The first edition of Stormbringer was also very unbalanced in favor of casters.
Any good examples of TTRPGs with high degree of "Asymmetry" I might have missed?
- Thread starter happyhermit
- Start date
Celebrim
Legend
I think the Decker is the archetypal example of this, but it's a universal problem with specialists in any Sci-Fi campaign and one of the things that pulled me away from point buy and back toward class based systems.
As I said in my essay, I think that RPG's are practically defined as being games made up of diverse mini-games. That is to say, they are attempting to "simulate the world" and everything in it. But you run into a problem of playability if one of the expectations of play is that each character specializes in a particular different mini-game, because then you end up with no real interaction between the players in what is supposed to be a social game. The same problem that plagues Deckers plagues for example star fighter pilots. If you put your chargen resources into being a great star fighter pilot, you end up in a situation where you only excel in a mini-game that comes up (relatively speaking) rarely. If you commit halfway though, then you don't get to shine in the very area you defined your character in - you'll always get beaten by specialists with fewer points but greater commitment to the mini-game. Meanwhile, at the time you character shines, the other characters often have little or nothing to contribute.
The same is true of just about any specialist character - you can build a great 'face', but then you are really only valuable in port when negotiating something (and the rest of the team mostly just watches or does their own thing when you do). Most science-fiction systems seem to push characters into what in game context are NPC roles, and most science-fiction shows have a trope of 'team of specialists' but rarely have all the characters working on the same problem in a useful way which sets a bad example when you want to convert your favorite property to being an RPG (in an RPG you can play Spock as a PC, but you shouldn't play Scotty as a PC). Worse, you are at the mercy of the DM offering your mini-game to you in a way that resolves the conflicts he presents. You can't really know from campaign to campaign what a PC build is going to look like. Are there going to lots of problems that can be resolved by hacking into systems?
One area that D&D really excelled in early on that few of its competitors excelled in was presenting what it's play was about, presenting examples of play, and getting everyone thinking about what the game was in the same way. D&D may have never had the best rules, but it always did the best job of explaining what the rules were for and what it's core game play was supposed to be like and what it was about. This combined with its class based system, meant that everyone was more or less prepared for and available during its core gameplay and contributed jointly to it. You could complain that the balance wasn't as good as it could have been, resulting in some classes being more important overall than others, but everyone was involved (and some groups didn't even notice the balance issues in all the fun they were having).
Argyle King
Legend
Hasn't been my experience with GURPS at all.
I have successfully run cross-genre games.
The topic of magic is a little different, but I do not feel your responses accurately represent what is presented in the "splat books." The systems which differ significantly from the baseline assumptions say that; as a matter of fact, the splat book which introduces most of the alternative systems has several pages which explain that some of the alternative systems differ significantly from the baseline game. As such, it's not some sort of surprise which is sprung upon the GM or players. If a group is choosing to use those systems, they go into it knowing that they work differently.
The only other book which I would say has issues would be Ultra-Tech (the book for futuristic tech) for GURPS 4E. That's because it was printed prior to High-Tech (the book for modern day tech), and the last few years in the real world have produced things that are actually better at what the guesses about the future were. High-Tech is well-researched and based upon actually available weaponry and armor. (On a side note: GURPS books tend to be some of the most informative rpg books I own; I've actually cited one for a college paper and it was deemed an acceptable source by the professor.)
Aside from that, most other things are consistent. Where they aren't, the rules address it, and the adjustments are minor. Personally, I've had far less problems using the various GURPS rules together (most notably during a supers game in which the players had vastly different ideas for characters) than I have had using most D&D rules during the last three editions.
I don't have enough experience with Hero to speak on behalf of it from what I feel would be an educated viewpoint. My passing familiarity with it and how it handled costs for certain things (in what was maybe 3rd or 4th edition, but I'm not sure) is actually what prompted me to buy GURPS instead. That's not a knock against the game; simply stating my personal preference and that my experiences with the systems mentioned have been vastly different than yours.
Which was kind of my point: in HERO, it doesn't matter what book you're looking in, the costs remain virtually identical. The only reason why something would change costs across genre/setting, etc. is somewhat like the prices of metal equipment in a DarkSun campaign.
Most of the time, it will cost you the same amount of build points to make a typical fantasy longsword in HERO. If it were a magic longsword, the price again remains the same regardless of setting, as long as it has the same powers, advantages and disadvantages. The one exception would be if an advantageor disadvantage in one setting is substantially weaker or stronger in that setting than normal.
For example, if the magic sword drew its powers from the gem in its hilt being exposed to 8 hours of natural sunlight, the pricing might be higher if the campaign were in a setting with 2+ suns (the limitation isn't much of a limitation), or lower if the world were a one face planet (the limitation is more of a liability than usual).
