How Often Do Your Characters' Complications/Disads Change In-Game?

[bigdamnhero]

How often do player characters' Complications change over the course of your games? Are they fairly static, or do they change and evolve over time? Do players spend points to buy them off, or do they swap them out for new ones?

 

My last campaign didn't see a lot of changes to the PCs' Comps, tho if we'd kept going after the Big Finale, all of them would've had to do extensive re-writing. We even had a couple heel-face turns there at the end. 

• One PC started with "Loyal to X", but after awhile she decided X was kindof an idiot. So she dropped that, replacing it with "Obsessed with destroying VIPER" which had developed in-game.

The campaign before that I don't think had any Comp change on the PCs, but it was a fairly short-lived game. Again, if we'd kept going after the Finale, there would've been significant changes.

 

The campaign before that ran for several years and saw several changes:

• One PC wound up deliberately revealing his SID to save his girlfriend's life (not something either of us had scripted), so he wound up with a Public ID for the rest of the game.
• The same PC started off with "Heavily In Debt" from student loans, but was able to pay those off and instead bought some Negative Rep based on a few events that had happened in game.
• He also swapped out DNPCs at one point, based on some changes in his private life.
• Another PC bought down some of the Naivety she started with, trading it for "In Love With [new NPC]" 
• Another PC developed Fear Of Snakes in-game, tho I can't remember what she traded out for it.
• The fourth PC started with some Susceptibilities & Vulnerabilities in his power armor, and over time was able to engineer them down to more manageable levels. Instead he picked up a DNPC girlfriend.

Just curious how common that is in other game groups?

[Durzan Malakim]

I have a player example of changing complications based on game events. My super hero Valiant died due to an arcane explosion while on a time traveling adventure. After my companions had me resurrected, I took that opportunity to change my complications to incorporate the new events:

 

 

Death Magic has Left its Mark on Me [Vulnerability]: Necromancy The Attack Is (Uncommon Vulnerability Multiplier 1 1/2 x STUN (x1)

5

 

 

I Live in the Phantom's Shadow [Psychological Complication]: Ambition to meet or exceed the Phantom's legacy. Follows code of conduct to preserve heroic reputation. Situation Is (Common Intensity Is Total

20

 

I figured that having died to death magic once, I would now be more susceptible to its effects. The new psychological limitation was the result of changing my timeline. Since we saved my bat-man-like family member he was alive to be my mentor and benefactor. I went from being a Bruce Wayne/Iron Man clone to Nightwing.

 

I like updating my complications as the game progresses, but so far I'm the only character in our group to do so... that I know of.

[Surrealone]

How often Complications/Disads change in a game is really a GM-driven factor.  On the flip side, the buy-down of Complications/Disads is really a player-driven factor.  Frequency will depend a lot on how often a group plays, how long they play, and how good the GM is at providing natural reasons for characters to change.

 

I've personally observed that it's common/normal/natural for Complications/Disads to change over the course of a game ... at least in games where the GM keeps it interesting.  I've also observed that buy-downs tend to happen mostly when a GM's game is so static that there isn't enough ebb/flow to it for a character to have natural changes in Complications/Disads resulting from the game's events.  (Thus, I consider buy-downs to be 'bad things', as they tend to be the result/symptom of a problem.) 

 

Frequency (i.e. how often) totally depends on the game.  Does the group meet once a week and play for 12 hour sessions under a good GM?  If so, then the changes are probably frequent/often (as we measure time here in the real world).  However, a game that meets once a month and plays only for 6 hours per session likely doesn't see nearly the same rate of natural change (as we measure time in the real world).  And then layer in a GM whose world doesn't have occurrences/consequences that naturally induce change in characters, and the rate slows substantially, yet again.  You get the idea.

[bigdamnhero]

Yeah, I'd definitely rather see Comps/Disads swapped out for new ones rather than buying them off. I feel like the latter is paying points to make a character less interesting.

[Christopher R Taylor]

It varies a lot, but I like it when it makes sense, adds to enjoyment, and fits the story of the game.  I don't mind people buying off complications, but it has to be a role play thing, not just "I'm tired of this"  Mathematically, its a lousy choice for point expenditure; you don't actually gain anything from it.