Any good examples of TTRPGs with high degree of "Asymmetry" I might have missed?

[Caliburn101]

GURPS is a tough one for me to think about probably mostly because I never really looked at it as a unified game (for a variety of unimportant reasons) and the variable power levels doesn't help. Would you (or anyone familiar with the system) say that a typical game would approach the 5e lvls of this type of asymmetry. For instance, I know the 5e Wizard and Champion work fine together, the Wizard having; prepared spells, spell slots, abilities that require the NPC to save, abilities that roll to hit, etc. Would that sort of thing happen easily in GURPS? Would Chargen likely need to be steered that way to make it happen?

I don't feel Danny actually answered your question. Sure, different subsystems of GURPS use different power levels, but you don't usually see them in the same campaign. It's a menu, not the meal...

 

[Celebrim]

I don't feel Danny actually answered your question. Sure, different subsystems of GURPS use different power levels, but you don't usually see them in the same campaign. It's a menu, not the meal...

Yes, but that's not often made explicit in the rules. GURPS more often gives the impression that you could use it to run the sort of multi-genera game imagined by TORG, with the same characters hopping between settings. That it's not really intended to do something like that isn't something that it flat out states or at least emphasizes.

 

[happyhermit]

Are you purposely disregarding the different roles of the dungeon master (or whatever it is called in the specific game) and the rest of the players? That is the most extreme example of play asymmetry. The game that the game master is playing is vastly different from that of the other players.

For the purpose of this question I suppose I am disregarding that asymmetry. I mean it very obviously exists but it isn't what I'm looking for. To bring it back to board games, many "asymmetrical" games utilize the same GM/Overlord-Player divide ie; Descent, but it's a very different thing than games like "Captain Sonar".

Ars Magica
... .

This is one of the first ones I looked at in regards to this aspect, I was surprised to find that underneath the varying power levels I just couldn't didn't find nearly as much asymmetry as I expected. Thanks for the suggestion.

... A psionic for a sci-fi game, a wizard for a fantasy game, a special forces soldier for a modern survival game, and a super for a comic book super hero game use compatible systems, but have wildly different power scales for the same point buy. Similarly, as any MUSH judge can tell you, just because Changling and VtM use the same system, doesn't mean those systems are truly compatible and have the same assumptions.

Yeah, what I am really looking for are things that are compatible, expected to be found together, but without the wildly different power scales.

 

[happyhermit]

I don't feel Danny actually answered your question. Sure, different subsystems of GURPS use different power levels, but you don't usually see them in the same campaign. It's a menu, not the meal...

Yeah, GURPS is just tough to compare due to it's nature I suppose.

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, what I am really looking for are things that are compatible, expected to be found together, but without the wildly different power scales.

I realize that, but I'm having a hard time thinking of a game that did that on purpose. For one thing, I think we are just getting to the point where we understand what an RPG is enough to consider issues like that.

One of the most compelling asymmetries I've ever seen is in a casual MMORPG called 'Puzzle Pirates'. The game features all sorts of casual play, oriented around typical matching puzzles, but it's highest level play involves very large teams ('crews') working together to operate a ship. And the way that works is that there is a sailing puzzle minigame, a cannon puzzle minigame, a carpentry puzzle minigame that different portions of the crew work on in parallel. Meanwhile, a single player plays the captain's puzzle minigame, which is basically turn based tactical combat with a move feed system similar to Roborally or more recently Card Hunter. The moves are fed by the success of the player's playing the sailing game, the weight of shot by those playing the cannon minigame, and repairs are accomplished by the carpentry minigame. Various other minigames can break out depending on the tactical situation, and players can play alternative games to accomplish similar purposes.

For all its silliness, the result is maddeningly compelling, especially with relatively small ship crews where the hands all know each other.

