Modifiers for campaign relevance

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by downer

Another thread just reminded me that there is, as far as I can tell, no easy way to grade advantages and disadvantages by relevance to a given campaign. The problem is basically this:
What (except GM fiat) is to keep a player from picking a disadvantage that is possible, but from a campaign standpoint mostly or completely irrelevant? Say, a character has Thalassophobia. Sure, the world has oceans, but the player knows that the campaign is set.

Bad example. The value of phobias is in fact determined by how common their object is. If you are deathly afraid of something that doesn't actually exist in the campaign, that's a quirk. Rare is 5 points. Common is 10. Very Common is 15

[PK]

Originally Posted by downer

What (except GM fiat) is to keep a player from picking a disadvantage that is possible, but from a campaign standpoint mostly or completely irrelevant?

Absolutely nothing. If the GM doesn't do it, no one and nothing will.

The issue you just brought up is why the GM is there. Before the game starts, the GM's job consists of explaining the game world to the players and then helping ensure that they create useful and appropriate characters for the game world. Let me repeat: That's the GM's job.

To put it another way, this is not unlike asking, "What (except for traffic lights) is to keep cars at an intersection from crashing into each other because they don't know when to go?" The answer is "nothing."

(Hope this doesn't come across as aggressive -- I'm just trying to be emphatic to ensure that this Very Important Point comes across properly.)

[BaHalus]

I think only relevant stuff for the campaign should be accounted. If it become relevant after, then the stuff can give the relevant bonus cp or cost the relevant cp. Maybe the char has thalassophobia and had some status along the shore, but neither are relevant inland, so won't be charged. They will be there just in the background.

[downer]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Absolutely nothing. If the GM doesn't do it, no one and nothing will.

The issue you just brought up is why the GM is there. Before the game starts, the GM's job consists of explaining the game world to the players and then helping ensure that they create useful and appropriate characters for the game world. Let me repeat: That's the GM's job.

To put it another way, this is not unlike asking, "What (except for traffic lights) is to keep cars at an intersection from crashing into each other because they don't know when to go?" The answer is "nothing."

(Hope this doesn't come across as aggressive -- I'm just trying to be emphatic to ensure that this Very Important Point comes across properly.)

I get your point, the GM is the referee and is supposed to handle such things. I do prefer, however, to practice a cooperative approach, which is greatly aided by a well-phrased rule, which, as David pointed out, does exist for Phobias, and some other things. Simply speaking, if the player reads "all (or most) traits are rated by frequency, as follows:", I can be fairly sure that he will take this into account. If it doesn't, players may simply miss that point, and more or less lengthy explanations might be needed. Call me lazy, but I just love to get a character sheet that I don't need to modify...

Anyway, it seems that an all-or-nothing approach for those traits that do not already have a grading system is preferred. I guess that's easy enough.

[Anthony]

Unusual background is usable to rate advantages that are unusually potent, but there is nothing equivalent for advantages that are simply not very relevant.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

The issue you just brought up is why the GM is there. Before the game starts, the GM's job consists of explaining the game world to the players and then helping ensure that they create useful and appropriate characters for the game world. Let me repeat: That's the GM's job.

There does seem to be a style of gaming where the GM is not in any sense the author of the world, but is the local administrator of a world that someone else has defined, or even of a campaign whose plot someone else has worked out in advance of actual play.

GURPS gives almost no support to that style of gaming; it's optimized as a set of tools for creating the world and the campaign that an individual GM wants. Even its published settings, such as Yrth and Transhuman Space and Reign of Steel, are full of suggestions for "you could run this campaign or this campaign or this campaign," and leave large parts of the setting, including particularly the local starting place, for the GM to make up. A GM who has done this has no choice but to explain the setting to the players.

I'm not saying at all that a GM using a published setting can't do that. Just that it's possible not to. Maybe the players have all read the settiing book, or maybe there's a canned "Welcome to World" page that the GM can read aloud.

And particularly in a system with a limited number of character classes, as opposed to an open-ended character creation system, it's possible to assume that every campaign setting for that system will have roles for characters of all the standard classes. So then you say, "Oh, I'm playing a thief," and the published settings will have things for thieves to do. It's a lot harder to do this in a game where the same rules could be used to build a stone age tribal shaman and a third millennium spy armed with all the latest high-tech gizmos and a rich tourist from a race of sapient cephalopods in a galactic empire.

I've gathered that there are systems where players are likely to go out and buy a new book that has a new race, character class, or whatever, bring in a character built accordingly, and just assume that the GM has to allow it. GURPS is all the way at the other extreme, with so many options in just the Basic Set that it would be an unusual GM who would use them all. In GURPS, the GM has to approve or disapprove various rules and traits.

All of which comes down to GURPS being designed primarily as a tool for auteurist GMs who not only are willing to develop the world and instruct the players, but welcome the chance to do so. It's not designed primarily for players who want to put together characters that they can bring into a game world.

Which is not to disagree with your comment, or to say that it's not useful. In fact, the existence of this alternate model of GMing makes it more important to spell out the active, creative role that GURPS expects GMs to play.

Bill Stoddard

[Bruno]

Even when you're running what seems like an "any advantage goes" sort of game, like for example Super-hero games classically tend to be, there's usually a concept, guideline, or something that restricts what players bring to the table.

Even the simple sentence "We're playing a super-hero game!" already comes with some (vaguely defined) character creation restrictions - you're playing a hero (which may or may not include anti-heros, but doesn't include someone who eats babies to fuel his powers), and you're playing a "super" - could be a super-normal like Batman, could be a mutant like the X-Men, could be a space wizard ninja from another dimension, but you're definitely not playing "Joe the stockboy, who goes home and plays Warcraft after work and doesn't have a secret crime-fighting identity at all."

