Seriously? Spellcasters will not be able to have many spell choices?

[Ruin Explorer]

I just have anecdotal evidence to go on. I ran Runequest from the 1980s until about 2000. I ran demos of GURPS at conventions from 2000 until about 2004. Players always began with varied character builds, but as the xp accumulated they began to achieve a sort of munchkiny blandness. The situation became worse, the longer the campaign lasted. I have heard the same complaint from other GMs, but can only quote my own experiences.

I have had similar experiences (mainly as a player) in HERO games.

I wonder if it depends on how long you run your campaigns for, I don't think I've seen a campaign in one of those games last more than a year, but perhaps eventually you're the man who has everything.

 

[kennew142]

I wonder if it depends on how long you run your campaigns for, I don't think I've seen a campaign in one of those games last more than a year, but perhaps eventually you're the man who has everything.

That's been my experience. I ran one RQ campaign for 3 years and a GURPS campaign for about the same amount of time.

 

[Rechan]

That's been my experience. I ran one RQ campaign for 3 years and a GURPS campaign for about the same amount of time.

I'm curious how that happened in your HERO campaign, given that there is dedicated Brick, Blaster, etc.

Anyone have this experience with White Wolf systems? It didn't seem to go that way with Exalted. But then, my Storyteller intentionally made story adjustments when you developed something new, so that each and every selection felt at least somewhat significant (this was even true for the player who just picked things willy nilly, too ADD to be a min/maxer).

 

[Thyrwyn]

That's been my experience. I ran one RQ campaign for 3 years and a GURPS campaign for about the same amount of time.

My experience with RQ (2nd and 3rd editions) is almost the complete opposite (player/GM since 1985). I have played in the core setting (Glorantha), and have run several multi-year home-brew campaigns.

Perhaps characters belonging to the same cult or school will look similar (reasonable, really), but the nature of each cult is so varied and the spells and resources available to each so diverse, that I find the concept that all characters began to look the same somewhat surprising.

 

[Mallus]

I ran Runequest and GURPS for years. It was my experience that given time in the campaign, all characters began to look alike. When there are no clearly defined roles, characters tend to pick up the most useful abilities (martial, skill and magic), making for optimal builds of bland jack-of-all-trades characters.

My experiences are different. I imagine the cookie-cutter character issue has more to do the people playing than the system used. Even so, I don't see the problem with players all wanting the same competencies, so long as their all free to them.

 

[Plane Sailing]

My experience with RQ (2nd and 3rd editions) is almost the complete opposite (player/GM since 1985). I have played in the core setting (Glorantha), and have run several multi-year home-brew campaigns.

Perhaps characters belonging to the same cult or school will look similar (reasonable, really), but the nature of each cult is so varied and the spells and resources available to each so diverse, that I find the concept that all characters began to look the same somewhat surprising.

That was my experience with running and playing RQ for a decade or so of 2nd edition too. Essentially the characters grew in a shape which was determined by their cult membership(s), and even by the end the Rune Priest-Lord of Storm Bull was very different in skills and tactical choices to the Rune Priest-Lord of Humakt and the Rune Priest-Lord of Orlanth. In each case they tended to grow into their specialties, which ensured distinctiveness.

I've not played GURPS, but I could easily believe that a point-buy system which didn't have strong 'groups' with an incentive to join those groups would end up with relatively samey characters though.

Cheers

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Man, I have Derren on ignore and I still have to correct him. Charm person for instance, is still going to be around, so the suggestion that all spells will be combat spells is obviously incorrect.

Counterspin,

If you have someone on ignore, please just ignore them! Bringing it up and continuing to carry over disagreements from previous threads doesn't do anybody any good.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or any of the moderators.

 

[Nymrohd]

One area of combat spells that the wizard can really profit from variability is duel spells and general metamagic effects. By metamagic I mean spells that affect other spells. Spells that strip or steal arcane defenses or damage a target based on his active defenses, spells that affect teleportation by delaying or diverting it, spells that parry, absorb or reverse other spells, counterspells, spells that dampen magic or amplify it. And I could go on. This school of magic is very dependent on a true variety of battle spells that are circumstancial normally but can truly determine a fight against an enemy caster.
I would very much like for 4E to provide a true system of spellduels, and I would rather it were not a subsystem. Ever since we found out about solo/elite/normal/minion monster division I've been playing fights against Solo NPC wizards in my head (or Solo NPC fighter and rogues).

 

[Ahglock]

If wizards can switch and swap their abilities every day, than those abilities had better be weaker or more situationally dependant than people stuck with the abilities they pickper level and are stuck with.

.

Well lets say at level 5 a wizard can have infinite level 1-5 spells known. But he can pick 1 at will ability, 2 per encounters and 1 per day to prep for the day.

A fighters had 3 at will abilities, 7 per encounter, and 3 per day abilities that he always knows at level 5.

It may end up being balanced in that the wizard has overall more diversity, but per day he has much less diversity.

Numbers of abilities obviously picked out of the air, play testing would come up with the balance if this was the model.

 

[kennew142]

I'm curious how that happened in your HERO campaign, given that there is dedicated Brick, Blaster, etc.

There is less of this is Fantasy HERO than in Champions, but we noticed it in both. The flavor was different on each character, but the mechanics approached sameness. As more xp was gained, all of the characters tended towards the campaign maxima in PD, ED, DCs etc... In the end, almost everyone did the same damage, had the same chance to hit (OCV + skill levels), and even the same talents (some talents were so useful that they became no brainers).