Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

[archermoo]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

I've no real problems with the in combat aspect of being mind controlled against my team/other players ... it's the out of combat interactions I feel I mess up more often than not. People tell me I do a good job' date=' but I always think later "doh! I coulda done this an' this..." case of my own worst critic I think.[/quote']

 

Heh. I had a character once that had been mind controlled to start sewing disention amonst the team. The bad guy made a bad choice on that one. My character was the one that kept people from fighting usually, so instigating fights was out of character for him. And he also had the 20 point disad "Honest". So when they asked him what was wrong, he initially denied anything was (since there wasn't anything wrong from his mind controlled point of view). However, when they asked him why he was trying to get them to fight with each other, he told them "'Cause Barron Brain told me to."

 

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

1 Restricted Recoverable Charge (Charge Is Recovered when Player Gives the GM five bucks) -2

[prestidigitator]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Unluck. I mean, I feel so bad about essentially giving it to everyone when noone decides to take it. Wouldn't it be nice if one player were nice enough to be the punching bag?

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

In all seriousness, if a player of mine was trying to lose weight, quit smoking, or something like that and needed encouragement, I'd let him put a Conditional Limitation on his sheet to allow a power to only be used if he is meeting his goals.

[Shike019]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

I've no real problems with the in combat aspect of being mind controlled against my team/other players ... it's the out of combat interactions I feel I mess up more often than not. People tell me I do a good job' date=' but I always think later "doh! I coulda done this an' this..." case of my own worst critic I think.[/quote']

 

I get this too, it just seems to creep up on me.

[Shike019]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Conditional Limitation: INT only works if player keeps OOC information OOC' date=' and only acts on IC info.[/quote']

 

I do this already too. I've asked the gm if I can make KS or INT rolls because of something I think of that my character Might know.

[atlascott]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

What about a limitation

(-1) Power only works when player has given any thought or effort as to what his character has been doing between scenarios...

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

I do this already too. I've asked the gm if I can make KS or INT rolls because of something I think of that my character Might know.

I've had two games with players who had a problem keeping IC stuff IC and OOC stuff OOC. One as a player, the second as both a player and a GM (temporarily, though). It drives me NUTS.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

So maybe we need a variation of the Only in Heroic ID limitation "Only in Character" limitation.

 

And make the character buy all of their powers with charges with a "can only recover charges by character having a life between missions"

[ghost-angel]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Or perhaps Side Effect (Power fails if character has no life outside adventuring/superheroing)

[Basil]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Or perhaps Side Effect (Power fails if character has no life outside adventuring/superheroing)

 

Depends on the character. the "Obsessed Righter Of Wrongs" type isn't supposed to have a life outside of superheroing.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Depends on the character. the "Obsessed Righter Of Wrongs" type isn't supposed to have a life outside of superheroing.

no wait, let me guess, he's on perpetual patrol.

[Basil]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

We had an funny exchange with the On Patrol thing once... super speedster guy Stephan who "wants to be a superhero" and the brick Jessica who "manages to get dragged into all this despite her actual intentions"

 

soemthing like this:

The two of them ended up at the end of an adventure hanging out, I think Jessica wanted to bug Stephan because he was an easy target for humor.

"So, what do you do with your downtime?"

"I'm a superhero."

"Ok.. right, so day job?"

"I go on patrol!" He stated pretty confidently.

"On Patrol? What the hell is that? What does that mean?" Jessica pops his bubble. "What do you wander around the city hoping that coincidence drops you into something interesting?"

"well..."

"Seriously, you just wander randomly around the place looking for trouble?"

"Yeah. It's called Patrolling."

"You have got to be kidding me."

there was another fifteen minutes where Jessica layed into him on exactly how stupid that sounded.

 

I don't think Stephan ever tells Jessica when he goes on patrol anymore.

 

Perhaps Jessica should "pop [the] bubble" of some cop; ask him/her why s/he goes On Patrol.

