12-12-2017, 01:37 PM | #181 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: What will you not allow?
I generally don't run kitchen sink settings where players can use anything they can make with the character generation rules and if something like Mind Reading exists in a setting it is going to be part of an existing ability (probably in an existing power) with whatever modifiers it has and no others.
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12-12-2017, 05:22 PM | #182 | |||
Forum Pervert
(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Somewhere high up.
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Re: What will you not allow?
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It means you're more likely to affect mooks and the like, but still not going to affect someone with an iron-clad will or immunity to Mind Control/Reading. For that, you'd need "Cosmic (Irresistible Attack)." |
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12-12-2017, 05:56 PM | #183 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: What will you not allow?
Though that can be countered with Immunity (Psychic Powers; Cosmic, Impenetrable Defense, +50%). When it comes to Cosmic, defense is always cheaper than offense.
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12-12-2017, 07:26 PM | #184 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: What will you not allow?
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When I write GURPS books, I assume that the GM (or the author of a book like GURPS Psionic Powers or GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery) designs powers and their abilities. Players can offer ideas, but it's the GM who etches them on the campaign's stone tablets – Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit. I get that the culture of some gaming groups is that the players go off and design whatever they want, but that needs to come with a GM vetting process . . . which amounts to the same thing, just with more work offloaded onto the players. Freeform ability design without GM oversight is a problem with a broken group culture, not with GURPS. I've seen it happen to dozens of game systems in the case of out-of-control gaming groups but not even once with iffy game systems in the case of orderly gaming groups.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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12-12-2017, 08:16 PM | #185 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: What will you not allow?
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
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12-12-2017, 08:24 PM | #186 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: What will you not allow?
As a GM I am cautious about mind controll in a setting where abilities like that are secret and as a result fewer people are prepared.
The only character I have dissallowed recently was fully legal, the player had just devoted something like 90% of his character points to divine favour with very little else covered. Glass cannon characters like that I will generally not allow. That said I prefer to be communicating with my players as they make up characters and I have very few hard and fast rules on what is allowed.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
12-13-2017, 02:58 AM | #187 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: What will you not allow?
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12-13-2017, 06:58 AM | #188 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Cockeysville, MD
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Re: What will you not allow?
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I know this was more an issue with a problem player than anything else, but I still am gun shy on letting anyone create a character alone. I run multiple pre-game sessions now, to hammer out the campaign focus, discuss what the party makeup should be like, decide who will play what role, and actually present character ideas and create them as a group.
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--- My Blog: Dice and Discourse - My adventures in GURPS and thoughts on table top RPGs. |
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12-13-2017, 09:30 AM | #189 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: What will you not allow?
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Which isn't to say that I haven't run into what I call "cultural issues" with new players. In a few cases where I've brought people into my game for the first time and taken a hand in character design as the GM, I've encountered surprise that rules-legal didn't imply campaign-legal, and that I didn't regard character creation as a solo mini-game. But it was only a problem in one case . . . a player who put a couple of points into Naturalist, Survival, and Armoury, took Dead Broke, and listed a composite bow, arrows, and other gear he had made himself. He gave me the "The rules don't say I can't!" speech when I rejected the character. I guess there are other anti-Rule Zero gamers out there, but I've been blessed never to cross paths with them.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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12-13-2017, 09:34 AM | #190 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Cockeysville, MD
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Re: What will you not allow?
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Then you get players from such culture come and try to impose it in GURPS where it's the furthest thing from how the game should be played.
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--- My Blog: Dice and Discourse - My adventures in GURPS and thoughts on table top RPGs. |
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