drnuncheon
Explorer
If people think that spending points on skills is a "waste" then you are not calling for enough skill checks.The Grackle said:
J
M&M: Bad First Session/All Or None
- Thread starter HeapThaumaturgist
- Start date
J
The Grackle
First Post
Faerl'Elghinn said:I found this post very helpful, as I'm in a very similar situation. I have yet to find time to run a game, but it's definitely on the agenda. I thought about doing something very evil: Making a PL 13 villain with maxed-out possession ranks with the mind-switching flaw, but a weak combatant. He seeks out the PCs to steal the body (and therefore physical powers) of the party's "brick". After successfully switching minds with the brick, he then proceeds to assist the party in destroying his former body, thereby killing the brick. He then turns on the party, proceeding to fight until he becomes overwhelmed, and then flees. The party has then to figure out how to defeat this opponent, and then to restore the brick's mind to his body. Evil, no?
What would be more evil would to be allow the player to play the villain for the episode. Tell him before the game what your'e going to do so he's in on it. Your players will have a harder time figuring out he's possessed by an NPC if the GM isn't speaking for him. I've seen some doppleganger tricks like this that have confounded parties for weeks.
And it will give the player a chance to pound on his teammates with impunity.
d4
First Post
indeed. i haven't had a problem with people buying skills in my 1:1 skill ratio games.drnuncheon said:
the times i used the 2:1 or 3:1 option, people bought the same number of skill ranks, but since it was cheaper they ended up with more points to spend on powers, BAB, feats, etc.
in other words, i've found that using the other skill ratios does not seem to make people want to have more skill ranks.
calling for skill checks liberally throughout the session does, regardless of the ratio you are using.
The Grackle
First Post
Really? It seems like my players bought everything they wanted and then spent what was left on skills. Well, it's too late to change things back this late in the game or they'll get grumpy...
The problem with skill checks is super abilities; a rank 10 Super Wis makes spot checks real easy. Maybe I should start throwing some some trained only skill checks at 'em. Forgery? Demolitions? Handle animal? Dinosaurs are animals right? Hmmm....
The problem with skill checks is super abilities; a rank 10 Super Wis makes spot checks real easy. Maybe I should start throwing some some trained only skill checks at 'em. Forgery? Demolitions? Handle animal? Dinosaurs are animals right? Hmmm....
drnuncheon said:
... or they're using feats and super-attributes to bump up their skill checks, putting a bare minimum of points into the skills themselves. That gives them decently high skill checks while wasting as few points as possible on the skills themselves. One of the first signs that a character has been built by someone who doesn't really grok how M&M works is if they've put more than a trivial number of points into skill ranks.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
d4 said:
Well, this time, seeing as I'm building all of the PCs myself, I know I won't have a problem with that. I've instituted, for myself, a system of Minimum Skills PP Distribution ... I.E., just making sure I've spent about 2/3 PL in PP on skills as 2:1. So, for instance, the PL 7 characters I'm making will have 4-5pp spent on skills, giving them 8-10 skill ranks divided around in things they may already be insanely good at (owing to Super Abilities) or in "flavor" things that nobody would "waste their points on" that might come in handy later.
This is in response to one of my players reworking Cyclone and getting rid of "all these useless skills" by looking at the game one-sided ... what if I don't bring in some needed skills for 2-3 adventures and everybody decided they were a waste beforehand? Should I contrive for skill checks only IN RESPONSE to a PC having taken ranks, because to do otherwise would be to inject impossible situations into my game to brow-beat the players into taking ranks NEXT TIME, when they're building characters to replace the ones that couldn't get out of Major Domo Origato's Death Chamber for want of ranks in Computer Use?
As I said, the problem is mitigated this time by me being in charge of creation for this batch of PCs. Just trying to think long term. I COULD just say: "Be warned, skills will come in handy!" and laugh ominously, but then you still get one guy figuring "everybody else will have skills" and building a 20 Con/20 Str Powerhouse with max ranks in Super Strength and Super Con, with Super Wisdom thrown in FTHOI to twink out the combat portions of the game.
I like finding ways where ALL the PCs can be useful as much of the time as possible, instead of 2 PCs dominating one scene while 3 sit around twiddling their thumbs, and then trading off.
--fje
My experience with MnM skills is that 1-1 works fine for its intended use... its the cheap way to get good at one skill or at a couple of unrelated skills. My guys bought plenty of skills that way.
MnM has other ways to buy skills, designed to produce different costs for different options.
1. feats that give bonuses to limited numbers of related skills.
2. feats that give bonuses, but not ranks, to a single skill. (ranks vs bonus matters for drains and for prereqs, for instance.)
