New GM with serious dilema

[Guest Kolava]

In a Superheroic game, what do you do about looting focused powers from others?

 

I'm GM for a gritty Superheroic game. Powers are a mixed bag, but one thing is for sure: if you see an AK-47 with rounds left in this dismal and hostile world, you grab it and put it to use.

 

My group and I really enjoy this style of play, but...it poses some problems. How do I deal with the fact that a handful of points worth of RKA just popped out of thin air?

 

The same problem comes with wealth: what stops a character from buying a gun with their wealth? (especialy if they've taken a wealth perk)

 

This problem has absolutely shut down my game, and the players are losing faith in the system. What am I missing?

[SleepyDrug]

Well, there are a few options.

 

1) Strict Ground Rule on paying points for items.

 

But in storyline...

 

If the focus belonged to another hero...his allies or teammates would help retrieve it.

 

If the focus belonged to a villain the group fought...then it is evidence and the government should demand it is handed over. If the request is refused the army or appropriate hero team should be dispatched.

[Solomon]

Re: New GM with serious dilema

 

Frankly, I never had a problem with this. Moreover, I feel the superhoeric approach is a refreshing change of pace from the D&D "Kill them and take their stuff" approach. The superheroic approach forces you to pay little or no attention to resource stockpiling and more time to character development: arguably a good thing.

 

There's nothing wrong with grabbing an opponent's focus and using it during the course of a single combat or a short adventure. Of course there could be drawbacks or penalties: not everyone can use a mystical amulet. Not everyone knows how to properly use an AK-47, for what matters.

 

Over the course or a campaign, your players should realise that holding on an opponent's weapon and using it over and over simply doesn't usually happen in a superheroic comic book. It's not a system glitch. It's a genre convention, and the system tries to emulate that. You just don't see Spiderman flying about on Goblin's glider.

 

Superheroes are icons, and their equipment tends to be iconic too, much like the way mythological heroes or gods tend to usually be represented carrying a certain item or weapon. Thor will always wield his hammer, and King Arthur will always wield Excalibur. They're not even weapon anymore: they're part of the character. Likewise, Captain America's shield is part of the character. It's hard to imagine him without the shield, or any other character with that shield.

 

Talk to your characters and see how they feel about this. If they don't like the superheroic approach, maybe you'd better switch to heroic campaigns.

[caris]

Re: New GM with serious dilema

 

Originally posted by Kolava

In a Superheroic game, what do you do about looting focused powers from others?

 

I'm GM for a gritty Superheroic game. Powers are a mixed bag, but one thing is for sure: if you see an AK-47 with rounds left in this dismal and hostile world, you grab it and put it to use.

 

My group and I really enjoy this style of play, but...it poses some problems. How do I deal with the fact that a handful of points worth of RKA just popped out of thin air?

 

The same problem comes with wealth: what stops a character from buying a gun with their wealth? (especialy if they've taken a wealth perk)

 

This problem has absolutely shut down my game, and the players are losing faith in the system. What am I missing?

This falls into two basic realms of issue. The first is genre convention, in most of the super hero source material, characters just don’t go around raiding opponents for their foci. It tends to change the character’s schtick when they do that. The Punisher, Nick Fury, and others has already dump points into having guns, probably as some sort of VVP, so having them pick up and run around with a dropped opponent’s gun is not an issue. Having Iron Fist or Luke Cage starting to take the illegal weapons cache as his own, changes the character’s schtick.

 

The second issue is one of game balance. Wealth was priced with the assumption that it could be used to some extent in games for services, and products that wouldn’t warrant a full costing out in powers, and as a justification for some power concepts like a gadgeteer’s toy box. It was not priced out to provide a substitute for spending the points on those powers.

