All heroes are NOT created equal

[Maccabe]

In many superhero generation systems there is a good chance that characters will not be of the same point/power level. Among these are; Marvel Superheroes, DC game system, and Villians and Vigilantees.

Has anyone here developed a system for variable power/point levels for Champions starting characters:help: ?

[Greywind]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

Honestly, it happens naturally. Take a character that dumps everything into powers against a character that dumps everything into skills against a character that dumps everything into stats against a character that balances characteristics/powers/skills and you can see a huge difference of effectiveness depending upon the norms for any given campaign.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

I've tried a setup where points are based on contributions to the campaign.

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20962

 

However, it's very easy in Champions for a group of characters to be the same points level, but of widely varying power levels. Depending on what the points are spent on, limitations, power frameworks, etc. you can have very different power (ie dice/defenses) level characters pretty easily.

 

The issue is getting the players to be OK with it and having a GM willing to put the extra work in on scenarios and villains in order to keep all the characters involved and useful. In my experience, when players propose a "varied power level campaign", they want to be the one playing Thor, not Falcon.

[ghost-angel]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

Points can have nothing to do with effectiveness, power levels or any of that. It's all in how you build the character in question.

 

That said I have been in games where point levels varied. It's best done by having each player pick an Archetype, not allow them to overlap with the others and have them build logical High Level Capabilities of these characters and see where it leads.

[OddHat]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

Well, a Doc Amazing and his Fabulous Five game works well; let one player (the best RPer, or the one who GMed last session, etc) play the 450 point Doc Amazing, while everyone else plays a 250 point member of the Fabulous Five.

 

One method for similar but "balanced" results I sometimes use is to enforce very clear role divisions. Create as many roles as you have players.

 

The Big Gun: No active point or DC limits, but no more than 15 total points in Skills and Perks.

 

The Street Monster: No stats over 25, all powers must be Dark Champion's style Super Skills, DC limit equal to 4DC less than the Powerhouse's standard attack, no science skills over 11-.

 

The Scientist: No stats over 25 unless boosted by a gadget, any power is OK with a focus, DC limit equal to 2DC less than the Powerhouse's standard attack, no street skills over 11-

 

With this in force, the characters will feel as if they're at very different power levels, even if they're built on equal points. It's just one step further than what naturally tends to occur in a point based game, in that you are explicitly asking your players to have their characters specialize in a single role.

 

There always the good old "You have 2d6x50" character points method. On average a player will have 350 points, but the range is from 100 to 600. I'd give extra XP to the guys at the bottom of that range.

 

EDIT: Others posted as I was typing this. So, what they said.

[McCoy]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

In my experience' date=' when players propose a "varied power level campaign", they want to be the one playing Thor, not Falcon.[/quote']

So true!

[Steve]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

In DH #3, there is an article on "Pointless Champions" which discusses how to run a campaign with characters of varying point totals. It sounds like it is exactly what you are looking for.

[BigJackBrass]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

I've never tried to adjust point totals for Champions, since I'm no more into creating deliberately unbalanced characters than I am deliberately balanced ones: I just try to make characters I'll enjoy playing.

 

One of the best features of the old Golden Heroes game, for me, was the way it introduced an interesting element of balance to an inherently unbalanced random power system. After creating your character you had to negotiate with the GM for any powers that seemed not to fit. This meant coming up with a good backstory and character concept, or else the GM could just veto whatever seemed unsuitable. Now, this kind of balance is different than point balancing, because it's all about creating a good story and a really solid character, not just a random - or perhaps even deliberately over-focussed - group of powers. Something similar might usefully be employed by HERO GMs to allow Thor and Falcon-types to play together.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

While quoting the d20 cognoscenti is taboo around here, I have a quote from Keith Baker that I'm rather fond of throwing around:

 

"What makes for good fiction doesn't always make for good gaming."

 

In the comics, the writer has total control over the characters, heroes AND villains, so it's easy for him to make sure everybody can contribute even in a team that consists of everyone from Thor to Speedball to the Fabulous Frog-Man.

