Points Equality

[GAZZA]

Re: Points Equality

 

I'm not man enough to suck that hard.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Points Equality

 

No man is. That's why industrial-strenght vacuum pumps exist.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Points Equality

 

Sorry, anal-retentive psych lim just kicked in.

 

"A New Hope" was Episode IV. Yes, Lucus started with the 4th episode. Dunno why. I guess way back then he realized the first 3 would suck and skipped them.

As long as we're being anal retentive... it's Greedo, not Greebo

[casualplayer]

Re: Points Equality

 

Hey, guys, I've been watching the first two seasons of Buffy again (watched intermittently when they first aired) and Xander occasionally kicked some butt. Angel got his arse kicked more than Xander did, the big emo cradle-robbing wienie.

[zornwil]

Re: Points Equality

 

I disagree. He is sometimes allowed to have what he needs to save the world because it's funny. What makes it funny? The totally useless guy saves the world. If he was even as remotely competent as some of you claim' date=' it would totally lose the effect.[/quote']

 

Wow - I so disagree with you on this that we are clearly coming from completely different places.

 

In my view, Xander is the human character, the everyman, the "us," the "if we were with Buffy, here's how we might contribute." At times, surely, he is a comedic character, but I don't see him as EVER being 'totally useless" or funny because "the useless guy saved the day." I feel the bottom line of Xander was that he could save the day because he has more humanitas than any of the other characters. He is the antithesis of Nietzche's dragon-slaying superman, he avoids becoming a dragon by not battling them on their terms - because he can't. He gets rougher, he goes through bad times (losing an eye surely sucks), but he retains something that the other characters, through the aging process, lose, something very special that by the end of the series Buffy has long lost, Willow has not-so-recently-lost, and that Giles struggles at best to retain, that element of humanity and community.

 

The whole point of the Zeppo episode was that, while played for some laughs, that people like Xander make this world go round on a more regular basis than the epic struggles and self-importance of Buffy and her powered followers. Xander is all the more noble for struggling through it and not giving up, however close he comes, despite his lack of ability and prowess - a lack that you and I and 99.9999% of our species shares.

 

Anyway, I am ranting, but while Xander is not a Christ figure or the major protagonist, he is by no means whatsoever comic relief. He is not an ideal RPG character more for the lack of power and specialization and therefore the lesser spotlight potential, but he is still a viable PC, as witnessed by people here - and frankly I think you too easily dismiss that.

 

Well, I guess we're all entitled to fan-boy moments... (referring to myself in terms of my zealous defense, though I do not think that on the whole my enjoyment of the Xander character is creating a false point; Xander is very much the sympathetic character in the crowd, arguably the only one whom we can really identify with).

 

As to the original question, Lemming ran a game that had no specific points equality and it worked quite well. He did have a range of points that were recommended, and there was some rework of characters, but only on a small scale, just tweaking a few abilities. I think the points in general are +/- 25% in effect on the whole, meaning that a 400 point and a 300 point character may easily be equal (the 400 point character may be no more effective than a 300 point character quite easily, even without assuming terribly deficient design on the part of the 400 point character) or may effectively be like comparing a fully-efficient and non-munchkin 500 point character to a 225 point character.

 

That said, they're still a useful yardstick and I have not yet started a campaign without using the same points parity for everyone.

 

I think the biggest issue is the level of design efficiency each player can achieve. Some players are great at it, others suck, and that alone creates disparities. A GM can only do so much to correct that, as some of it isn't even points but just the particular abilities in play; I think group design helps, but that requires strong trust and cooperation and openness among the players, to a degree where people need to not be thin-skinned about statements such as "your character seems like he'll be a lot more useful than the rest of ours, so you should change something here...".

[zornwil]

Re: Points Equality

 

? I thought he WAS a DNPC??

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that we've never actually watched the show.....

I think he falls into the class of character we can identify who is both a DNPC and a Follower. In some fictions, the entire team around the major protagonist qualifies as both!

[GAZZA]

Re: Points Equality

 

I'm kind of torn here.

 

On the one hand I absolutely agree that you can have a fun game where not all the PCs are equally powerful ("points equality" or otherwise; someone who spends 350 points on Knowledge Skills is not going to be the equal in combat of someone with a 70d6 Energy Blast).

 

On the other hand Xander is like Captain America in the Avengers with Thor as a team mate.. Put them in the hands of an author and it all works out fine, because the author will make sure that they get the appropriate amount of the spotlight. But make them PCs, and you face the problem of "everything you can do I can do better" which players are typically more likely to exploit than authors are.

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

Wow - I so disagree with you on this that we are clearly coming from completely different places.

