Points without total

[VIVIT]

Recently I've been considering getting rid of the idea of point total. Not points—point total. Players start with a point budget and can play the character creation minigame as normal, but once characters are vetted and the game begins, the sunk cost of the traits purchased is completely ignored. You don't have a 100-point character or a 150-point character, you just have a character.

To my understanding, many people already play according to a de facto version of this. But I'm wondering what would change if it were made de jure. One thing that would need to change would be the point costs of Allies, Contacts, Patrons, and Enemies—but I see this as potentially a good thing, because point total has never been an especially good measure of character power anyway.

What else should I be looking out for?

[ravenfish]

One thing to consider is that, if advantages can be gained in play without needing to spend character points to confirm them, there will be a strong tendency when creating characters to avoid spending character points on traits that are easy to gain in play (wealth, rank) but to instead spend them on traits that would be harder to claim as rewards (good attributes, luck) and gain the wealth and rank "for free" later on. This is not necessarily a problem- indeed, the protagonists starting out naturally talented but poorly connected is quite in keeping with many genres- but it is something to keep in mind, particularly as it somewhat penalizes those players whose character concept involves starting with easily acquired advantages.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

One thing that would need to change would be the point costs of Allies, Contacts, Patrons, and Enemies

Well, not necessarily. Unless you're buying Allies/Enemies/Etc. during play (which ought to be rare to begin with, especially enemies), you can still use point budget as a guide during character creation easily. If the total is irrelevant, you can note down new relations really easy. Irritate Superjerk? Add Enemy (Superjerk, Rival); no need to stat him out completely. Get your friend elected mayor? No need to change anything apart from the note that your friend's mayor now.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

To my understanding, many people already play according to a de facto version of this. But I'm wondering what would change if it were made de jure.

It already is. Or rather point total has no game mechanical effect, so ignoring it has the same effect on play as ignoring the eye color of the character's grandparents. There are rules that use spend points for something, or care about changes points, but AFAIK none that care about point [total].

The goal of point totals is helping to build a party of multiple characters can play together without one of them totally dominating the game, or fading utterly from sight. It does more or less work for that, though it comes with a lot more (imaginary) precision that it needs for that. So the principle thing to watch out for if you don't bother to track them is one of the characters becoming so much more or less powerful than everyone else that some of the players are not having fun.

Secondarily some players will call radical imbalances of point totals as "unfair", whether they seem to matter in play or not, so if you are not tracking them and they are, you may get complaints if they get too out of alignment, or face accusations of favoritism for not trying to shape the campaign rewards to keep them closer together. Whether or not your particular players care, or it bothers you if one of them kicks up a fuss over it isn't exactly an in-game consequence, but one to watch out for too.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by malloyd

It already is. Or rather point total has no game mechanical effect, so ignoring it has the same effect on play as ignoring the eye color of the character's grandparents. There are rules that use spend points for something, or care about changes points, but AFAIK none that care about point [total].

Yup. The point total is more or less irrelevant once the character is made.

Something Kromm once said made this very clear. He was talking about $ costs of equipment, but it also applies to character points. The character sheet gives you spaces to record $ costs and character points, but these exist on the sheet mostly to aid you in creating the character. Once a character is made, you don't need to write down the $ cost of every sword you find and pick up in a dungeon. Likewise, you don't really get any particular benefit if you pick up a new advantage and write down its point cost in the blank. These blanks exist to help you add up costs or points when tallying them at character creation.

Basically, the character sheet is a worksheet, and the blanks for things that help you build the character are meant to be ignored once the character is in play. If you were to transfer your character to a new sheet of paper, you could completely ignore the blanks for character points and $ costs. It makes absolutely no difference whether you write "Combat Reflexes [15]" or just "Combat Reflexes."

(This is one reason I like the third-edition character sheet's less-prominent blanks for character points. They get out of the way once play starts. With the fourth-edition sheet, the blanks are all mixed in with the traits.)

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by VIVIT

Recently I've been considering getting rid of the idea of point total. Not points—point total. Players start with a point budget and can play the character creation minigame as normal, but once characters are vetted and the game begins, the sunk cost of the traits purchased is completely ignored. You don't have a 100-point character or a 150-point character, you just have a character.

To my understanding, many people already play according to a de facto version of this. But I'm wondering what would change if it were made de jure. One thing that would need to change would be the point costs of Allies, Contacts, Patrons, and Enemies—but I see this as potentially a good thing, because point total has never been an especially good measure of character power anyway.

What else should I be looking out for?

I don't understand how a character built with 100 points is different from a 100-point character.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I don't understand how a character built with 100 points is different from a 100-point character.

It can be dissonant to be told, "You have a 100-Point Character." and then "You got your arm cut off! Now you have an 80-Point Character."

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Yup. The point total is more or less irrelevant once the character is made.

Yes, but only more or less, not completely. Keeping a running total helps me keep track of experience awards.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Yes, but only more or less, not completely. Keeping a running total helps me keep track of experience awards.

If someone joins the campaign later on, knowing how many points the established PCs have gotten up to can help me decide how many points their character should be built on.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by TGLS

It can be dissonant to be told, "You have a 100-Point Character." and then "You got your arm cut off! Now you have an 80-Point Character."

That's a special case that doesn't help me understand the basic idea.