 

Another issue that I’m not sure how much is an actual consideration in the rule is to discourage the “looting†mentality that some times crops up in games where a lot of equipment is gathered up in the game. Knights of the Dinner Table parodies this mentality a lot. I would recommend that you consider options to address the issue for found items. First I’d probably just limit the amount of ammo available, and for very exotic items make it hard to acquire (I mean how easy is it to actually buy ammo for an M-16 assault rifle?). The other is simply to borrow a technique from Fantasy Hero. If your characters are going to be collecting and using foci, vehicles, etc. from their opponents, calculate the point cost, and deduct it from their experience awards until it is all paid off, that is one of the ways recommended for handling “magic items†in Fantasy Hero.

[Vanguard]

As been said before, it sounds like your players don't really understand the concept of the genre they are playing in. You might want to sit everyone down and have a discussion on the superhero genre. That's what our game group finally had to do in order to make sure everyone was operating off the same info. Now if they do know the genre, then they're still stuck in the old AD&D mentality of "screw character development. Let's kill that thing, steal it's stuff and then crack open it's chest and rake out the EXP".

 

In Superheroic campaigns, it just doesn't work that way. Hero System (specifically the Champions SubGenre) is one of the only games that forces the players (if the GM is willing) into actually playing Heros and not just the greedy swordswingers out to make a gold piece and steal/find some loot.

 

First off, the characters have to understand that just because they CAN pick up the .357 and use it, doesn't mean they should (Heck, depending on the power level of your campaign, thier intrinsic powers are probably alot more effective anyway). If they question you on it, bring some of the action movies to the forefront. I know there have been a couple of them where the hero/star has opened a can on some of the bad guys and either just left their weapons where they lie or picked them up, used 'em for a bit and then discarded them.

 

Now as for wealth. Wealth, in my opinion, was designed as for what was previously stated. The superhero that has tons of gadgets or such (IE: Batman, Iron Man, etc). It's also there for the mundane stuff. You want a cell phone. Sure, go pick one up. H2 Hummer, no worries. What you might want to do is do what is suggested in Dark Champions (High Powered Heroic - Low Powered Superheroic) and use the Wealth Perk as just that. They now need to "spend" their money on their items/weapons. Then all you have to do is say "Ok, you picked up that M16 but it's now out of bullets. How do you plan to get reloads?" And then make them pay out the nose for them. Of course, this also means that you'd have to decide on a level of Wealth that wouldn't be too drastic for your world and lock it down for the players.

 

There's also the 3 use rule that one of my old gaming groups came up with. You were more then welcome to pick up a badguys OAF and use it. But if you used it for more then 3 adventures you had to pay for it with points or it broke, got lost, something.

 

There's another way you can go but it depends on the tech level of your game and can get rather cheesy really fast. You can start working up things like Optical Palm Readers, SmartGun links, and some Judge Dredd type weapons. Weapons that you CAN pick up but A) You don't really want to or it's not going to do you any good.

 

Ok, enough rambling. Hope this helped . .

[CrosshairCollie]

Actually, any of the villain's foci that were used in the crime that the PCs hauled him in for constitute evidence. This provides you with a nice way to stick a klepto.

 

"Hey, guys, check out this new rocket launcher I got!"

"Later, Stupendo, we just found out that Dr. Albatross's murder charges were dropped."

"Dismissed? On what ground?!"

"Lack of a murder weapon. So, where'd you get the new toy?"

"Uhhhhh ... what rocket launcher?"

 

And, of course, withholding evidence is illegal also.

[lemming]

Originally posted by CrosshairCollie

Actually, any of the villain's foci that were used in the crime that the PCs hauled him in for constitute evidence. This provides you with a nice way to stick a klepto.

One of my characters was Scavenger.

He had an equipment pool of scavenged items from various villians, heroes, and agencies. All from prior work in the campaign world which by that point had 12 years of history.

 

He had as skills various technical ones, plus super archeology.

[KA.]

Kolava,

I will have a hard time adding to the excellent information already posted, but I will give it a try.

 

1) Weapons - I don't know what kind of powers your heroes have, but if they need an AK-47 to fight with, I don't think they put enough points into attack powers.

