 November 1, 2011 - 2:21pm | It seems to me that this idea of a "balanced" party seems a bit forced. (I don't buy it.) Imagine, if you can, a bunch of different adventuring parties moving from adventure to adventure in the Frontier. All of them are made up of a "balanced" party made up of the 4 races having skills fulfilling a milatarist, an explorer, a tech and a medic. That's pretty darn homogenistic. Now, imagine, if you can, whole groups of Yazirians, whole groups of Dralasites and so forth, moving from adventure to adventure in the Frontier, some perhaps having the random Vrusk or human tossed in the mix, made up primarily of soldiers, or primarily of scientists, who get tossed into an adventure and have to survive with the skills they have and improvise solutions because of the skills they lack. To me, that would be a much more exciting adventure and allow for greater variety and greater adventure. How would you design an adventure to permit such lack of variety within the party? Most adventures are designed to give some attention to each field of study (PSA/Skill), some even requiring that the field of study be present in order to get past a certain point. What can be done to get around such pitfalls and how would you design an adventure that gives challenges for each field of study, while at the same time allowing room for a party without that field of study to succeed? What do you think? View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 December 13, 2011 - 9:21am | Anyone have a spare cardinal grammeter-synchronometer's indirectional split cable? My phase detractors have omnilateral alignment... I need to repostionalize them back to a unilateral binullilal efficiency... (oh, and my decafractal multicountenance duoset are already logarithmicly postionalized for drawn reciprocation when I restaticify the dingle arm's state... for permisification of prefered actance.) Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 13, 2011 - 10:54am | "Positionalized"? "Repositionalized"? "Permisification"? You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?  View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
December 14, 2011 - 3:59am | I am au courant with the actance of decognitive verbositizations as with vapidic lexicolon emanation...  Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 December 14, 2011 - 5:37am | Sometimes I shut down my polyvox rather then risk it crashing while translating some of these posts. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 14, 2011 - 11:05am | Okay now I've been DMing/Gamemastering/Storytelling/Administrating/Refereeing/moderating/etc...For over 25 years and In my experience a good DM etc...should be well versed in the art of winging it, specially because in most of the group's I've ever been a part of, the Players invariable will come up with a solution to a problem that wasn't covered in the scenario as written. when I think of a balanced party I tend to think of it in terms of Character levels rather than skills or professional abilities, because I allow my players to usually play whatever character type they enjoy, and that mostly turns out being an almost three fifths majority of enforcer types, and the other two fifths made up by characters who are crosstrained in one or more fields. Into this mix I usually throw in one or more non player characters who bolster the party, but may not necessarilly have the skills that the party are missing but have some reason to be a part of the adventure, and when I write out a scenario I usually try to come up with several solutions to each encounter but otherwise I'm ready to wing it. I think that requiring players to fill specific roles in an adventure sometimes takes away some of the spontenaity (sp?) of the game, and sets up situations where the party may fail because the dice took out that one character that was needed to complete a specific task in the adventure. So my advice is to let the players come up with characters they want to play rather than assign them specific roles, and be prepared to play it by ear, when the group decides to do something that you weren't expecting (Like cutting a deal with the pirates on Volturnus or even joining them instead of fighting them) "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 December 14, 2011 - 3:41pm | Party all being the same level does not work with all games. Some of course have a system where everyone levels the same but others where leveling is by class made this impossible. Other games which did not have an experience system only a creation system of course did away with this entirely. One thing in a group where everyone is the same level you lose the whole "new guy" scenarios. Having to cover for an inexperienced character (player) can be very entertaining. One other thing while winging it is not that hard when you know the party is only a group of fighters who are only going to hack, slash, bash and shoot their way through. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 December 14, 2011 - 8:54pm | I recall TSR having come out with "decks" of things. There were decks of priest and wizard spells as well as magical items that I know of. They came in a cardboard box like a treasure chest. It was an easy DM aide. Just deal out the needed cards for yourself and set them to the side. |