 

In a RPG, it's a lot harder for the GM to throw situations at a group with such a varied power level because one bad prediction on PC actions can mean disaster. I tried this one; I created a 2d6 chart with power levels varying from 150 to 450 (in 4th Edition, 250 was 'standard'), and whenever I used a villain team, the heroes would inevitably NOT go after who I thought they would and it just got ugly.

 

I've also noticed, in long-running games, a tendency for people to 'defer' to higher-point characters. Whenever anything comes up, everybody looks at the character with 50 more XP than everybody else and tends to think of themselves as useless, even if they're perfectly suited for the task at hand.

[levi]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

The easiest way to do this IMHO, is to emphasize Disadvantages. If villains that exploit weaknesses were more common, characters would be less likely to take Max points in Disads. This would lead to more varied point totals for starting characters.

 

Just out of curiosity, how many of you design characters from the Disads up?

 

I know I almost always start with a character concept, then buy Characteristics then Skills then Talents / Perks then Powers and finally come up with the Disads to cover all of the points I've spent. Maybe if I started with the character concept, but went to the Disadvantages next I would be setting a point limit for myself to work toward instead of just going for the full 350 every time.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

In DH #3' date=' there is an article on "Pointless Champions" which discusses how to run a campaign with characters of varying point totals. It sounds like it is exactly what you are looking for.[/quote']

 

And there's a sizeable excerpt from Theron Bretz's excellent article as a free sample, here.

 

Amid lots of other good advice and examples, the key elements for a GM that the article brings up for this type of campaign are what Theron calls "schtick protection" - making sure that each character has at least one area of expertise or usefulness to the group that is his and his alone - and "spotlight management," or allotting each character time for his abilities or issues to take center stage.

[BlackSword]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

I have been tossing around the idea of evolving my current campaign world to a JSA style, where the main characters are legacy characters, and each player also makes up a few secondary characters. Missions would vary from a single Legacy (read High Point total) leading a team of recruits, to all of the Legacy characters being played for a serious threat.

 

I think the two problems with unequal characters are two-fold, first the GM has to ensure that the main character does not overshadow the rest. Second the players have to be the right mix to accept it and play along. I play in two groups, one is friends from college, one is a weekly gaming group. Each group has a unique feel to it, and for each group different types of games would work, or not work. A style of game I would play in one group would fail in another.

[Edsel]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

We have played a Marvel-based campaign in which the characters were not built with equal points. We built each character has closely as we could to our interpretation of how that character ought to work (power level of attacks, OCV, DCV, etc.) and paid no attention to the point costs what so ever. If a character needed 500 points to do his thing so be it.

 

In this case the GM, who was also our foremost Marvel expert, had the final say in how all of the characters were built. It worked out very well. Characters would have point values that ranged hundreds of points apart from each other but it all seemed to work out pretty well.

 

Decidedly there were about two or three general power levels of characters. For instance Thor, Iron Man, etc. were high-end characters, and people like Falcon, Tigra, etc. were low-end characters. It worked much better when characters of the same general power-level were played together. However there were some that could fit pretty nicely in just about any power level (Capt. America was one).

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

Hey, here's my two cents' worth on the subject:

 

In general, I set a point limit for the players and they always manage to come flush up against it. I give them a range of points and all the characters wind up against the point limit on the high end. I try to use random point levels and everyone moans and complains that their character got the shaft, even if the character has the most points on the team.

 

ONCE -- just once -- I would love to have a player with a concept and a design that doesn't keep an eye on a point limit, and yet be a reasonably balanced build and not some Ubermunchkin mental masterbation build. (This guy makes Supes look like a pantywaist!) I did the whole thing about setting suggested power levels and yadda-yadda-yadda and still always get these min/maxed creations for maximum combat effectiveness.

