differing power levels within a party: The Avengers

[Johan Larson]

The Avengers, as portrayed in the current movie, are an example of a team with radically different power levels. The major leaguers (Thor, Iron Man, Hulk) are nearly invulnerable to the attacks of the minors (Hawkeye, Captain America, Black Widow). Yet they manage to work together and do useful things.

What's not so clear is how many plot strings the writers have to pull to make this happen.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

The Avengers, as portrayed in the current movie, are an example of a team with radically different power levels. The major leaguers (Thor, Iron Man, Hulk) are nearly invulnerable to the attacks of the minors (Hawkeye, Captain America, Black Widow). Yet they manage to work together and do useful things.

What's not so clear is how many plot strings the writers have to pull to make this happen.

Captain America, similarly to Batman, has a major league superpower: being Captain America.

But this looks like a job for drama points, as used in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG with (in my experience) brilliant success.

Bill Stoddard

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

What's not so clear is how many plot strings the writers have to pull to make this happen.

Quite a lot, though it helps that the characters have significantly different skill sets. Some sort of plot token system can help, though I'd be in seeing a system that tries to handle the "I'm good at X, and the adventure is all about Y" situation as well.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

The Avengers, as portrayed in the current movie, are an example of a team with radically different power levels. The major leaguers (Thor, Iron Man, Hulk) are nearly invulnerable to the attacks of the minors (Hawkeye, Captain America, Black Widow). Yet they manage to work together and do useful things.

Being invulnerable to the attacks of each other is not often an issue, it's that the vulnerable but highly skilled specialists can do their thing without getting smeared because their strong-and-tough teammates are doing their thing to keep the smear-makers occupied.

[Mailanka]

Captain America is not in the same league as Black Widow or Hawkeye. He's super-strong (though not as strong as the other three), super-agile (hence his super-human shield-throwing skill), and super-tough (though not bullet proof). If you remember from his movie, he was chasing down cars on foot and punching through boxing bags.

Black Widow and Hawkeye are highly skilled humans. Captain America is a highly skilled human with the super-soldier serum running through his veins. It's debatable whether that puts him on the same footing as Thor, Iron Man or the Hulk, but it certainly puts him head and shoulders above our highly skilled humans.

[Flyndaran]

In any group, the evil tank could punch out any of the good not-tanks.
That's the point of any team really; boost up everyone else's faults with your strengths.
The GM's task to create situations in which that's possible.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

In any group, the evil tank could punch out any of the good not-tanks.
That's the point of any team really; boost up everyone else's faults with your strengths.
The GM's task to create situations in which that's possible.

My experience running supers campaigns is it's not the bricks who destroy the scenario and make the other characters useless. It's the mind controllers, and second to them the speedsters.

Bill Stoddard

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My experience running supers campaigns is it's not the bricks who destroy the scenario and make the other characters useless. It's the mind controllers, and second to them the speedsters.

QFT. I've had a number of characters vetoed because their powers would always be "Plan A."

But, if you're going to have variable power levels within a party you are almost required to have niche protection. And you have to watch it, closely, until your party gets used to the idea.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My experience running supers campaigns is it's not the bricks who destroy the scenario and make the other characters useless. It's the mind controllers, and second to them the speedsters.

Bill Stoddard

Okay, I totally understand mind controllers. Why speedsters? (Recently there was a comment that ATR is not much of a win-enabler for its point cost.)

I mean, they can get to the scene early (but alone), and can maybe do research and the like faster (depending), and they're sorta adequate in combat (but not as much as various Innate Attack blasters, including some tricky Maledictors).

[Cybren]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Okay, I totally understand mind controllers. Why speedsters? (Recently there was a comment that ATR is not much of a win-enabler for its point cost.)

I mean, they can get to the scene early (but alone), and can maybe do research and the like faster (depending), and they're sorta adequate in combat (but not as much as various Innate Attack blasters, including some tricky Maledictors).

ATR seems like one of the things that GURPS cautiously overpriced to tax what could be problematic (breaking the 'action economy') compared to abilities it subsidized to encourage behavior (underpricing combat reflexes to encourage PCs to not die)