Other People's Characters (and OIHID rant)

[Starcorp Man]

Originally posted by Tech
Blackout, do all 8 to 12 people play at once? If so, how do you handle it? I have a Champions campaign with 6 experienced players and it can be a bear - and it's not because of dice rolls.

I'm not Blackout but I've run that many, prefer it actually over the 5 person group I have now, my largest group was 13 people but that only lasted 6 months. Make lots of notes, use a combat flow chart with Speeds, Defenses, everything you would need to know on the fly, like Susc/Vuln and such. Make sure to give everyone a chance to shine, no matter how minor the character may be or act. Bluebooking helps a lot, it allows a lot of roleplaying, of many people, at one time without confusion.

Make sure to have all the miniatures/stand ups/maps and such ready and know your players so you have enough combat for the combat monsters, enough rp for the plumbers, and enough for you as the GM to get something out of the game.

[Checkmate]

Blackout,
I know EXACTLY how you feel. I'm the exact same way. I HATE when other players have character builds that I deem shady (everyone reading this, please remember this is my subjective opinion, and I'm not calling any one WRONG for doing it differently).

If you really want to show them how to do it, make a character with multiform. In one form, make him an EXTREMELY efficient combat monster with things like "Not in a Vacuum" -1/2 or not in Hot and Dry conditions -1/2 or better yet combine the two. Make him outshine EVERYONE in combat. Don't give him anything that isn't directly useful in combat. The second form make him Out of Combat Man. Give him every science skill, tons of Knowledge skills, give him enhanced senses (Detect Villains, Discriminatory, Analyze). When the other players complain about how useless they are compared to you, say something off hand like "Yeah, don't you wish we all made real characters instead of a collection of points?"

Seriously though, all you can do is talk to the GM, if he doesn't want to change, you gotta put up or quit (I usually go with the latter)