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Old 05-08-2013, 11:19 PM   #211
ErhnamDJ
 
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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Originally Posted by dataweaver View Post
Amber Diceless had a fascinating "bidding war" system for establishng prices. That did a very good job of setting prices in accordance with player expectations.
I'm not familiar with that. How did it work?


Another issue I've had is that players just won't take stuff they think is overpriced, even if it's in-genre and they would otherwise take that stuff. In supers games, I don't see any comic book-style bricks, like Colossus or The Thing, who can get hit really hard and hit hard back, because those are too expensive. There are a lot of speedsters and psychics, but the other common type of hero from comic books is missing entirely.

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And if all you want is a system where the designers have made a good-faith effort to avoid players feeling like they've been cheated, then practically every point-buy system ever produced passes the test. Unless you're doing a spoof of some sort, nobody game designer ever sets out to make the players feel disappointed.
When someone sits down to play in a TL 10 game and they try to build a robot and what the game tells them to do is purchase DR 75 (Cannot wear armor, -40%) [225], then that doesn't seem like a good faith effort. That seems like they're being punished for their character concept. It's the same if they want ST 80 (Super, -10%) [630] in their supers game.
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Last edited by ErhnamDJ; 05-08-2013 at 11:23 PM.
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Old 05-08-2013, 11:28 PM   #212
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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Another issue I've had is that players just won't take stuff they think is overpriced, even if it's in-genre and they would otherwise take that stuff. In supers games, I don't see any comic book-style bricks, like Colossus or The Thing, who can get hit really hard and hit hard back, because those are too expensive. There are a lot of speedsters and psychics, but the other common type of hero from comic books is missing entirely.
And yet my experience is exactly opposite; my players almost always prefer being huge and powerful. One of my players knows the rules pretty well, and yet has absolutely no issue with making sure her idea gets to paper. In a 20pts peasants campaign, she makes her [40] in Baking matter. And plays the disads she took perfectly.

It almost seems your players play almost gamistly with you leaning towards simulationism. Have you tried changing your style temporarily, just for science/fun/other reason? I've done it, and it changes so much of what I see and how I know to GM.

And Gurps is absolutely the best system for houserules and the system that says 'we aren't perfect'. Rule Zero exists for a reason. If you want crushers to exist more prominently, just make their values line up or even cheaper than speedsters and psychics.

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Edit:
When someone sits down to play in a TL 10 game and they try to build a robot and what the game tells them to do is purchase DR 75 (Cannot wear armor, -40%) [225], then that doesn't seem like a good faith effort. That seems like they're being punished for their character concept. It's the same if they want ST 80 (Super, -10%) [630] in their supers game.
And here it almost sounds like you are attacking the system. Like you think antagonistically. It's not perfect and neither are the handful of people who spend their lives working on it. Some things don't work. Plenty of people change the price of things. Others play as close to RAW as they can. Kromm intentionally plays RAW only so he understands the system as well as he can. And what might need changing in the future.

As a side note, I'm pretty sure my signature explains plenty.
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While I do not think that GURPS is perfect I do think that it is more balanced than what I am likely to create by GM fiat.

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Old 05-08-2013, 11:51 PM   #213
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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I'm not familiar with that. How did it work?
First off, it assumed that character traits were rated relative to each other rather than on any sort of absolute yardstick. Each player was given a pool of points, and then the players went through a bidding war on each trait to see who got top billing.

Bear in mind that I'm not recommending this for GURPS; I'm just using it as an example of a point-buy system that incorporates player feedback into the costs.

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Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ View Post
Another issue I've had is that players just won't take stuff they think is overpriced, even if it's in-genre and they would otherwise take that stuff. In supers games, I don't see any comic book-style bricks, like Colossus or The Thing, who can get hit really hard and hit hard back, because those are too expensive. There are a lot of speedsters and psychics, but the other common type of hero from comic books is missing entirely.
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Originally Posted by kirbwarrior View Post
And yet my experience is exactly opposite; my players almost always prefer being huge and powerful. One of my players knows the rules pretty well, and yet has absolutely no issue with making sure her idea gets to paper. In a 20pts peasants campaign, she makes her [40] in Baking matter. And plays the disads she took perfectly.
And here's a perfect example where different player expectations skew the results.