December 15, 2011 - 9:31am | To clarify a few points in my above statement, Generally when I say Balanced by level I don't mean all character having the same level, but generally the levels must be within an acceptable range, such as levels 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 and so on, and I have a strong bias towards characters within the 4-6 range. I've also played level-less games such as the WOD, or Marvel superheroes, but even in such games level balance was attained by not putting groups of low powered characters with high powered characters unless the storyteller had some reason to do so because of his story, such as Batman gathering a group of novice heroes that he was training (such as in Batman and the Outsiders). As for winging it, I've had to deal with many occassions where characters that were not fighter types threw that curve ball at me, such as when a particular mage claimed a Lich bane sword, meant for a warrior type in an adventure where the ultimate goal was to kill a lich...that ended up being a hell of a battle with the warrior types forced to fight defensively while the mage tried desperately to get that kill shot in with his less then stellar combat skill. But winging it also includes situations where the party as a whole decide to wander off the beaten path and take the game to areas not in the story, where the GM must devise whole encounters off the top of his head while trying to steer the adventure back to the original goal. These situations are really where a good GM shines specially if he can keep the game exciting and challenging without letting his players see him sweat. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
December 15, 2011 - 10:12am | Mage claims the lich bane sword intended for a fighter type; "Oops did I say lich bane sword, no no no, that was thee cursed "Bane of the Lich" sword. You have one week per point of constitution to break the curse before fulling turning into an undead Demi lich in service to the lich that created the sword. Plus you still need to find that lich bane sword that is floating around. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 15, 2011 - 10:42am | In the adventure in question the sword was in the hands of a statue with a hand out and the inscription "One shall Pay" And while the other party members were leery about what that iscription might mean, the greedy mage stepped up and took hold of the sword...which caused him to lose everything he had (All his money, magic items, clothes etc)...he had the sword, but was stark naked in the middle of an Ancient Lich's tomb. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
December 15, 2011 - 11:59am | Mage claims the lich bane sword intended for a fighter type; "Oops did I say lich bane sword, no no no, that was thee cursed "Bane of the Lich" sword. You have one week per point of constitution to break the curse before fulling turning into an undead Demi lich in service to the lich that created the sword. Plus you still need to find that lich bane sword that is floating around. LOL. Railroading at its best.  [Edit: I didn't realize Deryn had posted before me.] View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
December 15, 2011 - 11:35am | Laudable constituent principals Deryn_Rys. The terms for definition of "party balance" you give, are agreeable from my perspective as well. I have cause to imply less edacity with constraints in an acceptable systematized array of levels. Per contra, acceptation of the schema fundamentals is copacetic. Would it be, or would it be-not; acceptable to have a jr. grade greenie board with a valiant veteran crewed ship -or- a special operative agent be charged with a fresh ship's green crew on it's early career, quite more often than implied by your statements? Contrasting case history; I have had issues as a player with wanting to play a new persona of amature skills in attachment to seasoned veterans, and given to my desire were many hostile reactions from others, and with athwart variance; it is likewise true as to-wit I have both played - and played-with - a single high-level adjunct to the ensemble, with considerably unfastidious exemplar results - thus, I would be much more lenient in lower levels coming in if desired, and veterans of experiance leading the assemblage. And come; where unto all other parts of consideration you have expressed, I am in agreement, and unfettered with points of contention interrogatories. [gibbers like a mad hatter gone sane... and runs away!] Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 15, 2011 - 12:29pm | There are always exceptions to the rules, In a party of mostly low level characters with one high level leader, Party balance usually occurs because the single high level character can only do so much which allows the other characters to act, but when ratio of high level characters out balances the novices usually the novices become a liability, because in order to challenge the more experienced characters the threats must often be greater than the novices can handle. In these circumstances you either have a situation where the high level characters bull doze through encounters that would challenge the novices, or the novices become support characters at best in order to survive encounters that are too much for them to handle. While realistically the number of high powered threats should be rare indeed in any game a GM has to challenge the higher level characters so eventually the game suffers from monster of the week syndrome unless the GM shifts gears towards having the higher level characters begin dealing with socio-political challenges because their status as heroes of the realm force them into situations where they are now dealing with the governing body of the area they reside in. This becomes a problem as well in with uneven character levels because the novice characters are forced into the background because their status doesn't allow them the same privilages as their more experienced bretheren. Of course one could always split the group up with the high powered characters schmoosing with the royals while the low level characters investigate or do something important to the adventure, eventually even this becomes an over used alternative, and begs the question why have these two groups together if they are always being split up. These are more reasons to keep groups "balanced" by keeping groups at relatively the same power/skill levels. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
