How important is it to you or your players for characters to feel "overpowered"?

[Wolfpack48]

There's some slight-of-hand going on there, though; though avowedly about people not as capable as the main heroes in most Star Trek shows, over time its abundantly clear that most of the four main "Lower Decks" characters are, in fact, very capable within their specialties (its sometimes hard to tell with Boimler); at worst they carry around a lot of comedy-leading psychological baggage those characters don't have.

So while they put on the front of being "normal people" they really, really aren't.

Oh sure. I’d expect any character protagonist to be at least capable. The question is whether it’s possible for those characters to die, and if they can die, whether it must be a “heroic” death. For TTRPGs anyway I firmly say “it depends.”

I’m not of the opinion that RPGs must fully emulate fiction.

 

[Umbran]

Sure those could work too if it was framed properly and everyone agreed. I mean there’s a whole show about Star Trek characters on the “Lower Decks.”

Maybe not the best example, given that while those characters are low-ranking when the show starts, they are all pretty solidly competent and effective at their jobs - it isn't a show about how much they under-perform in an Upper Decks world.

 

[plecostomus]

I wrote this before I read further down and saw OP's comment clarifying that this question is really about combat scenarios:

I think in situations that suit my class's specialties, it is important that my character feels powerful. "Shoot your monks" I guess, but it's more than just combat. I love when my cleric is especially useful for finding and warding off fiends and ghosts. On the other hand, I get annoyed if the DM says my cleric can't heal a sick person because it's some extra-horrible plot disease. So yes, I absolutely have a cleric-themed power fantasy. It just doesn't involve any of the things listed in the OP.

That said, about the focus on combat and combat prep:

My party has entered 75% of fights with zero prep. We don't often know what we will be fighting. We always have high expectations of success regardless. This is not because we have a vision of our powerful heroes that must be maintained, but because the combat has never been especially challenging in our group. We don't know what being the underdogs in a fight looks like.

I will account for one time the DM pitted us in a spar against a mock party with PC character sheets. We got destroyed. He let us choose the arena, and gave a bunch of options with cover, but we chose the option with a giant pit, because we wanted to kick them into the pit. As it turns out the mock party was full of ranged characters, and at the time we were mostly melee. Did I enjoy getting bricked as much as winning like we usually do? Um, I guess not.

My monk, the only party member at the time with a movement speed higher than 30, did get to bully a couple enemies and interrupt some nasty spells. She was the only one who could even reach those attackers. So that was cool. But maybe I'm taking back "shoot your monks"...I don't have enough reactions for this.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem with that is, avowedly, the worlds those happen in is often "this one". That is to say, the chance of a result that looks even vaguely like those sort of experience just won't happen if you're entirely dependent on the dice and choices to produce them. They're too unforgiving.

The truth is, unless you want to accrue an awful lot of dead characters in a game where death is on the table, some manner of putting your thumb on the scale is necessary. D&D hit points are putting your thumb on the scale. SW Bennies are putting your thumb on the scale.

I think I understand your ethic here Micah, but in practice, it just isn't really doable; the only question you can ask is how much putting your thumb on the scale is acceptable. Otherwise you're expecting probability to let things work out in a way that is too unlikely to be even vaguely plausible to actually occur in play.

The answer is: as little as the players will accept.

 

[aramis erak]

Except you never, ever can pull D&D out of any discussion involving RPGs. It's always there, looming over everything, the overwhelming gravitational singularity of the majority.

depends upon the venue. Here? Yeah. COTI? Nope. Even in the other games section on COTI, D&D is seldom discussed. But there are a shockingly large portion of Classic Traveller or nothing types.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Maybe not the best example, given that while those characters are low-ranking when the show starts, they are all pretty solidly competent and effective at their jobs - it isn't a show about how much they under-perform in an Upper Decks world.

We were talking about secondary characters as protagonists in relation to primary characters. That is, players living in a world where Elric exists but not playing Elric himself. Those secondary characters can still be the focus of a campaign and still be competent.

The question was about whether character death should be on the table in this instance. My answer would be yes. If someone was playing Elric himself, the answer in most instances, for that character only, would be no.

 

[Lanefan]

We were talking about secondary characters as protagonists in relation to primary characters. That is, players living in a world where Elric exists but not playing Elric himself. Those secondary characters can still be the focus of a campaign and still be competent.

The question was about whether character death should be on the table in this instance. My answer would be yes. If someone was playing Elric himself, the answer in most instances, for that character only, would be no.

If I ever run a canned-setting game e.g. a Harry Potter game or Star Wars game, playing known canon characters would be off the table; they'd be - if every encountered at all - NPCs. Depending on the timing of what we're playing vs the known-canon events those known NPCs might or might not have considerable plot protection (e.g. if our Star Wars campaign is set between Empire and Return then even if you happen to meet Darth Vader you can't kill him but if our HP campaign is set after the Battle of Hogwarts then you could knock off Lucius Malfoy if the opportunity arose as his plot protection has worn off.).

 

[Wolfpack48]

If I ever run a canned-setting game e.g. a Harry Potter game or Star Wars game, playing known canon characters would be off the table; they'd be - if every encountered at all - NPCs. Depending on the timing of what we're playing vs the known-canon events those known NPCs might or might not have considerable plot protection (e.g. if our Star Wars campaign is set between Empire and Return then even if you happen to meet Darth Vader you can't kill him but if our HP campaign is set after the Battle of Hogwarts then you could knock off Lucius Malfoy if the opportunity arose as his plot protection has worn off.).

Yep, most likely those canon characters would be NPCs. Indiana Jones and Marvel/DC were the few RPGs where you could play canon characters.

 

[Aldarc]

Stories are not games. A story is to me one way a game could have happened. In a game I want the possibility of random death to be as real (within the logic of the setting and circumstances) as it could be in real life. You can't really do this in a superhero game without destroying the genre, so there I make an exception.

That's why I periodically kill PCs off with heart disease, dysentery, typhoid, and other illnesses. Just to make the game as real as possible with reality of seemingly randomized deaths. For some reason I also no longer have any players.

 

[Lanefan]

That's why I periodically kill PCs off with heart disease, dysentery, typhoid, and other illnesses. Just to make the game as real as possible with reality of seemingly randomized deaths. For some reason I also no longer have any players.

While I'm pretty sure I've never killed a character with disease, I do make them check now and then when they've been wading around in particularly disease-prone areas to see if someone picked up anything nasty. 1e D&D has some obscure rules for this, though I generally just wing it via a roll-under-Constitution; and if someone does get sick and they don't have access to a cure it could mean that character's laid up for a few days (and-or just less effective) which serves to delay the PCs and give their foes more time. The delay could put added pressure on their rations etc. as well in the right situation.

Once Cure Disease or similar comes online, though, disease becomes fairly irrelevant unless for some reason they're starving for spells.