Also, gritty or not, turning loose with an autofire killing attack should be a bad idea for a super who calls himself a "hero".

Due to variations in the individual weapons, lack of experience with that model, etc. it would be entirely reasonable to have "misfires", "runaways" (weapon keeps firing until the clip is empty), and "accidental discharges", when heroes go playing with unfamiliar automatic weapons that have probably not been maintained properly.

Also, even in "gritty" campaigns, it is not usually the norm to slaughter everyone you fight. Even if you use your powers to beat the crap out of them, or wound them severely, just emptying a clip into them seems pretty over the top.

 

In addition, there is a major lack of "cool" in doing things this way.

Superheroes who use guns usually go for something custom that they built themselves, or had made for them, they don't just grab any "Saturday night special" laying on the ground and start blasting.

Cops in the real world never do that in real firefights.

They want to use a weapon that they know they can depend on, not something that some junkie has been "improving". Who knows what will happen when you pull the trigger?

 

Another alternative:

In action movies, the thugs shoot at the hero all day long and never hit him. Maybe it is not poor marksmanship, maybe it is poor quality, poorly maintained guns!

You could even build it this way when you are constructing thugs.

Instead of giving them normal weapons and fairly low OCV's, give them weapons with penalties and high OCV's!

(Hope the heroes don't ever drop their weapons! A thug with a high OCV and a good weapon is going to start mowing down PC's!)

Now when your players start grabbing every gun that gets dropped, they will be unpleasantly surprised to find themselves missing a lot.

 

The other problem the players will face is a lot of bad reputation. If your players spend a lot of time shooting people down, there are bound to be members of the press who don't like them much already.

Imagine what they could do with a few pictures of your players toting guns that came from:

a) Viper

Illegal arms dealers

c) Hostile countries

It would be pretty hard to explain that you "just picked up" a weapon that had been used in a recent murder, or bore the Viper logo.

Especially when everyone saw you using it on the 6 o'clock news. (Sorry that the biased reporter edited out the shot of you picking it up and made it look like you brought it to the fight.)

 

2) Wealth:

Please refer the Hero 5th, page 348, specifically Meta-Rules 4, 5, and 6.

To paraphrase:

Meta-Rule 4 - The cost of powers should support game balance, the more useful, the more it should cost.

Meta-Rule 5 - One power should not be used to do what another power already does.

Meta-Rule 6 - If there are two ways to do something, the more expensive way is (usually) the proper way to go.

 

What this adds up to is, just because you buy Wealth, you cannot say:

"Okay, I am using all my Character Points to buy up my Characteristics, and I am using my Wealth to buy a suit of armor just like Iron Man!"

 

That doesn't cut it, in several ways.

 

Rule 4 - 15 points of Wealth cannot buy 100 points of Autofire Armor-Piercing RKA's. Obviously, allowing this does NOT support game balance.

Rule 5 - There is already a power for doing a Killing Attack at Range. It is Ranged Killing Attack. You can't buy Wealth and say "I am using it to buy a gun."

Since a gun is a Ranged Killing Attack, and there is already a way to buy it, you are expected to pay the points for it.

Rule 6 - Even though there are exceptions, (Obviously you could create some bloated construct that cost 100 points to get a 1 d6 Energy Blast. That is not what this rule is telling you to do.) the spirit of this is quite clear.

You can't buy a few points in "Change Environment" and say that the effect is "fire" and then use this as a Flamethrower. You have to buy an RKA with Area Effect, Sticky, etc.

 

Wealth is more of a "social" perk. It means that you can hire a lawyer if you need one, you get invited to the Mayor's parties, or you can get in to talk to the head of a huge corporation without an appointment.

 

It is not for buying powers, or things that recreate powers, you buy those with points.

 

3) It sounds like your players are going through the "Monty Haul" stage of roleplaying. They want to get everything, kill everything, get away with anything, and rule the world.