 

In my view, Xander is the human character, the everyman, the "us," the "if we were with Buffy, here's how we might contribute."

Right and we all play heroic role-playing games because we LIKE to be AVERAGE GUY MAN!

 

So no I absolutely agree with your assessment of Xander, and it only strengthens my position: No one wants to play Xander.

[zornwil]

Re: Points Equality

 

Right and we all play heroic role-playing games because we LIKE to be AVERAGE GUY MAN!

 

So no I absolutely agree with your assessment of Xander, and it only strengthens my position: No one wants to play Xander.

That's still got nothing to do with your core assessment of the character.

 

Nor do I think anything I said obviates my bottom line take on him as an RPG character - "He is not an ideal RPG character more for the lack of power and specialization and therefore the lesser spotlight potential, but he is still a viable PC, as witnessed by people here - and frankly I think you too easily dismiss that. "

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Points Equality

 

I've said it before - when I hear players suggest wanting to do a "varied power level" game, the ones proposing it want to play Thor, not Falcon.

 

If a player really wants to make a varied power level game, it's amazingly simple.

 

Here's the secret.

 

Build a character less powerful than the others.

 

Ta-da, instant power level variation.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Points Equality

 

I've said it before - when I hear players suggest wanting to do a "varied power level" game, the ones proposing it want to play Thor, not Falcon.

 

If a player really wants to make a varied power level game, it's amazingly simple.

 

Here's the secret.

 

Build a character less powerful than the others.

 

Ta-da, instant power level variation.

 

I tried this in the last champions game I played in. I made a rather high skill/low powered martial-brick. Unfortunately, most of the group was new to HERO and I was helping both the players and the GM (who was new to 5th edition) we ended up with an unreliable munchkin in our midst. The player did not want my help with his character but still ended up the most powerful. I was quite OK with that because I didn't want to be the point man. However, since the player managed to miss every game session that the GM wrote to his character's power level it fell upon me as the brick and player with the most system knowledge to take his place. It really sucked because I got trounced. We ended up kicking out the player and I traded out the martial-brick (Titanium Chef) for a character that could take center stage if necessary (Hyper-Man). We had a good run after that until the GM got burnt out. We may return to that campaign someday .

[Maccabe]

Re: Points Equality

 

So far as I know HERO is the only system where everyone is (points) equal.

I've seen DC comics RPG give out random creation points for diffferent backgrounds. Marvel stats and powers aren't always equal among characters, neither is Villians and Vigilantes.

With experienced players variable starting values would work just fine as it takes some skill to handle such diversity beginners should start off equal to prevent problems later.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Points Equality

 

So far as I know HERO is the only system where everyone is (points) equal.

I've seen DC comics RPG give out random creation points for diffferent backgrounds. Marvel stats and powers aren't always equal among characters, neither is Villians and Vigilantes.

 

Random character generation is, in my view, an "old school RPG" concept. If you roll a great character, you get to be more powerful. If you roll less power, limp along and try to keep up.

 

Even the venerable D&D franchise has shifted, with the 3.0 point buy system for stats becoming more and more the standard.

 

As noted above, many players asking for variable power levels are looking to play the above average character, not average or below average. How many players can remember a game where everyone rolled their characters together, and you rolled up one character, took what you got and played, as oposed to rolling several characters until one of "acceptable" power emerged?

[MitchellS]

Re: Points Equality

 

I think it's more to do with the fact that many concepts don't fit within a 350 pts even if they're not exceptionally powerful. Some things can be incredibly expensive to build in Hero [a versatile shapeshifter using a vpp is looking at needing over a 200 pt power just to cover the normal ranges of mouse to elephant that Beast Boy/Changling covers, and that doesn't include the exotics like dinosaurs that he uses]. A Superman clone could drop 75-100 pts into enhanced senses even if he doesn't want to have more then a 60 str and 30 pd/ed.

 

Power equality and points equality are really two different things.

[Greywind]

Re: Points Equality

 

Random character generation is, in my view, an "old school RPG" concept. If you roll a great character, you get to be more powerful. If you roll less power, limp along and try to keep up.

 

Even the venerable D&D franchise has shifted, with the 3.0 point buy system for stats becoming more and more the standard.

 

As noted above, many players asking for variable power levels are looking to play the above average character, not average or below average. How many players can remember a game where everyone rolled their characters together, and you rolled up one character, took what you got and played, as oposed to rolling several characters until one of "acceptable" power emerged?

Nobody bothered to look at the role-playing aspects of the "challenged" character stats.

 

Define "average" when bell-curve shifts to the high end of the spectrum...

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Points Equality

 

Nobody bothered to look at the role-playing aspects of the "challenged" character stats.

