Points Equality

[Steve]

Heard at the start of a new game, "This is a Standard Hero campaign, 75 points plus 75 points in disads."

 

So everyone then proceeds to make up a character that conforms to those specifications. One of the assumptions that is made here is that all characters are equal, but oftentimes source literature (comic books and adventure novels) don't have this setup. Why do we do this? I can imagine howls of outrage at letting Timmy build his character concept on more points than Johnny's would cost, even if Johnny's really wouldn't be as expensive in points.

 

Do all gaming groups have point conformity? Have you ever played or run a campaign where characters of different point levels were involved? Did it work out?

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

To answer your first question: The reason we do this, is while in movies. TV Shows and literature, the comic relief is great, however in gaming, who wants to be Buffy's Xander? I mean in that group you have a Slayer, a Vampire, a powerful witch, a Demon, and Xander. No one's going to pick Xandar in that senario.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Points Equality

 

Heard at the start of a new game, "This is a Standard Hero campaign, 75 points plus 75 points in disads."

 

So everyone then proceeds to make up a character that conforms to those specifications. One of the assumptions that is made here is that all characters are equal, but oftentimes source literature (comic books and adventure novels) don't have this setup. Why do we do this? I can imagine howls of outrage at letting Timmy build his character concept on more points than Johnny's would cost, even if Johnny's really wouldn't be as expensive in points.

 

Do all gaming groups have point conformity? Have you ever played or run a campaign where characters of different point levels were involved? Did it work out?

 

I've done disparate point levels before. The idea has been in my head ever since Aaron Alston suggested it back in Lands of Mystery, and it can work well. Usually the way I handle it is to offer a set of starting levels for characters with built in metagame advantages or limitations based on starting point level.

 

To whit, and for example:

my big, Epic FH campaign is set up with ground rules for 4 starting character levels:

Hero: 75+75, may undergo retraining scenario in game to higher point level with GM's permission, obtains +1 extra experience per session and per plot arc up to 300 point level

Veteran Hero: 100+100 May undergo training as above. +1 bonus Xp per Arc up to 300 point level

Epic Hero:125+125 No special rules

Mythic Hero: 200+150 -1 Xp per session in perpetum, Character has a 0 point "Semi NPC/ Mobile plot device" disad and must be willing to assist the GM in advancing the plot. GM's permission only (This is for Gandalf types, mostly, or PC villains who are "forced" to work with the good guys, or similar archtypes)

[MitchellS]

Re: Points Equality

 

Do all gaming groups have point conformity? Have you ever played or run a campaign where characters of different point levels were involved? Did it work out?

In my current M&M game I told everyone to simply build to PL 10 and not worry about the point costs. I got back characters ranging from 86 to 211 points. It hasn't caused any problems for us.

 

When we were playing Champs I'd let the players have 280 points plus whatever they rolled on 2d6x10. That gave a range of 300-400 starting points. I've also has players only take 75 points of disads instead of the normal 150. It all depends on the players though. Some are more competitive then others and feel they must crunch every single point or else they can't win [they never learn that no matter how much you point-crunch you can't out-crunch the GM ].

[L. Marcus]

Re: Points Equality

 

The points are there for the players -- the GM does as he pleases.

[Steve]

Re: Points Equality

 

I've done disparate point levels before. The idea has been in my head ever since Aaron Alston suggested it back in Lands of Mystery, and it can work well. Usually the way I handle it is to offer a set of starting levels for characters with built in metagame advantages or limitations based on starting point level.

 

To whit, and for example:

my big, Epic FH campaign is set up with ground rules for 4 starting character levels:

Hero: 75+75, may undergo retraining scenario in game to higher point level with GM's permission, obtains +1 extra experience per session and per plot arc up to 300 point level

Veteran Hero: 100+100 May undergo training as above. +1 bonus Xp per Arc up to 300 point level

Epic Hero:125+125 No special rules

Mythic Hero: 200+150 -1 Xp per session in perpetum, Character has a 0 point "Semi NPC/ Mobile plot device" disad and must be willing to assist the GM in advancing the plot. GM's permission only (This is for Gandalf types, mostly, or PC villains who are "forced" to work with the good guys, or similar archtypes)

 

This is a cool idea. What percentage of your players opt for each type? Do you have any Mythic-level PCs?

 

Repped!

[feralucce]

Re: Points Equality

 

I wanna play xander... Dead serious...

[wylodmayer]

Re: Points Equality

 

To answer your first question: The reason we do this' date=' is while in movies. TV Shows and literature, the comic relief is great, however in gaming, who wants to be Buffy's Xander? I mean in that group you have a Slayer, a Vampire, a powerful witch, a Demon, and Xander. No one's going to pick Xandar in that senario.[/quote']

 

Well, my group is, I guess, a direct counterexample to this. In our last Buffy game (in the Buffy system), we had a Slayer, a Hero (about as powerful as the Slayer) and three White Hats (Xander and Giles types). Everyone had fun.

