So what's wrong with Palladium?

[Hussar]

To convert HERO's point system into a 3.5Ed example: in HERO, a real system master could make a 1st level PC capable of challenging a party of 10th level PCs.

This is generally why I don't like point buy systems.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Someone, much earlier in the thread had the statement that should have ended the commentary and frankly, this statement if accepted, ends a lot of the commentary throughout the forums on a wide variety of threads.

A strong game master can reconcile all system ills.

I'll add another for my own reasons:

Sandboxy and Catch-All systems need stronger game masters to define what is and what is not balanced

At the end of the day we all love games, but not all games are best suited for those with limited levels of system mastery or lack of time to develop system mastery. At the very least, certain systems are best if all players have the same level of mastery or a social contract not to create severe intra-party power differental between characters.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I see the point buy system as a very broken system where newcomers get shafted for not knowing how it all works...however...this goes back into rifts being 'broken' and the 'broken-ness' is why you play it, I like to see the characters go nuts in variation, I do.

I also enjoy the lack of things, like skills and feats and options, I like my OD&D stuff, I like 'you have your abilities, your spells, your class and your gear" , thats all I need.

I either want nothing or everything, in a system that is.

This is generally why I don't like point buy systems.

Since I know the risks, I tend to try to help out novices.

..."the tutor who tutored the noobs" and all that.

 

[prosfilaes]

A strong game master can reconcile all system ills.

And a sufficiently good chess player could have defeated Deep Blue, and even a modern computer system built on the same budget. The fact that no human alive can do it, and it may exceed the limits of unassisted human cognition notwithstanding.

One of the features of a good game system that a strong GM will find hard to cure is player independence. If I get choices, I prefer not to have to run them by the GM first, which also saves the GM time. This is a weakness of universal systems, yes, but also games like Rifts and D&D which don't have that excuse, where GMs ban stuff because it's simply overpowered.

In other cases, it's simply a matter that a bad system makes more work for the GM. If a good GM can make a bad system work, shouldn't they be able to make a good system great?

Ummm, no, I was going by your own words, where you started off by saying "In GURPS 4,".

You said 1995 and 2nd edition. The 3rd edition came out in 1989.

Spinachcat claimed upthread "A few years later we see Hero System via Champions and GURPS and the raising of temples to the cult of balance." I was pointing out that point based systems may aim for balance, but are instead just as unbalanced as any other RPG when system mastery gets figured into the equation.

Cults aren't always big on reality.

While that may be true of most gamers, 3.5 doesn't touch HERO in the way it rewards system mastery. It may be the most obvious game to pick, but it isn't the biggest offender.

When you're blaming point systems for this, I don't think you're comparing apples to apples. HERO and GURPS are universal systems that support superheros. The more flexible a system is, the harder it is to be balanced. Let's compare HERO and GURPS to non-point buy universal systems of similar generality. Or let's compare D&D 3.5 to a point-buy system designed to cover similar fantasy worlds. I do buy that systems with a lot of options tend to reward system mastery; I don't think that point-buy systems are exceptional that way.

And I'm not sure grabbing single examples is useful. HERO is not the end-all and be-all of point systems. I'd like to say that GURPS 4 is a good example, but I don't have the system mastery you imputed to me. It's certainly better than GURPS 3. Again, I'd like to be comparing apples to apples, though I'm having a hard time finding good examples of two systems to compare.

One exception comes to mind; Pathfinder apparently has a point-buy race system in its Advanced Race Guide. It's still in playtest, and even when done will still be one concrete point system, done well or poorly, but I bet when done it will be less munchkinable then digging through 3.5 books for races, especially when including third party books.

 

[Pentius]

Someone, much earlier in the thread had the statement that should have ended the commentary and frankly, this statement if accepted, ends a lot of the commentary throughout the forums on a wide variety of threads.

Well, there you have it. We're forum-goers. We're not just going to sit around and do something that makes us unable to comment.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Someone, much earlier in the thread had the statement that should have ended the commentary and frankly, this statement if accepted, ends a lot of the commentary throughout the forums on a wide variety of threads.

A strong game master can reconcile all system ills.

I'll add another for my own reasons:

Sandboxy and Catch-All systems need stronger game masters to define what is and what is not balanced

At the end of the day we all love games, but not all games are best suited for those with limited levels of system mastery or lack of time to develop system mastery. At the very least, certain systems are best if all players have the same level of mastery or a social contract not to create severe intra-party power differental between characters.

This is all very well but at the end of the day greatness is rare in any field of endevor. The rest of us need all the help we can get.

Also, the hobby lives and dies by DM's, they are the limiting resource so I am very much in favour of systems that make life easy on DM's. RIFTS as much as I like the setting is no place for a novice DM.

 

[Dausuul]

Someone, much earlier in the thread had the statement that should have ended the commentary and frankly, this statement if accepted, ends a lot of the commentary throughout the forums on a wide variety of threads.

A strong game master can reconcile all system ills.

To which I reply:

A system that requires such reconciliation, instead of working out of the box, is wasting the game master's time.

This is basic Oberoni Fallacy here. If I steal $5 from you every day, you can overcome that--just go out and make more money. That doesn't excuse the fact that I'm stealing your money. Likewise, the fact that a system's ills can be overcome does not excuse the fact that it's a crappy system.

 

[Kobold Boots]

To which I reply:

A system that requires such reconciliation, instead of working out of the box, is wasting the game master's time.

This is basic Oberoni Fallacy here. If I steal $5 from you every day, you can overcome that--just go out and make more money. That doesn't excuse the fact that I'm stealing your money. Likewise, the fact that a system's ills can be overcome does not excuse the fact that it's a crappy system.

The second half of your statement is entirely true. Palladium, as presented currently and compared to modern, well-balanced systems leaves a lot to be desired. I won't go so far as to call it "crappy" because I've played worse homebrew.

In response to your statement of wasting the GM's time. That's true within the paradigm of someone that feels that their time is being wasted. As a GM (regardless of what system we're talking about) I feel that just to take the task on is a waste of time in at least a passing way. No one gets paid and enjoyment is fleeting. Hasn't stopped me from being a GM on a constant basis over the last two decades.

My own opinion of a waste of time are systems, where , as a player I have to spend hours generating a character. There are many interpretations of waste. A GM tuned to Palladium may not feel that way.

 

[Kobold Boots]

This is all very well but at the end of the day greatness is rare in any field of endevor. The rest of us need all the help we can get.

Fair. Keeping in mind that we're talking about hobbyists and not professional levels of effort, I think that there are a lot of GMs that don't or can't put in the effort to be great, but as long as we're chatting about playing and GMing, we're not talking about mastery of quantum mechanics or anything with anywhere near the complexity of a profession.

Also, the hobby lives and dies by DM's, they are the limiting resource so I am very much in favour of systems that make life easy on DM's. RIFTS as much as I like the setting is no place for a novice DM.

Agreed fully, but it can be tackled by someone with a decent understanding of stats and a year of time behind the screen if you're looking for someone to fix the warts and you can get rid of the stats knowledge if you just want to have a good time. The key there is personality.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Well, there you have it. We're forum-goers. We're not just going to sit around and do something that makes us unable to comment.

Touche..