I feel like that one of my essays is relevant to this topic, so here is a link:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471687-Role-Playing-The-Game-of-Many-Mini-Games

I've never seen a PnP RPG deliberately designed with that sort of asymmetry, and certainly the modern trend - which I consider to be something of an anti-pattern - is to try to squeeze all the varieties of play in the game into a single all-encompassing 'elegant' set of rules that treats combat, social interaction, evasion, and even who is sleeping with who as a largely indistinguishable set of considerations. However, if you look at my definition of an RPG, even if you don't have asymmetry built into it, you have the potential for the sort of asymmetry seen in 'Puzzle Pirates' to naturally evolve as an element of play. It might be infrequent, but the possibility of a fighter using a combat mini-game to hold off endless waves of undead, while a bard tries to negotiate with a recalcitrant genie, a rogue tries to disarm/open a complex puzzle-trap, and the wizard frantically searches through his spell-lists for bits of narrative agency to assist the group with. Everyone is playing the same scene in the same game, but each is actually involved in their own mini-game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yes, but that's not often made explicit in the rules. GURPS more often gives the impression that you could use it to run the sort of multi-genera game imagined by TORG, with the same characters hopping between settings. That it's not really intended to do something like that isn't something that it flat out states or at least emphasizes.

Yep.

Contrast that with HERO, and that difference becomes crystal clear. HERO PCs are- generally speaking- going to translate across genre conventions quite easily as long as the PCs are all built with the same base character points. Even different magic types are easily modeled within the same framework.

GURPS, OTOH, has several different magic systems that are not compatible. The one in the core book, for instance, has magic that is on a par with low-magic D&D games. The cost to be able to use telekinesis to move a 16lb weight is quite pricey. In the magic splatbooks, that same level of telekinesis would be a trivial build-point expenditure.

And in HERO, the base cost would be identical across genres, with final cost depending on what kind of advantages and disadvantages applied to the PC's power

 

[Nagol]

Hmm, I can think of a few.

D&D 3.X can have the casters playing a separate game on the battlefield. Most of the characters are trying to win the hp attrition war, but some optimised (generally arcane) casters are attempting to bypass it completely with "save-or-lose" or simply "I win/you lose" effects. 1e's psionic rules presented a whole slew of options (and drawbacks!) for so-called gifted characters entirely unlike the main game.

Buffy the Vampire-slayer has the weaker characters more involved in the drama point mini-game than the Slayer.

Several game compartmentalize "magic" (whatever it many be called the game) and characters with access can run quite differently than characters without. From creaking memory, Lace and Steel has a separate mini-game specific for spell combat.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Yep.

Contrast that with HERO, and that difference becomes crystal clear. HERO PCs are- generally speaking- going to translate across genre conventions quite easily as long as the PCs are all built with the same base character points. Even different magic types are easily modeled within the same framework.

I ran a 4 year long transworld fantasy game like that in 4th. Each character chose a sourcebook (Cyber Hero, Western Hero, Champions etc) given total points and a base range for def, CV and DC. Worked flawlessly.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did something similar, but it was a D&D sim, in which people could make their characters work like any published version of a given class or race.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

One of the accusations leveled against Shadowrun, especially in the older editions, was the highly asymmetric play. A rigger, decker, shaman, and street samurai were quite often not interacting with the same mechanics. I understand that it's gotten less asymmetrical in recent editions, but I haven't read enough of those books to say for certain.

I'm not entirely certain that I follow the premise, though. I mean, D&D doesn't seem that asymmetrical between players (leaving out the DM, who is not a player); the difference between a fighter and a wizard isn't that significant, in terms of the mechanics involved, except that the fighter takes more Attack actions and the wizard takes more Cast A Spell actions. Especially in the old days, before the advent of spontaneous casting, there was only one mechanic for spells and every class was somewhere on the spectrum between fighter and wizard; and even then, the wizard would have to make some attacks now and then, since they didn't have enough spell slots to cast spells every round. If you write up the various weapons that the fighter is carrying as though they were 4E basic attack powers, the difference almost falls away to one of presentation.