Is It Worth The Points?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

They cheer?

Oh, yeah. We cheer. As both a co-GM and as a player in Mentor's game, there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing a player really have a good exciting victory. Funny thing is, if everyone in the group is trying to let/help another player look good everyone ends up looking good pretty often.

 

As a GM I try to deliberately set up dramatic scenes so characters look cool, because this is the kind of stuff I think players remember and can visualize readily. In a recent night battle I had our team brick sprayed with napalm (3d6-2 RKA, Continuous) by a giant mech not because I thought it would hurt Silhouette (It didn't) but because I thought the image of Silhouette hovering 50 feet in the air covered in clinging fire at night was very dramatic and memorable. The player thought so too.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

In general, I don't like it when players buy Extra Limbs IPE and then go about using them like TK. TK is for TK. If you buy Extra Limbs, even IPE, they had better be attached somehow and the GM should know to where.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

My current campaign includes a darkness-themed PC named Oamen. Oamen's primary power is a 4" radius (7" diameter) darkness field centered on him; he can also multiple-power-attack a darkness (UAA) with most of his attacks.

 

In order to challenge him, I *have* to build PC's with alternate targetting senses or area effects. However by doing so I "hose" his main defense of not being hit. I also have to build some PC's that don't have them, or he wasted points.

 

Perhaps the best example of a time this caused tricky balance issues was an encounter where the group was going to be taking on a very powerful light-based NPC -- Oamen was set to get hosed on a couple of counts. So to help counter-balance this I also had a large number of "anti-nova" goons that were supposed to hold the PC's busy until she arrived -- in other words, NPC's that were almost helpless against his powers. So he had a threat and a throne, so to speak.

There are dozens of easy outs for a GM in a case like this. Other than using non-standard Targeting Senses, you can use AE/Explosions, and there's always the option of spreading an EB to include the hex he's gotta be in (and get a shot as his normal DCV by default) or using AutoFire to use suppression fire into his hexes. Any opponent with Combat Sense or high PER Rolls comes in handy too.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

As a genre convention, the answer is yes -- there's always a pre-designed way out of the deathtrap.

 

As a GM, I'll keep one in the back off my mind and not use it unless the player gets stumped. As a game convention, you really should wait until at least the second and preferably the third idea the player comes up with

I do it a little differently. There is always a way out, but its never simple or obvious. I never worry about what it is, because I let my players tell me.

 

Player 1: I blast the walls until the collapse!

GM: The walls are apparently heavily reinforced with quintessium, your blast hardly scorches the surface.

Player 2: Wait, quintessium is conductive! What if I use the power from my extra blaster clip to send an electrical charge through the walls, shorting out the mechinism?

GM [scratching head]: Well, whaddya know, that worked!

 

It's amazing how many times I'll get complimented for my master planing and my players will sit there patting themselves on the back for being so smart.

[TrickstaPriest]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

I do it a little differently. There is always a way out, but its never simple or obvious. I never worry about what it is, because I let my players tell me.

 

Player 1: I blast the walls until the collapse!

GM: The walls are apparently heavily reinforced with quintessium, your blast hardly scorches the surface.

Player 2: Wait, quintessium is conductive! What if I use the power from my extra blaster clip to send an electrical charge through the walls, shorting out the mechinism?

GM [scratching head]: Well, whaddya know, that worked!

 

It's amazing how many times I'll get complimented for my master planing and my players will sit there patting themselves on the back for being so smart.

 

I know that method, I know it well. It works very well with me too, though I occasionally write something in to help out a bit. Still, they manage to do things well on their own. It's one of the reasons why I don't always concern myself with what they have. You can do it occasionally, but it's usually best to let them handle that end.

 

What annoys me is when things come together so well by accident that it makes my actual planning look shoddy. I seem to make things run better by GMing on the fly, even though it totally exhausts me. I think it means I either need to plan better, or give up most of the planning and save time.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

I've taken to making very loose plans and a generalized plot, then just following the players. I usually have some ideas on the types of encounters and scenarios I'd like to see played out, and the ones that are important I just drop, usually modified, into whatever the players decide to do. But I have very independant players, who are also very clever. I sometimes like to think that everyone's the GM, and I just have more characters than they do.

[devlin1]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

Oh' date=' yeah. We cheer.[/quote']

 

As in "Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah"?