 

This has worked plenty of times in my games. For one, no one can do everything. The Slayer was a bad-a**, but without her Watcher, she didn't know who to stake. Even Xander had a function - he tied up the bad guys occasionally. And that's cool.

 

I mean, I've seen this happen in HERO games, even where people are built "on the same points." You get a player who has an inefficient build, or just a COMBAT inefficient build, and he winds up playing second fiddle in a lot of ways to the "tougher" heroes. But, hey, they can't be everywhere at once. I once played a character who was intentionally built on less points than everyone else, and I had a lot of fun playing the "lesser light" of our team. The roleplaying was great. I was a hero, just like the world shakers I ran with, even though I couldn't fly or move mountains or anything like that. I never made the headlines - I was always an "also present on the scene." I didn't have the merchandising deals. I didn't have my own cartoon show (I did have an action figure, though - the whole team did). But I did have my fans, of course; in this day and age, even home shopping network hosts have fansites (no, seriously). It was kind of cool.

 

I've never seen this as a problem, and in fact encouraged it in many of my games. It happens anyway no matter what. In HERO you can have an inefficient built. In other games, some character types are just naturally more powerful (the Gadgeteer in DC Heroes - Mayfair's version - wound up being more powerful than everyone else in the group by orders of magnitude). In games where not everyone started playing at the same time, I have no problem having the new guy bring in a starting character; in fact, most of my players prefer it that way (they feel like they really earned what they ended up with). In my Trek game, one guy is the Captain (he started as XO), and the rest, well, aren't. The way it goes.

 

I never have seen this as a problem. Maybe it's just my throwback to the days of AD&D and Traveller, where you simply didn't have a party that was all at the same power level to start with. It can be a lot of fun, if you ask me. Give me a White Hat anyday.

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

Well' date=' my group is, I guess, a direct counterexample to this. In our last Buffy game (in the Buffy system), we had a Slayer, a Hero (about as powerful as the Slayer) and three White Hats (Xander and Giles types). Everyone had fun.[/quote']

Xander is a very different type than Giles. Giles has Fencing, instructs Martial Arts, and has tons of Knowledge Skills. Xander only helps by accident. There is no character type for a Xander precisely because no one wants to play that type of character (or very few do).

[feralucce]

Re: Points Equality

 

See... there are some things about xander that you are missing

 

1) Xander has a mighty metric buttload of body... he takes some of the most severe beatings in the series...

 

2) Xander is LUCKY... VERY INCREDIBLY LUCKY... with all the stuff that is going on around him, he's managed to survive it ALL...

 

3) THEN... in hero terms... he picks up a follower... a demon....

 

4) he's a weridness nexus... giving him insight that no one else gets...

 

so... he, by himself... no so cool.. but with the follower and the subtle stuff thrown in... I like the character concept

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Points Equality

 

This is a cool idea. What percentage of your players opt for each type? Do you have any Mythic-level PCs?

 

Repped!

 

Thanks!

 

I had to kill the game when I moved away from my group, but when I've fired up the setting in the past I wound up with a pretty good mix of levels. Most players have played Veteran or Epic Heroes, with a couple per group opting for the low Hero level, several of whom took advantage of the retraining offer (I've always liked the whole "training montage" schtick). 3 mythic characters were made, 1 by myself as a "GMPC" in the event I got a chance to play (a disguised Loremaster for infodumps), 2 by my backup/alternate GM's in both games I used this with (An immortal Sidhe champion and a honorbound Chaos sorcerer very similar in feel to Gerrald Terrant from the True Night books).

[Dust Raven]

Re: Points Equality

 

To answer your first question: The reason we do this' date=' is while in movies. TV Shows and literature, the comic relief is great, however in gaming, who wants to be Buffy's Xander? I mean in that group you have a Slayer, a Vampire, a powerful witch, a Demon, and Xander. No one's going to pick Xandar in that senario.[/quote']

Xander rocks! And I have picked him, playing the board game, and won each time I've done so. And the only time I've lost when playing the villain in that game was to the player of Xander.

 

With feralucce's points taken into account, I don't think Xander is equal to the rest of the group. In fact there are some definite unequalness going on with power levels there.

 

And speaking of which (to get back on topic)... No I've never run nor played in a game that didn't care about keeping everyone's characters at around the same point level, unless there never were points to begin with. If the points didn't matter I'd never bother counting or assigning them.

[OddHat]

Re: Points Equality

 

I'd say that build disparity means as much or more than point disparity. Advantaged HA Multipower and ranged HKA guy is going to do more damage per phase on fewer (real) points than STR and RKA guy on the same (real) points. Summon Guy will squish them both if he has a turn to ramp up.