Jess would get an answer all right.

[Basil]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Limited Power: Power Only Works If Used For The Character's Purpose(s), Not The Player's (-0)

 

A -0 Lim because it's a campaign requirement (similar to Normal Char. Max. being a campaign requirement in some campaigns).

[ghost-angel]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Perhaps Jessica should "pop [the] bubble" of some cop; ask him/her why s/he goes On Patrol.

Jess would get an answer all right.

Cops are paid servants of the community whose job is not only patrol but be visible in case anyone wishes their assistance. Superhero's a costumed vigilante nutbags out to terrorize "wrong doers." The Police are visible, supers 'Lurk in the shadows.'

 

Cops have due process. Superheroes have lasereyebeams.

 

Jessica respects the police, especially since the police in her world are normals and have to deal with lunatics like Superheroes On Patrol (next on Fox!).

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Cops are paid servants of the community whose job is not only patrol but be visible in case anyone wishes their assistance. Superhero's a costumed vigilante nutbags out to terrorize "wrong doers." The Police are visible, supers 'Lurk in the shadows.'

Spiderman ain't exactly a lurker. Superman isn't exactly one either.

[Zed-F]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

But what are the odds that a supercrime is going to occur where the superhero is patrolling? Darn slim, realistically. Cops patrol because (a) that's their jobs, they don't have Secret IDs to worry about, ( there are a lot of them, so they have a chance of being able to spot a crime in progress and act as visible deterrence in the area a criminal might be wanting to commit a crime, and © so that when a crime does happen, at least one cop might be somewhere nearby.

 

Superheroes are different on all three points -- being a super is usually not their dayjob so they have limited time for their work, there aren't many of them so they can't be everywhere, and they can often get around the city faster than a cop, in some cases much faster.

 

Even the cops would probably tell you that if you can work on the basis of tips and investigations rather than random patrols, you'll probably get more crimes solved. Patrolling is about deterrence, not about stopping crimes in progress. If you're playing Superman and you can move about town fast enough to be useful from a deterrence point of view, then maybe patrolling makes sense... but I notice that even Supes spends most of the day at his day job, and keeps an eye/ear out for incoming news that gives him a clue where his services might be needed.

[radioKAOS]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Limited Power: Power Does Not Work to Destroy Plot Devices...

 

One of the characters in our game decided that destroying a wand that his powers sensed as being 'alive' was a good idea... yeah, ack.

 

Let's just say it 'was in character' so not that big of a deal... but it certainly screwed up QM's plans for the storyline... He recovered rather nicely though, and treated us to some great descriptions of the time travel incurred by destroying a sentient temporal device...

 

Of course my character lost 3 days worth of time, which is not so good when you have a 14yr old daughter and your alter ego is the top Archaeology Professor at U.B.C.....

[radioKAOS]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Players that can't keep IC info IC and OOC info OOC don't belong in my group.

 

I'll chastise them whether I'm GMing or playing.

 

And agreed on the asking the GM if I can make a roll to see if he knows something I think he might know.

 

lol, in Vampire I've actually asked the Storyteller if I could spend a Willpower point on behalf of my character because he was going to do something that I, as a player, didn't want him to do... yeah well, he did it anyway.

 

Damn you M.D. for selling your soul for power!!!

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Something to bear in mind is that a lot of players want to play Champions so they can get away from their day to day mundane lives. Why should they go to a game session and then spend time doing the sorts of things they're trying to get away from in real life?

[Mike W]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Only Useable by Players/Characters who have provided lots of conventient plot hooks for the GM.

 

I've got too many reluctant heroes in the group right now. Since most of them didn't want this, they have few hunteds. Don't really go looking for trouble or stick their nose into anything. Quite frankly, if they hadn't become friends with the guy who desperately wants to be a hero, I don't think either of them would still be wearing spandex right now. So to speak.

