tenshiakodo
2010-09-21, 11:29 PM
This really isn't a rules question but more of a GM challenge. Some character classes/concepts are very specialized around performing one task really well. To the point that no one else can remotely participate in what they are built to do, and you can't even really challenge them: in their area of expertise, they are meant to win.
Sure you can deny them the chance, but what have you accomplished by doing so? I remember the time my friend was running a 3.5 game with new players and several spellcasters. He asked me to play, in order to help keep the party alive.
I chose to make a Spiked Chain Trip-Fighter, hired myself out to the casters as a bodyguard, and basically hung back. If anything came close, it entered The Hell of Being Prone.
We quickly came to a strange problem. If he (as the DM) used enemies that were difficult for me to lock down in this way, such as Centaurs or ranged attackers, there was no reason they couldn't just slaughter the highly-unoptimized casters (we had a Sorcereress, a Bard, and a Cleric/Sorceress, as I recall.
If he used normal melee opponents, his party lived, but the battles were usually cakewalks. Our two Barbarians would rush in, deal lots of damage, and then fall down. The enemies would then move into my domain, and be more or less useless until the casters managed to spell them down.
Or my feeble 2d4+ chip damage finished the bad guys.
We couldn't figure out a satisfactory solution, and eventually the game fell apart. I wasn't doing anything wrong, but there didn't seem to be any way to challenge my character outside of taking me far beyond my comfort zone.
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I'd run into this sort of thing before; back when I played Shadowrun, it seemed like there were two games. The main game where everyone cooperated on missions, and the hacking mini-game, where the GM ran your Decker through a solo dungeon and everyone else just sat around.
The Decker being, naturally, optimized to be a cyberspace God, and pretty useless away from a 'net connection.
The reason I bring this up is that a friend of mine is about to start a new Spycraft d20 game. He's working out different things the characters can do, of course, but his previous game had fallen apart since the party wasn't very good at working together, something that's essential for most d20 games.
Everyone would handle problems in their own way, and pretty soon he felt like he was running three games at once. So he really wants to make everyone feel like they're on a team this time around. Sort of like Leverage, where even people who aren't optimized to perform a certain task can still help out.
The problem is one of his players wants to be a Wheelman. Unlike the other classes in Spycraft, the Wheelman is optimized to do one thing. Drive. Really well.
The pursuit rules are very good, and the Wheelman is an expert when chase scenes come up. Unfortunately, it's another 'mini-game' that other characters can only somewhat interact with.
So the problem is, again, that we have a character who is designed to win a certain kind of encounter (and it's usually pointless for him to fail, as this is his job), but only marginally useful outside of those encounters (granted, the Wheelman is decent in combat, but he lacks the freebies of the Soldier class).
And worse, when his specialty comes up, other characters provide less of a benefit to him!
So I'm curious how other GM/DM's handle the problem of the super-specialist in their games, should one pop up. Do you try to help them (and everyone else) have fun, or just let them struggle with how marginalized they made themselves with a shrug?
Also, if anyone has ideas for what my friend can do with his Spycraft game, I'd love to pass them on.
Sure you can deny them the chance, but what have you accomplished by doing so? I remember the time my friend was running a 3.5 game with new players and several spellcasters. He asked me to play, in order to help keep the party alive.
I chose to make a Spiked Chain Trip-Fighter, hired myself out to the casters as a bodyguard, and basically hung back. If anything came close, it entered The Hell of Being Prone.
We quickly came to a strange problem. If he (as the DM) used enemies that were difficult for me to lock down in this way, such as Centaurs or ranged attackers, there was no reason they couldn't just slaughter the highly-unoptimized casters (we had a Sorcereress, a Bard, and a Cleric/Sorceress, as I recall.
If he used normal melee opponents, his party lived, but the battles were usually cakewalks. Our two Barbarians would rush in, deal lots of damage, and then fall down. The enemies would then move into my domain, and be more or less useless until the casters managed to spell them down.
Or my feeble 2d4+ chip damage finished the bad guys.
We couldn't figure out a satisfactory solution, and eventually the game fell apart. I wasn't doing anything wrong, but there didn't seem to be any way to challenge my character outside of taking me far beyond my comfort zone.
-
I'd run into this sort of thing before; back when I played Shadowrun, it seemed like there were two games. The main game where everyone cooperated on missions, and the hacking mini-game, where the GM ran your Decker through a solo dungeon and everyone else just sat around.
The Decker being, naturally, optimized to be a cyberspace God, and pretty useless away from a 'net connection.
The reason I bring this up is that a friend of mine is about to start a new Spycraft d20 game. He's working out different things the characters can do, of course, but his previous game had fallen apart since the party wasn't very good at working together, something that's essential for most d20 games.
Everyone would handle problems in their own way, and pretty soon he felt like he was running three games at once. So he really wants to make everyone feel like they're on a team this time around. Sort of like Leverage, where even people who aren't optimized to perform a certain task can still help out.
The problem is one of his players wants to be a Wheelman. Unlike the other classes in Spycraft, the Wheelman is optimized to do one thing. Drive. Really well.
The pursuit rules are very good, and the Wheelman is an expert when chase scenes come up. Unfortunately, it's another 'mini-game' that other characters can only somewhat interact with.
So the problem is, again, that we have a character who is designed to win a certain kind of encounter (and it's usually pointless for him to fail, as this is his job), but only marginally useful outside of those encounters (granted, the Wheelman is decent in combat, but he lacks the freebies of the Soldier class).
And worse, when his specialty comes up, other characters provide less of a benefit to him!
So I'm curious how other GM/DM's handle the problem of the super-specialist in their games, should one pop up. Do you try to help them (and everyone else) have fun, or just let them struggle with how marginalized they made themselves with a shrug?
Also, if anyone has ideas for what my friend can do with his Spycraft game, I'd love to pass them on.