Topic: What I Would Like to See in the Unified RM

[RandalThor]

And, from my recollection, they don't have to take a flaw with a talent - there is an option that makes a talent cheaper if you do take a flaw, but it is not required. So, by requiring them to take a flaw, you are going - imo - to the typical RM bulwark of ruling against PCs.

How I do it is, the character can choose up to their races talent points in talents, but if they want any more than that, it is 2-for-1 in flaws, up to double their races base talent points. So, a mixed man can have up to 110 talent points, but they would have 110 in flaws, as well. That may seem like too much, but is really doable and not character/game breaking.

[GrumpyOldFart]

My problem with talents and flaws in general as part of a point buy system is that both become part of the process of min-maxing a character, rather than building something coherent in context of the setting.

If a character is blind from birth, for example, that should have both positive and negative consequences, most or all of which are not up to the player. Use of hearing, smell and touch in Perception will get more exercise, for example, and that's not up to the player, or the character for that matter. That's the consequence of that "flaw" which cannot be escaped. The same goes for various social consequences. If the character is the Crown Prince, you may have to rethink your entire culture to explain why he wasn't killed at birth.

I think it would make more sense if taking a flaw is taking a flaw, period. It may or may not offer a package of compensatory things, like Perception bonuses in hearing or smell for a person blind from birth, but note: Those are specific to that particular flaw, they are not just a bunch of DPs that you can go spend on whatever takes your fancy.

That way if a player takes a flaw, he does it because either the compensatory abilities work to his advantage, or because the flaw itself works with his character concept. Either way, the flaw does not exist in a vacuum, it has a context to fit it into the setting.

[RandalThor]

First, min-maxing is not a game problem, but a personality problem. If you are the GM, and don't like it, then don't allow it. But, also, in a deadly game like RM, doing a bit of min-maxing, could be the only way to make it so a character could survive past the second or third conflict. I, personally, find it hard to imagine a too-powerfull RM character, because even if my character has all 100s, and gets 200 talent points to spend freely, he can still die by a single hit from a (put in your favorite peon here). Having a 100 base DB, and a 250 OB is no proof of getting hit, all I have to do is be forced to fight 3 moderately decent combatants (lets go with 3-5th level fighters from the NPC chart, they would be a tough fight) in order to feel in danger for my character. It doesn't take much to be deadly dangerous in RM, just one or two extra foes.

Second, by nature, most of what we are is not up to us. Is that the game you want to play? The one where everything you are, but a few skill point choices are left completely up to chance? It could be fun, for a one-shot, or mini-campaign. But, I am pretty-sure that one of the big draws of roleplaying is the illusion of choice: I choose to be a big/strong barbarian, a sneaky thief, or an intelligent mage (or a small/weak barbarian, clumbsy thief, or stupid mage). We get to be what we are not (and not just because we live here and now, but physically and mentally* different), that is the draw. If you take away all but a bare few choices from your players, I am pretty-sure you will run out of players quick.




*Well, not really mentally, but we can pretend.

[markc]

  I agree that it can be hard for a GM to say no to a player if something is in the book. But as a GM I make the players make characters with me because my game world and their choices make some talents and flaws more or less probable. But rarely does that mean that they have to take this or that. They might not get the background they want or the skills they want if they do not take some of the flaws.
  For example I often require flaws or give flaws for PC's who are involved in religion or a magical academy. These institutions often require some time of the player, oaths, etc. So I give them Talent Points (TP) for that and I also given them access to special talents because of that. For example in religions it is often the case the worshiper can get free room and board for a small work or no work requirement. I am sure you can think of other things from literature and RL that would make good Flaw - Talent combo's. And IMHO the trick is to not get too carried away with things and to not be afraid to say no.
MDC

[yammahoper]

And, from my recollection, they don't have to take a flaw with a talent - there is an option that makes a talent cheaper if you do take a flaw, but it is not required. So, by requiring them to take a flaw, you are going - imo - to the typical RM bulwark of ruling against PCs.

How I do it is, the character can choose up to their races talent points in talents, but if they want any more than that, it is 2-for-1 in flaws, up to double their races base talent points. So, a mixed man can have up to 110 talent points, but they would have 110 in flaws, as well. That may seem like too much, but is really doable and not character/game breaking.

The original talents in Rm, listed in Character Law I believe, all had built in flaws.

This is not a system issue.  It is a player style issue.  The range of player likes and dislikes is wide and varied (no limitations, lots of limitations, roleplaying is rule number one, actionis rule number one, etc).  It is a GM's responsibility to make adjustments to the rule set as fits his players, or tell the disgruntled players to buck up or leave.  This is so because no system can address every players wants.  A system that focuses on balance in its talents is not a bad thing, and it is easy for a GM to IGNORE those rules.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I don't have a problem with taking all the advantages it would make sense for your character to have, but that's not the point I was trying to make. Talents and Flaws through the exchange of points inherently rewards minmaxing, but only rewards good roleplay if the player and GM choose to make certain it does. For an example see above, the blind person could specifically choose to bump Perceptive abilities elsewhere because not to do so doesn't make any sense. That decision may cost him the points for another talent he wanted to have, but for a person blind from birth not to have trained his other senses is a pretty long stretch.

