VPPs: Your experiences

[Whitewings]

Nexus and I had a disagreement on the subject of VPPs; in his experience they're too often used to play "anything you can do, I can do better," but in mine they're more often used for "Can anyone here... never mind. Jacknife!" So this got me to wondering, in your experience, how are field-changeable VPPs most commonly used? Do they more often help games, or hurt them?

[Sketchpad]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I would say it depends on the player ... I've seen them abused, as well as being a useful tool. In my current campaign, Mrs. Sketchpad plays a mage with a Magic Pool and she loves it ... it allows for freedom of powers, but she also has various restrictions on it (like Wild Surges ).

[Whitewings]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I would say it depends on the player ... I've seen them abused' date=' as well as being a useful tool. In my current campaign, Mrs. Sketchpad plays a mage with a Magic Pool and she loves it ... it allows for freedom of powers, but she also has various restrictions on it (like Wild Surges ).[/quote']I'd guess her magic revolves around drawing stuff? Sound fun.

[Publius]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Are VPPs a "rule-buster"? Not in my experience, but I keep a pretty tight hold on VPPs, some good successes:

 

I once had a Fantasy game that I was running where I used a low-point VPP as a "Cantrip Pool", that was very useful and because the point value was set very low it did not get abused too badly.

 

For some reason my PCs don't play Gadgeteer types. NPC villains on the other hand do. I try to make my villains just as rounded as the PCs and thus rather than give them the death-ray machine as hand-waving, I try to fashion such stuff as a rather significant gadget pool that maintains the "theme" of the bad guy ("only weather-related gadgets" or "Only for use as the villain's Plot Driving Secret Weapon" i.e. rather than as a utility belt for several useful lower-point items). OKay so this sometimes get costly, and in the end hand-waving would be practically the same, but it is always nice as an intellectual exercise.

 

I have been experimenting with True Shapeshifting as a Multiform-based VPP, but I haven't worked the kinks out yet.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I am too effecient with VPPs as a player, so I don't run them anymore. As a GM I am leery of them. We don't usually have the "better than you" problem. The main problem is extreme versitility.

 

Aside from a gadget pool that provides all of a character's power, we have settled in general on a decent compromise between versitility and power. As most characters in our game with decent sized VPPs usually have some decent defences, and usually a little skill or power outside the pool, we do the following.

Active points in pool cannot be greater than the pool reserve (usually at a -1 or so). This makes a pool an infinite slot multipower, but doesn't overwhelm the game. If you have a cosmic with no limitiations you are looking at a cost of about 8-10 slots in a MP (assuming all ultra slots).

 

Example

Cosmic MP (60)

each slot is the full 60 pts, all ultras at 6 pts a slot

with 8 slots that gives you a total cost of 108

 

Cosmic Pool (60)

Reserve 0 phase, no skill +2 on reserve

Limitation -1

reserve total cost 45

Total cost 105

 

For those of us in the game that want the versitility this is a fair comprimise, and has worked very well for our group for years.

[Publius]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I would say it depends on the player ... I've seen them abused' date=' as well as being a useful tool. In my current campaign, Mrs. Sketchpad plays a mage with a Magic Pool and she loves it ... it allows for freedom of powers, but she also has various restrictions on it (like Wild Surges ).[/quote']Actually, if I can lure my S.O. (She Who Must Be Obeyed) back to the gaming table, I might do this for her PC (Madam Megawatt) who has electrical powers. My S.O. kept coming up with some really cool ideas for using her electrical powers, they just were not stuff on her sheet. I used the Power skill for some of these as most were largely one-shot uses, but it was a real stretch sometimes and she felt rather confined.

 

I guess when doing something like this, you should consider the player as you suggest. Some have a good sense of the dramatic action and will not abuse it, some will do anything to win and take it right to the edge. Know your players and maybe if you have any doubts you could tell them that you reserve the right to say "no" for purely dramatic reasons if they take the VPP. If they accept the bargain, they cannot really complain about it too much later.

[Whitewings]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Active points in pool cannot be greater than the pool reserve (usually at a -1 or so).

I don't see how that counts as a limit, when a normal VPP doesn't let you exceed the pool's size in AP anway.