December 15, 2011 - 1:17pm | LOL. Railroading at its best. You call it railroading I call it winging it. But it seems there was a price for greed anyway. Loss of memory for a mage? there goes your spells! I remember starting in a PBP game where the current PCs and NPC were on the verge of qualifying for KHs skills. New players had the choice of taking over an NPC (high level) or starting a new character with two level one AD skills. Two of us started at the same time and we both created new characters but I quickly became fustrated over the power difference. I think that newbie characters can still have the "new guy" syndrom without such a steep gradient of skill or level abilitiy. if they're started out 1-2 levels below the established characters its not quite so bad. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 16, 2011 - 1:35pm | Always are there exceptions and ambiguities, In a party of mostly low level characters with a high-level leader there is an ability to actually respect the merit of the status implied, such that if the experianced characters begin to become more numerous than the novices, the low-level characters have reasons to continue to take the field missions, and keep those veterans defended and the regular tasks completed. In these cases you have a 'split party' of officials and agents which can switch between both the strategic and tactical levels of an environments narrative. Not always a desired situation, but one that can be explored, and has been my experience to be quite entertaining. Indeed the number of high-powered threats should be rare, and for the purposes of realism I tend keep them rare, and thus completely avoid any 'monster of the week' and keep any of it's cousin tropes averted. A socio-political story is one way to handle this, and is likely the best solution for a few low-level combatants and some high-level non-combatants, but as I do not keep the political game from the possibility of low-level play, and allow the 'privilages' of rank and social status to be based on merits other than mere survivability alone, and depend more on appropriate skill usage and 'entittlements' it is not a significant difference. The manner in which I handle this 'gap' is by eliminating the aspects that allow a 'high level' character to as a stand 'buck-naked-tank' against attacks that kill a 'low-level' character in full defensive gear. In this way everyone is capable of being 'caught with their pants down' equally... and this is easily accomplished in a SF context, where it is not such a huge gap as in some other games, and non-combat skills are frequently a lot more useful, and easily more necessary, to survival in the harsh environments of space and alien worlds. These are more reasons to keep groups "unbalanced" and by keeping groups at highly divergent power/skill levels... but it does come down to why you see a need to separate the greenies from the veterans, and whether it is important to you to have such drastic and obvious character improvements be the reason for continuity, or if the adventure itself and persona story is worth the ride. [@Deryn_Rys just to provide a flip-side here... all your points are valid and appreciated, and not challenged... but, there was a call in the forum to explore the rational of actually using split party, unbalanced party, and non-combatants, as features rather than as flaws... and how to implement an entire adventure around not assuming these as given to contrived aversions... and to that end I am still trying to find a way to express my thoughts in a positive light on that focus, I am not having much luck...  ]Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 17, 2011 - 1:31pm | Fun is supposed to be the rule for any game. When one player is so much more powerful than the others fun goes out the window. Sorta why the Superbowl is not played between The NFC Champions and The Iowa High School State Champions. Of course there are ways to shackle the more powerful players. In Supernatural when Castielle went with them on a job and since he was an Angel of the Lord and the rest were just humans they had to frequently take away his powers or he would just snap his fingers and problem solved. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
