Graham:
> This is something I keep seeing on this list. Someone raises a query about
> the rules, and gets a series of GM tricks in reply. While these are
> sometimes (often?) useful, they aren't really addressing the issue raised.
> Maybe they are the only suggestions that can be offered, but I find it
> worrying that too many of them seem more like work rounds than bug fixes.
Yup. I've commented on this myself in the past. Maybe this should be renamed the "HW rules defensiveness list", rather than "rules discussion". OK, it's valid to a point ("that's not an issue in my game, because...", or "a way to deal with that admitted possible issue would be..."), but leads to some very frustrating "talking past each other" discussions.
> I'm tempted to do one of two things - issue a blanket ban ("I don't want to
> run past 5W3, so you can't have characters past that") or seriously
> increase the cost of increases past a reasonable point, probably to one HP
> per mastery minimum. Any other ideas considered.
There are several (admittedly related) things going on here, and I think the likely "fix" depends on which of them you see as being the most pertinent.
o One doesn't want to run "Heroic" level characters, at all.
o One doesn't want to have "Heroes" without them having done something "Heroic" (or "Heroquesty") explicitly in-game to earn/justify the status. o One doesn't want markedly "out of balance" characters, regardless of power level. o The length of one's campaign is just that one wants a moderate rate of advancement.
There are various ways one can deal with each of the above, depending on which (or which combination) one feels one is suffering from. I'll run through some that I would suggest, though I think in almost all cases these have been suggested already, in some shape or form. Firstly, there's the absolute ceiling. ("No abilities past 10W3, ever".) Then there's the idea of a theshold effect; after a given point, one starts to have to do "different things" in order the advance at "normal cost" (or if you prefer, at all). To a degree this is already implied by the rules, but one can take this further, and say that if one already has a "heroic" CC, it's a rare mundane game-world event (or none) that would justify one raising that ability "narratively" (or at all, even at "double HPs"). In other words, only HQs need apply, or inner world "as good as HQs". Lastly, there's the option of giving out fewer HPs, either from day 1, or incrementally as one progresses. Or make highervalued abilities more expensive to raise.
I have sympathy with Graham's concerns, but as yet, no real direct experience. In one of the two games I've Narrated, the players seemed to hoard their HPs a lot, and the length of play wasn't such that any abilities got to preposterous levels. In my current game, the PCs started at "clan ring" levels, and somewhat to my surprise have been focusing more on "filling in" weaker abilities than on maxing out on their already W2-ish ones. (I was mildly surprised when we got our first person with a theistic secret.) Given this behaviour, and that playing in "Pendragon time" means that most likely those characters will be retired in 10 or 15 sessions, it seems I'm not going to have any of the described "problems" in the short term, which isn't to say that I wouldn't be concerned if I _did_...
Cheers,
Alex.
Powered by hypermail