an NND, a Killing Attack, at least one stat drain, etc...
4. They are trying to make sure that they have EVERY skill at least once, if not twice or more in the group (I have never had a group all want to have skills, it is just weird).
5. Everybody wants regeneration....

I am trying to figure out a nice way to constrain them, especially on the defense issue. The problem apparently comes from a villian I had based on Cannonball, even with 2 skill levels in Move Through he was at -4 to hit and usually needed a 6 or 7 or less to hit. He hit twice in the encounter and did 50 stun......so everytime I say something like "why are the defenses so high", they say "because you regularly do 50 stun"....

[RDU Neil]

I haven't read the entire thread, so if someone else mentioned this, sorry for the repeat.

The description in the first post, to me, seems to be a perfect GNS conflict.

The GNS describes three modes of play that can work together, but when they break down, are often the cause of games breaking down.

G = Gamist... in this, the players look to be presented with challenges at which they use the rule set to "win."

N = Narrativist... in this, the players main focus is on exploring themes, emotional questions... what is called "premise" so that the event have a "story" in the true sense of exploring meaningful situations.

S = Simulationist... in this the players main focus is on being part of a consistent, cause & effect world... where actions are taken "to see what happens" rather than to "win" or to "address premise."

Again, all three together can and should work, but often breakdowns happen when the different modes conflict. In the original post, it sounds like a possible conflict between Gamist (use the rules to win) vs. Sim (accurately recreate a world or genre in a consistent manner.) The player is playing gamist, using the rules to maximize character effectiveness and overcome challenges. The GM sounds Sim... he wants his games to reflect the genre (not clear if it is Four Color or Iron Age, but he seems to have some such desire) and the gamist character development conflicts with this.

Classic GNS breakdown. Munchkins vs. Genre freaks

Now... any game system can support any mode of play, but some game systems support one mode better than another. Hero is most likely better at supporting Sim play... but it can clearly be used for the ultimate in gamist play... if that is your mindset.

To my mind, this conflict requires a whole helluva lot of pre-game discussion. People need to come clean on their expectations of the game... different desired outcomes... (and in no way do I suggest using the GNS terms, unless you are comfortable with them. They can come across as technical gibberish and be used to condemn one style of play over another, which is not the intent.)

Questions like "I want the games to feel like comicbooks. Do you want the same thing? Is the group agreeing on this?" need to be asked. You can't assume everyone is on the same page. Entire approaches to role playing can differ. Some see it as a "game" like Magic or chess, but more involved. It is about the rules and what you can do with them. Others think of it as "collective story telling" or whatever... and even there, what constitutes a story can be devisive.

The fact is, this requires stepping back from the rules system, and even from the campaign itself, and saying, "What do you want out of these RPG sessions?" Hell, half the people, when asked, probably won't be able to tell you, but it is a start. Admitting that something is incompatible, taking the high road in trying to fix it... that's where to start. The player could really listen, or they might be stuck on control issues and just there to make the game go "their way" no matter the cost.

In the end, bring up cooperation and self-limiting play. Just as a good GM tries to create a game that involves all the characters, and doesn't go out of his way to make unwinnable situations or hose specific characters, players need to do the same. They need to adjust their play so that they give back to the group... and if they wan't to demand a certain style of play that the rest don't agree with, they may demand themselves right out of the game.

Good luck.

[Lowly Uhlan]

The sniper sydrome was a problem in the Champions game that my GM ran previous to the one I played in. Kind of the same deal, a mutant with n-ray vision, high speed, and a really big gun that could shoot through walls. A few of the other players took the gamist approach (except we called them miunchkins) as well. Things got really out of hand. The GM was a Hero newbie, he basically stopped the game, told one of the munchkins he wasn't welcome back, made the other one create a new character and started over with new caps on active points, PD/ED, ect..Kind of drastic, but it worked.

If it was my game I would take the suggestions mentioned earlier of adding a villian that was quick and stealthy and had a nasty attack power to stalk the sniper character.

But the Alex Raven's suggestion to have a mentalist force the sniper to take out his fellow heroes is wicked and sounds like it would be really fun to GM.

[Tamashii2000]

Unfortunitly, sometimes the 'stop, throw out the problem.. and set real limits on character creation' is whats required to make things work. Its hardline but mostly effective. Only draw back is you may lose more players then the one 'problem' player you toss.

The way I handled a simular problem, I started a battle and then a turn into it, an alien 'power' teleported the combatents to another world.. (Minus the sniper who was to far away) so the sniper got to sit out the game..

Pissed him off to the point he almost quit, but it made the point.

[Dog Soldier]

How about borrowing a concept form Everquest. "Summoning", a villain has the power to teleport someone to within melee range. The sniper shoots and draws the attention of the villain then "BAMF" he's standing front and center, close enough to touch.

[Tamashii2000]

How about borrowing a concept form Everquest. "Summoning", a villain has the power to teleport someone to within melee range. The sniper shoots and draws the attention of the villain then "BAMF" he's standing front and center, close enough to touch.

Eww.. I somehow forgot about that one, have been lucky enough in EQ not to encounter that just yet. You realy want to go overboard..have the Villian be able to root too (Summoned in front of him..the make it so he can't run)