3. super-atts (or normal atts) for people who are "smart" or "wise" and thus see benefit in a larger array of "similar" things, like most comic book scientists are super-smart, knowing lots of things about an incredibly broad range of sciences and such.
The intent within the design is for you to use the one that best suits the character. Its not broken that super-int+5 gives you +5 to any int skill check for 10 pp while physics+5 costs 5 pp, thats the intent. Cheaper for one but not going to charge the arm-n-leg for broader knowledge.
Now, in actuality there is another way, for those who want something a little broader but not so sweeping...
buy super-skill+5 for 5 pp and then buy secondary effects (power stunts) for 2 pp to give it "other skills." So for example, if i only wanted to be good at chemistry & physics, i could buy Super-skill chemistry +5 with stunt of physics for 2 pp more, paying 7 pp (2 more than +5 chemistry and 3 less than +5 with all int skills.)
The system provides multiple ways to buy skills, each with their own plusses and minuses. Other games handle some of this stuff with "skill levels" which can be bought to apply to multiple skills yet are cheaper than raising all those skills individually or with "skill enhancers" which lower the cost of a set of related skills, or (in the case of the nWoD) with very broad skills that let the character concept limit their scope.
IMO as the various mechanics play out, as long as it makes the following happen: single ckills are cheapest, several closely related skills is next cheapest, and bunch of unrelated skills is most expensive... then thats doing Ok and as much as I need the accounting system to handle.
MnM has other ways to buy skills, designed to produce different costs for different options.
1. feats that give bonuses to limited numbers of related skills.
2. feats that give bonuses, but not ranks, to a single skill. (ranks vs bonus matters for drains and for prereqs, for instance.)
3. super-atts (or normal atts) for people who are "smart" or "wise" and thus see benefit in a larger array of "similar" things, like most comic book scientists are super-smart, knowing lots of things about an incredibly broad range of sciences and such.
The intent within the design is for you to use the one that best suits the character. Its not broken that super-int+5 gives you +5 to any int skill check for 10 pp while physics+5 costs 5 pp, thats the intent. Cheaper for one but not going to charge the arm-n-leg for broader knowledge.
Now, in actuality there is another way, for those who want something a little broader but not so sweeping...
buy super-skill+5 for 5 pp and then buy secondary effects (power stunts) for 2 pp to give it "other skills." So for example, if i only wanted to be good at chemistry & physics, i could buy Super-skill chemistry +5 with stunt of physics for 2 pp more, paying 7 pp (2 more than +5 chemistry and 3 less than +5 with all int skills.)
The system provides multiple ways to buy skills, each with their own plusses and minuses. Other games handle some of this stuff with "skill levels" which can be bought to apply to multiple skills yet are cheaper than raising all those skills individually or with "skill enhancers" which lower the cost of a set of related skills, or (in the case of the nWoD) with very broad skills that let the character concept limit their scope.
IMO as the various mechanics play out, as long as it makes the following happen: single ckills are cheapest, several closely related skills is next cheapest, and bunch of unrelated skills is most expensive... then thats doing Ok and as much as I need the accounting system to handle.
HeapThaumaturgist said:
Actually, yes, though not if the tenor of that statement reflects your feelings.
perhaps it should be stated differently...
Should the challenges i present to the PCs in my script be ones that highlight their character's traits, their focuses, and their differences (both good and bad)?
The answer there should be "yes".
With practically every session i run, the pregame write up includes looking at each PC and seeing what aspect will be highlighted, be given opportunity to be seen on stages, and so forth. Every PC gets a box on my "scenario notes" for "screen time" with at least a few notes as to "what they will bring this time" jotted down.
When i design a campaign, most of the work pre-characters is general stuff and unfocused, with details only for an intro "get started, meet each other, set ominous but vague things in motion" kind of short arc. but as soon as i have PCs, then the furious work of customizing plot, story, challenges and adversaries to EMPHASIZE the PCs traits and backgrounds begins.
Its not "contriving", its scripting a campaign to meet the needs of "these star characters".
As such, if someone puts on their character "+10 in biogenetics", that level of ability (no matter how purchased) will play a role in the campaign. +5 will likely see screen time too, but maybe not as often. if they take +10 in perform: flute, it will be a campaign issue.
Thats muh job, after all.
Last edited:
HeapThaumaturgist said:
Cyclone's skills aren't useless, they're just purchased in an inefficient manner. As swrushing notes, if a character has those skills, they should certainly come up in a campaign - that's a good rule of thumb for every game and genre, not just M&M or superheroics. But it's easy to get Cyclone's skill rolls for fewer points (or better/more skills for the same points), and part of the M&M learning curve is figuring out how to do particular character builds effectively.