[Basil]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Something to bear in mind is that a lot of players want to play Champions so they can get away from their day to day mundane lives. Why should they go to a game session and then spend time doing the sorts of things they're trying to get away from in real life?

Doing that stuff in a gaming session? No.

 

Knowing what your character's been doing since the last gaming session? Yes!

 

Look at it this way: suppose the GM starts the session by telling all the players, "In the game world, it's now five days since the end of last session (where the heroes did this-and-that). Write down the highlights of what your character has been doing in the meantime." If a player has absolutely no idea -- not a glimmer of a hint of a concept -- of what his/her character does "off stage," that player has to get to work turning a pageful of numbers into a character. Mind you, I'm not talking about a 20-page narration; an outline is probably all anyone is interested in, or can reasonably expect.

 

I believe that's what (most) people have been saying. At least, it's what I'm trying to get at.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Hmmm...Social limitation: Knowing when to STOP role playing.

 

Whilst we all need enough to live and prosper, too much of anything will kill ya stone dead, and the same is true of ost games. IMO.

[archermoo]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Doing that stuff in a gaming session? No.

 

Knowing what your character's been doing since the last gaming session? Yes!

 

Look at it this way: suppose the GM starts the session by telling all the players, "In the game world, it's now five days since the end of last session (where the heroes did this-and-that). Write down the highlights of what your character has been doing in the meantime." If a player has absolutely no idea -- not a glimmer of a hint of a concept -- of what his/her character does "off stage," that player has to get to work turning a pageful of numbers into a character. Mind you, I'm not talking about a 20-page narration; an outline is probably all anyone is interested in, or can reasonably expect.

 

I believe that's what (most) people have been saying. At least, it's what I'm trying to get at.

 

I've actually played with someone that regularly had 20-50 page character backgrounds, and wouldn't have any problems coming up with 10-20 pages worth of "What have you been doing since last session". And in fact would regularly contact me when I was the Ref to talk about what their character was doing between sessions.

 

I'm not quite that bad, but I can't really have a lot of fun playing a character that is just a collection of numbers on a sheet. I have to know "who they are". If I can't answer most general "what would he/she do in this situation" type questions off the top of my head, I'm not done with the character yet.

 

And to further touch on the whole OOC/IC knowledge stuff, I regularly do the "roll to see if your/my character figures something out that I know" thing. And even though I have no problems seperating IC and OOC knowledge, I'd still rather not know things that my character doesn't know, since I'd like to be able to honestly come up with the answers myself, rather than be told them and have to rationalize (via rolls or whatever) the character figuring it out.

 

As far as limitation I'd like to see: Only if player realizes that the Ref isn't the enemy.

 

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Limitations You Would Like to See More Often

 

Only Useable by Players/Characters who have provided lots of conventient plot hooks for the GM.

 

I've got too many reluctant heroes in the group right now. Since most of them didn't want this, they have few hunteds. Don't really go looking for trouble or stick their nose into anything. Quite frankly, if they hadn't become friends with the guy who desperately wants to be a hero, I don't think either of them would still be wearing spandex right now. So to speak.

 

I played in a game where one player's charactrers always seemed to have this issue. It was a fantasy game. When we met his latest character in the local tavern, and one of the other characters spoke with him and felt him out, we quickly learned this was yet another "not interested in adventuring" character.

 

So the PC already in the group told us "no one here looks like a goiod prospect - they either have no real skills, or aren't interested",. The next day, we hired a crier to solicit applicants to join an adventuring company.

 

The look on the "reluctant hero" player's face was indescribable. The other player then told him, flat out, "I'm tired of having top twist the arm of evrey one of your characters. Our characters don't know yours are PC's, so we'll recruit from people interested in adventuring. You want to be part of the game, give your character a reason to be part of the game."

 

I believe his (quite religious) character had a player-instigated prophetic dream which told him to join the group.

 

I don't care if your character is a stay at home coward or a Superhero Wannabe. But if you want him to be in on the action, it's YOUR job to give him a reason to be in on the action.