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The Arms Race Must End


Territan

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You can still let the players be "successful" (as in, they aren't mad when they leave the gaming table), but don't allow them to achieve complete victory because they don't have the right skills.  The main villain gets away because nobody knows how to track him, or the players have to spend 10 minutes blasting through the security door because nobody knows how to hotwire the system.  Skills can allow players to bypass obstacles and defeat villain plots more easily.

 

I used to be kind of a munchkin player.  The only skills my characters would take were Breakfall and combat skill levels.  I started taking more skills when the GM started asking for skill rolls.  "Do you have Systems Operation?"  "No."  "Oh, okay then.  You probably need that to send the message from the communications tower."

 

I'd say bring up situations in the game where skills are needed.  You might even give them the option to succeed anyway, and let them pre-spend XP.  "You can hack into the villain's computer, but your next 3 XP will go into Computer Programming.  Do you want to do that?"  That may be the best option.  It sounds like your players are really enjoying the game, and they like their characters, so you don't want to screw that up.  

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If everyone is enjoying themselves, then there's no need to change things, but I think the key is to encourage the players into realizing that skills are powerful and useful as well.  Not to railroad them or punish them, but to help them understand how great skills can be, and how they make a character more than a set of powers.

 

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3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

If everyone is enjoying themselves, then there's no need to change things, but I think the key is to encourage the players into realizing that skills are powerful and useful as well.  Not to railroad them or punish them, but to help them understand how great skills can be, and how they make a character more than a set of powers.

 

 

With great skills come great gameplay.

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The challenge is showing that skills have use. My Champions group is pretty good about rounding out their skills lists, but I try to make their skills worth the points.

 

For example, one of their more interesting synergies with the Teamwork skill that everyone has now is the number of languages the team has available to them for communication, and a few of them will use less common languages to communicate battle plans with each other instead of using code words. Some of them know Latin, another knows Hebrew and one has full-on Universal Translator.

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I think teamwork is over priced for what it gives you and what people are willing to spend xps on, where it makes the most sense.  We've trained together a lot in the last few months of fighting crime, and now we have teamwork!  To me it should be a 1 point familiarity: we work well together.  That's really all its worth.

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You could always make it so that they have nearly continuous fun unleashing power on the henchmen/villains the villain behind the scenes sends their way, but are continuously missing him or her because finding him or her requires a variety of skills they haven't tried. That way, you can occasionally have the villain leave smug messages asking when they plan on stopping him.

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On 3/23/2018 at 11:55 AM, Territan said:

How do I stop this? Throwing tougher opposition at them merely validates their decision to power up. I prefer to think I run a fairly heavy skill- and interaction-based game, but the one time a skill-based character nearly "got away with it," the gnashing of teeth and threats to ragequit the investigation were impressive indeed. (Maybe that's the way I need to go?)

You could try something like this

 

 

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The Guilt Complex is a campaign ending hosejob. You might be better off just explaining the issue and ending the campaign without alienating your players.

 

Personally, I dislike characters with massive skill lists, both to play and GM. The basics are another story. I also tend to be fairly permissive in terms of letting characters do stuff.

 

In terms of the original post, it looks like the only one not enjoying the game is the GM. That's not something that can be dealt with by griefing the other players.

 

Without more details it's hard to know what the issue is. I wonder, though, how much experience is the GM giving out? It takes quite a bit to change characters fast enough for much of an "arms race" to occur.

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The Guilt Complex is horsecrap.  The only thing it will do is cause arguments at the table, and people leaving.  The guy who wrote it obviously completely misunderstands the law.  If a villain is killed in the middle of a robbery, that's just too damn bad for him.

 

A bunch of villains who go berserk in combat?  Cops aren't arresting the hero who accidentally kills the psychotic villain.

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20 hours ago, assault said:

Without more details it's hard to know what the issue is. I wonder, though, how much experience is the GM giving out? It takes quite a bit to change characters fast enough for much of an "arms race" to occur.

 

According to the OP:

 

On 3/23/2018 at 12:55 PM, Territan said:

Additional point of information: This game has gone on for a while now, so some of these characters have crested 500 points (400+100XP).

 

No detail on exactly how long "a while now" is.  However, depending on how often a game is run (e.g. every week, vs. twice a month or less), it may not take all that long to accumulate 100 XP.  Heck, at 2 XP a session, playing weekly, you'd hit 100 XP within a year.

