08-21-2019, 12:04 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Glendale, Calif. near L.A.
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The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
I am running a TL 10 Space/Cyberpunk game. Two of my players bought +2 TL for 10 points to make them TL 12. One bought Multimillionaire 1 (1000x starting wealth, I assume his starting wealth is $100,000, since he's TL 12, so he has a wealth of $100,000,000.) He bought an exoskeleton suit that lets him carry 350 lbs, and he has THREE PAGES of advanced TL 12 gear and weapons. It's game-unbalancing! It provides a HUGE ADVANTAGE over the other TL 10 PCs. He even gave another TL 10 player a Disintegrator rifle!
I don't think a TL 12 character in a TL 10 world should have all those benefits for just 10 character points! Ten points can buy you a +1 ST or +1 HT, but those benefits for 10 points pale in comparison to TL 12 gear and weapons in a TL 10 world. I'm going to charge the players with Unusual Background Advantages that will need to be paid-off before the players can increase their attributes, advantages, and skills. How many points of Unusual Background should I charge the players??? |
08-21-2019, 12:59 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
The High TL advantage does not increase your starting wealth.
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08-21-2019, 01:07 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Nov 2015
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
I would check Basic p. 27
Mainly 3 things. Starting wealth is still TL10. His high TL gear costs 4x. How is he TL 12? He comes from the future? Because otherwise there is no TL12 gear to buy, he might get something with the invention rules, but that's even more expensive |
08-21-2019, 01:08 AM | #4 | |
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(If you have to ask . . .) Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Somewhere high up.
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
You're reading too much into the advantage. All the advantage does is give them access to the skills and knowledge, it doesn't give any access to the gear.
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[eta] But, page 27 does clarify that, and the costs. [/eta] Also, as GM, you're not required to allow your players to buy any advantage they want. You're perfectly justified in saying "No, that isn't available." |
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08-21-2019, 01:12 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2019
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
Yes, the advantage doesn't increase wealth unless the GM decides to, also hello this is one of his players and my character has few actually tech level 12 items and she is a gadgeteer, she also is like... old-ish? and made most of her TL 12 items before the campaign. I as a player was wondering why I should be limited when I had to buy a high wealth to afford most of it. also most of the stuff is like LC 3 and 2 so I had to buy legal enforcement powers and authority and stuff to use it. so I basically spent about 115 points to use them on a 250 point game. also, I only have 11 items 2 being translator and a neural communicator, 1 weapon, 7 which is support equipment and armor and one car. I would be unable to pay for it all without paying 75 points for multimillionaire
Last edited by Llama; 08-21-2019 at 01:38 AM. |
08-21-2019, 03:08 AM | #6 |
Join Date: Oct 2013
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
As a GM, I generally view more than 1 rank in high TL to be an indication of an outside context character. A time traveler, an alien, or someone from Europe turning up in your african tribal campaign (yay colonization!).
I tend to run superhero games, so I have some experience with high TL characters. Assuming I allow it, my methods of controlling things would be as follows: VERY strict ammunition limitations on weapons and power supply limitations on high technology. A TL 6 civilization isn't able to reliably recharge a TL 8 cell phone, and a TL 2 tribe can't make ammunition for a TL 4 firearm at all! Another method of keeping things in check is infrastructure. That GPS unit from the future is just a fancy map stored on a microchip when you go back to medieval times, since there aren't satellites to connect to. It can actually be inferior to a paper map, since it relies on batteries while paper doesn't. Finally, having tech skills at a high TL (from the advantage) means you are at a TL penalty on those checks when using older tech. A modern computer expert is going to have trouble using vacuum tube technology, at least until he adapts to it. Don't be afraid to give your TL 12 guys a -2 on all checks using advanced TL 10 equipment, then give them the option to buy it off as an average technique. As a side note, EVERYONE is gonna want that juicy high tech gear for reverse engineering. Shady corporations, governments... have them dragged before the government and given the Iron Man 2 hearing, where the government tries to confiscate their tech for their own use. Make a big deal out of it. Slap them with penalties for trying to blend in using their advanced tech. Put bounties on their gear getting captured. All sorts of fun stuff like that. |
08-21-2019, 09:10 AM | #7 | |||
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
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However, I don't think high TL is the real culprit here, though it exacerbates the culprit. Wealth, especially high levels of it, is a game warper in just about every tech level it shows up in. I like the way it warps game, to be honest, but I also insist that my multimillionaires act like multimillionaires. And you don't have to allow anything in your game that doesn't fit. What would you have said if they asked to be an RPM mage? The setting determines what's available, and yes, players can make requests, but be aware they're asking you to change the setting.
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08-21-2019, 09:26 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
Seconded. A future multimillionaire time slumming with ridiculous gear is an interesting idea for a PC, but probably not worse than a current multimillionaire hiring mercenary companies, buying off various government arms, and hiring assassins to kill the BBEG would be.
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08-21-2019, 10:06 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
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A TL10 character of Average wealth starts out with $50,000. A High-TL 2 [10] character who brings an average disintegrator rifle into the game spends $18,400 on it (four times the normal cost), not counting TL12 power cells, which cost $80 per pair of C cells and are limited to the number you start with. (You can jury-rig TL10 power cells, but it's risky.) That's nice, but it's hardly game-shattering. You've spent around a third of your starting wealth on a single high-TL weapon. 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. |
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08-21-2019, 10:34 AM | #10 | |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Re: The High TL Advantage is game-unbalancing!
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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. |
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