The GM doesn't have to declare these guidelines by fiat.

You could get together with your group and brainstorm what the next campaign is going to be about. You could handle it by the GM providing multiple options and having a vote over which one. Heck, if the GM is up for it, he could nominate a player to declare what the next game will be about by fiat (I'm not brave enough for that).

But someone usually has to come up with some guidelines.

[downer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There does seem to be a style of gaming where the GM is not in any sense the author of the world, but is the local administrator of a world that someone else has defined, or even of a campaign whose plot someone else has worked out in advance of actual play.

GURPS gives almost no support to that style of gaming; it's optimized as a set of tools for creating the world and the campaign that an individual GM wants. Even its published settings, such as Yrth and Transhuman Space and Reign of Steel, are full of suggestions for "you could run this campaign or this campaign or this campaign," and leave large parts of the setting, including particularly the local starting place, for the GM to make up. A GM who has done this has no choice but to explain the setting to the players.

I'm not saying at all that a GM using a published setting can't do that. Just that it's possible not to. Maybe the players have all read the settiing book, or maybe there's a canned "Welcome to World" page that the GM can read aloud.

And particularly in a system with a limited number of character classes, as opposed to an open-ended character creation system, it's possible to assume that every campaign setting for that system will have roles for characters of all the standard classes. So then you say, "Oh, I'm playing a thief," and the published settings will have things for thieves to do. It's a lot harder to do this in a game where the same rules could be used to build a stone age tribal shaman and a third millennium spy armed with all the latest high-tech gizmos and a rich tourist from a race of sapient cephalopods in a galactic empire.

I've gathered that there are systems where players are likely to go out and buy a new book that has a new race, character class, or whatever, bring in a character built accordingly, and just assume that the GM has to allow it. GURPS is all the way at the other extreme, with so many options in just the Basic Set that it would be an unusual GM who would use them all. In GURPS, the GM has to approve or disapprove various rules and traits.

All of which comes down to GURPS being designed primarily as a tool for auteurist GMs who not only are willing to develop the world and instruct the players, but welcome the chance to do so. It's not designed primarily for players who want to put together characters that they can bring into a game world.

Which is not to disagree with your comment, or to say that it's not useful. In fact, the existence of this alternate model of GMing makes it more important to spell out the active, creative role that GURPS expects GMs to play.

Bill Stoddard

Actually, that's what I love about GURPS. I can go and pick up almost any of the two-dozen or so games I've gathered on my shelves in the past 15 years, and get a fully fledged setting, but whenever the fancy strikes me to do something that is really going to be mine, I turn to GURPS.

I do, however, not see how this relates to my original post. In fact, the reason why I'd have liked a general grading system for advantages and disadvantages is precisely because I want to go out and create a campaign that is unique and special. That will, however, leave some of the definitions in the book by the roadside, forcing me to come up with a hard and fast set of decision as to what to do about it. Actually, one of the things that first struck me as cool in the 4e rulebook where the "racial/supernatural" icons that adorn the ads/disads, because it gave me a handy way to establish some ground rules. All I was thinking about was an expansion of that system, allowing me to basically give my players a quick overview of how certain advantages or disadvantages rate in my campaign, before they go out and make characters. Effectively, I already do that, but it would be easier to have it figured into the rules for two reasons:
1. Balancing is an important issue to me. GURPS gives me a lot of hints already, but whenever it doesn't, I spend a lot of time essentially reinventing the wheel. It can't be avoided sometimes. For a recent campaign I had to come up with a new Advantage, and had to price it. Quite a bit of thought for a balance freak like me.
2. It's easier to gain player acceptance for "official" rulings. Like me, my players assume that you guys at SJG spend a lot of time coming up with balanced rules. If I throw in my 5 cents, they, reasonably, assume that my ideas are no better than theirs, and we effectively begin a round of pre-campaign discussions, as to what should be changed and how. Again, not always avoidable, I spent three hours discussing the new Advantage mentioned above with my players, and ultimately ended up pricing it a little lower, because they convinced me it was not worth its points otherwise.

But when I'm dealing with things from the books, it would be nice to simply say "no supernatural traits, racial traits in packages only, the following traits are secondary (cost -1/3), these are marginal (cost -2/3), and those should not be selected or chosen as quirks only". It would essentially give the GM a skeleton, a guideline along which to work out the impact of his particular setting on the rules, which he could then pass on to the players, easing and speeding up the character creation process. In fact, having written this, I guess I'll just do that for my next campaign. Take it as a suggestion. If it doesn't fit with your view of what GURPS should provide, forget about it. I just thought I'd mention it.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by downer

I do, however, not see how this relates to my original post.

It probably doesn't. I was just commenting on an abstract issue raised by PK's comment. Of course adopting the house rules you propose is something any GM is free to do, on the view of gaming that he and I share, and telling your players what those house rules are is not merely your right but your obligation as a GM.

As to the issue you raise, of the players questioning your authority, I look at it slightly differently:

* On one hand, some of the decisions derive from the nature of the game world, and I will just say, "You can't take Magery because this is a world where magic doesn't exist."

* On the other hand, some of them are based on concerns with issues of play style, and I'm perfectly willing to say to my players, "I'm not letting you take the Hit Location technique because it's optional, and because this campaign is about fencing as a flexible art, not about hyperspecialists with a single master stroke." And if they want to argue about whether a rule makes sense, I'll listen to them, and maybe even change my mind. Or I may take a poll, in a few cases. In any case, my "authority" then rests on the reasoned agreement of the players.

Though I'm perfectly willing to say, "All right, does anyone else favor this idea, or is it just Fred? No one? Okay, Fred, we're not adopting that rule."

Bill Stoddard