09-06-2015, 08:14 PM | #21 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
Modular abilities gives you ready access to LOW skill. Unless this trait is taken by the sky-high IQ guy, you can maintain the challenge by requiring high skill. If you are dealing with an IQ monster, my condolences. You may wish to charge 20 for IQ without per and will, or to cap IQ and encourage talents. Talk it over with the player, express your concerns, and find out what the real core of the ability is: is he really going to need intelligence analysis.
Ensure that other players have equally super-human abilities. Make no mistake, this ability is super-human. Combat will challenge this character: combat relies on high and specialized skills and non-skill abilities. Remember that he WANTS to be a jack of all trades. Don't punish him, just let make sure the other players have fun. Also, have you considered that he wants to be this kind of character specifically because you rely on obscure skills to guide the plot? If you are concerned about denying the character the information unnecessarily, say "no, but ..." and give a way for him to get the information. It could even be a way to control the plot: you have to do this to get the info you need -- and you point them the way you want them to go. Also note that its likely that for high skill he'll need more information than is on the publically available internet. He'll have to buy a subscription to a medical or scientific journal. Really -- the free internet is pretty shallow when it comes to good, solid information. And the better information he needs, the harder to get it will get. Nickle and dime him away!
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09-06-2015, 08:48 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
I really urge you to just disallow it rather than to cruelly nerf it as most of the suggestions so far are urging.
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09-07-2015, 01:23 AM | #23 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Medford, MA
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
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09-07-2015, 01:27 AM | #24 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
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This is not a bad approach. In fact, saying no is the heart of a lot of good game design. Gameplay is often about adapting to limitations. Your problem is that this advantage removes a limitation that's fundamental to how you tend to build your games. It's like building a platformer where not falling into a pit is the core of the game, and then giving someone the ability to fly. It ruins the game. Naturally, if you want a game about a character who can fly, you need to remove "falling into the pit if you miss a jump" as a major gameplay element, but if you really like a game about falling into pits if you miss your jump, then you should remove the flight.
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My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars. |
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09-07-2015, 05:45 AM | #25 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
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09-07-2015, 07:21 AM | #26 | |
Untitled
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
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If the ability is going to be nerfed, then I'd strongly suggest lowering its cost. Nerfing an ability is the GM adding Limitations to it, and the RAW is quite clear that Limitations reduce the cost of an advantage.
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. |
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09-07-2015, 07:38 AM | #27 |
Join Date: Feb 2014
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
Information-rich can lead to a needle in the haystack scenario if the PC needs a video of a certain skill *now* I'd suggest making him do some information gathering skill rolls before he obtain his modular skills.
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09-07-2015, 10:04 AM | #28 |
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: 3.165, -3.048, -0.0818
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
I most appreciate the suggestions and experiences about how to manage a modular ability during game play. There have been some great ones! Many thanks.
Maybe I was too self-deprecating before, I've never run a game with this kind of modular ability, but I'm not saying I am the king of a strange GM-ing style where every moment pivots on a critical skill being absent. (And the best advice is therefore to break me of this terrible GM-ing habit.) Let me be more specific: I play with a lot of newcomers to RPGs. In my experience when they are new they cannot reliably remember their own traits. (Some players never can.) Or maybe they remember "I'm a scientist-type," but it isn't obvious to them how to apply this to the puzzle in front of them. While it would be nice if I could give them a nice open-ended situation and they would solve it any way they wanted -- by consulting their skill lists, for instance, as would be logical -- in practice I write or at least tailor the adventure plan *after* the characters are done and spoon-feed them some avenues of attack based on their skills. At least I do this if there are any silences. This works well for me. When I set up an encounter I go through what the PCs are good at and try to put some time into advance planning for what might happen if they follow their strengths. "Hmm... what if the demoman tries to blow this important thing up? I'll look up the rules for blowing up metal things." Or, "What if Con Man tries to bluff his way through? That would mess up this other part of the plot, so I'll need to make this NPC Indomitable." I'm pretty sure this is not an unusual approach, at least according to "How to be a GURPS GM" and similar sources. I don't know how other GMs do things, but I find that when I don't do this kind of planning, I fall back on improv that is much worse. I'm more of a planner. The more I have to improv the more the game becomes filled with these boring faceless Skill-11 henchmen and this particular tavern that exists only in my imagination and is extremely fake. (OK, exaggerating, but you know what I mean. Don't you?) I'm sure I can handle the modular ability and I'm excited to try, it just seems to make my planning style ineffective because this guy can have any skill. So it is hard for me to imagine what he will do as the options are very broad. And it would be interesting if he can have any skill. And I'll let him have it. I'm just not sure what it is going to be like. We might end up at that tavern. |
09-07-2015, 10:12 AM | #29 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
Has anyone ever tried running a PC Kwaitz Haderach?
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
09-07-2015, 12:16 PM | #30 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: [Sci-Fi] Managing the player that can have any skill
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Tags |
adventure design, character building, gming, modular abilities, plotting |
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