 

I've been running my Champions campaign for three years, and the PCs in my game have accumulated 159 XP.  I count myself as a fairly generous GM, giving out an average 3 XP a session.  (While we generally play every week, we alternate between my Champions game and another GM's D&D game.

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Guilt Complex is fine, but you have to have the right kind of players who will learn from it and understand instead of become frustrated or bloodthirsty as a result.  Some (see responses above) will feel betrayed and angry.  Others will become thoughtful or amused.  You have to read your players and know them well.

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21 hours ago, massey said:

The Guilt Complex is horsecrap.  The only thing it will do is cause arguments at the table, and people leaving.  The guy who wrote it obviously completely misunderstands the law.  If a villain is killed in the middle of a robbery, that's just too damn bad for him.

 

A bunch of villains who go berserk in combat?  Cops aren't arresting the hero who accidentally kills the psychotic villain.

 

Because, of course, the source material always sticks strictly to how the law actually works.  And no one found innocent of a crime has ever faced negative press suggesting his or her actions were in any way wrong, much less that they really were guilty.

 

Don't the police investigate deaths in the course of their own policing activities, even when the deceased was in the middle of committing a crime?

 

Ask Bernie Goetz whether using lethal force to defend oneself from an alleged crime is viewed by the law as "too damned bad" for the criminals (who, I note, were not killed).  Ask Gerald Stanley what happens when lethal force applied against someone on your property attempting to commit a crime results in a fatality.  Even being ultimately found "not guilty" does not mean "hey, no big deal".

 

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Iirc Gilt Complex was only to be used on blood thirsty Heroes. It was to teach them restraint. (Now the question on how well it would work is a different story).

 

The Gilt Complex was, at least as I read it, a very tongue in cheek article with an underlying theme of "can we have a chat and get everyone on the same page regarding how the game will play?"

 

I do find I question why a Code vs Killing is worth significant complication points if every credible threat the Heroes may face can simply be blasted full power on the expectation they will all have enough defenses to avoid any serious injury.  If that is the world the characters live in, how commonly does that Code actually restrict them?  If the game features opponents of various power levels, many of whom cannot be expected to just shrug off a full-power campaign standard DC Blast or KA, then restraint becomes much more relevant in the game.

 

It doesn't have to be the Gilt Complex.  What about a behind the scenes Machiavellian mastermind who sets the heroes up to fight a couple of inconclusive battles against a villain team, then sends out normal dressed in similar costumes (even Mind Controlled or duped innocents) to be targeted by the heroes, who "catch them by surprise"?  Or maybe he just set them up against villains whose powers (which he engineered) are specifically designed to fail at an inopportune moment - what if the Gilt Complex's defenses work fine - campaign norms - for a turn, or for a few combats, then fail?

 

Now we have three dead people, and a wealthy mastermind with connections in the background stirring various groups into protects and negative coverage of Our Heroes, placing pressure on law enforcement and prosecutors to charge them with the wrongful deaths of these three alleged "supervillains".  Hey, let's make them a couple of members of visible minorities and a single Mom whose two kids are now left orphans, who agreed to these experimental SuperPower treatments in desperation when "the system" failed them, killed in the act of stealing from an empty office tower owned by a wealthy businessman routinely accused of criminal business practices, but against whom nothing has ever been proven.  I wonder how the press will play that.  Will being found not guilty by the Courts, in a strong and clearly-worded verdict, mean an apology from the media for all that negative coverage, and they will be loved by all?

 

EDIT:  Not trying to drag this into the political,  but the reality is that, in an appropriate campaign (just like in the right source material), the Gilt Complex could very easily be a storyline under the campaign norms.  It would not happen in a Silver Age (maybe Bronze Age, but the frameup would come to light and all would be well with the world again - although I don't recall the '70s Freedom Fighters ever being cleared, now that I think of it) Four Colour Campagn, but then neither would "heroes" casually firing off lethal force against unknown opponents.

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To drag myself back to the actual thread, however, I suggest the best use of Gilt Complex here is, as the author states, something to get the players to read, and start a discussion of whether we are playing the kind of game that everyone enjoys, or whether there should be some changes made.

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There have been a lot of good points brought up.  There's nothing that I would really disagree with.  This is just more of how I dealt with the same issue. 

