>From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...>
>
>But that's just numbers! And the character probably
>won't be "kosher", it'll probably have a back-story
>that clashes with known history in our world,...
Let's not exaggerate. I'm just talking about the ratings. I'll let the player know anything they need to know to make the character otherwise kosher (though usually in my games I'll turn the world over first before requiring a player to change their concept to fit the world if the subject matter hasn't been previously established in play). Heck, I'll even give them advice on what the different levels of ability mean on the scale. What I won't tell them is what ratings are OK on a case by case basis.
>Well of course negotiation! This is a roleplaying
>game, you have interaction between GM and players.
Just not interested in this one. I want to get to play now. I usually have players in IRC into play about hour after finding out that they're interested. Partly that's because we do "As You Go" chargen, but...
>Look, what you do is tell me what you really want. You
>don't want "10W5", because that's a number. You
>perhaps want "as good a "destined to rule" ability as
>any of the other Argraths". Fine. You can have it. If
>you want an ability a mastery higher, you can have it.
>What numbers correspond to that is my problem, not
>yours.
Oh. I was under the impression that players came up with their own ratings for their abilities (and you do say that the standards are out there so that they could, too). But it really doesn't matter. Somebody's making an arbitrary rating of an ability, and then the other side is approving or denying that, and then more "accurate" levels are being established, etc. Just doesn't sound remotely worth it to me. Even if it all goes through on the first attempt, I think that the math version is easier. Because in that case all you have to consider is what's most interesting to you as a player as an ability the power levels set themselves.
Now, yes, that means that I don't let players simply decide what power level to be at. But in practice some of them simply don't spend all of their points and end up lower-powered anyhow. Certainly there are some who make "more stacked" characters than others. Meaning some spread their points around, and others tend to hit the max more often on spending on some particular abilities. So in the end, the only real limit is on the maximum level of power.
I've never seen a player worry about whether he was making his character not powerful enough in terms of balance.
Mike
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