How Special Are The PCs?

[bloodtide]

I use the same basic default for any game.

PCs are easily more special then roughly 75% of the world: all the people in the back ground.

For that other 25% that the PCs will interact with much more on an adventure, it can get complicated.

I much more see the PCs having the potential of being special, not just being gifted it. I like zero to hero, so my average PC starts off as very not special that can be slipped silly by those 25% of NPCs. But as time goes on, a PC has the ability to become special, or even very special.

Technically, no matter how powerful the PCs get, they will always be Stuck in the Middle. So roughly 12.5% more special then them and the 12.5% slightly less. This really is just basic Game Logic, as the Bad Guys must always be special.

Of course, in the eyes of Fate or Destiny, the PCs are always Special. But I see fate/destiny as fickle, so no matter how 'special' a Pc is, they can still die.

 

[bedir than]

In Synnibar the PCs weren't special. Everyone was a mutant-hero-cyborg-wizard.
In Twilight: 2000 the PCs aren't special. Everyone is alone, destined to die.

I think this question helps define a setting and game more than any other question - even "how common is magic/superpowers?"

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

As I’ve written elsewhere, the older I get the grittier and lower powered I make my campaigns. WFRP, Traveller, CoC. PCs are ordinary folks, with some degree of competence and possibly even very good at what they do, but they are not übermensch.

 

[payn]

I will say after playing Masks, I can enjoy Supers in narrative focused games. I do not want to play one, however, in what recently was described as tall progression designed RPG such as 5E.

 

[GMMichael]

In the words of Tyler, "you are not special. This does not belong to you."

 

[zakael19]

I generally conform to the 4e/Eberron idea of “the player characters are exceptional.” That doesn’t mean that NPCs don’t have powers of their own, but they’re different.

Of course the flip side is that their opposition is exceptional as well!

 

[aco175]

My games tend to depend on the level of the PCs. In D&D terms, level 1 PCs are only slightly better than most everyone else. Guards, bandits and most merchant laborers are able to go a few rounds with the PCs and a couple of them should get the better of a PC. By the time the PCs are level 5 now they are more powerful than most people they encounter unless they seek out bad guys and other adventuring parties to challenge. Larger towns and cities still have some that can challenge the PCs, but small towns are easy pickings if the PCs wish to slay everyone. By 10th level there needs to be a specific challenge to target the PCs. Something like an assassin guild that is hired to take on the PCs.

 

[Swanosaurus]

I'd differentiate between being special and being powerful. Okay, if you're more powerful than most people, that makes you special in a specific way. But being special without being powerful is absolutely possible ... Frodo is special, but he's not powerful.

Now, in terms of power, I tend towards PCs being on par with the rest of the worlds. I don't get superheroes as a genre, and I grew up on books that were usually very much about the idea that the heroes are people who are in over their heads, but see it through somehow. They may be special in terms of being chosen by destiny, or because they are sufficiently loved by someone else who gives them the strength to keep on, or simply because they are willing to do what needs to be done, but they are not expecially powerful. They are, however, usually changed by their adventures in more or less subtle ways, which might be considered levelling up. Whatever happens, adventures never become easy to them.

This work both with competent and with novice characters - if they're competent, they're still basically regular people who just happen to know how to fight/wield magic/steal things really well.

 

[Autumnal]

I really appreciate the distinction between being special and being powerful. Weak special characters can be pretty great.

 

[JConstantine]

Of course it does. That is why I am asking you your preference, and how that informs games you choose to run and play.

That's what I'm getting at, though. I specifically don't have a fixed preference for level of "inherent protagonism", as you put it, (like the example you gave with @Micah Sweet) that informs the games I run and play. I get enthused about a premise for a campaign, and that informs what level of "inherent protagonism" I want to see.

If one had to come at it from that direction, I suppose you could say that I have a range I find enjoyable, with the low end being "normies competent in their field" and the high end being "practically demigods". Incompetent boobs and Shonen anime protagonist are beyond the bounds I find acceptable.