 

I have let players I trusted use disproportionately powerful builds in a campaign. I've also had one player show up so much more often than others that XP alone made the PC much tougher than the rest of the team. I once ran a campaign where one PC was clearly the Heroine and the others were her Sidekicks.

 

It can work, for a while, but I found I had to make an effort to give fair screen time to all the PCs. That's always a concern, but even more so when one PC is obviously more powerful than the rest of the team.

 

As to Xander, I wouldn't want to play him, but I've had a player or two who would.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Points Equality

 

Points are one of Hero's tools, and like all the others, you do not have to use them.

 

As OddHat says, you can build two characters on the same points and one can be much more effective than the other.

 

So long as each player is happy with the character - and you can often do that just by making sure that each one can do something better than any of the others - points shouldn't matter too much.

 

Bear in mind that most other games don't overtly balance characters, and whilst those are clearly inferior games , they don't spontaneously combust from all the friction it causes.

 

Having said that, points are a useful tool, and it is a difficult job to run a game where there is a large point discrepancy between characters.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Points Equality

 

Usefulness in a game shouldn't be solely dependent on combat anyway; and if the GM is doing his job properly it won't be. It is incumbent upon the GM to not only provide good combat scenarios for combat mavens but also to provide scenarios which will highlight characters who are not oriented towards combat. Personally, I view non-combat Skills as tools for the GM. When all the characters do is fight good, every problem looks like it should be solved with combat - "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I once ran a FH character who pretty much all he did was speak seven languages and have extensive Knowledge Skills. Despite being almost helpless in combat, that PC was always central to the group's success. Because he could read and/or speak all those languages, the group could often finesse its way out of problems rather than our only option being to fight (In one memorable session, we probably survived an encounter with a greater demon only because my PC spoke High Demonic and managed to amuse the demon with some witty repartee.) Similarly, in our current Dark Champions campaign one of the characters can directly interact and control computers and processors. Her combat effectiveness is minimal, but that character can also do things with computers that even our mainline Champions characters with 150+ more Character Points can't dream of doing.

 

If the players feel they all have to have the same number of CP to be effective, the GM is doing something wrong.

[wylodmayer]

Re: Points Equality

 

I'm certainly with Trebuchet on this one, but I'll even go one further. My earlier comments about point disparity may have focused on combat, but I'm completely down with characters who have unequal capacity across the board, and even "useless" characters like Xander. Toss the notion of a combat useless character who has a few special and unduplicated skills right out the window - I'm willing to play a totally superfluous character. Because being helpful and being necessary aren't the same thing.

 

Xander doesn't really have any skills the group can't do without, but he's always nice to have along. What if that Vampire he was keeping busy hadn't have been preoccupied? What if no one was there to give so-and-so a hand out of that pit? There's use in being just another warm body, especially when you're already outnumbered and fighting for the survival of the universe.

 

And, just as a note for Checkmate, Xander and Giles are built on exactly the same template - the White Hat - in the Buffy RPG. Giles may have a few more ranks in Gettin' Medieval and some knowledge skills, but they are considered the same character type, and they are - in theory - "balanced" with regards to each other.

[Vondy]

Re: Points Equality

 

Without further guidelines the assumption that equal points equates to equal abilities is often proven false. You can have very different character design philosophies, or even skill levels, that result in significant disparity. Also, the point that no one wants to be the sidekick is generally true in RPG groups.

[Spence]

Re: Points Equality

 

 

If the players feel they all have to have the same number of CP to be effective, the GM is doing something wrong.

 

Pretty much says it all. The only time I ever really had Points as a problem is with new to hero players. If they came from D&D or Palladium, their entire world is usually all about the points and jockeying for supremacy of power.

 

(I know that this doesn't apply to ALL players out there, maybe I'm a nut case magnet )

 

For me in a starter intro type game, I introduce the system with pre-built PC's I made myself, along the lines of a con game. Then the players write up their concept in plain language with no point calculations. I build it for them using the point limit as a target, not a hard ceiling, with a few tween session rebuilds if the build didn't hit the concept.

 

Usually after a few sessions, the players "grok" what is happening and then it really isn't than much of a problem. I give them the point level guide and they build their PC's. Some people still try to squeeze every single umph from every possible point, but most just build the concept. In the end it really has never been that much of a problem. Not anymore than when a new D&D player brings in the 1st level PC in a party that averages 3rd level.

