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DocBubonic posted:I run GURPS games. A lot of them. GURPS has a lot of disadvantages available. If someone submits a character with a lot of disadvantages, I'm not going to let that character into the game. Its simple for me. If I think someone is taking disadvantages for the sole purpose of getting more points, then I force them to change their character. I also expect the player to justify what disadvantages they take. so they have to explain why they might have a phobia of something that is rarely seen.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:20
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ImpactVector posted:b) The non-mechanical flaws are generally expected to be policed by the GM, which increases their workload. I've heard this as a knock against FATE's compels actually. The argument was that the GM had to remember a handful of completely different flaws for every character, which is a lot of situational data to keep track of. He said he enjoyed running FATE PBP where he had time to review his notes before each move, but at the table he felt he was constantly forgetting and then missing good opportunities to compel his players.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:27
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fosborb posted:I've heard this as a knock against FATE's compels actually. The argument was that the GM had to remember a handful of completely different flaws for every character, which is a lot of situational data to keep track of. He said he enjoyed running FATE PBP where he had time to review his notes before each move, but at the table he felt he was constantly forgetting and then missing good opportunities to compel his players. He does know that players can self-compel, right? And really any Fate GM worth his salt has a list of everyone's high concept, trouble, and apex skill for quick reference. e: although I suppose it's also that mindset that a lot of players have where they immediately look at their sheet when they need to decide what to do, rather than just saying what they want to do and seeing what applies. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 19:32
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ImpactVector posted:The fact that you have to police character submissions is a big red flag that the system is actively working against you. No it isn't. You pretty much have to police submissions in every game.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:33
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paradoxGentleman posted:Well of course the flaw has to come up in play to be relevant and award character points, otherwise why are you even getting points for that?
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Apr 3, 2015 19:35
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Captain Foo posted:No it isn't. You pretty much have to police submissions in every game.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:35
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Yawgmoth posted:So why should you get points at character creation, when the flaw has had exactly 0 chances to have an effect on anything? ImpactVector nailed pretty much every salient point perfectly. A much better method is to give out points as the flaw affects the game, and only when it's a negative for your character. That way the flaw is always worth whatever the impact is on the character instead of some arbitrarily set value, and you can't load up on useless flaws to get useful merits. If your character has Bad Eyesight and wears glasses to correct it, you shouldn't get xp until your character has his glasses knocked off. are you intentionally arguing to absurdity or what
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Apr 3, 2015 19:37
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Evil Mastermind posted:He does know that players can self-compel, right? I assume he does know that yes, though my understanding is that some compels really need the story guided in certain directions in order to be relevant. The argument was that keeping track of all of those elements, even on a quick reference, + all the usual GM-y things like the general scene, NPCs, overall plot, does everyone have enough beer, etc, resulted in missed opportunities to compel at the table which he'd recognize after the fact and then feel like he wasn't running the game as good as he could be.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:39
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fosborb posted:I've heard this as a knock against FATE's compels actually. The argument was that the GM had to remember a handful of completely different flaws for every character, which is a lot of situational data to keep track of. He said he enjoyed running FATE PBP where he had time to review his notes before each move, but at the table he felt he was constantly forgetting and then missing good opportunities to compel his players. Then again, if your players aren't proactive about this kind of thing, yeah that does dump it back on the GM's shoulders. But that's true of any player participation. Captain Foo posted:No it isn't. You pretty much have to police submissions in every game. If you're talking strictly PBP that's a whole other thing, mostly down to the relative anonymity of the submissions I would think. We were talking about checking for pure (subjective) system abuse, which is definitely a system thing.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:44
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Pbp uber alles
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Apr 3, 2015 19:48
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ImpactVector posted:While it's true that it's good when a GM can introduce these compels, the fact that players get rewarded for bringing them up (self-compels) means that they don't actually have to, because the players will seek them out themselves.