 

So now I make the characters and the players either like them or don't (though generally they do). Yeah, it is fun to have variable levels of supers mixed together, but most of the time, all of the players want to have the highest powered one. Currently, I have a group which is finally getting into the idea of being different and having different capabilities which compliment each other, rather than who can knock out Grond the fastest.

 

But it's taken over 20 years to get there. *sigh* Ah, don't mind me -- we're not gaming over the Thanksgiving weekend because of the whole "free meal if we can avoid throttling the annoying relations" thing.

 

I think I'm out of pennies now.

 

Matt

[Trebuchet]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

I've always figured that a good character concept is defined not so much by what he can do but by what he can't do. In other words, Captain Quick's player may be able to justify him vibrating through walls or possessing a 30 STR; but the player decides that just doesn't fit his concept for CQ even though he has the points available.

 

I see this approach most broken with Multipower-based characters; for whom 2 or 3 XP can suddenly justify and entirely new and seemingly unrelated Powers. Sophistry can find ways to justify or excuse almost anything; and I always appreciate those players who won't buy power X just because it would be handy (or at least would have been in the character's last fight).

[rjcurrie]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

The other thing to keep in mind is that the effectiveness of a character can also depend on the player playing it. For example, a player's own tactical abilities will have a big effect on the tactical effectiveness of the character as will the player's creativity in how he uses the character's powers. It can also depend on the focus of the campaign. If the campaign has a lot of investigative focus, then skill-based characters are more likely to excel in that aspect of that game than the combat monsters, but the combat monsters will shine when combat comes around.

 

For example, in one campaign I played in, the highly skilled and tactical Major Neil Dufferin, a "retired" secret agent with lots of skills and contacts and a few gadgets was played by a tactical and resourceful player who made the character shine. On the other hand, Shimmer, a walking VPP, was played by a player with little tactical sense and the character was way less effective than it could have been. Finally, there was Mr. Incredible (way before The Incredibles), who had a large multipower with a huge range of multi and ultra slots. Because the player who played him was great at managing the multipower, Mr. Incredible pretty much always had the right combination of powers available.

[Markdoc]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

While you can run games with characters of different points levels or power - and it can even work well for a while - those kinds of games don't seem to have staying power. Eventually the players who are second stringers get tired of it, even if they are good sports to start with.

 

Heck, it doesn't even work that well in the comics in the long run: you just need to look at the ascension of Batgod to see that there are limits to how long a mismatched team can survive before powergaming sets in.

 

cheers, Mark

[Tiree]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

Markdoc = I think you have hit something there.

 

I don't believe it really is the point total that is the problem. Otherwise people would of had problems in other games when rolling up stats and getting some crappy rolls.

 

What the problem really comes down to me, is people feeling like second stringers to someone else. Either a GM playing favoritism, players trying to take control of the game, or what have you. This is really the most un-fun thing to either GM or play with.

[massey]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

We've had some success with this. They key is that people need to enjoy playing their characters. If someone is playing Hawkeye, they need to really like Hawkeye. Gear some adventures around the "2nd stringers" skill sets and interests so that they get to do as much as the "1st stringers".

 

Thor may be stronger, but if the adventure is a mystery, then it's Hawkeye's detective skills that come in handy.

 

Also, don't focus on advancement. The game shouldn't be about awarding XPs. In fact, you might forego that entirely. The GM keeps track of all XPs and may periodically rewrite the PCs to add the experience (Hawkeye has really been using his detective skills lately, so a few points get dropped into that). If the characters don't have any glaring "need" categories (10 Ego, etc), then they needn't be in a huge hurry to advance. This is really only important because it makes the players focus on the adventure and the characters themselves, instead of on how their characters are going to become more powerful.

[Peregrine]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

We've had some success with this. They key is that people need to enjoy playing their characters. If someone is playing Hawkeye, they need to really like Hawkeye. Gear some adventures around the "2nd stringers" skill sets and interests so that they get to do as much as the "1st stringers".

 

Thor may be stronger, but if the adventure is a mystery, then it's Hawkeye's detective skills that come in handy.

