Low-powered campaigns

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Brandy

I think this is a good point. In any setting where the speed of communication is instant, this is going to be an issue. So, one thing GMs should do is be very careful about the decisions that they make with regard to high speed communication in fantasy and ultra-tech settings. In a modern setting, this is not easily side-stepped.

In any campaign where there is time to plan and prepare, there is also likely time to notify someone with more resources and more capable professionals to deal with a truly dangerous threat than a group of low point value PCs can bring to bear.

If the PCs are fairly typical wandering knight errants, sorcerers' apprentices, acolytes or hobbit burglars of 75-150 points, any threat that actually threatens more than just their persons should probably be dealt with by the local lord and his retinue of more powerful and capable experts. In a low-tech setting, the PCs might be allowed to accompany the small army, which I suppose could be an adventure.

Originally Posted by Brandy

Another thing is that there isn't any reason to assume that in a low-powered campaign, the PCs are part of a larger organization such that they have a duty to inform others. If the PCs are part of a small autonomous group, there are lots of motivations available for doing something other than "telling the authorities". Any group operating in a grey area of the law opens up this possibility.

That's fair, but note that anyone who commits a crime which leads to the death of another is legally responsible for the death in many jurisdictions and certainly morally culpable. So any group of 'heroes' who operate in the grey area of the law had better be so much more capable than the authorities that no one dies who would not have had to die if they had simply called the cops or notified the local lord, at least if the players want their PCs to be anything other than criminally irresponsible idiots.

What grates on me when I see it in fiction, computer RPG plots or AP writeups (or the real-world equivalent 'Let me tell you about my character') is when a group of adventurers who are in no way more capable than any band of men-at-arms who might be dispatched by a local lord, nevetheless insist on confronting some dire threat alone and without help.

If they are doing it for gold and treasure, with the 'threat' not actually posing a threat to anyone before their homes are invaded, I suppose that's one thing. The PCs are just morally bankrupt armed robbers / home invaders and obviously don't want to share their ill-gotten gains.

But when the PCs actually claim to be good guys, the players seem to believe they are, and there are other people at risk, it's pretty inexcusable for a small group of ordinary people to delude themselves into thinking that they can handle things better than the professionals whose job it is to defend the kingdom / investigate crimes / rescue hostages.

Originally Posted by Brandy

I agree with Icelander that it is a good question, but it is a question that has readily-available answers.

Certainly it has, but I feel that a lot of the answers that are used in low-point games I've witnessed, heard about or read about also have the side-effect of making the PCs bad people, in that they prioritise their own criminal careers over the lives of other people. Which is fine if the players are aware that they are playing evil characters, less fine if they think that their characters can take up a career as vigilantes without being more capable than the probable police response, and still claim any semblence of ethical behaviour.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In any campaign where there is time to plan and prepare, there is also likely time to notify someone with more resources and more capable professionals to deal with a truly dangerous threat than a group of low point value PCs can bring to bear.

If the PCs are fairly typical wandering knight errants, sorcerers' apprentices, acolytes or hobbit burglars of 75-150 points, any threat that actually threatens more than just their persons should probably be dealt with by the local lord and his retinue of more powerful and capable experts. In a low-tech setting, the PCs might be allowed to accompany the small army, which I suppose could be an adventure.

The most recent game of this type that I ran, the PCs were a small mercenary company in a TL 3/4+Magic world who were hired to do this sort of thing. A failure on a contract was a loss of reputation and future work.

That's fair, but note that anyone who commits a crime which leads to the death of another is legally responsible for the death in many jurisdictions and certainly morally culpable. So any group of 'heroes' who operate in the grey area of the law had better be so much more capable than the authorities that no one dies who would not have had to die if they had simply called the cops or notified the local lord, at least if the players want their PCs to be anything other than criminally irresponsible idiots.

There are so many non-universal assumptions here that I really don't know how to respond to it. I have a hard time accepting that any of this would apply to a majority of settings in which RPGs take place.

What grates on me when I see it in fiction, computer RPG plots or AP writeups (or the real-world equivalent 'Let me tell you about my character') is when a group of adventurers who are in no way more capable than any band of men-at-arms who might be dispatched by a local lord, nevetheless insist on confronting some dire threat alone and without help.

Some examples might be helpful. What are the stories or games in which you find the protagonists annoyingly self-reliant?