 

Define "average" when bell-curve shifts to the high end of the spectrum...

 

How often did you see a D&D character, as an example, under any eduition with stats ranging from 5 to 12? He's challenged. He's also not played, because most players are looking to play a Powerful Hero, and those stats just don't fill the bill.

 

D&D at its worst in this regard? A fighter with a 17 STR viewed as being quite weak, because they almost all had an 18 percentile STR.

[Greywind]

Re: Points Equality

 

I often played the characters that had low stats.

 

It isn't about the car you drive around in. It's about the journey to the destination.

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

That's still got nothing to do with your core assessment of the character.

 

Nor do I think anything I said obviates my bottom line take on him as an RPG character - "He is not an ideal RPG character more for the lack of power and specialization and therefore the lesser spotlight potential, but he is still a viable PC, as witnessed by people here - and frankly I think you too easily dismiss that. "

My core assessment is irrelevant to the discussion. Stop getting hung up on the example, and comment on the issue.

 

Look at what people are saying why they would play Xander:

 

1. His personality. I can role-play a 10,000000000000000 point character with Xander's personality just as easily as a -10 point character with Xander's personality.

 

2. Jack-of-All-Trades. Well in order to give him all the skills and abilities people are attributing to him, he is no longer the lower point character.

 

And just to support my case even more: You do realize the actor that played Xander, didn't want to play Xander either. He started complaining about how much lower powered he was than everyone, so they gave him Army Man and things like that.

 

Just to make sure we don't get hung up on one example, let me clarify this (again): Comic relief is great in a TV or a book, no one wants to play the comic relief character.

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

I often played the characters that had low stats.

 

It isn't about the car you drive around in. It's about the journey to the destination.

And that's great, but when you're the third wheel on that journey, it isn't a whole lot of fun. And, unless you're still talking about D&D, I'm not just talking about Stats. How many times have you been the 150pt Normal in a group of 350 Supers? I'd venture to say never, or if you had it wasn't for very long. It just isn't fun.

[Greywind]

Re: Points Equality

 

Fun is what you make of it.

[zornwil]

Re: Points Equality

 

My core assessment is irrelevant to the discussion. Stop getting hung up on the example, and comment on the issue.

 

Look at what people are saying why they would play Xander:

 

1. His personality. I can role-play a 10,000000000000000 point character with Xander's personality just as easily as a -10 point character with Xander's personality.

 

2. Jack-of-All-Trades. Well in order to give him all the skills and abilities people are attributing to him, he is no longer the lower point character.

 

And just to support my case even more: You do realize the actor that played Xander, didn't want to play Xander either. He started complaining about how much lower powered he was than everyone, so they gave him Army Man and things like that.

 

Just to make sure we don't get hung up on one example, let me clarify this (again): Comic relief is great in a TV or a book, no one wants to play the comic relief character.

I'm not hung up on it. I still say you are wrong - and part of this is witnessed by people who SAY THEY HAVE DONE THIS as well as the fact that you keep throwing out "comic relief" where that has nothing intrinsically to do with being under-powered, even if it may be more often than not how such is played.

[zornwil]

Re: Points Equality

 

And that's great' date=' but when you're the third wheel on that journey, it isn't a whole lot of fun.[/quote']

 

I'm not sure why you feel you can speak for others on that. This is a very gamist kind of stance, a way of saying that how well you dominate a situation mechanically/in conflict is a big part of the definition of fun. For some people, fun is simply being a particular character - perhaps one whose storyline is about being the third wheel.

 

And, unless you're still talking about D&D, I'm not just talking about Stats. How many times have you been the 150pt Normal in a group of 350 Supers? I'd venture to say never, or if you had it wasn't for very long. It just isn't fun.

 

On a side note, I do have to say at the risk of your ascribing it to being "hung up," but as you are the one mentioning it and using it, as to Xander complaining and being given army guy and other abilities, then you need to be clear on which Xander you mean so we can all work from the same definition.

[Checkmate]

Re: Points Equality

 

I still say you are wrong - and part of this is witnessed by people who SAY THEY HAVE DONE THIS as well as the fact that you keep throwing out "comic relief" where that has nothing intrinsically to do with being under-powered' date=' even if it may be more often than not how such is played.[/quote']

If you go to a Massive Multiplayer Online Game forum, and ask who has ever bought gold on ebay, all 100,000 people that play that game will sound off with a resounding "I'd never do that, it's immoral", and yet the companies that sell this virtual money for real money make MILLIONS every year. Weird huh, since everyone on the forums says they'd never do it?

