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Old 09-06-2015, 12:41 PM   #8
trooper6
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
Default Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill

I agree with Mailanka that maybe you want to structure your adventures differently.

Wait. First I want to agree with JohnDallman...just because something is in the book doesn't mean a character can have it. What is the in-game justification for the Modular Ability? Modular Ability is listed as an Exotic Advantage, which according to pg. 32: "Exotic advantages are traits that ordinary humans cannot have without ultra-tech body modification or similar tampering; for instance, extra arms or death-ray vision. Nonhumans will often have exotic advantages on a racial basis, but this does not entitle them to add such traits freely. You need the GM’s permission to add exotic traits that do not appear on your racial template (see Chapter 7)."

Just because a game is cinematic doesn't necessarily mean that Exotic or Supernatural Advantages are allowed. So, are you allowing Exotic or Supernatural Advantages? Do they fit within the game setting? In what way does this person's character justify having exotic or supernatural Advantages?

I'd work through that first.

Okay, so now let's say that you have decided that as a Robot the character can have the exotic advantage (or whatever)...then you have to rework how your structure your adventures.

I tend to structure mine as Mailanka described, I had the players a difficult challenge and then see how they manage it. They have to assassinate a spy...and the only place they can reasonably get access to them as at an airport. So...how are they going to do that? Or whatever.

Now, the other thing I do is this: The real challenge of the problem is not the skill roll that let's you do it...but being confronted with difficult choices which have nothing to do with skill rolls (which is also why I don't care about niche protection).

For example, I was running a one off spy adventure set in Chad Underkoffler's Campaign in a Box: Spy Games with the two competing agencies: CHESS (forces of "order") vs. POKER (forces of "freedom"). The players chose to be agents of POKER. So they had to stop the forces of CHESS who were using a cancer gun to give world leaders cancer and then blackmailing them for the cure. This way CHESS controls the world!

The agents has the challenge to find out where the lab was, destroy the weapon, and retrieve the cure for cancer (which would then be distributed freely amongst the people). So they had to do all the challenges. That was tough. When they got to the end of their goal, after all the skill checks were done and they had the cancer gun and the cure for cancer both, the CHESS scientist made a plea for keeping the cure for cancer secret...and also a plea for the reason world governments needed to be kept stable. It was a good plea. This left the players/PCs in a conundrum...do they finish their mission? Do they allow CHESS to continue on with their plans? No skill check, no modular ability, no niche is going to answer that question for the players...just knowing their characters and role playing it. Those players chose to destroy the cancer gun and distribute the cure for cancer--but one player was swayed by the argument and secretly sabotaged the cure, so in the end both the gun and the cure were destroyed.

Or the time when the Swashbuckling characters swore an oath on their honor to protect the diplomat on his international mission...but then it turned out the diplomat was possessed by a demon. The players were torn between doing something to stop the demon or keeping their oath to protect the diplomat. I didn't think this would be that difficult of a choice. I thought the trick would be to figure out how to fight the demon while protecting the diplomat (there were also some PC specific choices...like would the undercover Jesuit priest who had the Exorcism skill reveal his true identity in order to battle the demon?). There are no skill rolls required for this challenge. What happened? The Jesuit Priest didn't reveal himself and the PCs decided they would protect the demon/diplomat until the demon's mission was over and they got back to France. Surprise to me! But, oh that opened up a lot of RP possibility later. They used their skills to accomplish the protecting of the diplomat...but the core challenge was...should they protect the diplomat in the first place?

So...don't make the whole thing about 1 skill roll, but about the PCs themselves, who they are, what are they willing to sacrifice, how their choices define who they are, what will they do to attain their goals?
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