If they are doing it for gold and treasure, with the 'threat' not actually posing a threat to anyone before their homes are invaded, I suppose that's one thing. The PCs are just morally bankrupt armed robbers / home invaders and obviously don't want to share their ill-gotten gains.

But when the PCs actually claim to be good guys, the players seem to believe they are, and there are other people at risk, it's pretty inexcusable for a small group of ordinary people to delude themselves into thinking that they can handle things better than the professionals whose job it is to defend the kingdom / investigate crimes / rescue hostages.

Lots of non-universal assumptions here too. If you think you have an insight into a universal morality -- which would apply across all settings, including those in which the Gods are real -- I think you might want to question that.

Certainly it has, but I feel that a lot of the answers that are used in low-point games I've witnessed, heard about or read about also have the side-effect of making the PCs bad people, in that they prioritise their own criminal careers over the lives of other people. Which is fine if the players are aware that they are playing evil characters, less fine if they think that their characters can take up a career as vigilantes without being more capable than the probable police response, and still claim any semblence of ethical behaviour.

I appreciate all of the thought that you've put into this response, but at the end have you not just boiled it down to a "hurtingwrongfun" complaint?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Brandy

The most recent game of this type that I ran, the PCs were a small mercenary company in a TL 3/4+Magic world who were hired to do this sort of thing. A failure on a contract was a loss of reputation and future work.

How many players did you have?

If their characters had the ability to function as a whole company of ordinary soldiers, even though there were only 3-6 of them, that's not a low point campaign at all.

Whereas if they really were a small group of ordinary soldiers for the setting, plausible jobs they can handle include "join this garrison", "march to war as members of this company" or "stand watch while this caravan is offloaded".

No matter the TL, ordinary soldiers aren't trained or prepared to handle special missions in autonomous small groups far from support or the ordinary chain of command. That's the literal definition of special operations and it requires the setting equivalent of SOF personnel.

Which, in an awful lot of fantasy RPGs, are adventuring parties. Which is fine, but being the setting's magical special operation experts is not a low point value campaign.

Originally Posted by Brandy

There are so many non-universal assumptions here that I really don't know how to respond to it. I have a hard time accepting that any of this would apply to a majority of settings in which RPGs take place.

In the real world, there exist experts in dangerous professions that in GURPS come to 300+ points and who have the backing of more resources than most low point characters ever see. I suppose there might be fantasy worlds where the fantasy is that people are less capable than in reality, but in all fantasy worlds I've seen, there exist people with supernatural abilities that no real person has and thus the potential for much higher point values.

It doesn't matter what world a character exists on. If an ordinary group of friends decides that despite being in no way trained, equipped or prepared for it, they are going to be vigilantes / first responders / investigators / something else instead of notifying authorities who have more resources and actual trained professionals, these ordinary people are obviously morally culpable when their incompetence gets people killed, especially if they didn't even try to get experts involved.

Originally Posted by Brandy

Some examples might be helpful. What are the stories or games in which you find the protagonists annoyingly self-reliant?

Any story where ordinary people get involved in a dangerous world where there are people or entities who clearly do not balk at murder, but insist on keeping their discovery of the Secret (Gate to Another World / Existence of Supernatural, etc.) from authorities who have the resources to actually deal with it.

Basically, any time the PCs try to be Batman, Monster Hunters or Solomon Kane without actually being much more capable than any response the authorities could bring to bear.

Originally Posted by Brandy

Lots of non-universal assumptions here too. If you think you have an insight into a universal morality -- which would apply across all settings, including those in which the Gods are real -- I think you might want to question that.

If the gods are real, there is even less sense in a small group of ordinary people being the best chance anyone has to be rescued or defended. Even if the gods are unwilling, for some reason, to directly help, at least send divinely enpowered servants, chosen knights, miracle-wielding vicars or the equivalent.

Who are not going to be low point value ordinary people.

Originally Posted by Brandy

I appreciate all of the thought that you've put into this response, but at the end have you not just boiled it down to a "hurtingwrongfun" complaint?

I suppose I feel that a lot of "low point value" campaigns are nothing of the sort. In order to allow characters who aren't, on paper, more capable than anyone you'd meet on the street, to consistently survive more danger than anyone but a handful of real warfighters ever envounter, GMs tend to bend the reality of the campaign world around them, consciously or unconsciously.

Which results in characters who are not capable, decisive, experienced, mentally tough or well-trained, but have several hundred points of Protagonist Plot Armour and Mary Sue Magic that don't appear on the character sheets.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In any campaign where there is time to plan and prepare, there is also likely time to notify someone with more resources and more capable professionals to deal with a truly dangerous threat than a group of low point value PCs can bring to bear.