 

My point is there is a thing I call Cyber-Ethics that happens on an internet forum. Everyone can be as morally pure as they want to be, because there are no actions behind it. No way to prove or disprove what they say is true. It is the shinning beacon of goodness to say that point don't matter, it's the experience of the game, it's the role-playing, blah, blah, blah. Personally I think it's a load of crap. Would those same people play poker with 4 cards instead of 5? Would they play Monopoly only collecting $50 at Go while everyone else gets $200? Regardless of the nature of the game, people want things to be fair. I won't go as far as say people are lying, but they'd never convince me.

 

I also think some people are misinterpreting the term "underpowered". Some are equating power to combat effectiveness, and I assure you that's not what I'm talking about. It's about usefulness. In (almost?) all cases a 150pt character is going to be pretty useless in a part of 350pt characters. So just because you took NCM in a world of Supers, that doesn't make you "underpowered".

 

As far as "comic relief", I'll get to that in a minute.

I'm not sure why you feel you can speak for others on that.

I don't feel the need to write "In my opinion" after everything I post. Since it's pretty obvious that what I said can in no way be proven as an absolute fact, this is obviously just my opinion

This is a very gamist kind of stance' date=' a way of saying that how well you dominate a situation mechanically/in conflict is a big part of the definition of fun. For some people, fun is simply being a particular character - perhaps one whose storyline is about being the third wheel.[/quote']I disagree. As I've said, I can role-play the third wheel as a 10,000 pt character just as easily as role-playing the third wheel on a -10 pt character. If a player feels his character is useless in almost every mechanical situation, it's not going to be fun for that character. If there's always someone who can do whatever that character can do better, it's not going to be fun for that character (do I have explicitly state "In my opinion" here?)

On a side note' date=' I do have to say at the risk of your ascribing it to being "hung up," but as you are the one mentioning it and using it, as to Xander complaining and being given army guy and other abilities, then you need to be clear on which Xander you mean so we can all work from the same definition.[/quote']

*sigh* It doesn't matter! I'm talking about the CONCEPT of Xander. What's his concept? He's the underpowered NORMAL in a party full of supers. I'm calling this concept comic relief, because that was his purpose in the show. So when I say "No one wants to be Xander" or "No one wants to be the Comic Relief" what I'm really saying is "No one wants to be the underpowered, unuseful, normal in a game with all supers."

[pizzini3000]

Re: Points Equality

 

I'm throw in my opinion on the subject overall. I'll have to use D&D examples, because i don't have my HERO system book yet.

 

While it is not the majority of people that want to play those "comic relief" character, there are enough of them that bring up that kind of player/character in a game. When I run games in D&D, I always choose the Point Buy option, rather than rolling for stats. I did this mainly to keep people from complaining about others in the group with way better stats and/or "outshining" them. I have never had a player complain that his stats were too high.

 

It's because you don't need high stats to role play, that you can ignore high stats as well as make do with the low ones. I think a theme that I've seen in a lot of anime fits this situation well. That theme is natural talent versus hard work. High stats could be considered to be that natural talent. People with high talent don't excel in what they are talented with if they don't make an effort. To role play that comic relief, all one would have to do is not make an effort towards something they'd have natural talent in.

 

If a player, for some reason, demanded to have low stats, I would allow them on some of the following conditions: they must not use their disability to hog the spotlight from the other players, they must not interrupt game flow constantly, and the other players must agree to having such a comic relief in the party.

 

I hope I contributed well.

[Greywind]

Re: Points Equality

 

You need a base line for comparison. Stick with one system if you want to talk gaming.

 

As for whether or not I'm lying, personally I don't really care what you think.

 

I play to socialize/spend time with friends. You get a good group together, the system you play doesn't really matter.

 

Go with D&D, 1st: had a dwarf fighter. Good STR. Good CON. DEX was an 8 and his CHA was a 7. One of the most interesting characters I ever played. Why was his DEX low? Decided that he was extremely uncoordinated. This wasn't played for comedy. It was an after effect of a lousy stat roll. He never used a ranged weapon, until he had to, to save the party. Heroes aren't made. They get backed into a corner.

 

You want to discuss HERO, well, if there is a wide gap in baseline stats, such as SPD, you need to look at the guy that built the SPD 2 Martial Artist and try to figure out why he didn't bother bumping his SPD. A system like this, where you get to decide how the character comes out, there needs to be a group discussion prior to sitting down to play, to figure out who is doing what kind of character, what the character's place is going to be in the group, what the low end stat point is going to be and what the high end stat is going to be. And if the players decide on too wide of a gap, where the slowest character would pretty much feel useless, then the GM needs to pipe in and either cap the high end or force the low up higher.

 

There is no solo act in a group game.