The D&D equivalent is when new players start up and want all the "kewl" stuff, and the GM wants to make them happy, so the next thing you know everyone is riding on dragons and has a quiver full of Artifacts strapped on their backs.

After a while, this wears off, and the players realize that what makes it fun in the challenge.

It sounds like your players are at that point.

Now is the time to take control, enforce some campaign rules, and create something that makes you and your players happy in a way that will last.

 

Good luck, and feel free to ask more questions.

KA.

[Rechan]

When I hear 'gritty hero' and 'picking up AK and using it', it sounds to me like the guy is playing a Vigilante/Max Payne style game.

 

If it's gritty like I see it, and you are picking up an AK to use against your enemies, I fully don't see any problem with that. We have seen examples of one time usages where Heros in movise will grab a dropped weapon on the wayside to defend themselves against an attacker when they themselves are disarmed. A great example is James Bond; he's disarmed, he's captured, what does he do? Grab a mook, take his gun, unload on people; same with many of Chow Yun Fat's characters. This especially fits any character who does not have OFFENSIVE powers, but more defensive or misc powers (for instance, a character with lots of regeneration, or desol, teleportation, etc).

 

However, what you need to do is distinguish the cinematic effect. Tell the players 'Yes, you CAN do this, HOWEVER', you can't keep it. It's simply a 'use, toss aside when empty', only a scene usage type of thing. You are fighting goons and you pick up one of their machineguns to mow them down? Go ahead. But don't take it with you.

 

Also you might want to impose penalties for unfamiliarity with the weapons. A -1 or greater OCV penalty when firing a weapon which the PC is unused to (to accomidate kickback or such with more high tech and alien weapons).

 

However, if the characters are going to make a HABIT of this, I would suggest them buying a multipower, and put inside of it slots to accomidate the stats of whatever they use. For instance, one slot a 1d6+1 RKA for a pistol, the second slot, a 2d6 Autofire for a machinegun, etc.

[AnotherSkip]

One of the things I do (for the few times I run Champs) is I keep track of Wealth, Wf's, and Martial WF's(no WF= -3 OCV no MWF= no use with MA's). these I kinda add into a gadget pool for keeping track of how obnoxious the character is being. Especially if the character bought these instead of powers as a part of his character concept.

 

other things would be requiring the development of Power Skills to go with the "found" Enhanced weaponry. And that shouldn't be done over night.

 

Other things are to maybe add some hidden drawbacks (like the junkies guns) to the items. or perhaps high maintainence costs.

 

 

Another things is to tell that character after a few seconds of studying the weapon you can now make one.... At the cost of some of your other powers and abilities offer to rebalance the character for them to "make life simpler" or they can just not reuse the weapon.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: New GM with serious dilema

 

Originally posted by Kolava

In a Superheroic game, what do you do about looting focused powers from others?

 

Do your own players use focused powers themselves to save points??

 

I know many of the PCs in my games do. What about stealing one of their focuses and having them lose the points. Then ask them whether they are still keen on the 'but it makes sense that I can use it' when that becomes but it makes sense that I can use it or lose it'.

[dugfromthearth]

actually for the most part this is pretty simple:

 

1) some foci are personal (defined as part of the focus limitation) - they only work for the character who bought them, thor's hammer is an example

 

2) you don't need to buy weapon familiarity with anything you spent points on for superheroes, but that isn't true for things you did not spend points on. Someone picks up an ak-47 and unless they have wf: small arms, they have a -3 OCV penalty to use it. Likewise if you steal Dr. Doom's time machine you might need to make a "ks: time machine operation" in order to make it work properly. Dr. Doom doesn't have to - he paid points for it, you didn't so you don't know how it works.

 

3) If you didn't pay points for something with charges, the charges probably won't come back. An ak-47 with one clip isn't world shaking.

 

4) if the player really wants to keep an item, let them. Just start withholding XP until it is bought off.

 

5) items bought with the limitation Independent ignore most/all of this.