 

I used the "Rule of X" approach for offense and defense.  The biggest thing I did was limit how many points they got per session.  Two was average and the 3rd point was for outstanding game or role-play.  I also stated that offensive or defensive powers could only be increased every 3 games.  Occasionally, if the team or a specific player developed a contact during game, that was what they got as XP.  I never had anyone offended or upset that they were given something like that.  I also made sure they had background skills.  If someone said they were a physics professor at the local school, then they needed a couple of science skills, teaching professional skill, and possibly some local ks skills.  I also made sure that I ran them in their secret Id's.  They had to be able to function in their jobs and hobbies.  I personally tend to always put in one oddball skill in my characters, even if its just a familiarity.  It's a personality pick and I look for that on characters and make sure I reward it and bring it up at least once in a game somehow.  Of course, YMMV.

 

Good luck.

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On 4/1/2018 at 8:58 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Because, of course, the source material always sticks strictly to how the law actually works.  And no one found innocent of a crime has ever faced negative press suggesting his or her actions were in any way wrong, much less that they really were guilty.

 

Don't the police investigate deaths in the course of their own policing activities, even when the deceased was in the middle of committing a crime?

 

Ask Bernie Goetz whether using lethal force to defend oneself from an alleged crime is viewed by the law as "too damned bad" for the criminals (who, I note, were not killed).  Ask Gerald Stanley what happens when lethal force applied against someone on your property attempting to commit a crime results in a fatality.  Even being ultimately found "not guilty" does not mean "hey, no big deal".

 

 

The Gilt Complex was, at least as I read it, a very tongue in cheek article with an underlying theme of "can we have a chat and get everyone on the same page regarding how the game will play?"

 

I do find I question why a Code vs Killing is worth significant complication points if every credible threat the Heroes may face can simply be blasted full power on the expectation they will all have enough defenses to avoid any serious injury.  If that is the world the characters live in, how commonly does that Code actually restrict them?  If the game features opponents of various power levels, many of whom cannot be expected to just shrug off a full-power campaign standard DC Blast or KA, then restraint becomes much more relevant in the game.

 

It doesn't have to be the Gilt Complex.  What about a behind the scenes Machiavellian mastermind who sets the heroes up to fight a couple of inconclusive battles against a villain team, then sends out normal dressed in similar costumes (even Mind Controlled or duped innocents) to be targeted by the heroes, who "catch them by surprise"?  Or maybe he just set them up against villains whose powers (which he engineered) are specifically designed to fail at an inopportune moment - what if the Gilt Complex's defenses work fine - campaign norms - for a turn, or for a few combats, then fail?

 

Now we have three dead people, and a wealthy mastermind with connections in the background stirring various groups into protects and negative coverage of Our Heroes, placing pressure on law enforcement and prosecutors to charge them with the wrongful deaths of these three alleged "supervillains".  Hey, let's make them a couple of members of visible minorities and a single Mom whose two kids are now left orphans, who agreed to these experimental SuperPower treatments in desperation when "the system" failed them, killed in the act of stealing from an empty office tower owned by a wealthy businessman routinely accused of criminal business practices, but against whom nothing has ever been proven.  I wonder how the press will play that.  Will being found not guilty by the Courts, in a strong and clearly-worded verdict, mean an apology from the media for all that negative coverage, and they will be loved by all?

 

EDIT:  Not trying to drag this into the political,  but the reality is that, in an appropriate campaign (just like in the right source material), the Gilt Complex could very easily be a storyline under the campaign norms.  It would not happen in a Silver Age (maybe Bronze Age, but the frameup would come to light and all would be well with the world again - although I don't recall the '70s Freedom Fighters ever being cleared, now that I think of it) Four Colour Campagn, but then neither would "heroes" casually firing off lethal force against unknown opponents.

 

The Guilt Complex is still a screw job.

 

If you want to look at the source material, it's telling that you basically never see anything like this scenario happen in the comics.  How many accidental bad guy deaths can you think of in comics?  The closest you get to this situation is someone like Superman (who is built on a lot more points than most heroes) purposefully holding back when he fights.  But that's exclusive to him, and so should probably be represented by something specific to that character.  Even then, it's not an everyday occurrence.  Instead it's something that gets mentioned every once in a while (either as an excuse when he spends XP buying up his powers -- "I've been holding back all this time", or in the first few phases of combat when he faces a new foe).  I think "Psych Lim: Overconfident" and "Psych Lim: Underestimates New Opponents" would work there.