Edit - and if you're just building for a scenario, as I often do, then you should at least have a use in mind for every skill a PC has. It's exactly the same as with powers and feats - any points you spend on something that will never be used might as well have never existed. - end Edit
I think there's a Q&A over on the M&M boards where one of the designers mentions that they didn't really figure out how to build skill-heavy characters effectively until after they'd done the templates. Some of the NPCs in subsequent products are built better, at least to the level of the average player who's taken a few cuts at a concept and battered out an effective build.
Last edited:
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
By contrive I meant that, as an M&M DM, am I supposed to use ONLY those skills that PC X decided to take, knowing that, as a limitation of the system, we'll have "Super Science Guy" with +15 in all Int skills, while I cannot, under any circumstances, introduce a situation calling for a Drive check (for instance) if I have no PCs playing Super Dex characters with +15 in all Dex skills.
As a GM I'm very well versed in playing to the varied abilities of the PCs at the table. As a D20 Modern GM, however, I'm also quite used to being able to design with an eye toward variety and, often, unexpected variety. Drive, Hide, Research, etc, surprising those PCs who placed a few ranks in those skills for the sake of flavor or background interest. At 1:1 there's no real motivation for those sorts of checks beyond "being known for" skill checks or having the predictability of planning sessions around only those skills which one player found important enough to his PC concept to include in the game.
In other, non-point-based systems, you will end up with ____ number of skill points, even if it is a small number, they are there and they need to be spent in some way. "But I'm not going to use any skills often! Can't I trade those in for 2 points of BAB or another rank in Absorption?" Nope, there they are, use them. And so you add them to skills based on your PC background and interests and I can sneak in as a theif in the night and suddenly the 3 points you "dumped" into Profession: Bouncer becomes an aspect of the campaign.
At 1:1 in M&M if you've spent 3-4 precious PP on a skill, I, as the GM, had darnwell better USE that skill at SOME point to validate that choice for the player or, next time, he'll use those 3-4 points on another rank of BAB and get some USE outta it. So then, skills, become a PRESCRIPTION for me as the GM. I'm arm-bent into moving in to use those skills because if I don't they're useless and if they're useless they could have been "better" spent somewhere else in the PC make-up. In Modern, for instance, you spend those 3 points on Prof: Bouncer because it's there and seemed right and when I use it, it's enjoyably unexpected. Had it never come up, that player would have been equally happy bashing along with his powerhouse, not complaining that I let him "waste" those skill points.
Aspects like that are, really, why I've classically stayed AWAY from point-based games and have embraced flexible-class games like Grim Tales, because point-based PCs either become horribly predictable or become an exercise in predeterminism for the GM, where I MUST use every aspect of every PC to VALIDATE doing anything other than twinked out predictable builds.
--fje
As a GM I'm very well versed in playing to the varied abilities of the PCs at the table. As a D20 Modern GM, however, I'm also quite used to being able to design with an eye toward variety and, often, unexpected variety. Drive, Hide, Research, etc, surprising those PCs who placed a few ranks in those skills for the sake of flavor or background interest. At 1:1 there's no real motivation for those sorts of checks beyond "being known for" skill checks or having the predictability of planning sessions around only those skills which one player found important enough to his PC concept to include in the game.
In other, non-point-based systems, you will end up with ____ number of skill points, even if it is a small number, they are there and they need to be spent in some way. "But I'm not going to use any skills often! Can't I trade those in for 2 points of BAB or another rank in Absorption?" Nope, there they are, use them. And so you add them to skills based on your PC background and interests and I can sneak in as a theif in the night and suddenly the 3 points you "dumped" into Profession: Bouncer becomes an aspect of the campaign.
At 1:1 in M&M if you've spent 3-4 precious PP on a skill, I, as the GM, had darnwell better USE that skill at SOME point to validate that choice for the player or, next time, he'll use those 3-4 points on another rank of BAB and get some USE outta it. So then, skills, become a PRESCRIPTION for me as the GM. I'm arm-bent into moving in to use those skills because if I don't they're useless and if they're useless they could have been "better" spent somewhere else in the PC make-up. In Modern, for instance, you spend those 3 points on Prof: Bouncer because it's there and seemed right and when I use it, it's enjoyably unexpected. Had it never come up, that player would have been equally happy bashing along with his powerhouse, not complaining that I let him "waste" those skill points.
Aspects like that are, really, why I've classically stayed AWAY from point-based games and have embraced flexible-class games like Grim Tales, because point-based PCs either become horribly predictable or become an exercise in predeterminism for the GM, where I MUST use every aspect of every PC to VALIDATE doing anything other than twinked out predictable builds.
--fje
