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

[Thomas Shey]

Absolutely the PCs should sometimes find themselves in fights they didn't see coming. Ambushes, blown perception rolls, or just simply getting caught off guard.

The question revolves around those fights the PCs can see coming and thus can - if they want - avoid or mitigate.

My only point is that if you're not getting a lot of character turnover, one way or another, as a GM, you're setting things up so that happens; it won't happen just as a consequence of how the players are operating without GM enabling. (The exception, again, is in no- or very low combat games--and I do mean very low).. People can have ongoing characters in a game with significant combat only if they have some kind of an edge, and the edge can't come just from them; the GM has to make it available whether its in-game or out-of-game.

 

[Wolfpack48]

So here’s a bit of opposite spin on this. If characters are getting hurt or dying frequently in your games, do you have a harsh expectation from either your GM or other players that you just need to “git gud?” Is “player skill” really a thing?

 

[Lanefan]

So here’s a bit of opposite spin on this. If characters are getting hurt or dying frequently in your games, do you have a harsh expectation from either your GM or other players that you just need to “git gud?” Is “player skill” really a thing?

"Git gud" is part of it, but sometimes it's just a matter of "git lucky"; some player's dice let them down all too often.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So here’s a bit of opposite spin on this. If characters are getting hurt or dying frequently in your games, do you have a harsh expectation from either your GM or other players that you just need to “git gud?” Is “player skill” really a thing?

Well, the issue is, that only goes so far. Unless the GM is willing to let you set up a turkey-shoot every time, the games where death is easy are usually not ones that, barring said turkey-shoot or avoiding combat completely, it can happen out of dumb luck right out the gate.

Back in one of my first RQ games back in the day, one of the players had generated a rich noble. This was, by the standard of the game a pretty sweet gig, as you started with good gear and a pretty decent set of skills. In one of the combats in the game he got outnumbered by trollkin and had about three on him. (For those not familiar with RQ think "goblins"). While he was outnumbered, he was well armored, and could probably put them down quick.

One of the trollkin, using a shortspear, got a critical hit in the nobles abdomen and went down; before anyone could work their way through the other trollkin, he'd died. Short of not being in the fight at all, at best he might have been able to not let the trollkin get behind him, but that might not have helped.

Basically, player skill can help, but it only gets you so far.

 

[nevin]

Well, the issue is, that only goes so far. Unless the GM is willing to let you set up a turkey-shoot every time, the games where death is easy are usually not ones that, barring said turkey-shoot or avoiding combat completely, it can happen out of dumb luck right out the gate.

Back in one of my first RQ games back in the day, one of the players had generated a rich noble. This was, by the standard of the game a pretty sweet gig, as you started with good gear and a pretty decent set of skills. In one of the combats in the game he got outnumbered by trollkin and had about three on him. (For those not familiar with RQ think "goblins"). While he was outnumbered, he was well armored, and could probably put them down quick.

One of the trollkin, using a shortspear, got a critical hit in the nobles abdomen and went down; before anyone could work their way through the other trollkin, he'd died. Short of not being in the fight at all, at best he might have been able to not let the trollkin get behind him, but that might not have helped.

Basically, player skill can help, but it only gets you so far.

my first 1st level character died to a natural 20 crit in the second round of combat. I've also had a higher level character literally stand in the tunnel of the encounter while being mobbed by creatures and miss for 6 full rounds even though he had the best THACO in the group. The dice can definitely kill you fast and often when they turn on you. Honestly the hardest thing for me as a DM is to make everyone feel like they are hero's when one player is rolling high the entire session and one is rolling low the entire session. Random can be a game destroyer if you let it.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Well, the issue is, that only goes so far. Unless the GM is willing to let you set up a turkey-shoot every time, the games where death is easy are usually not ones that, barring said turkey-shoot or avoiding combat completely, it can happen out of dumb luck right out the gate.

Back in one of my first RQ games back in the day, one of the players had generated a rich noble. This was, by the standard of the game a pretty sweet gig, as you started with good gear and a pretty decent set of skills. In one of the combats in the game he got outnumbered by trollkin and had about three on him. (For those not familiar with RQ think "goblins"). While he was outnumbered, he was well armored, and could probably put them down quick.

One of the trollkin, using a shortspear, got a critical hit in the nobles abdomen and went down; before anyone could work their way through the other trollkin, he'd died. Short of not being in the fight at all, at best he might have been able to not let the trollkin get behind him, but that might not have helped.

Basically, player skill can help, but it only gets you so far.

So I think we could say another aspect of feeling weak is the ability to be taken down by luck. And is this okay in a TTRPG? So many games have a death mechanic, and the ability to crit or fumble only ensures that those death rules get invoked more easily or by underpowered foes. Are we saying "them's the breaks," roll that into the story, bring in someone new? Or do we need to make allotment for player skill or story invoked "heroism" overriding luck in some way?

I do think about whether "luck death" would result would discourage players too deeply or simply be boring. I'd much rather put the character in a coma to be revived with some serious injuries when they awake than say "oh well, he's dead." My guess is I would ask the player how attached they are to the character they are playing before making the call. Again, I suppose it comes down to the spoken or unspoken contract about the game being played.

 

[Desdichado]

Where's the option for "that's not what I'm looking for at all, so it's a negative?" The options go with much finer gradation than needed from it's important to I'm apathetic. Where's the scale below that were you're actually hostile to the idea, or at least that's not what you want your game to do at all?

 

[Wolfpack48]

Where's the option for "that's not what I'm looking for at all, so it's a negative?" The options go with much finer gradation than needed from it's important to I'm apathetic. Where's the scale below that were you're actually hostile to the idea, or at least that's not what you want your game to do at all?

"It plays no role whatsoever" should cover it.

 

[Desdichado]

"It plays no role whatsoever" should cover it.

It very much does play a role. Just in the opposite direction of the expectation of the poll. My fantasy games feel more like Call of Cthulhu in terms of tone and theme, and that's by design. So "overpowered" character mechanics are a big red flag to me.

Anyway, I guess that was more of a vote in the comments for an option that isn't really represented. More of a rhetorical vote rather than a question.

 

[Wolfpack48]

It very much does play a role. Just in the opposite direction of the expectation of the poll. My fantasy games feel more like Call of Cthulhu in terms of tone and theme, and that's by design. So "overpowered" character mechanics are a big red flag to me.

Anyway, I guess that was more of a vote in the comments for an option that isn't really represented. More of a rhetorical vote rather than a question.

If you are looking for average or underpowered characters, being overpowered is "extremely unimportant."