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Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ View Post
When someone sits down to play in a TL 10 game and they try to build a robot and what the game tells them to do is purchase DR 75 (Cannot wear armor, -40%) [225], then that doesn't seem like a good faith effort. That seems like they're being punished for their character concept. It's the same if they want ST 80 (Super, -10%) [630] in their supers game.
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Originally Posted by kirbwarrior View Post
And here it almost sounds like you are attacking the system. Like you think antagonistically. It's not perfect and neither are the handful of people who spend their lives working on it. Some things don't work. Plenty of people change the price of things. Others play as close to RAW as they can. Kromm intentionally plays RAW only so he understands the system as well as he can. And what might need changing in the future.
I was going to say that it passes the test of the designers making a good-faith effort; which means that if you're still disappointed in the results, you're wanting more than just "they tried." There are some more concrete benchmarks that you have in mind that they're not meeting.

Which is to be expected; it's the nature of the beast that point-buy systems will have flaws.

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And Gurps is absolutely the best system for houserules and the system that says 'we aren't perfect'. Rule Zero exists for a reason. If you want crushers to exist more prominently, just make their values line up or even cheaper than speedsters and psychics.
I wouldn't quite go that far; it's not like GURPS is the only RPG out there with some form of Rule 0, after all.
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Old 05-08-2013, 11:55 PM   #214
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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I'm not familiar with that. How did it work?
Basically the rankings in the categories that defined the PCs in the game (relative to basically the entire universe) were auctioned off. Each player got so many points (and could get bonus points for agreeing to do certain meta-things like keeping a campaign log). So you bid to be say the Best Swordsman in the Entire Multiverse and the winner got to be that, second place was the Second Best Swordsman in The Entire Multiverse and so on.
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Old 05-08-2013, 11:56 PM   #215
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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It almost seems your players play almost gamistly with you leaning towards simulationism.
I look at it as being two separate games entirely. There's the character creation game, and then there's the actual roleplaying game.

The goal of the character creation game is to get a character you'll enjoy playing in the roleplaying game. You either win that game or you lose that game, and the stakes are pretty high, since you won't find out which you've done until after you've devoted quite a lot of everyone's time to it, and if you lose it could end up seriously jeopardizing the roleplaying game.

It sucks an awful lot when the GM builds the world around your character only to figure out that the character doesn't work in the game.

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And Gurps is absolutely the best system for houserules and the system that says 'we aren't perfect'.
Oh, I agree completely there. I wouldn't even bother trying to change most games. With other games, we just suck it up and try to play around the game's foibles the best we can.

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And here it almost sounds like you are attacking the system. Like you think antagonistically.
It's not like the game bit my leg off or anything.

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As a side note, I'm pretty sure my signature explains plenty.
I can probably do better with fiat in any given game, but it takes a lot of time. I don't want to have to figure out on the sport what the robot character's DR should cost. The alternative is to go through and reprice every trait for every game, and that's a lot of work.

I want players to be able to understand what sorts of characters they'll be allowed to play in the game, so they can take that into account when thinking up a concept. Character point limits are really good for doing that. But that goes away completely when I'm arbitrarily changing prices all the time. Once people internalize the prices, they're usually able to eyeball a point cost in their head. That's why I was wondering how that bidding game worked out. My players usually put a lot of work into their characters and their backstories and stuff. They usually show up with a concept that we discuss and flesh out before the game. I'm not sure how that would work out if the player didn't know what the traits would cost. "I had a cool character idea for a baron, but it turned out I didn't have enough points."