Argyle King
Legend
The costs for the same power do not change in GURPS though. The different magic systems would be different forms of Magery. For the majority of the radically different systems, if you're choosing to use those for a game, you're most likely using those across the board for all characters (or, IMO, should be). For example, the magic system in the Monster Hunters series is likely different enough from the default Basic Set system that you should likely use one or the other. However, that doesn't mean that the same power has different costs; the two systems are different powers. (I'm open to discussing the merits or flaws of the default system, but that's a different discussion.)
The other magic systems aren't priced the same because they're not the same power. Instead, as stated, they are entirely different systems. Typically, you pick one or the other. Even so, the pricing is still based on the same general GURPS ideas about how to price things. (If it makes a difference, I'm primarily familiar with 4th Edition.)
Whichever option I use, those costs remain the same whether I'm a mage in a medieval-ish fantasy setting or if I'm a techno-mage in the future.
Not every splat is like that, but the ones which are clearly say so. Most of the splats all use the same basic underlying system and do so in a consistent way. An example of that would be the way in which active defense scores are calculated. If I'm driving during a car chase, my defense score with the car is calculated using the same formula as if I were figuring out what my defenses were for melee combat.
An example of when costs do change in GURPS would be equipment. Buying a modern day vehicle is going to be more expensive for a medieval knight. That is done to reflect the idea that prototype, cutting edge, or futuristic technology is more expensive than ubiquitous items. Compare the price of 1990s era MP3 players to what is available now. Even so, character points are not used for that. Money is used to buy equipment in most cases.
If I were looking to show asymmetry in GURPS in reference to pricing, I'd likely touch upon how ability scores are priced differently. IQ and Dexterity are more expensive.
The HERO sword example would work more-or-less the same way in GURPS if you were building a power as a gadget. You'd define the powers granted by the item. You'd figure the modifiers to character point costs based upon any limitations (needs a gem to charge in sunlight) or enhancements (affects insubstantial creatures) to those powers. The cost for it would remain the same regardless of whether it were in a horror campaign or a supers campaign.
How does HERO work if the sword is not built as part of my character? If I pick up an item during an adventure, do I pay points for it?
That may be the case now, but when I was introduced to GURPS in the 1990s, it wasn't. I was in a group that did a lot of playtesting for SJG, so it was pretty popular system for GMs to use. I was building a PC with Telekinesis for one game, when one of the other players pointed out how my (and other) PCs would benefit from using one of the systems from a splatbook. The cost I'd have paid to lift a bowling ball in the core would have allowed me to lift something more like a motorcycle or small car in the splatbook's system. (Ultimately, the GM elected to use just the core book.)
HERO splats don't do that. Never have.
If you intend to make it a long term or permanent part of your PC, yes, you'll have to find the points to pay for it. But if you're just looting in the here & now, and the sword is discarded relatively soon- defined by the GM- you don't.
Last edited:
aramis erak
Legend
The costs for some skills varied in the supplements for 1E/2E GURPS.
The costs for various abilities differed between Horror, Supers, and Psionics.
It was the 3rd Ed Revised era that they started to make the points uniform across books.
Keep in mind, the original intent was a worldbook and maybe a supplement or two for each worldbook, with the worldbooks not being crossed over with others. By the time of 3rd ed, they realized (in part from feedback on the IO BBS) that people were freely mix-n-matching. And so they changed the way they wrote books.
That's not the actual default case, at least not in the editions I own. in Fantasy Hero 1e (for Hero 3e) you only paid points for items if you made them and they could be given, sold or lost, but the points were still spent.
In FH for Hero 5e, the default rules were that magic items were acquired by purchase or "finding them". In either case there was no point cost. However, there was an option for paying points for any item you kept.
Been playing HERO since the very first edition of Champions, all the way through 6th. It's been a while though. Could be I'm misremembering or recalling a house rule. Could be we differed in rules interpretation.
But we always played it so that you didn't have to find build points to pay for gear you didn't use long term. That way, looting the fallen was perfectly feasible, and the odd bit of gear could be grabbed and used without the game being an exercise in accounting. But a Flaming Sword of Awesome you intended to use from that point forward? That you had to pay points for.
But we always played it so that you didn't have to find build points to pay for gear you didn't use long term. That way, looting the fallen was perfectly feasible, and the odd bit of gear could be grabbed and used without the game being an exercise in accounting. But a Flaming Sword of Awesome you intended to use from that point forward? That you had to pay points for.
Fantasy Hero had two aspects where it differed. it had the first explicit "purchased mundane gear doesn't cost points" and it was the first introduction of the Independent limitation (a character may use the item without paying points, but only for so long as the item is around. Replacement is not assumed unlike items purchased with points). 1e also had a few different costs than the same era of Champions and introduced a few new powers which was annoying at the time.