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

Usefulness in a game shouldn't be solely dependent on combat anyway; and if the GM is doing his job properly it won't be. It is incumbent upon the GM to not only provide good combat scenarios for combat mavens but also to provide scenarios which will highlight characters who are not oriented towards combat. Personally, I view non-combat Skills as tools for the GM. When all the characters do is fight good, every problem looks like it should be solved with combat - "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I once ran a FH character who pretty much all he did was speak seven languages and have extensive Knowledge Skills. Despite being almost helpless in combat, that PC was always central to the group's success. Because he could read and/or speak all those languages, the group could often finesse its way out of problems rather than our only option being to fight (In one memorable session, we probably survived an encounter with a greater demon only because my PC spoke High Demonic and managed to amuse the demon with some witty repartee.) Similarly, in our current Dark Champions campaign one of the characters can directly interact and control computers and processors. Her combat effectiveness is minimal, but that character can also do things with computers that even our mainline Champions characters with 150+ more Character Points can't dream of doing.

 

If the players feel they all have to have the same number of CP to be effective, the GM is doing something wrong.

You still need points to pay for non-combat skills too. I mean if you only have 10 points to spend, and everyone else has a 100 it doesn't matter if you spend all 10 points on non-combat skills, you're still not going to be as useful as everyone else. I can spend 80 points on combat and still have 2x the non-combat skills you have.

 

While I agree non-combat skills are important, and the points don't have to be exact, if the disparity is too great, people will start feeling useless or the GM will have to use the same themes over and over: "Oh look, the villian is in a winery again. Well Steve could only afford KS:Wineries, so we need to make him feel useful"

 

As far as the Xander example: Sure I'll give you luck and Body (I've never seen him have any "insight" the rest didn't have), but I don't consider Anya a follower, she's a seperate PC. She's had her own adventures without Xander, and rarely does what he wants her to do.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Points Equality

 

You still need points to pay for non-combat skills too. I mean if you only have 10 points to spend, and everyone else has a 100 it doesn't matter if you spend all 10 points on non-combat skills, you're still not going to be as useful as everyone else. I can spend 80 points on combat and still have 2x the non-combat skills you have.

 

While I agree non-combat skills are important, and the points don't have to be exact, if the disparity is too great, people will start feeling useless or the GM will have to use the same themes over and over: "Oh look, the villian is in a winery again. Well Steve could only afford KS:Wineries, so we need to make him feel useful"

 

As far as the Xander example: Sure I'll give you luck and Body (I've never seen him have any "insight" the rest didn't have), but I don't consider Anya a follower, she's a seperate PC. She's had her own adventures without Xander, and rarely does what he wants her to do.

My point was that Character Points are not, nor should they be, the sole arbiter of effectiveness in a Hero game. Concept has some bearing, as does the player running the character and the skill of the GM. I have seen combat-oriented characters built with high SPD and DEX who were run by hesitant players accomplish almost nothing, and I have seen characters with low DEX and SPD and minimal combat skills but an aggressive and innovative player practically dominate a battle.

 

Points are only a tool. Like art, the quality of the end product will generally depend far more on the abilities of the user than the tools which are available.

[casualplayer]

Re: Points Equality

 

See my sig.

 

Points are just a meta-fiction that allows some relative comparison between characters, but if taken too seriously can really hamper the game.

 

Count me as one of those who would happily play Xander, but I like playing the underpowered jester and designated hostage.

[feralucce]

Re: Points Equality

 

I personally really enjoy being the weirdness magnet... I am always in the middle of the action

[Trebuchet]

Re: Points Equality

 

Points are just a meta-fiction that allows some relative comparison between characters' date=' but if taken too seriously can really hamper the game.[/quote']QFT.

[GAZZA]

Re: Points Equality

 

I once ran a PBeM Champions game where there were no points limits (but I still had campaign guidelines); basically you could build whatever you liked as long as you stuck to a certain DC level and so on. I was wondering if anyone would pop up with a cosmic VPP and tricked out stats, but nobody did. Only lasted a couple of sessions, but that had nothing to do with the points situation.

 

I've also had a desire to run a type of Hero game for a while. The idea is that of the "Hero's Journey". I was going to allow the players to select one of the following options:

• "Novice". Start on 100 base points plus up to 100 points of disadvantages. Earn XP at 5 times the normal rate until you reach "Master" level.
  
• "Master". Start on 250 base points plus up to 50 points of disadvantages. Earn XP as normal until you reach the "Veteran" level.
  
• "Veteran". Start on 400 base points plus up to 50 points of disadvantages. However, you now lose experience points at 5 times the rate that you'd normally gain them. (For example, you might lower the DC of an attack, or you might apply an Activation Roll to it, or whatever).

The idea being that you could have a party consisting of Luke, Han, and Obi-Wan at the start of the adventure.

 

I've never actually run it, though, because my players (cynically, but accurately) pointed out that they might as well play Veterans, with the likelihood that the campaign would end before they lost enough to fall back to "Master" level or below. Which misses the point, but that's my lovable powergaming buddies.

[feralucce]

Re: Points Equality

 

So GAZZA... if I played in something like that...start out as a veteran... lose points till I am master level... do I start acruing them at the master level or wither away?