Edit:

Looks like while I was typing this up, the bidding thing was explained. Sounds pretty terrible.
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Old 05-08-2013, 11:59 PM   #216
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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I wouldn't quite go that far; it's not like GURPS is the only RPG out there with some form of Rule 0, after all.
Oh true, I may have been exaggerating, but I know my point gets across. I think a lot of things ErhnamDJ says slightly gets under my skin because, completely IMO, gurps is the best system I've used for roleplaying, and I absolutely know it's not perfect.

"Your pile of crap sure is gold plated, but it is still a pile of crap."

We have to make do with what we have. If you tear apart every movie you watch, you won't enjoy watching movies. If you tear apart every roleplaying system, you won't enjoy roleplaying. And you absolutely can tear apart everything and laugh at it's failures. Human nature at it's finest.

EDIT: Okay, ErhnamDJ did post while I half-ranted. I want to get myself back on track.

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It sucks an awful lot when the GM builds the world around your character only to figure out that the character doesn't work in the game.
There are two ways to build a world; before or during/after PC creation. I can't imagine how you can build the world around the character and then have things not work. I almost always create the world after the fact (just giving the PCs enough details to start their characters), because I've never had it work the other way around.
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While I do not think that GURPS is perfect I do think that it is more balanced than what I am likely to create by GM fiat.

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Old 05-09-2013, 12:04 AM   #217
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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I think a lot of things ErhnamDJ says slightly gets under my skin because, completely IMO, gurps is the best system I've used for roleplaying, and I absolutely know it's not perfect.

"Your pile of crap sure is gold plated, but it is still a pile of crap."
That's not the way I look at it at all. I like GURPS. A lot. But there are a few things I don't like, and most of them are concentrated in the character creation minigame. And those are easiest to fix. The stuff that I dislike in the actual game aren't easy to fix at all and I have a lot of sympathy for anyone staring into that abyss. I have no clue, for example, how to fix the naval combat rules.

"This steak looks great. It just happens to have a hair on it."
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Old 05-09-2013, 12:06 AM   #218
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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I have no clue, for example, how to fix the naval combat rules.
If I were running a game where naval combat is central, I'd probably just figure out how to make GURPS skill rolls matter in a naval wargame of my choice. The vehicle combat rules are usable for games where it's not the central focus.
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Old 05-09-2013, 12:10 AM   #219
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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"This steak looks great. It just happens to have a hair on it."
Is nicer but basically the meaning behind the quote I posted (i can't remember who said it).

I've very rarely had an issue with actual play rules. Character creation rules are 10:1 on how often they come up as issues on these boards from what I've seen.

One solution I've seen on the boards is, if a player doesn't seem to be as good as the others, slightly push their capabilities to get them somewhere (who knows, Cup Staking-20 could become Cup Stacking!-20).

And then there is, you have to know what the characters are capable of and line up the adventure around that. No matter what, GM Fiat is going to come up in play, even if the GM doesn't realize it.
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While I do not think that GURPS is perfect I do think that it is more balanced than what I am likely to create by GM fiat.
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Old 05-09-2013, 12:10 AM   #220
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Default Re: Advantages Are Not Utility Priced

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There are two ways to build a world; before or during/after PC creation. I can't imagine how you can build the world around the character and then have things not work. I almost always create the world after the fact (just giving the PCs enough details to start their characters), because I've never had it work the other way around.
I don't see how you could just drop supers into a pre-built world, since they have such a huge impact on the world. My players are usually the movers and shakers in the world, so they can't just be dropped down into something that already exists. Not unless I'm doing, like, a horror game, but then the skill pricing is the big problem.

So if we take the time to explain how the brick got his powers and to map out his backstory, and I go through the trouble of putting in the NPCs who are important to him, and I figure out what sort of stuff the character's going to be doing, and I figure out and put into the game interesting drama and challenges for him, then I have done a lot of work.

And then we might start playing the game where things don't work out for the brick. If it's not as much fun for the player as she had expected, then that's a considerable amount of effort wasted and it's going to significantly detract from the game no matter what I do at that point. It's one of those ounce of prevention type deals. If I already have the story rolling, then it's not easy to stop but it's also no fun for the player to keep playing a character they don't enjoy. It's a no win situation at that point.
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