"I want this... and that...."
"Well ya gotta take the other, it's a set."
     - George Carlin

I'm good with pretty much any combination of abilities, flaws, etc. you want to hand me... if you can explain how you came to have them in context of the setting you're playing in. In the case of the blind guy above, you'd likewise have to explain how you came to not have any skill in making your hearing and senses of smell and touch do more work than most people, if you chose not to.

The same goes for explaining how you came to be a 1st level mage in a culture where they kill any children who show signs of magical power. Sure it can be done, in all of the above cases, but it still prompts a "I gotta hear this one" look from the GM when you start explaining your background.

Talents and Flaws are typically something life changing. IMO a system for dealing with them should be geared toward how to figure out what event caused such a change, and how to explore its full consequences. But most things life changing enough to be on a talent or flaw list should have some consequences beyond a mere DP cost. When the DPs are the only cost, the minmaxing is the only built-in motivation.

[vroomfogle]

Grumpy, I'm not sure how exactly you would create such as system without making some assumptions about play style and setting.  Could you give some examples how that might work?

I'm one of the authors of the forthcoming books.  The new Character Law does have Talents and Flaws but makes it explicit that they are, by default, not allowed unless the GM allows them.   That may seem a cop out but RM has really been a type of toolkit building system and it is up the GM how he wants to handle Talents/Flaws.   Want to allow Talents but require character's take an equal amount in Flaws? Fine.  You can disallow Flaw entirely, limit Talents by total cost based on game power level, it's really up to the GM, and talents/flaws do need to be described as to where they came from.   But how would you implement that in terms of game mechanics without making an overly restrictive system?

I'm certainly looking forward to hearing feedback from beta about this and how people end up using talents/flaws in their own game.

[pastaav]

My problem with flaws is mostly that they give a direct reward (more talent points) that you pay for during play later. This set up basically mean I must punish a player who don't act on the flaws. In my experience this works in some cases but with other players you end in a very awkward position. Depends pretty much on how you mix with the other person in a social context.

Using flaws but give the reward as bonus exp for acting out their flaw is IMO a much better way since you as GM then reward good behaviour and a player that don't feel like for a particular session can decide to not make his flaw come much into play if he don't like it. 

[GrumpyOldFart]

Grumpy, I'm not sure how exactly you would create such as system without making some assumptions about play style and setting.  Could you give some examples how that might work?

I'm not sure exactly either, I was brainstorming. The obvious example was the one I gave, that if you have the "blind from birth" flaw, you automatically have the "sensitive nose" and/or "sensitive hearing" talents to go with it, rather than DPs or Talent/Flaw points of some sort to spend on whatever you please.

Some talents/flaws wouldn't have an obvious "this one, and always and only this one" other condition that goes with it. For some you might have a range of "obvious" possible accompanying conditions, such as both hearing and smell above. You could also include a GM note to the effect that it doesn't have to be one of those choices, if the GM's setting makes something not on the list "the obvious consequence". But a lot of things that make it onto "flaws" lists do have obvious consequences that shouldn't be simply ignored.

I'm one of the authors of the forthcoming books.

I have quite a bit of faith that I'm going to love them, solely from having figured out who the likely authors are. I've had you and rdanhenry pegged for a while now.

[RandalThor]

Talents and Flaws are typically something life changing.

For the big ones, yeah. But a +5 to your basket weaving skill (or any skill) is not "life changing." It is a minor (very, very minor) boost in a single skill.

Listen, none of what I said, says you shouldn't have an in-game reason for the talent. I prefer good character backgrounds that include all sorts of stuff, but I am not going to make them come up with a mystical/genetic/god-touched-me-personally reason to have a +5 or +10 in a skill. Many of the talents are "self-explainatory" in how a character got them, with very little tweeking needed to apply it to this character specifically.

I just never got that idea to be worried about "super" characters in RM, so the talents and flaws in Character Law were almost always fair game. (I was just perusing the old Cloudlords of Tanara module, and in the back of it where they talk about adventuring there, they list it by levels. when they got to the 11-15th level, it said, "PCs at this level are probably getting hard to handle, and depending upon how stocked with magic items they are, they could be a problem." Only to later also say this: "The final confrontation with (edit specific name for TM purposes) could be interesting as well - the PCs might even stand a chance of survival."

