Moondrake

Re: Spells in MUltipowers? The main concern with MPs at fantasy level seems to be balance of power. But that isn't just a problem with power frameworks, it can be a problem with many aspects of the game. In our group there are four basic ways we manage this issue. 1. Caps. Some of the GMs set caps in advance on the major game elements. I personally prefer this approach as I like to build my character to fit the game rather than trying to retrofit later. This generally includes an AP cap on powers, a cap on combined CV and a cap on DEF. 2. GM review. The GMs review the characters prior to play and ask the players whose characters are poorly balanced to make changes. 3. Sliding scale. The GM builds challenges along a sliding scale and characters have an opportunity to take on opponents similar to their power level. This works best when you are pitting teams against one another, the concept of a personal nemesis on the enemy team is an adventure trope. It works especially well when the enemy team is built with the PCs in mind, flirty opposite for the rogue, honorable one for the knight, a worthy opponent for the martial artist, a cipher for the mage, a trickster for the thief. 4. Peer pressure. Play a wombat if you like but nobody's giving you any props for winning a fight when you are playing a combat monster. You want glory, you have to earn it the hard way. Most of our games employ a blend of these things, and still there are balance issues. But by and large we generally have a pretty well-balanced PC group.

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . . I'm the GM for the Season of the Witch game. I saw the movie before anyone else and mentioned it would be a good game, and the group agreed not to see it if I would run it. I generally only run one annual Halloween game, I prefer to play. But I agreed to run the movie as a one month game, which will conclude next week. Although I am only loosely following the movie I'd prefer the stuff I use to remain fresh to my players so no spoilers for the finale, please! The tradesmen in the party were spending the day working to shore up a dilapidated suspension bridge to enable the heavy prison wagon to cross, and the Crusaders were standing guard. The huntsman set off into the (rumored haunted) woods to bag some dinner. He was just coming to the conclusion that there was nothing living in these woods when he rolled an 18 on his survival roll. I did consider having him bring back poisonous berries or something like that but it didn't serve my plot, I wanted the characters to keep moving, not be debilitated by illness. Instead he poked his head into a bough-cave, provoking an extra-large bear that chased him to the cliff edge but declined to follow him out of the forest. A couple of days later the same character was scouting ahead looking for a defensible position to make camp (the party had a deadly encounter with demon wolves the night before) when he rolled a 17 on his survival roll and literally stumbled over a crumbling old fort. He sprained his ankle falling into a shallow cistern and suffered a 25% movement penalty for the next few days. Normally I wouldn't assess a penalty for a 17, but between the pattern of unlucky rolls and the fact that the environment itself is out to get them, it seemed appropriate and the player accepted it as a reasonable occurence. Horror is my genre when GMing, and the "game contract" when I run is that there is no script-immunity but mortality will be cinematic and the result of actions the characters choose to make. Events are never dice-driven, but character, plot and setting-driven. Other GMs in our group have a different dice philosophy, and our players all understand that each GM has a different play style and adapt as needed.