Chargen with Hubris

[Aloïsius]

I guess each point of "hubris" could mean the same % penalty in XP. You have 25 in hubris score ? 25% XP less for you. My reasoning is that someone who has been gifted by the Gods with beauty, force and intelligence has no reason to be cursed by the same God. He could be very strong and charismatic while beeing humble.

Someone with "all 18", will have a "hubris" score of 76, thus -76% in XP. A bit harsh, maybe...

 

[iwatt]

Tie in the hubris (or whatever it's going to be called) to Action points. Higher hubris means either less action points or smaller effects (1d4 instead of 1d6) of said points. In a way it's saying that you used up a lot of your luck in just being "that good".

 

[schporto]

I like the idea of the hubris score (although maybe not the name). And the name is important - how many times have you heard something like "but I'm behind him, why can't I back stab him". As for using the score...
Maybe above a hubris of X all ties (on to hit, saves etc) go against you, below they're for you.
Or tie it to those moments where you aren't sure of the rules. So Bob has a high hubris. He tries to do X. The DM is not sure if X is possible or not by the RAW, therefore, says no because of the high hubris score. The low hubris Sue though manages to accomplish the same feat...
-cpd

 

[Lanefan]

So the PC with the high stats, that would more often be expected to stick her neck out and take risks, gets a lifetime built-in penalty as well? Sounds like a strong encouragement to choose lower stats (which is probably what's intended) and end up with a rather bland party (not the point, I'm sure).

Balance: it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Lanefan

 

[JustKim]

So the PC with the high stats, that would more often be expected to stick her neck out and take risks, gets a lifetime built-in penalty as well? Sounds like a strong encouragement to choose lower stats (which is probably what's intended) and end up with a rather bland party (not the point, I'm sure).

Balance: it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Lanefan

Going by the OP you would subtract 32 from the points needed to create the character point buy to determine hubris, which means the characters are 32 point buy before gaining any hubris. I don't consider 32 point buy to be low or bland. If you exceed 32 points then you are probably either curious to see what hubris does or trying to take advantage.

 

[jcfiala]

So the PC with the high stats, that would more often be expected to stick her neck out and take risks, gets a lifetime built-in penalty as well? Sounds like a strong encouragement to choose lower stats (which is probably what's intended) and end up with a rather bland party (not the point, I'm sure).

Balance: it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Everyone's expected to stick their neck out and take risks - it's D&D, for goodness sakes.

The whole point is to come up with a character generation method that's different form point buy (everyone starts about the same) or random gen (everyone starts out the same, except for bob who got 18, 16, 16 and chris who's highest stats are two 14s and a 10). People can take much higher stats if they want to risk it - the question is simply what they risk. Just like the greek heros had larger-than life abilities and had sometimes horrible luck, these characters have some bad things happen to them - the question is, exactly what. That's what this thread is about.

It's not about balance - it's about letting the players choose their stats within reason - and giving them a good reason to not choose all 18s.

 

[jcfiala]

Hmm. Looking through a thesaurus a little, I came upon kismet and moira - the first meaning chance, and the other meaning circumstance. I think I like Kismet a little more. (On the other hand, jeopardy might be a good name too.)

On the one hand, we don't want kismet to result in bad things only happening to some folks - Everyone's playing the game, everyone takes the risks. The idea is that sometimes things go wrong, and they go wrong a little more often than the others. (I don't really want to muck around with gaining XP.)

So, if theives break into the adventurer's supplies and take things, then they're more likely to take something from Bob than Janice. If someone's family member is involved in the new plot, Janice's has been promoted to city council and needs your help cleaning out the sewer, whereas if Bob's family has to be involved, his kid sister has disappeared into the sewers and hasn't been seen. Bob tends to find the cursed artifacts, and Janice finds the useful ones. (Now, this shouldn't be an _always_ thing. Janice should occasionally discover that whoever wears the ring she's got on dies at the end of the month, and Bob should occasionally push his hand into a pile of dung and find the duchess' missing wedding ring.)

Think of it as a luck score. The higher your stats are, in general, the worse your luck - but with your stats, you should survive it. But it would allow someone to play a Jack - someone who's mostly pretty good in general, who keeps discovering himself tripping over some interesting bit of luck.

It's also an interesting guide to getting people to play with low stats. In point-buy, it's hard to end up with a sub-8 stat because that's the way the table goes. But if you expanded the table downwards (although not with as much of a curve as the positive does), it would give Bob a reason for his fighter to perhaps have a 5 INT and a 7 CHA - so that the kismet from his 18 STR, 18 CON, and 12 DEX wouldn't weigh too hard on his shoulders.

I would suggest that if a character faced some form of pernament ability drain, that his kismet be adjusted for that - if Bob faces something that lowers his CON to 14 pernamently, then that bit of bad luck burns off a little of his kismet.

Anyway, some more thoughts. Back to work.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

This reminds me a lot of "Good Stuff" and "Bad Stuff" from the Amber Diceless RPG. I think I might like it.

Later
silver

 

[Ringan]

I like the concept a lot. However I would prefer to implement it in a qualitative rather than quantitative way. By just tying it to, say, DR it becomes just another statistic for min-maxers & powergames to optimize. Rather, I'd prefer to focus on making bad things tend to happen more to the hubristic character (such as the greatly different reactions of the barmaid and villains). It would take precise judgement on the DM's part, but would definitely be novel and interesting.

 

[Conaill]

The problem here is that risk is the definition of heroism, and it's often fun and exciting to be targeted in combat. I'd feel bad for that sorcerer, who has low scores and a safer - and thus less heroic - D&D experience.

Exactly. Don't let hubris become just another way to let PCs with high scores become the center of attention!

Attracting the attention of a god = bad use of hubris

Picking which of the PC's gets the chamberpot emptied over his head = good use of hubris.