Low-powered campaigns

[AlexanderHowl]

More about low point values, but yes. I was just making the point that CP value does not necessarily correspond to realism.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

More about low point values, but yes. I was just making the point that CP value does not necessarily correspond to realism.

Which also entails that you can have a cinematic campaign with characters built on 150 points, or maybe even on 50 points. Though I don't think "cinematic" is necessarily what you're looking for, either.

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree, low-powered does not necessarily mean realistic and high-powered does not necessarily mean cinematic. The Three Stooges would be an example of a setting with cinematic and low-powered characters while Transhuman Space would be an example of a setting with realistic and high-powered characters.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I have often run 'realistic' games where characters are built off 500 CP and have run to 750 CP. Characters had the normal limitations for Attributes and Secondary Characteristics and were forbidden cinematic, exotic, and supernatural traits unless they had the appropriate Unusual Training, and only for traits in their martial arts styles. High CP values really do matter less as technology progresses though, so a 500 CP character might be a demigod in a TL0 campaign but they might only be average in a TL12 campaign.

They are still not going to be average in a TL12 campaign, unless you've decided that most people in that campaign are around 500 points. I do agree that points matter less as TL progresses, though - equipment matters more and more with TL, and as TL rises so too does average wealth, so at higher TLs even low-point value characters can afford lots of nice gear.

Meanwhile the scope of games tends to also rise, so massive points sunk into Wealth also buy less influence over the whole campaign as TL rises, though this is not automatic - some high TL campaigns might have a small enough scope that a billionaire could just buy solutions to just about anything, while some low TL games might have empires extensive enough that no affordable Wealth level could buy universal influence.

However, overall the big thing is that an individual's skills and traits, aside from social ones, matter less as TL advances. Thus overall points matter less (aside from those sunk into social things - they tend to retain value, so a 500CP 'face' becomes more and more relatively powerful compared to their 500CP combat wombats as TL rises).

[AlexanderHowl]

TL 12 genetic engineering easily allows for the creation of genetic superhumans with ST+10, DX+4, IQ+4, HT+4, etc., and it can be given to the entire population through TL 12 plague metamorphic viruses. Additional plague metamorphic viruses could spread biological augmentations such as muscle reinforcement and skeletal strengthening throughout the population. With minimal investment, a TL 12 society can bootstrap its entire population up to an average of 500+ CP, which is a logical response when faced with TL 12 AI.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

I used to have players design 100 CP characters, let them play a prologue session or two, then "Give an Origin" and put on templates - get super-powers, amnesia suddenly clears up, someone turned off the Matrix, owl-delivered letter arrives ten years late, etc. Part of the first over-arcing plot is to find out what happened and why.

It requires more work on the GM's part, but the players feel more invested in the character as opposed to the character build. At least I think so.

[AlexanderHowl]

Origin stories are a perfectly acceptable low powered adventure for a larger campaign. If the players start out at 100 CP and, after gaining 25 CP for the first adventure, end up gaining an upgrade of 375 CP to get them up to 500 CP, that is a perfect opening to a superhero campaign. Alternatively, they could be afflicted by experimental metamorphic viruses that turn them into superhumans, which would be a perfect setup for a science fiction campaign.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Origin stories are a perfectly acceptable low powered adventure for a larger campaign. If the players start out at 100 CP and, after gaining 25 CP for the first adventure, end up gaining an upgrade of 375 CP to get them up to 500 CP, that is a perfect opening to a superhero campaign. Alternatively, they could be afflicted by experimental metamorphic viruses that turn them into superhumans, which would be a perfect setup for a science fiction campaign.

I'm really bored with origin stories; I've seen too many movies and TV shows that do the "heroic arc" thing and I'm heartily sick of them. If I'm going to do superheroes I'd rather have them already active and teamed up.

If I'm running a campaign with low powered characters—particularly one about kids—I'd rather have gradual improvement and maturation, in "novel of apprenticeship" style. They'll end up significantly better, but it will be by gradual increments, not by a sudden upgrade. And the focus will be on the experiences and adventures of low-powered characters. That can be a lot of fun in itself; at least, when I ran a campaign where each player had four PCs—a powerful sorcerer/aristocrat, a cadet sorcerer, a guard, and a servant—the players ended up spending the most time on the cadets.

You don't have to bestride the world like colossi to be worth reading about, viewing, or roleplaying.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You don't have to bestride the world like colossi to be worth reading about, viewing, or roleplaying.

Well, true, but in the real world, ordinary people are not expected or even legally allowed to get into the kind of adventurous situations that most RPGs focus on, at least not without being simply a cog in a larger machine.

Ordinary people in an extraordinary situation can work as a one-shot, but it strains credulity to contrive multiple stories about the same ordinary people who find themselves in life and death situations without the opportunity of notifying the people whose job it is to deal with that sort of thing.

And cops, soldiers, rescue workers or anyone else whose jobs involve dangerous situations are never sent to do them in a small group without back-up or supervision, not unless they are highly competent (and high point value) experts who are trained for special operations, where it's impractical or counterproductive to send larger units directed by senior figures.

A major flaw in stories where the PCs are supposed to be just ordinary people, no more competent than anyone you might meet on the street, or at most, than any among the thousands who have the same profession requiring 75-150 points to do, is that when such characters insist on rescuing hostages, confronting dangerous criminal nemeses, fighting terrorists, or hunting monsters, instead of leaving it to the full resources of the FBI HRT, the local PD, JSOC or actually competent Monster Hunters, they are being either delusional or selfish, and probably getting innocents killed.

The world is full of ordinary people who might be interesting and worth hearing about, but if any of them ever find themselves in the kind of situation which forms the bulk of RPG scenarios I've seen or heard about, they're not going to be calling the shots and if they participate, it will be as one of dozens or hundreds of others. Mostly, their involvement would be limited to a 911 call or notifying a superior.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ordinary people in an extraordinary situation can work as a one-shot, but it strains credulity to contrive multiple stories about the same ordinary people who find themselves in life and death situations without the opportunity of notifying the people whose job it is to deal with that sort of thing.

There are several ways to address that.

* You can run a campaign that does not involve multiple situations. I've been playing in one for most of the past decade.

* You can run a campaign set in a time when ordinary people did not have so much insulation from danger and hardship. Anything up till 1875 is plausible. Or don't set your campaign in a civilized country. Going to the Congo, or Kafiristan, or Oz is an adventure for people like you and me, but to the people who live there it's just how people live.

* You can run a campaign that isn't about that sort of adventuring. Not every story has to turn on life and death situations to be dramatic. I've gotten mileage out of trade pioneers trying to make a profit, and out of young people looking for someone to love, or swashbucklers attending salons and trying not to embarrass themselves in the witty banter.

I'd also point out that there's a big middle ground between the unadventurous civilian like me, or perhaps you, or Bilbo Baggins, and the colossus bestriding the world. A police officer, even the hero of a police procedural that skips over the dull parts of policing, faces challenges and dangers I couldn't cope with, but he's not a titan who could transform the world. He's a guy doing a job. Or she's a gal doing a job. "Just because I say I like sea bathing I don't mean I want to be pickled in brine."