[Vondy]

If the player wants to keep it (and use it) beyond the scene in which its taken they get to pay points for it. Otherwise they can keep it, but not get any benefit from it (other than studying it to develop their own technologies that cost points based on its principles).

 

In heroic games where "loot" doesn't cost points its not really an issue.

[Chris Goodwin]

Points are not a currency characters use to buy things (though we use the terminology "buy" and "spend" to make it easier to conceptualize). They are a measure of a character's power level. If he picks up and keeps the AK, then his power level has increased by one AK's worth of points. If he doesn't keep it, then don't worry about it.

 

Note that if he doesn't pay the points, you are free to hose the AK. Break it, steal it, run it out of ammo.

[Farkling]

Real weapons are just that, Real Weapons...

They are subject to needs and wants...cleaning, maintenance, breakability.

 

Alan Quartermain's super rifle may survive explosions, falls, being used as a baseball bat, and submersion, but it wasn't bought with the Real Weapon limitation.

 

If an AK-47 is hit by an EB or an Area Effect attack, it is likely to be severely damaged or useless afterwards. And so on.

-3 OCV for lack of weapons familiarity is a completely enforcable rule.

 

I don't have this problem. All my heroes have beams/attacks that do as much or more damage far more accurately than the AK-47. Cory woul never shoot someone with an AK-47...throw it through them maybe, but shoot It? The mind boggles.

 

The beamer is ex-military, but won't carry firearms, his plasma aura (damage shield) is pretty much his multipower default...he imagines the ammo cooking off and the gun melting down at an inoppurtune moment.

The weather witch wouldn't use firearms..psych limits interfere with that.

The Archangel...never. He just wouldn't. God's wrath does not include mortal weapons.

Wheels thinks firearms are beneath him, his mind is a far more accurate and powerful weapon.

The cyborg lacks the weapon familiarities. Besides, his weapons are as good as or better than an off the rack AK-47.

 

It has rarely been a problem for me, and usually only surfaces with DnD-style kill and loot players. GENOCIDE and VIPER weapons confiscated are pretty much only useful for analysis and breakdown. They have the -3 OCV for use, after all, how many heroes have been through those training classes?

 

Now in the Superspies game...yes, they picked up stuff like that constantly, but it was heroic level Bond stuff. Only two of them actually had familiarity with military weapons, the others simply collected them. The poor Americans were shocked when they brought in the wire guided missile launcher and Natasha picked it up and said, "Ah, good. Mostly undamaged and still in workng condition. I shall conceal and secure in weapons van." She never did get to use it, but the looks were priceless.

[noumena]

Genre limitations can keep this kind of behavior in check, but which genre limitations are you interested in enforcing?

 

A number of people here have suggested that it simply isn't heroic for a PC to pick up and use an AK-47. Perhaps not, but do your PCs consider themselves heroes? We might be pretty disillusioned if Superman did this sort of thing, but from what you've said, you're not in that type of campaign, so your players might not take well to that line of reasoning. Most people here seem to incline more towards the comics code, but that doesn't really sound like your cup of tea.

 

(Side note: Gritty heroic doesn't necessarily mean a vigilante campaign. I played in a relatively gritty superhero campaign where our characters were policemen, and we had the kind of views on lethal force you would expect to find from policemen. Similarly, we didn't feel to bad about taking advantage of an enemy's OAF, since enemies took advantage of our OAFs.)

 

The question, then, is how to encourage PCs not to do this. Your players are only "looting" since it's worth their time to do so. Make it otherwise.

 

One way to do this (YMMV):

 

In our campaign, AP caps allowed a PC to have a more powerful attack power than was usually available from a handgun (AK-47, etc). Consequently, only one character (my mentalist) was usually interested in snagging an enemy's weapon, and that was usually limited to when robots got the drop on him. Even then, it usually took him a couple of phases to get ahold of someone else's weapon, and, in those phases, he was pretty much dead weight. After the scene in question, he'd drop the weapon and move on. The concept of "looting" wasn't really attractive. Most of the PCs already had attacks more powerful than anything they could loot.

