Disadvantages and Cooperativeness

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Agreed. One thing I found very useful was to channel what control-freakishness I had (not much, but we all have some) away from the railroading that tempted me as a young GM in 1979 and toward being the CO of the gaming unit. That is, I took the energy that some GMs dedicate to setting up linear stories and forcing PCs onto those paths, and redirected it into establishing gaming-table expectations and enforcing the campaign social contract. YMMV, but I firmly believe that it isn't possible to have a completely laissez-faire attitude as GM – though I prefer primus inter pares to dictator, and see the GM's first responsibility as being to the social unit (the gaming group) rather than the plot.

What are your thoughts on the disadvantage sections in the Templates in Dungeon Fantasy and Action?

The impression I get is that the first section is mainly for mental disads, and the 2nd section for physical and social ones, but IIRC with a provision that the player may take all mental disads if desired.



In Sagatafl I've split disads out into three different categories.

"Real" disadvantages are physical and metaphysical ones, and neuro-structural ones. There's something objectively wrong with you, with your body, your brain, or your soul, and that has real and fairly constant and predictable consequences, and a high degree of suckiness in that it limits your freedom.

Social disads are handled via a special cheap kind of points called Perk Points, because like social advantages, they're temporary, they're not glued to the character with metagame glue, and they're almost always location-bound, so if you move to a different village, or to a different galaxy, you'll be moving away from them.

Initially, Sagatafl didn't have mental disads, because I didn't like the huge subjectivity of it, the player being "expected to roleplay it", and knowing that it doesn't make sense to allow some kind of Will roll to ignore a mental disad, because that just makes it super easy to play a high Will character.

I did add them eventually, very strongly modelled on GURPS Self-Control Roll model, just implemented more widely and thoroughly (and eagerly!). People are by definition less than perfectly rational, and player characters (and major NPCs) should average slightly more crazy than normal people. You're supposed to take an allotment of 20 Flaw Points worth of crazy. If you take less, that's an advantage (because you're less crazy - more rational, more in control of yourself), relative to how much less you take, and if you take more than 20, it's a disadvantage, but a very minor one (in terms of points, it goes by aDvantage Points, not Perk Points, so we're talking "real" points here, albeit small sums).

20 FP worth of crazy isn't much more than 20 CP worth of crazy in GURPS, though. I think it may be slightly less. But more importantly, you don't get rewarded much for piling on the crazy, because I use diminishing returns. You can build and play an Adrian Monk type, if you want, but the character creation system doesn't reward you for it. Likewise, you can opt to play a character with only 1 or 2 FP worth of crazy, but you'll have to pay heavily for it, and even more so for playing a zero FP character, whereas as long as you land somewhere within the 15-25 FP range, or more generally 12-30 FP, the effect on your point total is quite modest.

Most PCs will probably have one or two 3d strength Flaws, which are the equivalent of 5 CP'ers in GURPS, and a few 2d ones, which are more serious than Quirks but not much, with the occasional obsessed guy (or girl) with a 4d, and the very, very rare 5d.

More generally, I'm hoping to have engineered Sagatafl so that the "I must hunt for disadvantages"-aspect is much weaker and much less prevalent, much less pressing in the players' minds, relative to comparable systems like GURPS and Hero System. But that's something I can't know before character creation is actually ready for testing.