[nexus]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I feel I should explain my position better. I hope this doesn't sound too jerky.

 

I am not comfortable with large, practically unlimited VPPs. Too many times in my experience they are used to upstage other PCs in their area of expertise or particular niche. That's just been my experience and once burned twice shy, as the saying goes.

 

Also, as a GM I find VPPs a real pain to deal with. Silver Surfer, Green Lantern types are hard to deal with. In story they can suffer from PIS when needed but PCs have no such limitation. Just from some of the terrible things I've done to GM's plot with VPPs, I know of the potential headaches (I'm not claiming to be an angel here). Its something I prefer not to deal with.

 

I do allow combat variable VPPs, but I prefer to them to fairly limited and defined, even for high powered games. Like I have character with VPP Weather Control and Another with a Mimic pool. Useful but not so potentially game breaking and hard to plan for. IMO. Its not the one true way and If you're a gm with more skill that can handle them, I envy you. But that is how I prefer to keep things.

[Sketchpad]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I'd guess her magic revolves around drawing stuff? Sound fun.

heh .. nope That's not her character's name, just her name on the boards She's playing a chaos mage in my Champions game that's kinda like a warped Cardcaptor

[OddHat]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Played well they work fine, but I enjoy them more in solo games. Mrs.Oddhat is also playing a Witch with a VPP in a solo game right now, and she's having great fun with it.

 

In groups, I prefer to see the special effects tightly restricted, limits pre-defined ("You may choose up to -1 from the following") and the active points lower than those of the other players, but in the case of a good player I might be less strict. I also like to see VPP characters with very clear weaknesses in other areas (if in a group).

 

Night Hunter is a VPP based character I'd be comfortable with in the hands of most fairly good players. Low active point powers and a clearly defined special effect (with built in limits) plus low speed, he's not likely to rain on the parades of other players.

 

The Light is a tougher case. Her powers are only 50 active points, which means that the other players will have more raw power (probably much more), and again her SPD is low. Still, her power level is such that she could start to seriously intrude on the teritory of other players. A 50 active point power is an easy scenario breaker as well, and she has Summon as an option in the VPP (a very cheesy power in the hands of a rules mechanic). I'd only give her to a serious role player I trusted, and wouldn't use her at all in a con game.

 

Always has a nice cleanly defined special effect with very clear limits on what he can and can't do with his VPP. He's powerful, but I would be willing to let any good player use him.

 

Once you start getting into 80 Point Cosmic VPPs, I'd have to either be running a solo game or have players I knew well and trusted before I'd let that in.

[OddHat]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I am too effecient with VPPs as a player, so I don't run them anymore. As a GM I am leery of them. We don't usually have the "better than you" problem. The main problem is extreme versitility.

 

Aside from a gadget pool that provides all of a character's power, we have settled in general on a decent compromise between versitility and power. As most characters in our game with decent sized VPPs usually have some decent defences, and usually a little skill or power outside the pool, we do the following.

Active points in pool cannot be greater than the pool reserve (usually at a -1 or so). This makes a pool an infinite slot multipower, but doesn't overwhelm the game. If you have a cosmic with no limitiations you are looking at a cost of about 8-10 slots in a MP (assuming all ultra slots).

 

Example

Cosmic MP (60)

each slot is the full 60 pts, all ultras at 6 pts a slot

with 8 slots that gives you a total cost of 108

 

Cosmic Pool (60)

Reserve 0 phase, no skill +2 on reserve

Limitation -1

reserve total cost 45

Total cost 105

 

For those of us in the game that want the versitility this is a fair comprimise, and has worked very well for our group for years.

 

That is a very good idea.

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Quite simply, I don't allow a power inside a VPP that I wouldn't allow outside of a VPP. If you wouldn't ordinarily let someone buy Desolid, Usable As Attack, then you sure as hell don't let someone have it through their VPP. Likewise, be sure to limit the character from buying an Aid inside their VPP and then using that on the EB they also bought in the VPP. That sort of thing can get kind of nasty pretty quickly.

