Doesn't anyone like low-powered campaigns?

[CTaylor]

Re: Doesn't anyone like low-powered campaigns?

 

Generally speaking, fictional heroes don't change much over time - they usually are weaker at first in old comics and more powerful now, but they flatten out very rapidly. The reason for this is that if you have a popular, interesting character and change him too much he stops being that interesting character and becomes something else. Games are the opposite. Rewards are what keeps people interested in their character, the growth and change, looking forward to learning something new, changing, gaining power and treasures.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Doesn't anyone like low-powered campaigns?

 

Some might say that other games start you off as Bob the Farmer with his hoe or Jimmy Olsen and require you to work your way through 50 years of games to achieve status as Conan in his first appearance or Action #1 Superman. The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle.

 

Games and players seem to require characters continually grow in power and abilities, where fiction tends to include a lot of characters who start out fairly powerful and stay there. How much did Conan's combat skills increase over his history? Elric's certainly didn't. SpiderMan still has the same power suite, more or less, that he had over 40 years ago.

 

The goals of many games besides RPGs are not just to do something, but to win something, a tangible reward that lets you "keep score" as to how successful you've been. Early RPGs chose increasing character abilities, which as game mechanics are easy to keep track of. Some more recent games have tried to diversify the rewards with such things as in-game-world perks, metagame-altering mechanics, and others.

 

For static characters Conan isn't actually that great an example IMHO. It's debatable whether his skill as a combatant increased all that much over his long career. I believe he became a more cunning and resourceful fighter, but it's true that his basic style remained direct and aggressive, relying at least as much on power and speed as on skill. However, over the years Conan learned many new and useful things, often commented on in Howard's stories. He learned to ride a horse, shoot a bow, and sail a ship; he gained thieving skills and jungle woodcraft, knowledge of military tactics, confidence games, politics, and many languages. Conan in his late 30's or early 40's is a much more rounded character, and in some ways much more dangerous, than in his youth.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Doesn't anyone like low-powered campaigns?

 

The goals of many games besides RPGs are not just to do something' date=' but to [b']win[/b] something, a tangible reward that lets you "keep score" as to how successful you've been. Early RPGs chose increasing character abilities, which as game mechanics are easy to keep track of. Some more recent games have tried to diversify the rewards with such things as in-game-world perks, metagame-altering mechanics, and others.

 

Absolutely. But that's still a departure from much of the source material. And we never expect a character to weaken, rather than strengthen, in the game. The source material sees characters rise and fall. Vlad Taltos starts out the early novels with much more advantages than he has in the more recent publications.

 

For static characters Conan isn't actually that great an example IMHO. It's debatable whether his skill as a combatant increased all that much over his long career. I believe he became a more cunning and resourceful fighter' date=' but it's true that his basic style remained direct and aggressive, relying at least as much on power and speed as on skill. However, over the years Conan learned many new and useful things, often commented on in Howard's stories. He learned to ride a horse, shoot a bow, and sail a ship; he gained thieving skills and jungle woodcraft, knowledge of military tactics, confidence games, politics, and many languages. Conan in his late 30's or early 40's is a much more rounded character, and in some ways much more dangerous, than in his youth.[/quote']

 

But even this is a pretty atypical RPG track - start off very powerful in combat and become better rounded, learning languages and other primarily noncombat skills, with no improvement to combat abilities. Of course, one could also interpret this, in RPG terms, as Conan becoming a superior combatant all along - but his opponents becoming better at the same rate. That also happens in RPG's.