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Apr 3, 2015 19:49
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never not police anime directly out of your threads with extreme brutality
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Apr 3, 2015 19:50
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ImpactVector posted:This is all poor design though, because the game actively incentives just the opposite of what you're stating you want from it. The fact that you have to police character submissions is a big red flag that the system is actively working against you. The system actively encourages tinkering with the system. The two GURPS basic books present a lot of information and options. Far more then what anyone would want. There's options for everything from magic to having space sickness resulting from being in free fall in space. Going into this the GM has to figure out what's in and what's out. Also the amount of points characters can get from disadvantages is dependent on the GM. If I think that players are going to abuse the disadvantage system, then I could just as easily limit the amount of points they can take from disadvantages. Captain Foo posted:No it isn't. You pretty much have to police submissions in every game. I agree with Foo here. The game system doesn't matter when it comes to policing submissions. ImpactVector posted:
I'm pretty sure people could abuse the three systems you mention. Yes, its more likely to happen in a system like GURPS, but it could still happen in other systems. DocBubonic fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 19:58
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Captain Foo posted:are you intentionally arguing to absurdity or what
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Apr 3, 2015 20:07
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FactsAreUseless posted:It's Yawgmoth. Is there an implication I should be aware of here?
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Apr 3, 2015 20:12
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Captain Foo posted:never not police anime directly out of your threads with extreme brutality Police yourself inside the electric chair.
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Apr 3, 2015 20:29
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Captain Foo posted:Is there an implication I should be aware of here?
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Apr 3, 2015 20:37
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FactsAreUseless posted:He's an idiot. Takes one to know one, I guess??
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Apr 3, 2015 20:42
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Police yourself inside the electric chair. Rude
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Apr 3, 2015 20:43
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Evil Mastermind posted:The problem is that a lot of players aren't used to that idea. It's like how some people only see compels as punishment rather than a reward for playing your character as written. And anyway, like I said earlier, at worst you're probably not any worse off than if you have to keep a list of character flaws to bring up in game. DocBubonic posted:The system actively encourages tinkering with the system. The two GURPS basic books present a lot of information and options. Far more then what anyone would want. There's options for everything from magic to having space sickness resulting from being in free fall in space. Going into this the GM has to figure out what's in and what's out. Nerdpost incoming: When you break it down, a game is really just a system of incentivized actions with risks and rewards attached. If that system encourages gameplay that runs counter to what's desired by those playing it then the system is flawed for that specific purpose. The same thing happens in board games. If your victory conditions and the way you achieve those conditions don't match what's "fun" or thematic you'll see similar critiques. For example Twilight Imperium (sans expansions) is often criticised for encouraging turtling because that's the best way to make sure you have the ability to score victory points. IMO, the issue here is that we don't have the culture in the RPG community of critiquing games on these grounds. Much more emphasis is put on a game's fluff (which, in a narrative/imaginative medium like RPGs is still pretty important) in relation to how well a given game fits a desired purpose. Or if we're really examining critically, whether a game is completely broken or not. DocBubonic posted:I agree with Foo here. The game system doesn't matter when it comes to policing submissions.
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Apr 3, 2015 20:47
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ImpactVector posted:
Yeah, I'm not sure it counts as abuse when IIRC the game actually explicitly tells you to do this. (Though I do wonder if those instructions weren't in the beta and got added via feedback later.)
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Apr 3, 2015 20:54
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unseenlibrarian posted:Yeah, I'm not sure it counts as abuse when IIRC the game actually explicitly tells you to do this. (Though I do wonder if those instructions weren't in the beta and got added via feedback later.)
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Apr 3, 2015 21:06
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unseenlibrarian posted:Yeah, I'm not sure it counts as abuse when IIRC the game actually explicitly tells you to do this. (Though I do wonder if those instructions weren't in the beta and got added via feedback later.) And I'm definitely not holding up FFG SW as a paragon of design. The dice are cool IMO and encourage interesting outcomes, but the rocket tag-y combat doesn't really do all that great of a job of emulating the feel of the movies. It feels like they fell a bit short in tweaking the system from the brutal WHFRP3 it's descended from.
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Apr 3, 2015 21:18
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The problem I have with systems like GURPS when it comes down to it is that you can very easily end up with Pun-Pun builds. You can exploit advantages to cover up disadvantages and still come out ahead in points, more often than not. If I were given a choice between flaws for points and a FATE-like system, I would choose FATE every time. Players will actually try to act within character to get sweet FATE points to power their feats. Captain Foo posted:No it isn't. You pretty much have to police submissions in every game. I'm still slightly salty that this character was never picked for a WH40K PBP. Should not have been (fun)policed. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3669915&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post435871222 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3669915&pagenumber=2&perpage=40#post435891682
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Apr 3, 2015 21:22
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unseenlibrarian posted:Yeah, I'm not sure it counts as abuse when IIRC the game actually explicitly tells you to do this. (Though I do wonder if those instructions weren't in the beta and got added via feedback later.) Then why give the choice at all? Archeologist Wookie seems feasible until you get to the mid/end game and realize the character doesn't have nearly the narrative control optimized characters get.
