02-19-2019, 03:07 PM | #41 | |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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It's an approach I've used a lot for a long time, for many things (e.g. rations, coins, condition of equipment...). |
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02-19-2019, 04:14 PM | #42 | |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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Now, however, I'd like to re-direct the discussion back to what I was thinking about when I kicked off the thread: What are some of the ways that you long-suffering GMs dealt with high attribute parties back in the day? Specifically when individual stats hit 15, 16 or more?
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
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02-19-2019, 06:39 PM | #43 | |
Join Date: Aug 2018
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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1) A character who has ceased to be fun to play gets killed off. Usually on a suicidally dangerous quest. Happened with my favorite character and some of his friends. Somewhere in that version of Cidri there is a hoard of magical items and treasures, but it has a few more guardians. 2) He retired to his estates or to run his businesses or control of his fiefdom. After that, he might sponsor a group of new adventurers and outfit them to do his bidding, but took no active part in play. (NPCstatus). 3) They ascended (either taken to a higher plane by a deity, or whatever) or welcomed into the ranks of the Mnoren. Either way, they went away and their character sheet got wadded up or framed, depending on how his player felt about him. |
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02-19-2019, 07:05 PM | #44 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
Location: North Texas
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
All perfectly reasonable end-of-life solutions, but I was actually referring to how folks may have tried to re-balance the game or specific encounters in order to provide the appropriate level of challenge for the characters.
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“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.” -Vladimir Taltos |
02-19-2019, 07:24 PM | #45 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Carrboro, NC
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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50 point characters don't dungeon crawl unless the fate of worlds hangs in the balance. |
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02-19-2019, 08:39 PM | #47 | |
Join Date: May 2015
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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The second thing I "tried" as a young newbie TFT GM, was to have the world have many similarly or even-more-bloated NPCs. That was surprisingly ok, but is also how I learned how I don't like attribute bloat. I would not do that now. I was a bit shocked looking back through my thousands of NPCs for my original TFT campaign, at how many of them had quite high attribute totals, that I would no longer dish out like that. Nonetheless they got massacred left and right, generally by large parties with many NPCs. My experience of running a world where lots of NPCs have quite high attributes etc, is that the more I did it, the more it felt artificial and unsatisfying, particularly because most "normal" non-high-attribute characters seemed like fragile and impotent human mortals in comparison to the super-powered others. The gameplay also became more predictable and more about powers than tactics. Maneuver normal humans to surround the hero and he just does a sweeping blow and mows down three of you per turn, and even if you manage to hit him your weapons almost always bounce off. Mainly though I think it's OK to have some high attributes as long as it's not lots and lots of high attributes, where failing any roll is seen as a blunder, especially when combined with great equipment. (Which is a form of what I meant in my first point - there is a game in the campaign situation). And I also think it's great if you can let players get some powerful characters and enjoy being powerful with them. When a GM feels the need to level up everything automatically to match the power level of PCs, that seems to me like one of the punishment levels of Purgatory, and makes no sense. On the other hand, there are quite a few situations that can challenge powerful characters, and not just by having them face similarly-powerful adversaries. The situation is generally more important than the stats in TFT, with some exceptions. Strength mostly lies in numbers, up to a point, and again depending on the specifics. As tomc pointed out, logical consequences do tend to elevate the situations powerful people face. Not in the automatic bloat sense I complained about, but just in terms of natural reactions from the powers that be, through reputation, promotions, accumulating enemies, politics, and/or the players themselves deciding to take on more significant challenges. |
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02-20-2019, 12:35 AM | #48 | |
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Arizona
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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Okay, actually that was only the case when the player felt that playing the character was no longer as "interesting" for that player. Which actually happened a surprising number of times. In other cases, we shifted over to a more "realms" based campaign where political intrigue and such shenanigans had a much bigger role to play, but that didn't happen more than twice in all the years we played -- mostly because it becomes more of an intellectual exercise (weaving plots and sneaking around ball and throne rooms), whereas most of my players preferred a more "visceral" campaign (lopping the heads off Orcs and whatnot). One thing I did NOT do, and that was arbitrarily kill off a "too-powerful" player character or anything like that -- whatever happened only happened with player buy-in and approval (and usually at that player's suggestion). Of course that was all then, under the original rules. Under the new rules, I believe that it will take quite a while longer to reach that point in the game. |
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02-20-2019, 07:19 AM | #49 | |
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Portland, Maine
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
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However, you might introduce disease into the game. I suggest an incurable disease that eats Attribute Points. It would be a disease that seems immune to magical healing. It would be a disease that the GM decides which stat is affected and what the symptoms are. Every 6 months the character notices a stat declines. If the PC does nothing, in 6 months it declines again. The PC will deteriorate if it does not start feeding XP to raise attributes. There is no none cure yet (except may a cure for Attribute Bloat.)
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02-20-2019, 08:58 AM | #50 |
Join Date: Dec 2017
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Re: Attribute Bloat 'Re-Deux'
A single really high stat - even up to 30 - isn't really game breaking. Advances above 16 are useful but with diminishing returns and increasing costs. The thing I really didn't like about 1st edition attribute bloat is the fact that everyone understands what I just wrote, and so every character ends up having three identically high stats and is capable of everything. It's like playing D+D where everyone plays Fighter/Magic User/Thief characters. Add in a bunch of magic items and the whole thing is just not worth the bother. This is why I haven't regretted a minute of our campaign under the new XP rules, which really put a lid on all that stuff.
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