 

There are two big problems with the Guilt Complex characters.  1) They are rampaging murder machines , and 2) they detonate when hit with a standard 12D6 attack.  They even take lethal damage from nonlethal attacks.  Most of them are physically more frail than an 80 year old woman.  It's a screw job.  What should actually happen in that scenario is that these three villains go to rob a bank, the security guard shoots at them (and misses, they're all DCV 10), and the villains start rolling their chance to go Berserk.  14-, recover on an 8-.  If one of them fails, he'll attack the closest person to him, full power.  That's either a civilian or one of their teammates.  By the time the heroes get there, it'll be a scene of mass carnage.  Oh, and the speedster only has 10 Endurance.  He uses 4 per segment (at a 12 Spd), and he feels no pain.  He'll knock himself unconscious by Segment 5 (or the first time he does a move-by on someone).

 

You don't teach your players any lessons with a session like this.  You just make them resent you.

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The Gilt Complex is nothing more than cannon fodder. Which should be how to play them. Wave after wave of expendable androids to crash into PC's untill there master can get away, or set the heroes up to face the real deal, the stronger group the android glassies were just pail copies of.

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1 hour ago, massey said:

 

The Guilt Complex is still a screw job.

 

It's actually "The Gilt Complex", and they are clearly a tongue in cheek, over the top "will die in Supers combat" set of builds. 

 

But the concept of opponents who are not so durable that a full-out campaign average attack (much less "I'll push just cuz it is Segment 12 and I will get a recovery after") can be expected to leave no lasting injury does not seem unreasonable.

 

1 hour ago, massey said:

If you want to look at the source material, it's telling that you basically never see anything like this scenario happen in the comics.  How many accidental bad guy deaths can you think of in comics?  The closest you get to this situation is someone like Superman (who is built on a lot more points than most heroes) purposefully holding back when he fights.  But that's exclusive to him, and so should probably be represented by something specific to that character.  Even then, it's not an everyday occurrence.  Instead it's something that gets mentioned every once in a while (either as an excuse when he spends XP buying up his powers -- "I've been holding back all this time", or in the first few phases of combat when he faces a new foe).  I think "Psych Lim: Overconfident" and "Psych Lim: Underestimates New Opponents" would work there.

 

Cyclops rarely hits anyone full-out - it has to be established that they are durable enough to take that hit.  Storm rarely opens up with a Lightning Bolt.  Flash doesn't do full-on move throughs or move bys, and WW normally opens up with the lasso.  Spidey tends to start with webs, not fists.  And so on.

 

How many PCs ever start combat with an attack at less than their full damage capacity, or an attempt to restrain rather than KO? 

 

But, like many issues, the GM can also be the culprit.  If every bad guy is durable enough to take the hit (which is the reality if the GM is participating in the arms' race), why would the PCs show restraint?  Worse, if the result of that first shot at half power is that it bounces off the opponent's chest, and his follow-up attack KOs the Hero, it will be a long time before we see restraint again - tactics that result in losses tend to vanish.  And we would not want to waste valuable game time on a combat the heroes can easily win, even while using only a portion of their actual damage potential, so we don't see those easier opponents in the game.

 

Tossing the Gilt Complex (or even a more restrained  version) it to "teach those players a lesson in restraint" is a violation of the social contract if it is embedded in the history of the game that anyone in a costume can easily handle a 15 DC hit with no lasting effects.  Hence "first, talk to the players".

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44 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It's actually "The Gilt Complex", and they are clearly a tongue in cheek, over the top "will die in Supers combat" set of builds. 

 

But the concept of opponents who are not so durable that a full-out campaign average attack (much less "I'll push just cuz it is Segment 12 and I will get a recovery after") can be expected to leave no lasting injury does not seem unreasonable.

 

 

Cyclops rarely hits anyone full-out - it has to be established that they are durable enough to take that hit.  Storm rarely opens up with a Lightning Bolt.  Flash doesn't do full-on move throughs or move bys, and WW normally opens up with the lasso.  Spidey tends to start with webs, not fists.  And so on.

 

How many PCs ever start combat with an attack at less than their full damage capacity, or an attempt to restrain rather than KO? 