December 17, 2011 - 6:22pm | As an addendum to spiritcoyote's last statement, you could give the low level characters a higher respected status than the high level characters. This happens in life, in that a person who has little experience in a situation is suddenly boosted in rank and social status for showing superior initiative and tactical prowess. The party themselves may have even sought them for their amazing display of prowess and look to them for it. Though still inexperienced in their new rank and social status, those around them put a lot of weight into their efforts and decisions. To improve their own skills, these low-level characters then put themselves into harms way because 1) they want to acquire the skills to improve themselves in their new position and 2) they have something to prove in that they need to show that they're worthy of the position. At the same time, they consider themselves novice and only take the danger or challenge proportional to their training. An optional rule could also be, that by assisting a higher level character in any task, they get the benefit of the higher level character's success, because they gained the knowledge of the higher level character by assisting them. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
December 17, 2011 - 7:36pm | @rattraveller I do understand that perspective, however, I have had fun playing the support to a more experienced QB... and on occasion been the veteran team-player with the responsibility of deciding who carries the ball when and for how long. I don't like speaking for others normally, but I will say I have heard many such statements from others, both in the same games I refer to as my experience, and from other groups... understandably it may be something to feel apprehensive rushing into... but apparently it can work out so everyone has fun. @Ascent yeah kinda what I have thought too, this can work out as a balance if necessary. Normally I don't hang 'rank' on factors that don't relate to the position's responsibilities... and most offices in 'civilized' cultures don't count physical survivability as a sole merit of ability over vocational skills, many other factors are involved in who gets promotions... in some cases it has no apparent connection to anything other than 'who you know' or 'who knows you'... or even pure social status. You made some good points on how to change perspective from the "level equals social status and/or vocational rank" mind-set... that mind-set has become a common association made in some games, but not all environments have that cultural outlook. That optional rule reminded me that some games do have such obscure rules... have to look into it and see how others have handled it, but it is a good suggestion! Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 18, 2011 - 6:41am | Isn't great though that with Star Frontiers, there is less of an issue with level difference than a game like D&D? You could play the entire module Crash on Volturnus and still intergrate a starting character with two first level skills without a huge problem. SF-0 presents opportunity to earn 6-9 exp. Double that and lets say that the newbie comes in at the end of SF-1 and the experience PCs will have earned 12-18 exp. A military PSA character could have a 3rd level skill plus another 1st level skill. A tech or Biosocial PSA could have a 2nd level skill and another first level skill. A starting character is still in shouting distance and the hire skill costs will allow them to catch up. Of course a wise GM might even allow the starting character one 2nd level skill and one first level skill. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 18, 2011 - 9:10am | Now how about a few new-recruits hired on for a more proper survey expedition, they have their tail-lander as a base-camp, fully stocked survival gear, survey equipment, and exploration vehicles, are hired for technical skills in planetology, and are to be considered as 'reenforcments' coming into an established team that has completed the entire Volturnus Campaign, but are still effectively greenies out on their first real mission. With a more focused mission objective and all the toys the original team lacked on-outset, the new team is in charge of the new mission directive, equipment, and base camp, but the established team does have 'field experiance' based rank (maybe they have played one expedition past the printed material, and become quite sure of the exploration focus themselves, thus a couple new players have joined the group and get to start afresh, one player is pulling in a replacement character at 1/2 previous experience, but the new players are new recruit greenies with perhaps that one or two bonus skill-ranks for the specific training packages.) and just to put some numbers on it (realistic or not) lets call the four veterans ~54exp, the replacement at ~27, and the new recruits at an equivalent 9-12 after package bonus. could be fun... lets fast forward another 8 expeditions and assume the average of the party is now in ranges from ~81 to ~102... and they have established strong connections that make them a candidate for a mission on a new sensitive mission of similar scope on Sunmist... and three new recruits are replacing two old players... bringing the total party to 8 members and the two lowest level greenies pull in at approximately a 24 in equivalent skill packages. at the end of that adventure (plus some exploration and survey of the planet as per their established profession) they are brought back down to 5 members a pair of originals at ~134, a ship-captain and expedition leader at ~82, a medic at ~64, a tech engineer ~34... and a new helmsman/astrogator and a pair of scientists are coming in (as their players get them finished) and they are in-route back into the frontier 'core worlds' to pick up these new recruits... new recruits as the players are desiring to make them... the total split here is now ~12 to ~134. I could go on, eventually the gap would grow to more than a 200pt stretch, as this is only half the total continuity