Sudden awakenings questions(psi, powers, magic, etc)

[Cyberpunk Eevee]

Say a PC doesn't have any special or super ability such as Psi, Magic, or a superpower. The player wants something, and they leave that something in your hands. How would you go about Awakening a character? Assume Infinite Worlds ISWAT party. What would you use to guide your decision on what they get? Any relevant stories or anecdotes?

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Cyberpunk Eevee

The player wants something, and they leave that something in your hands.

I'm a little confused by the question. Is the exact specific thing up to you, the GM? Is the want something vague like "I want magic." and they are just leaving it up to you what spell they learn?

[Tyneras]

If you are looking for ways to pick a theme behind their new powers, I generally look for small stuff. Look at their perks and quirks, tiny notes in the character bio, one point skills. These tend to (in my experience) where a lot of the personality of a character hides, and a good place for thematic powers to center on.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Cyberpunk Eevee

Say a PC doesn't have any special or super ability such as Psi, Magic, or a superpower. The player wants something, and they leave that something in your hands. How would you go about Awakening a character? Assume Infinite Worlds ISWAT party. What would you use to guide your decision on what they get? Any relevant stories or anecdotes?

I'd balance out my knowledge of the player (for example, I have one player who will always enjoy playing some sort of cat-related powers/character), the nature of the character and the party and any fun stuff I can throw into the campaign. "Fun stuff" includes big-bad related curses or escaped goodies ("You've befriended the villain's cat familiar, who transfers their loyalty to you and grants you certain powers"), something that reinforces the setting ("I guess that mission to Bastet-1 left you with certain abilities courtesy of the cat gods"), or just something fun and mysterious ("What does 'Friend of Ulthar' mean?" "You'll find out...")

(It's important to me that the player wants that power up, though. Back in the before times, I played a two-fisted gunslinging The Shadow knockoff in a rather odd campaign. The GM took it upon himself to boost my PCs power by giving him an alien ultratech chaingun in place of his twin .45s, and it pretty much ruined the character for me.)

[Cyberpunk Eevee]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I'm a little confused by the question. Is the exact specific thing up to you, the GM? Is the want something vague like "I want magic." and they are just leaving it up to you what spell they learn?

Sorry. The player wants a special ability or power, but leaves the specifics of what it is, its restrictions, its enhancements, and its source/focus to the GM.

Tyneras: That's useful information, thanks.

Apollonian: Good call. Making sure not to kill the flavor or fun of a character is important.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Cyberpunk Eevee

Sorry. The player wants a special ability or power, but leaves the specifics of what it is, its restrictions, its enhancements, and its source/focus to the GM.

With the player not knowing what he wanted to do I would give him Regeneration/Hard-to-Kill and similar Powers for however far the pts will go. He may not know what he wants but at least he'll survive whatever he tries.

A different way to get to the same sort of end would be a suite of Luck Powers.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

With the player not knowing what he wanted to do I would give him Regeneration/Hard-to-Kill and similar Powers for however far the pts will go. He may not know what he wants but at least he'll survive whatever he tries.

A different way to get to the same sort of end would be a suite of Luck Powers.

You could also present a few options as an in-character choice; whether as experimental treatments from an IW mad scientist or a choice of patron spirits from some high-mana world, or something like that.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Cyberpunk Eevee

Sorry. The player wants a special ability or power, but leaves the specifics of what it is, its restrictions, its enhancements, and its source/focus to the GM.

I think the two best places to start are "what does the player like doing?" and "What does the party/campaign need?". Others touched on player wants, but you could look to see what power or type of power doesn't exist with any player yet. You can think about previous sessions and think 'this would help play' with some trait.

You can also look at the niche the character in question is doing and help them do it better. A scout always appreciates some vision help (Telescopic Vision, Dark Vision, etc). The support can get some wild buff. An extreme HT character can get new options to spend FP on (like Healing or Jumper).

While looking over small details is always good, look at the big ones, too. A new power that relies on DX to use well won't be great in the hands of the high IQ character with little physical training.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

With the player not knowing what he wanted to do I would give him Regeneration/Hard-to-Kill and similar Powers for however far the pts will go. He may not know what he wants but at least he'll survive whatever he tries.

A different way to get to the same sort of end would be a suite of Luck Powers.

Yeah, improved survivability is always a good one. Unkillable 1 (Mortal -20%*) [40] + Regular Regeneration [25] + Regrowth [10**] is an incredibly useful powerset for someone who wants to regularly get into danger but doesn't want to need to make new characters frequently. It doesn't give any immediate benefit in combat, but it does mean that the character will bounce back from just about anything short of total bodily destruction in fairly short order (it takes 109 hours - about 4.5 days - to go from being at the verge of total destruction - -9.9xHP - to fully healed).

Of course, as others have said, it's really best to try to figure out what the player would most enjoy, but like buying just the right gift, that can be... difficult to figure out.

*Mortal on UK1 basically means you follow normal rules to see if the character "dies" - death checks at each multiple of -HP, death at -5xHP, Mortal Wounds, etc - but so long as the character never reaches -10xHP, their "corpse" will still heal, eventually bringing them back.
**Regrowth's normal cost of [40] is overpriced; even Kromm has indicated [10] is more fair. An argument can be made for an enhanced version of Regrowth that makes it so all crippling is Temporary (ends once all HP is restored), but I don't feel that's worth any more than around [20]. Note this enhanced version is how RAW Regrowth works if the character has some level of Regeneration.

[AlexanderHowl]

Regrowth as an AA of Unkillable 1 would be only 8 CP even at full value (and would be a good value with Regeneration (Regular)).