 

But, like many issues, the GM can also be the culprit.  If every bad guy is durable enough to take the hit (which is the reality if the GM is participating in the arms' race), why would the PCs show restraint?  Worse, if the result of that first shot at half power is that it bounces off the opponent's chest, and his follow-up attack KOs the Hero, it will be a long time before we see restraint again - tactics that result in losses tend to vanish.  And we would not want to waste valuable game time on a combat the heroes can easily win, even while using only a portion of their actual damage potential, so we don't see those easier opponents in the game.

 

Tossing the Gilt Complex (or even a more restrained  version) it to "teach those players a lesson in restraint" is a violation of the social contract if it is embedded in the history of the game that anyone in a costume can easily handle a 15 DC hit with no lasting effects.  Hence "first, talk to the players".

 

This is why so many Golden Age Heroes like Green Lantern and Dr. Fate engaged in hand to hand combat.  It gave them a chance to pull their punches against the normal level characters they fought.

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And its a theme I like to see in Champions games: people who hold back against opponents, for fear they will cause real, severe injury.  Superman can fight normal people, he's just really gentle.  And he rarely if ever gets to cut loose (insert animated Superman world of cardboard video here).  Its almost universal in the comics to have characters say "at least, someone I don't have to hold back against."  In Champions?  Rarely if ever does anyone actually hold back.

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1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

And its a theme I like to see in Champions games: people who hold back against opponents, for fear they will cause real, severe injury.  Superman can fight normal people, he's just really gentle.  And he rarely if ever gets to cut loose (insert animated Superman world of cardboard video here).  Its almost universal in the comics to have characters say "at least, someone I don't have to hold back against."  In Champions?  Rarely if ever does anyone actually hold back.

 

I have seen it... but it took a long time, and the players had to learn that they were very powerful, and that they didn't get punished for holding back... nor did they get punished for cutting loose when the situation called for it.

 

One thing I always try to emphasize with supers games is just that... the characters are super... and they should get the chance to feel that way. Maybe a group of heavily armed thugs were a challenge when first starting out... but later, the same situation is a piece of cake. Unlike D&D where all the creatures have to level up to the PCs... I love situations where experienced supers run up against thugs or lesser villains and just easily trounce them... because they should. The game aspect of 'every scenario has to level up to the PCs' concept... that isn't ROLE playing, IMO. Powerful heroes should get the chance to show how powerful they are... often by getting to hold-back and be confident and competent... but this requires the PLAYERS to feel that way, and not like everything is a "gotcha moment." Got to get rid of the GM vs. player mentality to let the PLAYERS feel confident and cool.

 

And it is important to realize the mentality of players who DO NOT know what is going on in the GM's head, and some of them never really learn to trust. I had one long term player who's character was one of the big three, and on track to become an immortal, godlike, and he NEVER felt confident going into battle. Not the character, but the player, because he was so used to every other game being "screw the player" by the GM. One time, he said, "I always feel threatened. I wish we had some easy fights."  I looked at him and said, "Just this evening, you took on a small army of 350 pt cyborg-killing machines. You one shotted several of them and literally out raced the rest, leaving them stranded behind and unable to stop you, practically ignoring them on the way to the big bad. Each one of those was a lesser supervillain, and you destroyed them!"

 

"OH," he said, looking surprised. "But the way you described them... they were so scary!"

 

Seriously.

 

After that, I made it a point to explain exactly what kind of threat and really emphasize where the PCs were more powerful, less powerful, etc., for every adventure. It became abundantly clear that having a meta-conversation about the game and their perceptions of it was absolutely essential for them to feel comfortable in the world, and this lead to much more confident role playing as well.


You have to address the PLAYER mentality... not the characters.

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One this I always try to emphasize with supers games is just that... the characters are super... and they should get the chance to feel that way. Maybe a group of heaving armed thugs were a challenge when first starting out... but later, the same situation is a piece of cake. Unlike D&D where all the creatures have to level up to the PCs... I love situations where experienced supers run up against thugs or lesser villains and just easily trounce them... because they should.

 

Yeah this is something that both writers and GMs often do not seem to understand.  In order to establish someone as heroic or give them some sense of power or growth, characters have to face things that they can easily handle and revisit weaker creatures.  Most computer games, the world levels up with you so you never really feel particularly more powerful, just slightly different.  Letting the players steamroll a few things with their characters, particularly stuff that used to be tough for them, is very satisfying and helps give a sense of what they can really do.

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