Ideas for disparate character power levels

[RivetGeekWil]

Cortex Prime was practically built for this. The underpinnings that allow Superman and Lois Lane to be in the same scenes in Smallville, or any number of disparate superheroes in Marvel Heroic, are in Cortex Prime.

 

[GMMichael]

Say you want to play a TTRPG where there is zero concern for the PCs to be of equal power level. Maybe a superhero game with Superman and Batman in it, or The Doctor and companions, or Gandalf and the Fellowship. . .
What mechanics can make that work?

You'd need a DRPG that doesn't reward power. Maybe one that, I don't know, rewards role-playing.

I don't know about mechanics, but some rules that spread player spotlight would be good. Or experience point awards for something other than killing.

It's about the point of the game. I wish I could reference LotR, but I've been reading ASoIaF in which most main characters have comparable power levels. I can say that Gandalf and the hobbits play different games: Gandalf's goal is to keep his fellowship alive, while most hobbits try first to keep themselves alive. So even if Gandalf is at a higher level, he's playing a different game than the hobbits are anyway; more babysitting than combat.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

From a purely combat standpoint, many enemies are going to notice “the bigger threat” and gun for it. This leaves room for other (possibly less powerful characters) to make meaningful contributions on the battlefield without going toe-to-toe with the baddest foes on the board.*. This happens often in RIFTS, which is notorious for not giving a damn about balancing out PC power.

OTOH, some point based games will leave the non-combat focused PCs to shine in other aspects by simply letting them allocate their points elsewhere. In some old published HERO write-ups, Superman and Batman might be built on nearly identical point totals, but the bulk of Batman’s points are in skills, talents, perks and real world assets like bases, labs, vehicles, gizmos & gadgets, contacts & informants, and, of course, wealth.





* I’m reminded of the final issue of the DC miniseries Manhunter (the Paul Kirk one). He and Batman (and others) are assaulting the secret base of The Council (evilbad organization) that created Manhunter in the first place. Manhunter mentally notes as they’re all fighting through this army of defenders, Batman keeps going after the biggest, baddest foes on the battlefield, while Manhunter- as close to Batman in martial prowess as makes no narrative difference- mows through mooks at a ridiculous pace. In Manhunter’s mind, Batman’s tactic is mistaken because that the assault is taking place on a literal doomsday timer- if they take too long, the world is doomed, Ultimately, Manhunter is the only one who reaches deeply enough into the stronghold to accomplish the mission, which he does.

 

[aco175]

I would think that there needs to be skills/powers that the nobodies have that the supers do not. If I'm asked to play a game where my friends are Superman and Wonder Woman, but I am asked to play Jimmy Olson, then I may already have a grain of salt before I sit down about how much fun I will be having. It would just feel like one of the DMNPC thread horror stories.

 

[Blue]

You'd need a DRPG that doesn't reward power. Maybe one that, I don't know, rewards role-playing.

I flip this, but it's really close - possibly just the other side of the same coin as they say. You need an RPG that doesn't penalize lack of power.

Failure in a scene needs to not be horrible, but just another fork in the narrative. Characters in literature, stories, movies and the like have upbeats and downbeats -- an RPG where a common downbeat is character death is not a good one for disparate power levels.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Say you want to play a TTRPG where there is zero concern for the PCs to be of equal power level. Maybe a superhero game with Superman and Batman in it, or The Doctor and companions, or Gandalf and the Fellowship.

So, given that premise, somebody (or multiple somebodies) gets to play a much more powerful character than other players are playing.

What mechanics can make that work?

Mechanics which grant the player stuff which isn't intrinsic to the character itself are one approach used by some games. A metacurrency like story points, fate points, whatever the game calls them. That can give the player agency and power without making the character more powerful. So Superman is directly powerful, but Batman has lots of metacurrency to affect the game.

What other methods are there to achieve this goal?

If no one has mentioned it, Monster of The Week does this well. The Mundane is just as capable of impacting the fiction as The Chosen, they just do it very differently. The Mundane has moves that give them narrative power without making the character powerful, but are still centered on what he character chooses to do in the fictional world.

 

[overgeeked]

For me, there are three games to look at for pointers...

Marvel Heroic. Cortex Prime before Cortex Prime. Thor and Black Widow on the same team, both contributing about the same to the story. This was due to the squashed power scale and slight variation in dice pool size. Black Widow throwing fewer dice, mostly d6s or d8s with a few d10s Thor is throwing more dice, mostly d8s and d10s with a few d12s. Throwing more dice means more chances of 1s, which are opportunities for the referee to inject mischief. Which works really well thematically. Black Widow can't throw buses at people so the chances of her inflicting some collateral damage are way less than Thor's.

Doctor Who. The Doctor utterly overshadows the companion, full stop. More recent Doctors also utterly overshadow earlier Doctors, full stop. The designers push the idea that starting with fewer story points (the metacurrency) as the Doctor is sufficient to compensate. To me, it doesn't. Like at all. All the same meta earning options are available to the characters, so starting with fewer is meaningless in no time. And all the same meta spending options are available to the characters. Story points in Doctor Who flow like Fate points. It's how the characters win and survive. Only the Doctor has double or triple the stats and skills as the companion. It flat out doesn't work.

Over the Edge, 3rd Edition. To me, this one works the best. It has a flat scale like Marvel Heroic and the difference between levels is extra re-rolls on a 1-for-1 basis, but if the difference is three or more, the higher side just wins. Normally roll 2d6 with success on a 7+ if you're active, 8+ if you're reactive. Rolling one or more 3s gives you a negative twist; rolling one or more 4s gives you a positive twist. And character creation is basically free-form. You can play any kind of weird person you want with any kind of weird abilities. There's a few restrictions to keep the game playable, but you can do anything with it. Smooth, easy, and dead simple to deal with power disparity between characters.

 

[Lanefan]

From the design side, my only thought would be to make sure that even the most powerful characters can't do it all; that every character has baked-in weaknesses that need to be covered off by others, thus giving those 'others' a reason to stick around.

 

[Tonguez]

I would think that there needs to be skills/powers that the nobodies have that the supers do not. If I'm asked to play a game where my friends are Superman and Wonder Woman, but I am asked to play Jimmy Olson, then I may already have a grain of salt before I sit down about how much fun I will be having. It would just feel like one of the DMNPC thread horror stories.

Jimmy Olsen is a quick-witted but impulsive character who being small and easily overlooked can sneak in behind enemy lines while the bad guys are fighting Superman and do things like get a photo of the secret plans or grab the mcguffin. He has a wide are of knowledge and so can often give hints or work stuff out.
He also has the sonic watch that allows him to summon an Invisible assistant (ie superman staying unseen).

The other thing about Jimmys stories is that he often acquires temporary powers - in FATE it would be a stunt that allows him to spend a point to raise an Approach to Superb or gain a Power for one scene.

 

[hawkeyefan]

My understanding is that the Smallville RPG did this really well. I never played it myself but it’s mentioned a lot when this topic comes up. It’s a Cortex game, hough I think an earlier iteration than MHRP or Cortex Prime.

I personally ran Galaxies in Peril with three PCs Of varying power levels and that worked just fine. It’s a Forged in the Dark game.