 

Pay close attention to the description of a VPP. Going from memory here, but I believe it says something to the effect of "a VPP may produce any power of a given special effect". In that sense, "Cosmic Power", or "whatever I feel like right now", is too broad. You probably shouldn't be able to control the weather, shapechange, and use telemechanics in the same VPP.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I don't see how that counts as a limit' date=' when a normal VPP doesn't let you exceed the pool's size in AP anway.[/quote']

 

 

Real points in a pool cannot exceed the reserve, and active points in any one power cannot exceed pool reserve, but you could have, for example, two 60 point powers in a 60 point pool, assuming each had -1 in limitations.

 

The limitation I describe for our games means that no matter how many limitations you pile on to your powers you can never have more than 60 active points total (in the above example).

[Chuckg]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Pretty much everybody in the New Sentinels game has some VPP, either because of primary shtick (such as Starguard's "Magical Girl On Archangel Steroids" routine) or to represent that they're such experienced superheroes that their list of 'mastered power stunts' goes off the page.

 

So far, it's worked, and I think it's because we remember these rules:

 

a) Know Your Special Effect, And Stay Inside it Religiously

 

For example, Starguard's special effect is pretty durn liberal (I am the Magical Girl, after all), but her understanding of the forces involved is that of a novice's. So, you get Force Walls, Holy Auras, Tunneling, and other such things that are easily understood, as opposed to massively esoteric enchantments that manipulate the very fabric of the manasphere so as to bring about the massively subtle whatever.

 

Likewise, Horus-Re, Champion of the Unconquered Sun, God of Truth, has a VPP he can use to augment his already prodigious strength (his most common usage), or for various 'sun god' powers, like his detecting lies, his shining sun-god aura, his PRE boost, his ability to give vampires a lethal suntan just by standing there, etc, etc. But if he tried to use it to suddenly pull some Healing effect out of his butt, or turning lead into gold, or etc. the DM would frown.

 

 

Active Point Cap.

 

The max size of any one power is the pool reserve, and requests to cheese around it are flatly denied.

 

 

c) We're Not Gonna Wait, Dammit

 

Have your slots written up ahead of time and/or be able to write really damn fast between Phases, because the game will not wait while you flip through the design manual.

 

And it helps if you get as many slots pre-approved by the GM before the game as possible.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Going from memory here' date=' but I believe it says something to the effect of "a VPP may produce any power of a [i']given special effect[/i]". In that sense, "Cosmic Power", or "whatever I feel like right now", is too broad.

 

To quote, "A character with thei Power Farmework establishes a pool of character points from which he can use to create any Power, or any Power with a given special effect.

 

In the pool sidebars there is the "Cosmic Power Pool" This Power Pool can be whatever the character wants whenever the character wants it.

 

So yeah, you can do that, thought I don't see it popping up all that often. Playing a low level Silver Surfer or something. I ran a "godling" once with a 40 pointer - could do anything he imagined with it. Not too common though.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

To answer the original question about field changeable pools - Ones I have played.

 

Gadget pool

Ch'i pool

Martial arts manuevers as powers pool (for the character that is my avatar)

Cosmic pool (the earlier mentioned godling)

Magic pool (the first character that got that -1 lim, I abuse pools, and wanted to restrain myself

Force pool (for a Jedi esque character)

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

To quote' date=' "A character with thei Power Farmework establishes a pool of character points from which he can use to create any Power, or any Power [b']with a given special effect[/b].

 

In the pool sidebars there is the "Cosmic Power Pool" This Power Pool can be whatever the character wants whenever the character wants it.

 

So yeah, you can do that, thought I don't see it popping up all that often. Playing a low level Silver Surfer or something. I ran a "godling" once with a 40 pointer - could do anything he imagined with it. Not too common though.

 

All I did was change the BOLD on the quote.

 

Yes, a truly Cosmic VPP can do anything. But I'd be extremely reluctant to allow large cosmic power pools. For everything other than playing the Golden Glider, the Harbinger of the Planet Eater, I'd figure you needed a more limited special effect than "anything I want".

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Yes, a truly Cosmic VPP can do anything. But I'd be extremely reluctant to allow large cosmic power pools. For everything other than playing the Golden Glider, the Harbinger of the Planet Eater, I'd figure you needed a more limited special effect than "anything I want".