Provided that it's something that the professionals can meaningfully deal with and the PCs' story about the threat will be believed. RogerBW's Leave Not a Rack Behind was carefully constructed to make that impossible: in 1930s London, the characters were all female, with social reasons why they would not be believed with stories of monsters, but they seemed to be the only ones who could perceive magic, apart from one female anarchist. We were very restrained in our use of violence. In 45-ish sessions of play, we never killed a human, and a single-figures total of monsters.

After a while, we started to build up some credibility with the police and a secret part of the government as people who could find out things and solve problems, but this never extended to any kind of license for violence.

We only once injured a human. Someone threw a firebomb into the house where we were sleeping and ran away; someone else lurked down the street with a rifle for us to come out. It wasn't a very good firebomb, and we put it out. Our best fighter managed to get out of the house stealthily, sneaked up on the riflewoman and broke her legs. We brought her in, applied first aid and called the police, who turned out to be very interested in arresting her. In a modern setting, we'd probably have been detained too, but policemen had a bit more discretion in 1930.

[AlexanderHowl]

The only time when low powered characters should take action is to mitigate damage while they are waiting for the authorities after they have called them, if they do not yet know the full extent of the problem, when they cannot call the authorities due to failures of communications, if they have called the authorities and have been ignored, if they are wanted criminals and cannot call the authorities, if the authorities are worse than the monsters, etc.. In some countries, the authorities are thugs who murder, rape, and steal from the people that they are supposed to protect. Even in the USA, we have plenty of bad apples in law enforcement (and some bad barrels like the LAPD), who victimize minority communities.

Even in the case of good apples, IRL, the police do not take reports of aliens, vampires, werewolves, etc. seriously unless they want to punish the pranksters. In that case, the characters may have reported that their next door neighbor is a vampire, and the cops have blown them off. Now, they have alerted their neighbor that they know that they are a vampire, and now they will have to protect themselves from a vampire without support (Fright Night).

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Icelander

How many players did you have?

Five.

If their characters had the ability to function as a whole company of ordinary soldiers, even though there were only 3-6 of them, that's not a low point campaign at all.

Whereas if they really were a small group of ordinary soldiers for the setting, plausible jobs they can handle include "join this garrison", "march to war as members of this company" or "stand watch while this caravan is offloaded".

No matter the TL, ordinary soldiers aren't trained or prepared to handle special missions in autonomous small groups far from support or the ordinary chain of command. That's the literal definition of special operations and it requires the setting equivalent of SOF personnel.

Which, in an awful lot of fantasy RPGs, are adventuring parties. Which is fine, but being the setting's magical special operation experts is not a low point value campaign.

Okay. I thought we were just talking about campaigns where characters start with 150 points or less. I'm not sure what definition of "low-point value" you're using. It seems to be "PCs are underpowered for taking on adventures", which is obviously begging the question.

In the real world, there exist experts in dangerous professions that in GURPS come to 300+ points and who have the backing of more resources than most low point characters ever see. I suppose there might be fantasy worlds where the fantasy is that people are less capable than in reality, but in all fantasy worlds I've seen, there exist people with supernatural abilities that no real person has and thus the potential for much higher point values.

It doesn't matter what world a character exists on. If an ordinary group of friends decides that despite being in no way trained, equipped or prepared for it, they are going to be vigilantes / first responders / investigators / something else instead of notifying authorities who have more resources and actual trained professionals, these ordinary people are obviously morally culpable when their incompetence gets people killed, especially if they didn't even try to get experts involved.

Any story where ordinary people get involved in a dangerous world where there are people or entities who clearly do not balk at murder, but insist on keeping their discovery of the Secret (Gate to Another World / Existence of Supernatural, etc.) from authorities who have the resources to actually deal with it.

Basically, any time the PCs try to be Batman, Monster Hunters or Solomon Kane without actually being much more capable than any response the authorities could bring to bear.

This assumes that the authorities aren't part of the problem. Just sayin'.

Who are not going to be low point value ordinary people.

I typically run settings where "ordinary people" are well below 150 points. I think it is a mistake to conflate those two things.

I suppose I feel that a lot of "low point value" campaigns are nothing of the sort. In order to allow characters who aren't, on paper, more capable than anyone you'd meet on the street, to consistently survive more danger than anyone but a handful of real warfighters ever envounter, GMs tend to bend the reality of the campaign world around them, consciously or unconsciously.