 

Also, don't focus on advancement. The game shouldn't be about awarding XPs. In fact, you might forego that entirely. The GM keeps track of all XPs and may periodically rewrite the PCs to add the experience (Hawkeye has really been using his detective skills lately, so a few points get dropped into that). If the characters don't have any glaring "need" categories (10 Ego, etc), then they needn't be in a huge hurry to advance. This is really only important because it makes the players focus on the adventure and the characters themselves, instead of on how their characters are going to become more powerful.

I can definitely see how this could work, but with the following requirement: A given charater would have to be 'fully realized' at the start of the game, that is, have 90%+ of the breadth of abilities (powers, skills, etc.) appropriate to the character concept, so that the player doesn't have 'unfulfilled concept' waiting for enough XP to realize the character in mechanics as the character exists in the player's vision. This, too, means that point limits can't be rigidly enforced, and that varying power levels would have to express themselves in other ways - DC, DEF, CV, etc.

[incrdbil]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

 

"What makes for good fiction doesn't always make for good gaming."

 

.

 

How true. Every genre has areas where staying tru to genre is not to the benefit (and maybe to the harm) of the balance and enjoyment of the game. Let players play characters of different effectiveness if they choose to do s, but get them the same points. My observation of players leads that in most cases the less than effective character will sooner or later be replaced by another more robust character.

 

Letting players be of equal effectiveness, yet ignore point totals/active limits is a more difficult thing. With the choice crew, you maybe can pull it off. It seems most of the time though players ideas about equal effectiveness are a bit fanciful.

 

A group based on varying points and effectiveness is a tricky thing to manage--its very easy to see player resentment and feelings of favoritism rise up.

 

I recall trying to play the LOSH in DC..everyone was keen on Mon-El, Wildfire, Braniac 5, but no one was falling all over the place to be Bouncing Boy or Duo Damsel.

[megaplayboy]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

I think one player type tends to fixate on making sure everyone is roughly in the same ballpark re combat effectiveness, but is willing to tolerate much wider variances in "noncombat effectiveness". the other extreme is those who want everyone's place/role in the story/adventure to be roughly equally important, but for whom equal combat effectiveness isn't a must-have.

 

So, I'd say there are two challenges in an "unbalanced" campaign:

1. giving PCs equal time to shine out of combat

2. giving PCs the opportunity to be useful/useless in combat, regardless of point level.

 

One way to do this is to give the high-end PCs more disads and "achilles heels" than the low-end PCs. Basically, they're super-awesome, but there are a number of situations where they can be beaten much more easily, and their low-end counterparts have to come to the fore to bail them out. You can also narrow the range of their non-combat abilities(either due to their lack of skills or lack of interest), so that a highly skilled but less powerful character can achieve success not attainable by the powerhouse.

[Cancer]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

Much also depends on how much of a game is dedicated to combat. That's a meta-question, and one where it's possible wrangle ad infinitum.

[The Souljourner]

Re: All heroes are NOT created equal

 

I think the true test of equality is out-of-game time in the spotlight. If you rarely run combats, the combat monster is going to feel like a second stringer to the skill monkeys, and vice versa if you run combats all the time.

 

I think it's best to leave everyone's points equal. Invariably, if they aren't, one of the lower points guys is going to feel gypped.

 

Does anyone ever have enough points to perfectly stat out their character? I don't think so (or if they do, the concept is generally pretty narrow). That's why people bump up against the top of the point totals - they imagine their character as very strong, very durable, able to blast down foes, etc etc... and that all takes a lot of points... then they want the background skills... well, Dr. Awesome is a 5 time Ph.D. so he needs a ton of skills, probably money and a car.... etc etc. You can't get it all. You have to cut corners.... the game is built that way, and I think that's ok.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with those who say the same number of points can create characters with vastly different power potentials, and in general, it's probably fine, as long as the imbalance isn't too ridiculous, and the GM tries to give each player his time in the limelight.

 

-Nate