Same group, different point characters?

[D10]

Ever faced some amazing character idea, that just needs more points to work ?

I know the usual fairplay, level the playing field and etc...

But does anyone has experience GMing to groups where there are characters with really different point values for whatever reason ?

Thanks

[Mehmet]

This happens fairly often in my games - once in a blue moon, this causes problems (usually because of the presence of a gamer with only DnD experience or some such) but when it does, you can "adjust to taste." I, for instance, let people come up with concepts, create characters then take a look at all the characters, talk to the players if the difference is of any importance to any of them, it generally never is but if I feel that in some areas (say, social, combat) one of the characters feel like they are overshadowed by another, more CP character I talk with the players again, try to come up with a compromise (share niches, etc) but of course I do all these on set budget games anyway so, no, no difference there :)

Cheers...

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by D10

But does anyone has experience GMing to groups where there are characters with really different point values for whatever reason ?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a really brilliant mechanic for dealing with this. I ran a three-year campaign and had no trouble managing the disparity in power between the Slayer and the scoobies.

Bill Stoddard

[bcd]

Originally Posted by D10

But does anyone has experience GMing to groups where there are characters with really different point values for whatever reason ?

One typical situation in which this might be very playable is when one character is the vehicle and the others are the crew. Think sentient spaceships etc., with the vehicle PC built on perhaps thousands of points for the DR, motive systems, weapons, Payload, etc., and the crew being 250-pointers perhaps.

But no, I've never actually done it :-)

[Ragitsu]

One character with superpowers, but little in the ways of skills.

The other characters are more down to earth and skillful.

Yeah, it works.

[LemmingLord]

Character usefullness and funness can only very rarely be accounted for by point levels. I find that all characters are unequal, no matter their points. The answer to the question, "what do you do with characters with vastly different power levels" is the same as the answer to "what do you do with several player characters" - fine tune your adventures based on the shared concepts the players have agreed on.

I would like to read the buffy rules for ideas on this. If it is combats that are the issue, you might look to D&D for some ideas. D&D 4 gives the fighter classes abilities that call out the big bads of the enemies, putting all kinds of penalties on the big bad called out if he fight anyone but the fighter. In GURPS, I'm thinking a good house rule for a disparate group might be to give each character a free house rule perq and quirk - something that elucidates the role you want them to play.

In a buffyverse game, the slayer level combatant might have the perq "Main Line Fighter" and the Quirk "Leaves the Thinking to Her Friends." A xander level scooby might have the perq "Comedic Relief" and the Quirk "Easily Tossed About."

The house rule for main line fighter might be that she draws attention (agro if you will for those WoW players) for up to three enemies. If these enemies decide to attack anybody else besides her, they are at a penalty of -5. Of course if you have two main line fighters drawing attention in this way to the same baddie, the baddie could attack either main line fighter without penalty.

The house rule for the comedic relief might be that attacks against them do minimum damage (as if the opponent rolled all 1s).

The "leaves the thinking to her friends" quirk would come into play during non combat situations. The player whose character has this quirk would never make a roll someone else was also making related to thinkage and should not come up with plans so much as pick from the plans of her friends to agree with. This means the slayer dominates in combat, but not at the library where research and tactics are going on.

The "tossed around" quirk for xander-comedian would say that on any attack, the enemy can choose to change his position however they like - so it is easy for vamps to smack him and frow him to the fwoor.

On the other hand, xander will outshine the slayer in the library research situation hands down, coming up with ideas, seeing flaws in other plans and generally lightening/darknening the mood with his repartee.

[SCAR]

The BtVS solution basically involves giving the 'White Hats' (e.g. scoobies) extra Drama Points (=Luck/Bennies/etc!) to start with, and charging them fewer Experience Points than Slayers and other Supernatural beings to buy more!

You could give lower point GURPS characters in suitable genres a couple of levels of Luck or Serendipity (or other similar metagaming traits) to balance the 'points' without seriously affecting the characters or game balance.

[Nymdok]

Its killing me right now!

All players in the game i run have missed several sessions except for one who is there every session without fail. Due to that fact, he has almost 50 more points to spend than everyone else, which in some point ranges is not that big a deal. In this case however we run 150D30 which means that he has almost 30% MORE points to mess with.

30 points isnt a HUGE amount. In a Supers or Epic Cinematic game its almost trivial. But it DOES allow him ALOT of leeway in the things he does.


Im thinking about buffing everyone 30 points just to reduce the % lead he has on people. That way he keeps what hes earned and his commitment to the game is rewarded. He still keeps his advantage over the other players, its just not SO great as to overshadow them.

Nymdok

[bcd]

Originally Posted by SCAR

The BtVS solution basically involves giving the 'White Hats' (e.g. scoobies) extra Drama Points (=Luck/Bennies/etc!) to start with, and charging them fewer Experience Points than Slayers and other Supernatural beings to buy more!

In this vein, you could give all PCs the same amount of points, but require that the Buffy spend all (or almost all) of hers on abilities while forcing the supporting cast to put many (most) of theirs into the fate point pool, from which they can spend points to buy successes as per p. B347.

Of course, there are obvious variations of this where you can give supporting cast somewhat less but still leave them with lots of points in the fate point pool. (Or drama point pool if you like.)