Which results in characters who are not capable, decisive, experienced, mentally tough or well-trained, but have several hundred points of Protagonist Plot Armour and Mary Sue Magic that don't appear on the character sheets.

I don't see those things as functions of point value -- to me that's tone, which I think of as "gritty" (where the protagonists often lose or find that their victories are Pyrrhic) or "romantic"(where heroes are victorious despite the odds and happy endings are likely) or somewhere in between.

A story (and by extension, an RPG) can be gritty and high powered (Wild Cards and the world of the Witcher come to mind) or romantic and low-powered (The Hobbit or Harry Potter, which is low-powered at the beginning).

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Provided that it's something that the professionals can meaningfully deal with and the PCs' story about the threat will be believed. RogerBW's Leave Not a Rack Behind was carefully constructed to make that impossible: in 1930s London, the characters were all female, with social reasons why they would not be believed with stories of monsters, but they seemed to be the only ones who could perceive magic, apart from one female anarchist. We were very restrained in our use of violence. In 45-ish sessions of play, we never killed a human, and a single-figures total of monsters.

After a while, we started to build up some credibility with the police and a secret part of the government as people who could find out things and solve problems, but this never extended to any kind of license for violence.

We only once injured a human. Someone threw a firebomb into the house where we were sleeping and ran away; someone else lurked down the street with a rifle for us to come out. It wasn't a very good firebomb, and we put it out. Our best fighter managed to get out of the house stealthily, sneaked up on the riflewoman and broke her legs. We brought her in, applied first aid and called the police, who turned out to be very interested in arresting her. In a modern setting, we'd probably have been detained too, but policemen had a bit more discretion in 1930.

Of course, it is possible to design the campaign premise to minimize this issue. Which is an application of the point I mentioned in the first post which started this sub-thread, i.e. a situation where only the PCs have the motivation or ability to deal with a problem. Certainly, no one else believing that there is a problem amply fulfils that.

I've found, however, that the further away from 'ordinary' the protagonists are, the easier this is to do plausibly. After all, if the PCs are truly ordinary, being the only ones who know about a terrible threat stalking them and others is probably going to make them into mental casualties anyway, if they aren't jailed or killed.

Everybody has a breaking point for stress, constant vigilance and effectively being exposed to danger all the time. And those who aren't exceptional at decisive action under stress (which tends to cost a lot of points in GURPS) will crumble a lot sooner. It's why ordinary soldiers aren't kept on the line infinitely without periods to rest and recover and why non-official cover case officers are only a tiny fraction of those who work in intelligence services, because ordinary people can't stand the constant anxiety and stress involved.

To uninformed outside observers, characters who've survived 45-ish sessions of investigating Things Man Was Not Meant to Know with no more support than a few friends may appear to be merely ordinary people. In actual fact, however, they've somehow managed to survive and function through an ordeal that would overwhelm the vast majority of ordinary people.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Brandy

Five.

Okay. I thought we were just talking about campaigns where characters start with 150 points or less. I'm not sure what definition of "low-point value" you're using. It seems to be "PCs are underpowered for taking on adventures", which is obviously begging the question.

Five 75-150 point characters is a realistic fireteam of ordinary soldiers, at the higher end, of veteran Marines or US Army Rangers. At lower TLs, that's a knight and his lance, or maybe a few archers out of a larger force. In the real world, troops like that don't operate in such small units, they are part of an enormous military machine that backs them up and where there are more senior officers that make the actual decisions.

In a one-shot, there is no plausibility problem with such a group finding themselves in a dangerous situation without support. For a whole campaign, it becomes less and less plausible that a small fireteam (or the local TL equivalent) would operate autonomously despite not being special operations capable. At any TL with organized societies, people don't hire several men-at-arms or soldiers to perform a true military mission, they either hire a mecenary company (more numerous than five, certainly) or the period equivalent to SOF (higher point value than 75-150 points).

Five recently retired soldiers are a realistic security team for something where there is a very small chance of combat. They're reasonable as bodyguards for a corporate executive or politician somewhere dangerous, with the understanding that their job is just to get their protectee away from danger, not actually fight armed terrorists. For that, there are police tactical units or military forces, which at minimum have far more numerous units of similar quality, backed with a lot more resources, and probably also have SOF of higher individual point value.

Originally Posted by Brandy

This assumes that the authorities aren't part of the problem. Just sayin'.