 

As both a co-GM and as a player in Mentor's game, there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing a player really have a good exciting victory.

 

Likewise-- don't get me wrong. Making others look good in a game is nicely satisfying. In one particular game I was in, we went out of our way to make an NPC look good, because he seemed like a nice guy.

 

As a GM I try to deliberately set up dramatic scenes so characters look cool, because this is the kind of stuff I think players remember and can visualize readily.

Definitely. If the characters aren't going to look cool doing what they do, what's the point of it all? In the wuxia game I'm about to run, I will deliberately set up situations that cater to the PCs' wacky wuxia-style abilities. Hey, they spent the points!

 

Anyway, I was just poking a little fun at the concept of players literally "cheering," pom-poms and all.

[Guest Kolava]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

"IPE limbs" remind me of Homestar Runner

[pinecone]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

I always insist on buying "cool powers" I never really expect to use...once in a blue moon though....for example I have a pro-wrassler who has a "righteous wrassler recovery" a big AID to stun that requires a cheering crowd along with some other lims...out of the blue I was playing possum to steal a recovery and the GM decided to mess me up by have a bunch of the civilians turn out to be fans who cheered me on to rise up and lay the smack down, triggering my wrassler code..."Oh...really , a crowd is cheering me on? I rise up and bag that lame recovery attempt and use my Righteous wrassler recovery!" that is the only time I can ever remember using it....and it was cool....

[Foxx!]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

Dust Raven:

 

Even if something isn’t used, I don’t feel it’s wasted if it’s part of the character concept I want.

 

If a player thinks something is wasted, I give it attention. Sometimes I let players sell back things, but it’s case by case. It's better to find these things before the campaign starts.

 

Cheers

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

Dust Raven:

 

Even if something isn’t used, I don’t feel it’s wasted if it’s part of the character concept I want.

 

If a player thinks something is wasted, I give it attention. Sometimes I let players sell back things, but it’s case by case. It's better to find these things before the campaign starts.

 

Cheers

The way I look at it, if you've spent points on it, it should get some use, as least sometime. If it's not going to get use, it's free. I played a muscian at one point, but in the game we played, his musical skills were simply background. I payed for PS: Muscian and left it at that. He could sing, played several instruments and wrote all his music, and made enough music doing it to make himself a millionair. Not that any of that came into play (including the money), so it was never paid for. It was a different story when I played a musician that was part of a superteam of muscians who incorperated their musical performances into the story. The skills became much more valuable and we paid for them accordingly.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

Again, I feel it is the *Players* responsibility to use *all* of his character's capabilities in a game. Each player should be listening to the descriptions provided and asking questions to find out how the Gm would *allow* his or her special abilities to come to light.

 

So by extension a player that does not want to *find* every opportunity to exercise his unique and perhaps underutilitzed capabilities. then maybe he shouldn't have those abilities as part of his or her character concept. If the player did not want to work at using certain characteristics he shouldn't have purchased them.

 

GM: after checking clues all day you learn that the lair of the dastardly villian, Maximum Porkchop, the King of the Rind, is inside the abandoned pig farm. What do you do now?

PoolBoy: Is there a water pipe or canal that I can swim up to minimize my chances of being detected by MP's android pigs?

GM: Yes I do believe that there is Poolboy, a small stream runs along the south end of the property and comes within 150 feet of the warehouse/barn complex.

 

Hawksmoor

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is It Worth The Points?

 

GM: after checking clues all day you learn that the lair of the dastardly villian, Maximum Porkchop, the King of the Rind, is inside the abandoned pig farm. What do you do now?

PoolBoy: Is there a water pipe or canal that I can swim up to minimize my chances of being detected by MP's android pigs?

GM: Yes I do believe that there is Poolboy, a small stream runs along the south end of the property and comes within 150 feet of the warehouse/barn complex.

 

Hawksmoor

That's an excellent example. The GM provides a situation where the character's abilities can come into play (streetwise, deduction, criminology and similar) and also recognizes the player's desire to make use of other abilities (swimming, stealth), allowing for them by pointing out the stream.

 

It's a two way street. The way I play, the GM is responsible for making opportunities for every ability a player has spent points on to come into play (and allowing for ideas the players come up with on their own), and the player is responsible for seeking those opportunities out (and coming up with new ones).