KYRON45
Hero
It would just be sad if people didn't know what hero means. In any context.
How important is it to you or your players for characters to feel "overpowered"?
- Thread starter Wolfpack48
- Start date
KYRON45
Hero
Is it more about what you roll up, or how you engage with the scenarios based on what you rolled?
Oh no. I want to know in advance what character I’m playing before I engage the scenario.
KYRON45
Hero
Red shirts are the minions for the good guys. If the narrative wanted the red shirts to be better, they would be. Ensign Rowe was a red shirt.
I'm saying that if we make the most of the characters we end up with, the game is still fun.
Okay but then what you are saying is that character generation for this game is such that you might end up with a heroic character, or you might be cannon fodder (who might survive regardless but don’t count on it).Red shirts are the minions for the good guys. If the narrative wanted the red shirts to be better, they would be. Ensign Rowe was a red shirt.
I'm saying that if we make the most of the characters we end up with, the game is still fun.
What I’d like to know is that is what the game is going to be like upfront.
KYRON45
Hero
Isn’t it possible to both know what the game is like and roll up a less than effective character?
I’m not arguing I'm just discussing making the most of the characters we end up with.
I’ve always found that a sub par character makes for great role playing. YMMV of course.
It’s possible but I think in my opinion, knowing that my character is dramatically worse than the player next to me isn’t going to be fun for me unless I really want to play a weak character, which is probably not often.
Edgar Ironpelt
Adventurer
I'll repost, yet again, an old USENET post - not by me, I just agree with it.
----
Nov 20 2006, 5:48 pm
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
RPGs and video games differ from most ordinary board games in that there doesn't have to be a loser. I think it's reasonable that they attract mindsets which aren't very interested in losing; and a lot of RPG groups successfully cater to this.
If I enter into playing, say, chess with the expectation I will never lose, I'm being an idiot and I'm bound to be disappointed. Not even the World Champion gets that. But if I enter into Heroes of Might and Magic IV (which is what I'm currently playing) with the expectation that I won't lose, I'm not hurting anyone, and it's not unreasonable that I may get what I want. (Especially if I turn the difficulty down--and I may yet do that, because the losses are really more annoying than challenging.)
Whether the player still wants it when she gets it is another question, but for at least some players in some situations the answer is "yes." I don't think I would still be playing Heroes if I lost even 1/3 of the time. In a board game, I know I have to give my opponent a fair shot, but here there's no such obligation; the only thing against winning all the time is that it may detract from the challenge, and for me, right now, I'd rather win than have a really strong challenge.
If this is a personality flaw it's an awfully common one; I think it's better just regarded as a preference.
A common problem with such games is that they are entertaining for the players but not for the GM. I get tired of having my NPCs wiped out time and again; I spoiled a campaign recently by engineering a TPK in the attempt to make things "a bit more challenging." Clearly I overshot, but by game contract I shouldn't even have been trying.
--- end quoted post ---
Now to add my own gloss: Another aspect I want to emulate is the experience of the protagonists/main characters in read-only fantasy. The secondary characters in those works die, and the mooks die and die and die, but it's extremely rare for the main characters to die - and on those rare occasions when a main character does die, it's after surviving years or even decades of exciting adventurers, at least in the backstory.
So I want a game system that will let a PC survive playing out those years of exciting adventures without the system killing them, preferably without having to invoke GM fiat/fudging to accomplish this. And if this means that the PCs are superior, special, and "overpowered" that's actually a bonus from my point of view, contributing to the experience of being a protagonist in a work of read-only fantasy fiction.
There's a piece of conventional wisdom that goes back a long long way: That 'munchkinism' is poison and to be avoided - and to be avoided at all costs. But I dissent from that conventional wisdom. My experience is that a dash of munchkinism is a useful and desirable feature in a TTRPG. So, 'overpowered'? Sure!
----
Nov 20 2006, 5:48 pm
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
RPGs and video games differ from most ordinary board games in that there doesn't have to be a loser. I think it's reasonable that they attract mindsets which aren't very interested in losing; and a lot of RPG groups successfully cater to this.
If I enter into playing, say, chess with the expectation I will never lose, I'm being an idiot and I'm bound to be disappointed. Not even the World Champion gets that. But if I enter into Heroes of Might and Magic IV (which is what I'm currently playing) with the expectation that I won't lose, I'm not hurting anyone, and it's not unreasonable that I may get what I want. (Especially if I turn the difficulty down--and I may yet do that, because the losses are really more annoying than challenging.)
Whether the player still wants it when she gets it is another question, but for at least some players in some situations the answer is "yes." I don't think I would still be playing Heroes if I lost even 1/3 of the time. In a board game, I know I have to give my opponent a fair shot, but here there's no such obligation; the only thing against winning all the time is that it may detract from the challenge, and for me, right now, I'd rather win than have a really strong challenge.
If this is a personality flaw it's an awfully common one; I think it's better just regarded as a preference.
A common problem with such games is that they are entertaining for the players but not for the GM. I get tired of having my NPCs wiped out time and again; I spoiled a campaign recently by engineering a TPK in the attempt to make things "a bit more challenging." Clearly I overshot, but by game contract I shouldn't even have been trying.
--- end quoted post ---
Now to add my own gloss: Another aspect I want to emulate is the experience of the protagonists/main characters in read-only fantasy. The secondary characters in those works die, and the mooks die and die and die, but it's extremely rare for the main characters to die - and on those rare occasions when a main character does die, it's after surviving years or even decades of exciting adventurers, at least in the backstory.
So I want a game system that will let a PC survive playing out those years of exciting adventures without the system killing them, preferably without having to invoke GM fiat/fudging to accomplish this. And if this means that the PCs are superior, special, and "overpowered" that's actually a bonus from my point of view, contributing to the experience of being a protagonist in a work of read-only fantasy fiction.
There's a piece of conventional wisdom that goes back a long long way: That 'munchkinism' is poison and to be avoided - and to be avoided at all costs. But I dissent from that conventional wisdom. My experience is that a dash of munchkinism is a useful and desirable feature in a TTRPG. So, 'overpowered'? Sure!
Wolfpack48
Hero
I love "a dash of munchinkism" and am going to start using that phrase in everyday conversations with random people.
Yeah, I think I'm where you're at and in this survey, I put my vote as Somewhat Important. I like characters that feel challenged, get hurt, but come out on top and eventually earn the title "hero." I do believe dying needs to be a possibility though, and I am not sure it should always be "heroic." -- "It depends." Even in our Call of Cthulhu games where PC death is always looming, I like to have some survivability and even some longevity (sanity loss is great opportunity for roleplaying). But there, even more so, death needs to be a possibility. That said, I don't see going out of our way to make death happen.
So I think the one thing with this quote is that it belies an older notion that has really changed - the idea that the DM is playing the NPCs in an antagonistic way and setting up a DM versus PCs paradigm versus the DM is a fan of the PCs. I think there’s a fine line between you want the encounter to be challenging versus you identify with your monsters and want them to succeed versus the party.