Well, yes, but five ordinary people have no chance against the entire world or even a small part of it. Most won't even try, as people without exceptional drive, self-confidence and willpower generally don't oppose the status quo or go against public opinion.

We know what ordinary people do when the authorities are a threat to them and others. What ordinary people did in Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and any smaller example you can think of. Mostly nothing except try to stay unnoticed and live their own lives. Some heroically tried to make a stand on principle and were ostracised, jailed or executed, because they weren't part of a powerful, resource-rich organization of their own and had no chance of creating one from scratch

It's absolutely possible to play a campaign where the PCs must fight corrupt authorities as well as other threats, but the point is, ordinary people succeed at difficult things by being small cogs in massive organizational efforts. If five characters are meant to be able to accomplish things that it usually takes tens, hundreds or thousands of ordinary people to do, they can't be just ordinary people.

Originally Posted by Brandy

I typically run settings where "ordinary people" are well below 150 points. I think it is a mistake to conflate those two things.

Well, I also present ordinary people that the PCs meet as being around -25 to 75 in point value, with 25 points being around the statistical mean.

It's just that such people act like actual ordinary people in emergencies. They don't know what to do, make poor decisions under stress, sometimes panic and are usually at a loss with anything outside their comfort zone and area of professional competence.

Even most real cops and soldiers can't function effectively cut off from their extensive support networks of resources and reinforcements. Something like 98% of US law enforcement personnel never fire their weapons in the line of duty. As I mentioned upthread, typical RPG adventures expose PCs to more violence than most real-world experts in violence experience in a lifetime.

With that in mind, it just seems deeply weird to insist that the PCs should be in any way ordinary if the campaign is expected to feature violence at any level close to typical RPG levels. After all, if they are expected to have any kind of chance to survive more violence than 99.9999% real people ever see, aren't they by definition extraordinary?

Originally Posted by Brandy

I don't see those things as functions of point value -- to me that's tone, which I think of as "gritty" (where the protagonists often lose or find that their victories are Pyrrhic) or "romantic"(where heroes are victorious despite the odds and happy endings are likely) or somewhere in between.

A story (and by extension, an RPG) can be gritty and high powered (Wild Cards and the world of the Witcher come to mind) or romantic and low-powered (The Hobbit or Harry Potter, which is low-powered at the beginning).

I understand that distinction, but it seems to me that if the PCs consistently defeat powerful things, it's a misnomer to call them 'low-powered'. They are powerful, their power just isn't written down on the character sheets.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Five 75-150 point characters is a realistic fireteam of ordinary soldiers, at the higher end, of veteran Marines or US Army Rangers. At lower TLs, that's a knight and his lance, or maybe a few archers out of a larger force. In the real world, troops like that don't operate in such small units, they are part of an enormous military machine that backs them up and where there are more senior officers that make the actual decisions.

For what it's worth, the backstory on the company was that they were the remains of a much larger company wiped out in a defeat against some undead. They still had their charter, and so could legally carry arms and accept such work, but didn't have the resources (at the start of the game) to expand their ranks, which was made difficult because of the reputation hit they had sufferered. A very small band of brothers not yet willing to give up on the company.

With that in mind, it just seems deeply weird to insist that the PCs should be in any way ordinary if the campaign is expected to feature violence at any level close to typical RPG levels.

...

I understand that distinction, but it seems to me that if the PCs consistently defeat powerful things, it's a misnomer to call them 'low-powered'. They are powerful, their power just isn't written down on the character sheets.

I'll repeat what I said before. You're conflating low-power (point totals below 150 as defined by the OP) and "ordinary".

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

To uninformed outside observers, characters who've survived 45-ish sessions of investigating Things Man Was Not Meant to Know with no more support than a few friends may appear to be merely ordinary people. In actual fact, however, they've somehow managed to survive and function through an ordeal that would overwhelm the vast majority of ordinary people.

They could very well actually be ordinary people. If a hundred such people went out and did this thing, and 99 died, that doesn't mean that the one survivor is not normal - they could just be lucky (and not in the sense of having Luck).

The problem is that if we're playing an RPG in which stuff happens according to the results of a randomiser, and failure is possible, if we want a reasonable chance that the character(s) we are tracking (i.e. the PC(s)) are the one that survives, we have to make them exceptional in some way, be it in-game stats, or meta-game protection.

However, the thing is that it's our desire to see the story of the 'winner' that requires that the PC be exceptional, not their survival - that can be mere luck.