 

Oh yeah, I was just pointing out that it was "book-legal", not necessarily good Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

In my nearly 20 years of gaming I've only seen three actual full blown Cosmic pools in the hands of a PC and two of those were mine -

[megaplayboy]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

my observations:

1. they're really darn useful, and probably indispensible for certain character concepts, like true gadgeteers and broadly defined sorceror types.

2. often the people who complain the most about them happen to be people most likely to abuse them when they have them(and thus they figure everyone will do what they do).

3. it helps to put some initial limits on the number of powers available, like INT/2, and to try to keep it within a fairly well-defined sfx.

4. the thing to crack down on is when the player wants to do stuff on the fly, just so they can play "spot" offense or defense--a firm refusal should be given after the first or second attempt to do so; it's not genre, it's not fair to the other players, and it's not fair to the game.

5.cosmic VPP is equivalent, cost-wise, to a multipower with 5 multi slots and 5 ultra slots(before any limitations are applied to the MP).

A normal VPP is equivalent cost-wise to a multipower with 5 ultra slots(or 2 multis and one ultra(say, an EB, a FF, and flight)), before any limitations are applied. Tack on the half-phase extra time, and RSR limitation, and the MP is actually cheaper.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

my observations:

2. often the people who complain the most about them happen to be people most likely to abuse them when they have them(and thus they figure everyone will do what they do).

 

*raises hand*

 

 

Hello, I'm Mhoram and I am a powergamer.

 

Well reformed for the most part.

[lemming]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I am too effecient with VPPs as a player' date=' so I don't run them anymore. As a GM I am leery of them. We don't usually have the "better than you" problem. The main problem is extreme versitility.[/quote']

Heh. I've often played with the idea that I have to know the player for a bit and be able to trust them with a power pool. I've just recently started using a Power Pool with my character in zornwil's game. So far, I have not abused his trust.

 

edit: Having just read LM's last post, we seem to have been on the same path.

[Outsider]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

I usually GMed, and thus dont have a large amount of experience with cosmic VPPs as a player. In the one game I played where there was a cosmic VPP, it wasnt mine, and it the player who's character had it was (it seemed) allowed to do absolutely anything he wanted to with it*, which made all the other characters in the group little more than supporting cast in Cosmicman's adventure. There so he would have someone to look on admiringly, and provide his side extra phases if it came to combat. Whee.

 

I think it was more the fault of the GM for letting him do absolutely anything he pleased with his VPP than it was the VPP structure's fault. But I'm not sure. Cosmic VPPs seem ripe for abuse if the GM isnt willing to say "NO" frequently.

 

 

 

*

Precognitive clairvoyant N-ray vision. Made the stealthy/scouty character useless.

 

Buying skills as powers with his VPP, or possibly just buying many many levels with his existing (broad) skills and taking the penalties for using them for specifics. (ie The group comes upon an H-bomb that needs to be defused. ScienceGuy has an 18- KS in Nuclear Weapons Design and Construction, but Cosmicman has KS "Earthly Technology" on an 11- (3 points "scholar enhancer, plus 1 point in the KS) The GM says that ScienceGuy's skill is the specific one needed to defuse the bomb, and that the "ETech" KS would be at -20 for this very specific use. Cosmicguy says "OK, I switch my VPP to 30 levels with "ET" and have a 41-, minus 20 makes 21- to defuse the bomb!" then shoulders Scienceguy aside)

 

Using the VPP to set up triggered defences, then switching the pool away from the defence (but if he gets attacked, the triggered defences still go off and block it)

 

And so on.

[phydaux]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Stepping on stchick is just bad player form, period. It has nothing to do with VPPs.

 

My biggest peoblem with VPPs is when players who CLEARLY don't know the game rules inside and out, but still want to use them.

 

"Ok, you've finally confronted Master Villain."

 

"I use my VPP to construct a trap he can't escape from."

 

"OK, how are you doing that?'

 

"I just told you - I'm using my VPP."

 

"OK, um, what powers are you puting in your VPP?"

 

"My VPP can have ANY power it it. I use the powers that will create a trap that Master Villain can't escape from."