available, and eventually every module is visited (at least once), and many treks into the 'uncharted void' is quite possible from this point on... but this is [imho] a much more realistic portrayal of how a campaign might progress into a party of widely divergent character experience 'levels', and much more common [as I have seen and heard] than the unrealistic effects that come from enforcing a contrived 'party balance'... even when equated to non-SF games, and in my experience, this has proven to be as fun (often more so) than strict adherence to intra-party balances. (PS. I have reservations on how realistic the actual experiences are at both ends... but that is not part of this topic specifically... I will just say green is too green for my taste, and the gross-exp-monster found on a double-ace with 16-mission notches is a bit two quickly elevated for my belief... of course, on all counts YMMV.) Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 18, 2011 - 2:35pm | Allowing new characters to earn more XP based upon their level difference with other characters in the party would not be unrealistic. Typically, lower level characters have more to prove and work much harder to reach the levels of higher level characters. So you would calculate the XP values of the highest level character in the group, and then each person in the group calculates their dispairty with theat character. This then determines each character's possible available XP for that adventrue. So while the character with the highest XP total earns 1-8 XP, other characters in the party with less total XP gain more XP, such as 1-10, 2-18, 3-36, all because those characters are working to prove themselves in a way that higher XP characters are not. Now, as to how to calculate the difference of how much each character can earn for that adventure, I'm not quite sure. But I think a standard calculation can be acheived. To determine how much each character gets for each accomplishment throughout the adventure, where normally 1 XP is assigned because someone did their duty, for a lower level character in a high level group, they might earn 2 or 3 such XP for that same reward instead. If they succeed in everything, then they are rewarded the remaining difference. For example, if you normally award 1-10 XP to a party and the lower level character earns all 10 points worth, then they get 30 XP, but also if the calculated earning desparity comes out to 33, then because they acheived all 30 XP, they get the extra 3 as well. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
December 18, 2011 - 4:23pm | If we looked at the "party" in the movie Star Wars it would be certain that all parties concerned are not on the same level. Obi wan would certainly be the most experienced then Han and Chewie, then Leia, and lastly Luke. As an RPG group I'd say that Obi Wan works best as an NPC. I think you could have a party with mixed levels if the newbies and the vets had different missions. Like when Obi Wan went off by himself to disable the tractor beam. Officially it could bebe one party but it really breaks down into different groups on different nights, though that would take some extra structure to the story telling. D&D 4.0 does this with vignette scenes, where the DM provides NPCs for the players to play out the scene, each NPC may or may not have an objective. Its a way of revealing information for the player that is off camera to the PC. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
December 18, 2011 - 4:44pm | I definitely think it is realistic for greenies to synergisticly learn faster from just being in contact with veterans... but how much of a benefit that should be I think should be lower than the initial suggestions given there... more than a 50% increase seems a bit much to me, and more than a 100% increase makes me choke on a gasp... such high increases in fast-track experience environments should be very rare [imho]. A difference may already be easier if critical success/failure allows for direct experience, then any assist can be considered synergisticly beneficial to the less skilled individual. Say there is a 10% difference in an assisted check between the highest and lowest participant... then an 11% experience-disparity may be set up to either end (1-11% or 89-00%) where it is sufficient to allow the less skilled participant to gain a direct experience benefit as if it had been a critical result from their perspective. Similar adjustments might be made for skill uses that are not 'direct assists' but intricately involved with synergy... such as three people holding a position in a fire-fight learning from a passively-assisted tactically-cooperative group-focused task. This would benefit lower level characters in an organic way... and not require large differences to be given intricate calculations when giving general xp. Just another way to handle such fast-track experience environments, so that the general xp rewarded is not unseemly large... and there is an inherent curve to this that reduces the amount of benefit as the gap closes, and a direct reason mechanicaly to have less-skilled characters chose to be in apprenticeships with vocationally similar characters of more experience (which is also a realistic element of such fast-track environments). Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
December 19, 2011 - 3:25am | If we looked at the "party" in the movie Star Wars it would be certain that all parties concerned are not on the same level. Obi wan would certainly be the most experienced .