I couldn't imagine characters powerful enough at 20th level to not be able to threaten/challenge them, none-the-less at 11-15th level. I think this is the deep set thinking that has guided RM over the years, practically off the cliff: Powerful PCs = Bad. I am here to tell you, that is not so, and I firmly believe that if ICE goes away from that thinking, they will get more customers. (Even if it means some of the old guard leaves.)

As a GM, I want my players* to have characters that are totally cool and awesome. The youngster that is capable, because of natural talent (read: talents) of becoming one of the best in whatever field they happen to choose. I don't generally want to run a bunch of dirt farmers who will barely be able to survive going further than 5-miles from their dirt farm. For me, epic sagas are the best storylines. (Which is probably why I like full novels and big series and not short stories, which have a tendancy to be tragic. I guess tragedy is more "artsy" and meaningful, so I will stick with mundane and meaningless, thank you very much.) In order to have big stories, you need to have "big" heroes. I guess if you can get that dirt farmer to survive to 30th level, they will be big time. But, in RM, that is nearly an impossible task. (Yes, I know that the harder something is, the more rewarding it is to succeed, but I don't want to have to go through 20 characters failures in order to get the 1 success.) So, you get talents, and more attribute points in order to be a more capable character, have more survivability (which I think also helps the longevity of a campaign), and a much greater chance of being epic.




*Provided the player also wants this. If they want to play a complete nincompoop, they can; likely they will be playing many of them, one after the other, though.


PS: Yeah, RM 1 and 2 had flaws built right into the talents, and that is probably one of the main reasons I switched to RMSS/FRP.

[yammahoper]

I have powerful PC's all the time, and at level 11, with or without talents, a PC will be tough if designed with any sort of thought toward mastery of a single skill, or set of skills.

I would also note level one PC's with 100+OB's are not rare at my table.  In addition, spells are cast at an eefective level the list is known to, not the PC's level, which is a huge advantage to begininng characters.

I have never seen or imagined RM as anti player.  I can see the NPC's in modules being to weak sometimes, but I always saw that as PRO PC bias, almost insuring victory.

[markc]

Grumpy, I'm not sure how exactly you would create such as system without making some assumptions about play style and setting.  Could you give some examples how that might work?

 I am going to guess that he might have meant that for a given talent you can have a list of flaws beneath it that fit that talent. Op's I meant it the other way around. So for a given flaw you would have advantages that link to it and or are required to be taken if you take that flaw. 
 But again I am just guessing what he meant by his statement.


MDC

[RandalThor]

I would also note level one PC's with 100+OB's are not rare at my table.  In addition, spells are cast at an eefective level the list is known to, not the PC's level, which is a huge advantage to begininng characters.

I like that, and I use that (ranks in skill, spell list, etc...) as a way of getting rid of levels in RM, instead of "level" go with "ranks" to determine effects. (Other than the die roll+bonus+mods, that is.  )

[GrumpyOldFart]

I am going to guess that he might have meant that for a given talent you can have a list of flaws beneath it that fit that talent. Op's I meant it the other way around. So for a given flaw you would have advantages that link to it and or are required to be taken if you take that flaw. 
 But again I am just guessing what he meant by his statement.

Basically, yes. Which talent you get, or if you get all of them, varies with the specific flaw, likely varies according to play balance needs (you don't want sensitive hearing and sensitive smell to make so much difference that everyone wants to be blind in order to get the bennies), and may vary with the setting.

[vroomfogle]

I can see that as workable, and would be a great basis for a Talent Law type of companion, but I think would have required more work and space then we really have available for core which is more focused on providing the building blocks. The inclusion of flaws in the first place was really due to the fact that races are built using talents, and flaws.   But outside of race building I wouldn't typically use them.

[intothatdarkness]

I don't tend to use talents or flaws, although when we did I preferred the balance a talent with a flaw model that RM1/2 used.

[markc]

  I would say that I prefer the RMSS Talent Law format for my games. I have removed a lot of talents and moded the cost of a lot more to make it less powerful and more balanced for my game.
MDC

[yammahoper]

all talents and flaws need to answer how/where/when in the charcaters background.  it is that simple.  when concept stretches a GM to far, he has to know how to say no while players need to be flexible enough to find a new approach.

[Moriarty]

I firmly believe, having played RM for 20 years, that there should always be some degree of randomness in RM character generation. To me, the right degree of randomness combined with player choices is essential to a good RM character generation system. Yes, essential. Not to avoid min/maxing because I don't see that as a problem at all if the system is good, but to ensure that every character is truly unique and can't be copied. I hope this new RM isn't a 'pick/design everything' with points-buy approach like in RMSS but has some degree of randommes in races, stats, background, special abilities, etc. Striking the right balance between randomness and choices is key.

[vroomfogle]

Both purchase and random for stat generation appear in the new Character Law.   I prefer random myself, but we recognize that there's a large number of people on both sides of this issue so both methods are in there.  Same with stat gain (both random and purchase).