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Apr 3, 2015 21:25
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Captain Foo posted:Pbp uber alles
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Apr 3, 2015 21:29
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fosborb posted:Then why give the choice at all? Archeologist Wookie seems feasible until you get to the mid/end game and realize the character doesn't have nearly the narrative control optimized characters get. That said, you're right that race/class/attribute combinations are often a pretty big source of traps. I think the clarification that attributes are important helps, but it's still not a design decision that'll make everyone happy. If you want more leeway to play against type you probably wouldn't want race to affect your attributes at all.
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Apr 3, 2015 21:40
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black potus posted:what are dads for if not punching weird old nerds It like the explanation point on darwinian selection. Serious post, like plut said, I know no one here would do that, BUT DON'T DO THAT, my sister was a social worker that had to clear up a mess that started as a brawl on the dad's boardgame night. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Apr 3, 2015 |
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Apr 3, 2015 21:45
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LuiCypher posted:The problem I have with systems like GURPS when it comes down to it is that you can very easily end up with Pun-Pun builds. You can exploit advantages to cover up disadvantages and still come out ahead in points, more often than not. I haven't clicked, but I can certainly day there's a difference between not choosing a character and policing that character away
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Apr 3, 2015 22:08
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Captain Foo posted:Takes one to know one, I guess??
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Apr 3, 2015 22:12
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FactsAreUseless posted:I thought everyone knew Yawgmoth was an idiot. It appears you are wrong.
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Apr 3, 2015 22:20
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LuiCypher posted:The problem I have with systems like GURPS when it comes down to it is that you can very easily end up with Pun-Pun builds. You can exploit advantages to cover up disadvantages and still come out ahead in points, more often than not. For all that's worth izzo/pewds played as the football guy on another 40k game but he left and I entered as replacement as an ork-starved birdman until my vacation ended. It was a fun game tho its just that it was right on time I had classes.
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Apr 3, 2015 22:38
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Captain Foo posted:It appears you are wrong.
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Apr 3, 2015 23:41
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FactsAreUseless posted:I envy you, honestly. Envy is an unhealthy emotion.
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Apr 4, 2015 04:08
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Captain Foo posted:Envy is an unhealthy emotion. this is true and also why envy is not elegantly simulated in any game because designers are responsible and good people.
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Apr 4, 2015 04:48
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fosborb posted:this is true and also why envy is not elegantly simulated in any game because designers are responsible and good people. Isn't monster hearts driven almost entirely by envy and angst?
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Apr 4, 2015 04:50
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To be honest so is playing 5e.
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Apr 4, 2015 04:51
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Alternative: no you're thinking of Pathfinder.
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Apr 4, 2015 04:53
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"Exalted" would also be an acceptable answer.
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Apr 4, 2015 09:23
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ImpactVector posted:The alternative is something like Fate's aspects, where you're rewarded for having your flaws actually cause trouble for you during the game. That way the player doesn't feel like they're getting shafted when these things come up (especially if they have a way to opt out of the behavior), and often even seek out or suggest these kinds of situations, which takes the pressure off the GM to bring flaws into play. I've found the disadvantage is a reward cycle of "My problem monopolizes play which is cool, and I get rewarded for it which is cool, so I better trigger it all the goddamn time." Fun for the player, not as much fun for the group. Collectivizing rewards (see group beats in NWoD) helps a bit. So does formalizing when these things enter play. Hero and GURPS do use formal conditions for some disadvantages. Combined with disad. point limits (yes, you can tweak them, but you should have *a* limit) and the fact that before 2000, there was some assumption in game design that you did not secretly mistrust and despise other people at the table, disadvantages really are something negotiated between the player and GM based on what the player wants to do and what the GM wants to introduce into play. Characterizing this as "policing" is carrying some adversarial baggage. These days though I don't like them as some kind of negative character "value" because hey, that poo poo gets kind of ablist from a certain perspective. In GURPS there's the notion of point-based valuation where disads represent a sort of problematic notion of ability. NWoD frames its equivalent as a source of challenging situations, comparable with other challenges characters encounter, with access to the same kinds of rewards.
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Apr 4, 2015 09:25
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