 

As for wealth, I don't think using wealth to acquire an weapon is terribly unbalancing, as long as it doesn't happen regularly. In fact, my PC did this once (5pts wealth, RSR: Bureacratics - departmental budget) when he knew that the group was going to be walking into a situation where he would be drastically outgunned. The thing is, he only did this once, and, due to AP caps, he was still outgunned. Just less so.

 

-noumena

[Trebuchet]

In our campaign virtually every team member can pretty much ignore an AK-74; either because they're bulletproof or impossible for a mook to hit with one. And the attack from such weapons aren't worth lugging around all that bulky ammo and stuff either. Sure, anti-tank missiles might hurt the team brick but those are big and bulky; not the kind of thing most characters would want to lug around. Why would any character want to use an AK when their own energy blast/punch/RKA is so much more effective and generally doesn't require carrying extra clips of ammo? AKs are for mooks and generic soldiers; they're beneath the dignity of superheroes.

 

As for high-tech gizmos like VIPER blasters and the like, they not only require training to use but specialized equipment to maintain and recharge them. Does your superhero base feature a VIPER Blaster Recharge Reactorâ„¢?

[zornwil]

This has been pretty well exhausted. The only thing I can add (and I fear it's here as I just skimmed through) is that I do allow in-battle reuse of enemy foci. That's about it, and honestly I've never had to deal with players who wanted to do more. Were they wanting to do more, I'd apply the genre convention, have a discussion if necessary, etc., as generally recommended here.

[DoctorItron]

Sorry if this has already been said - I didn't read through all the prior posts...

 

Some NPCs probably notice that the heroes turn up with equipment gathered from defeated enemies. Maybe the heroes are smart and have dealt with all the legal issues. But a criminal genius might be even smarter:

 

Plan #1) Equip henchmen with some stolen weapons. Let henchmen get captured. Let PCs use weapons in public. Then the mastermind provides anonymous information that the heroes are in possession of stolen equipment. And, if you are really in evil-GM mode, the criminal genius might secretly be the judge presiding over the case.

 

Plan #2) Equip henchmen with booby-trapped weapons. The heroes fight and defeat some agents, then pickup their weapons. When the heroes face the second group of agents, the agent leader presses a remote control button, and the heroes' ill-gotten gains explode in their hands.

 

Plan #3) Add "special features" to the lackeys' equipment. Won't Mr. Hero be surprised when the agent's nifty device teleports him into a deathtrap. Or, for a more subtle approach, the mastermind can just plant a bug inside of something, so he can hear all the heroes' plans.

[Farkling]

Ohhh....I like #2....and the bugging idea is great too...

 

makes notes in evil GM notebook

[Maccabe]

Focus Looting

 

The way I've always done it is that the foci are;

Replacable to the loser

Evidence (if not given to the authroities it constitutes a

Major crime; Tampering with evidence, theft,

interfering with an investigation, etc)

And whats even worse, the villian can ask for it back

after he is aquitted for lack of evidence. You gonna say "no"?

Then face charges; [theft, possession of stolen material

with intent to ....]

 

Are they working for an agency (monitor) who may want the foci? Are they "honorable"?

If the focus happens to have a group insignia on it [ A red cobra head say] If the player uses it, people will see it and assume he is a member of that EVIL group.(and attack on sight)

(Imagine being in Washington, DC ,in current history,carrying a weapon with Al-Quida insignia on it.)

[Guest Kolava]

Alright, thanks for all the input. By far the most useful was the reminder about the genre, and how characters really shouldn't want to keep foci (my players just finished a D&D campaign so they are still in a "kill everything that moves and steal its loot" mindset)

 

I was wondering, though, about more powerful foci. An AK can run out of ammo or be illegal, but what about Dr Icicle's freeze ring? What character wouldn't want to just slip on that ring and keep it handy for when it's needed? Sure, a GM could pull the "it corrupts you" routine, but it's sort of hard when the ring doesn't offer generic "power", but a narrow element.