This is one time movie telling differs from role playing. Obi-wan would not have been a PC. He would have been an NPC in particular his type of supporting character would be the Magi. His purpose is to advise the main character (MC) and than get out of the way letting the MC learn from experience. Consequently Han and Chewie may not have been PCs eithers. Chewie is mostly irrelevant and just a character for Han to dialogue with. Han would be a supporting character called a Pessimist. Not against the MC but always putting down the MC and his way of doing things. Leia may or may not have been a PC. Think about it, her character spent half the movie locked in a dungeon waiting to be rescued and another quarter sitting in the command room listening to the action. How many players would stand for that to happen to their character? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 December 19, 2011 - 6:34am | To me, a "balanced party" is a group that complement each other on a role-playing level then the game mechanics. For example, Star Trek has characters like Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Their conflicting personalities are more interesting to me then their skill areas or archetypes. In the old D&D cartoon, they had a Ranger, a Thief, an Acrobat, a Cavalier, a Wizard and a Barbarian, but I remember them as a doubtful leader, a shy girl, a moxie girl, a chicken-shit coward, an awkward little nerd, and a hotheaded little shit. I could go on, but you got the point. I could establish a system of personality types - like a Five-Man Band or a Freudian-Trio - but I find more fluid character dynamics tend to manifest naturally. |
December 19, 2011 - 7:29pm | An arbitrary Referee(GM)-fiat'ed Heroic mechanic is another way to produce balance. Someone with a high level of skill is going to be able to rely upon skill to succeed, but a low-level character, in an effort to prove themselves, may attempt more heroic actions in which they know there's a high likelihood of failure. The GM, impressed, then sees that there would be a chance for the low-level character to succeed against the odds, so, impressed, the Referee simply declares it a success. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
December 20, 2011 - 9:06am | @rattraveller I would not argue that a Movie story (as a completed story, being retold as a sequence of predetermined events) differs greatly from an RPG adventure (as a developing sequence of undetermined events, that will become a story at some unknown time)... However, as such none of the events that happen to even minor-part and/or 'throwaway' characters in any movie, book, or play I have known - have been outside of the fun I've had at the table... or beyond the acceptable limits of fun for the cross-section of gamers I have known... (baring issues from situations that may cause psychological trauma, due to past experiences or even a lack of experiential context.) Your main points are notably valid, however. @Malcadon I remember them as Hank, Eric, Diana, Presto, Sheila, Bobby, Uni, Dungeon Master, Venger, Shadow, and Tiamat... and yes, their conflicting personalities and dramatic struggles were more interesting to me than their archetypes... though the plot flowed much more like an RPG-game in it's considerably disjointed narrative progress, rather than any easily followed narrative structure commonly recognized in movie, tv, film, or literature. @Ascent good point! I am still waiting for this Referee gig, to pay for that GM Fiat... the one with the proper Alignment, Balanced Engine, easy Willing Suspension, capable of handling The Curves, and reliable over multiple Environments... a sweet ride. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