 

"Bob, EXACTLY what powers are you using?"

 

"Pfwt, I don't know. You're the GM, YOU figure it out."

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

Stepping on stchick is just bad player form' date=' period. It has nothing to do with VPPs.[/quote']

 

BINGO! My magical powered VPP character is in a group with a mentalist and a Darkness character. His VPP has the limit "no mental powers" (as well as some other prohibitions I threw in), and the character is flashy, so doesn't consider Darkness effects.

 

The other players are an EP/Entangler (so I generally avoid entangles, though his SFX wouldn't be close to mine) and a Brick (no problems there - he often seems more versatile than me, somehow).

 

The fact is, "I can do anything Man" is boring. Throw some limits on your VPP, and your character. I have a list of powers he can't do, and the character himself isn't very creative, so I don't just come up with new things on the fly very often. He has a long list of things he can do.

 

Biggest surprise so far: We werein a dimensiopn-hopping scenario, surrounded by strange beings ordering us to surrender. My character is imetuous and impulsive, and has no idea what to do. If the others had surrendered, he probably would have. They all hesitate. He panics. [quick Ego roll - he remembers the others are here]

 

VPP change to Teleport, Area Effect, Selective, 1 hex area, Megascale. "We're all 5 km north." "Oh...we're all 5 km in a random direction I assume to be north."

 

Took some doing to return to that scenario...

 

ASIDE: SOme teamates don't appreciate random teleports in harbour towns, for some reason. Although my offer to try again seemed to eliminate the hesitation effect my teammates were under

[Chuckg]

Re: VPPs: Your experiences

 

My biggest surprise unleashed so far with my VPP was...

 

(The following is not the literal conversation, which was longer, and happened months ago so I don't remember it word-for-word anyway. This is just a sort of abstracted summary.)

 

 

 

'OK, while you are in the other dimension, trying to figure out how to help in its war with Vashtos' Dimension of Darkness, a dimensional portal opens up and an army of the necromancer-lord Vashtos comes out, led by some armored golem-juggernauts and death knights on flying steeds.'

 

'How big is the army?'

 

'Huge.'

 

'Right. OK, does my mystical awareness pick up anything?'

 

'These guys are all pumping as much black mana as the collective legions of Hell. And the pud infantry appears to be all zombies, ghouls, some vampire NCOs, etc.'

 

At this point, I add together Starguard's basic mentality, the remnants of the archangel-of-wrath trapped within her, the fact that just being *near* otherworldly evil causes her intense pain (it's called "some things really *shouldn't* be looked at with cosmic awareness, and she hasn't yet learned how to turn hers off"), and then I made an EGO roll.

 

The EGO roll came up '... and now she's going to do something reaaaaaaally impulsive.' (At the time, I had Novice Hero.)

 

So, I tell the DM 'Starguard flies up in the air over the whole battlefield, shining like a miniature supernova, screams something incomprehensibly angry-sounding in what you presume to be High Celestial, and expends all her power in one massive burst... and then faints, falling unconscious out of the sky.'

 

'What does the power burst do?'

 

'Mechanically, it's MegaScale Tunnelling. Special-effect wise, a giant crack in the earth just opened and swallowed the entire army of undead.

 

... except for the golem-juggernauts, death knights, and what few elite lead elements were composed of living troops, as she couldn't hit any of them without killing people.'

 

'In other words, you're leaving enough of the bad guys for the rest of the team to have something to fight.'

 

'Well, crap yeah. If I stole *all* the thunder, you wouldn't let me do this. But, I still get the huge drama moment, not to mention really improving the odds.'

 

'Yup. OK, approved.'

 

Please note -- I had an 80 point VPP, and I only needed 53 or so for the Tunnelling, and I dropped an entire legion of undead/demonic horrors into a giant gaping pit where they all died. (It was a /very/ deep hole.)

 

I also didn't *have* to faint... my VPP is 0 END, so mechanically-speaking I could have tossed that off without blinking. I just did that because, well, a) dramatically appropriate and having just hogged 99% of the kill count for myself in one shot, it would be really rude of me to hang around and clutter up the rest of the fight scene too.