 

Maybe that wasn't the best example, but I'm trying to make a point. Looting is something that should, for the most part, be left behind in D&D. How can I make this point stick, though, when logic flies in the face of it every ten minutes during a game? Can't I introduce a single NPC with focused powers without having to account for the fate of each foci? How can I expect every character to ignore a chance to equip themselves with what will obviously give them an advantage?

[Southern Cross]

Make it clear to the players that modern laws require them to hand over any foci involved in the committting of a crime to the police as it's evidence.

Also,just because the players have captured someone's focus doesn't mean they can safely use it.(Power Armor is especially good for this.If a PC is maimed or killed because he tried to use a villain's focus,the players will be understandibly reluctant to use captured foci.)

[caris]

Originally posted by Kolava

I was wondering, though, about more powerful foci. An AK can run out of ammo or be illegal, but what about Dr Icicle's freeze ring? What character wouldn't want to just slip on that ring and keep it handy for when it's needed? Sure, a GM could pull the "it corrupts you" routine, but it's sort of hard when the ring doesn't offer generic "power", but a narrow element.

 

Maybe that wasn't the best example, but I'm trying to make a point. Looting is something that should, for the most part, be left behind in D&D. How can I make this point stick, though, when logic flies in the face of it every ten minutes during a game? Can't I introduce a single NPC with focused powers without having to account for the fate of each foci? How can I expect every character to ignore a chance to equip themselves with what will obviously give them an advantage?

 

I always find the corruption idea harder to do with “scientific†foci rather than “magical†foci, more than the narrowness or breadth of the power. It is sooo much easier to say that magic is tainting you, than explaining why the freon gas canisters are turning you cold emotionally.

 

To be honest for the big items, I tackled the issue at the world building level. I didn’t want a world where the person who invented the force field belt is mass producing it. So it is a known fact in my world that some foci (not a word actually used often in the campaign world to describe this), stop working relatively soon after being separated from the original person who made them work. It is also known that sometimes a random person can encounter it and make it work. There is no apparent rhyme or reason for this phenomena, it drives the scientists crazy, but since “super powers†have been around for less than 20 years in my world, most everything involved with the “whack jobs†in costumes drives them crazy.

 

For you it really depends on how you want to make your point, who you want to make the point to (the players or their characters) and what the point you want to make is? What is it you are trying to tell your players? Don’t loot foci? Well, why don’t you want them looting foci?

 

Because it is against genre convention/their schtict? Well than, start making the focus more hassles than it is worth. Have people start trying to steal the focus from the characters. Have the government trying to take it for evidence/study. Make it cause side effects.

 

Because it could become unbalancing/mechanical issues? Go for the points. Start taking away abilities (in one campaign I’m in, if a non-focus user that starts using foci regularly, they start loosing their non-foci abilities). Tell them when they take 35 real point freeze ring, that they are now in the hole 35 experience points, and no one will get any experience to use for anything else until the focus is paid off.

 

I’m still strongly of the talk to your players first camp, before going for the above carrot/stick approach, but sometimes it is the only way.

[Fenixcrest]

Honestly, if was me...

 

Keep in mind, my campaign is weird- it's a regular Heroic-style game with Superheroic-level characters.

 

If it's a "mundane" item, like a sword or a gun, I'd let it slide until it ran out of ammo. And maybe the sword might break if they did something dumb. In the case of magic items, two things can happen- if it's something I don't want the characters to keep, it'll crap out after a few extra-fun explodey uses. If it's something I don't mind, I'll tell them they get to pay XP taxes on it until it's theirs. OR.. if it's something I intended them to have in the first place (a kick-ass magic sword from the depths, or big list o' new spells, or a new weapons upgrade for our resident mechanized citizen), I'll just make it their "XP christmas present" for the arc.