What will you not allow?

[sir_pudding]

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.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Which is why even Charles Xavier needs Cerebro . . . It allows all those tricks, but it's huge, it can break, it can be sabotaged, etc. The writers were quite aware that just letting the Professor casually read all minds everywhere looking for anything would get old fast.

Just like you knew that level of power, out of the box, would get old fast for the other players.

Originally Posted by naloth

It's entirely dependent on how available, concealable, and inexpensive the gear is.

I completely agree with this. However, the way the situation was presented was that it was fairly ubiquitous.

Originally Posted by naloth

"No rule of 16" is essentially the same as "no defense", which is fairly abusive on any ability. The others are mitigated by not knowing your target or the ramifications of indiscriminately assaulting people around the world.

That's not true. No rule of 16 doesn't prevent other defenses. It's only a Cosmic +50%. And it doesn't prevent someone from having a resistance of better than 16. What it does give you is the ability to use your full power, instead of just having rolls above 16 for soaking penalties.

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)."

[AlexanderHowl]

Though that can be countered with Immunity (Psychic Powers; Cosmic, Impenetrable Defense, +50%). When it comes to Cosmic, defense is always cheaper than offense.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

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.

I agree.

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.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

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.

I'm very much behind this. No one plays in my campaign without submitting a complete character sheet for me to review, at least a couple of weeks out from the first session. And if I don't approve a character as correctly added up, having correct point costs, being legal under the rules, having traits allowed in my campaign, and meeting whatever stipulations I made in defining the campaign—the character doesn't get played.

[(E)]

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.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by naloth

Solution 7. It's inadmissible. PCs can't use anything based on what they discover because it's another form of forcing self incrimination.

...and once you've read someone's mind, who can prove that you are telling the truth?

[JMason]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I'm very much behind this. No one plays in my campaign without submitting a complete character sheet for me to review, at least a couple of weeks out from the first session. And if I don't approve a character as correctly added up, having correct point costs, being legal under the rules, having traits allowed in my campaign, and meeting whatever stipulations I made in defining the campaign—the character doesn't get played.

I did this for years, but now go even further. This is because, I had one particular player that as soon as I gave the short synopsis of what I was thinking of running, he'd go off and create a character on his own, based on a lot of assumptions that were not part of that synopsis. When he would present the character and I'd ask for changes, he'd explain his grand design and how he thought this character would be great, or how his character would fit in fine. Even after tweaking the character, it would ALWAYS be a mis-match for the group.

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.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by JMason

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.

Something like that has been my policy since . . . I'd like to say 1979, but I can't specifically recall doing it before I ran Champions in 1982. In my last three GURPS campaigns, I instituted a "design by interview" process where I sat down in private with each player and co-created the character to fit the player's ideas, the group's agreement on party makeup, and my vision of the campaign. Things ran smoothly as a result, and I rather doubt I'll step away from that process in the future.

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.

[JMason]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Something like that has been my policy since . . . I'd like to say 1979, but I can't specifically recall doing it before I ran Champions in 1982. In my last three GURPS campaigns, I instituted a "design by interview" process where I sat down in private with each player and co-created the character to fit the player's ideas, the group's agreement on party makeup, and my vision of the campaign. Things ran smoothly as a result, and I rather doubt I'll step away from that process in the future.

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.

There is a culture that had developed in some games, that if you can point to the rule in the book, then your "right". The problem is that even in games that developed that culture, it tends to cause problems.

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.