The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!

[Aldric]

Originally Posted by namada

Granted - you do need to inform your players before character creation what is and isn't available. This is an incredibly important step in campaign design, and I'd argue vital for those new to GURPS. Enforced Template use can be one way to handle this, or you can just make a list and cover special cases of Traits in that list.

That's definitely what I'm working on for my campaign project. Templates, both to avoid troublesome builds and to be more friendly towards new players.
I think I'd like to hand the players a version of Gurps-Lite that's adjusted for the campaign and let them use that instead of paging through multiple books.

[Celjabba]

http://www.sjgames.com/gameaids/gurps/sorter/


This may help

[Black Leviathan]

We do a lot of mixed tech level stuff in one of our settings and Techologically Advanced is really expensive when you view it in the frame of technology existing readily in the setting. If you were born on a planet where gas lamps are a cool technology, finding a force field that will make it nearly impossible for people to kill you is awesome until you realize that any kind of skill roll to work with that thing is 35 CP away from you, that's heartbreakingly expensive.

Also if you open up High Tech and just grab the biggest gun and toughest armor in your tech level, yeah, that's powerful as hell, but honestly it's not that great compared to the T72 tank in the High Tech book. And I hear you scoff that that's a Main Battle Tank! Yeah so's that exoskeleton you have on and they'd be regulated about the same. You're not buying a heavy plasma rifle at the 7-11, that's highly regulated military technology. PCs would almost certainly not have the heavy weaponry of their TL, in fact the pistols or non-military rifles they have would likely be the up-tech versions of the prior TL, like TL 10 laser pistols and slug rifles. Still cool weapons, but you're not walking packing firepower that can melt a school.

[Mark Skarr]

At a basic level, this isn't a system issue, it's a communication issue.

Make sure the player in question understands the concept of the game and has made a character that fits within that concept. If they don't, the two of you need to have a conversation and discuss what is acceptable, and help them tailor their idea into something much more compatible with your game.

If you're going to allow a character to have High TL and high levels of Wealth, then, yeah, you're looking at some game-breaking stuff. But, that's a decision you have to make. If you don't want to allow it, you don't have to. I don't allow Weirdness Magnet because everyone would want to take it, and, unless it's baked into the game (IOU, Infinite Weirdos), it's more disruptive than anything else. I usually don't allow enemies or dependents as it shouldn't be the party's responsibility to continuously fight your enemies or protect your dependents, yet that's what I've seen it always turn into ("Whose enemy and dependent shows up this week?"). In a cyberpunk game I wouldn't allow Jumper, Warp, Insubstantial or a host of other advantages because they don't fit with the game. Just because an advantage is listed in the book doesn't mean it's appropriate for every game.

You may want to flush any sessions you've already had for this game and start over with a new session zero. A session where you and the players sit around and discuss the game and what they want to run. Make the characters during the session. That way, you'll get a good chance to quash anything that is unacceptable. If you can't make characters at the session don't let them "Dave" you by saying "I'm going to make a mage" and when they come to the table they've got a Minotaur Barbarian. Make them stick to the character they said they were going to make. That sounds harsh but when the rest of the party is working around you, and you change concepts and don't tell anyone/everyone, it's everyone's fun, not just yours.

I make 95% of the characters for my games. Players submit the characters they want, and I make them. That way there are no surprises when session one starts. There are a couple of players I allow to make their own characters (Chaos Coyote, Hand of Bobb) because they're going to be talking to me, constantly, while they're building their characters. But, they're just as likely to say "Hey, make me X for this game," because they're not sure they could pull it off as well as I could. And they know I won't give them something I'm not comfortable with them having in the game.

Talk to the player in question.

[FuelDrop]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I find the rest of this post a little too heavy handed, but the comment about "out of context" is spot on. Before you allow such a character into a setting, you should establish where they came from, who else can come from there, and what sorts of things make that more likely. The big question for this setting is "why don't high TL people rule this planet?", and as you explore that limitations for the out of context visitor will materialize.

I may have been a touch heavy-handed (read: a LOT heavy handed) but the point was to show that there are ways to rein in a character abusing the high TL advantage.

Perhaps I should have been clearer, but the point was that higher TL equipment doesn't have to be completely unbalancing.

As always, work with your player. The TL 9 time travelling supersoldier turning up in your TL 3 fantasy game with an assault rifle? effectively a limited use "I Win" button for any combat encounter, but without a way to replenish ammunition it becomes a resource management thing, with each encounter being "do I break out the M16 or do I save ammunition". It can be used to make every bullet a dramatic moment where the soldier decides "Things just got real" and quite literally breaks out the big guns. But that doesn't suit every player, GM, or game.

As always, the goal is not to balance the game perfectly but to make sure everyone is having fun, so as long as your player having access to outside context gear isn't ruining the game for anyone (including you), then no balancing is needed.

[Seneschal]

The issue might also be TL12 itself. Unlike TL0-8, future TLs are broader, based on speculation, and don't provide many details on the technology (its drawbacks, infrastructure requirements, quirks, production process, etc.). Now, on TL9-11 that's workable since they're based on plausible assumptions. Meanwhile, TL12 and TL12* are a bit hard to differentiate - both are catch-all category for technologies we puny earthlings can't wrap our minds around yet. TL12* has crazier numbers and effects, but it's not necessarily less realistic than TL12 - the difference in plausibility between a total conversion engine (TL12) and an FTL hyperdrive (TL12*) is essentially just flavor; they're both "impossible". I see TL12 as more of a genre description, designating "crazy space opera", which also means it doesn't compare well, balance-wise, with previous TLs. Putting disintegrators and armor-ignoring gravity weapons in the same setting with regular armor is just asking for trouble.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Seneschal

The issue might also be TL12 itself. Unlike TL0-8, future TLs are broader, based on speculation, and don't provide many details on the technology (its drawbacks, infrastructure requirements, quirks, production process, etc.). Now, on TL9-11 that's workable since they're based on plausible assumptions. Meanwhile, TL12 and TL12* are a bit hard to differentiate - both are catch-all category for technologies we puny earthlings can't wrap our minds around yet. TL12* has crazier numbers and effects, but it's not necessarily less realistic than TL12 - the difference in plausibility between a total conversion engine (TL12) and an FTL hyperdrive (TL12*) is essentially just flavor; they're both "impossible". I see TL12 as more of a genre description, designating "crazy space opera", which also means it doesn't compare well, balance-wise, with previous TLs. Putting disintegrators and armor-ignoring gravity weapons in the same setting with regular armor is just asking for trouble.

I'm not sure TL12 non-superscience is what you think it is. I can't check my UT, but Spaceships at least thinks that total conversion is superscience.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'm not sure TL12 non-superscience is what you think it is. I can't check my UT, but Spaceships at least thinks that total conversion is superscience.

Its not in UT.

TL12 without the ^ is just adding another number to a sequence that existed in TL11, genegeneering to the limits of nature, or its nanotech without limitations. Comments are also made about unlocking the highest levels of engineering possible under known physics, but mega engineering doesn't make gear sheets.

The unlimited nano-tech is the thing I'm skeptical about not being superscience.

[Llama]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Now, sure, if you're a Multimillionaire 1 [75] from TL12, you get to bring in a lot of ultra-tech equipment (your starting wealth is $50M), but you paid 75 points for the privilege to do that in addition to the 10 points for High-TL. So you're not getting tons of benefit for just 10 points.

Thank you, but I would like to point out that most of the, "super op weapons" that I have are LC 2-3 so i had to buy a bunch of law enforcement advantages to be allowed to use it, I even bought some advantages just for background to explain why she is a higher TL. Sincerely the rich bish in his campaign