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Godskook
2011-01-16, 02:31 PM
Ok, so I've got an RL campaign which one of my players insists is called an avatar game. Basically, they start the game as themselves(A gem provides their first class level and racial stats, despite being human). Problem with this is that introducing new players, who don't have access to the gems, leads to either plot issues(where are the new PCs getting the powers from?) or player inbalance(they get racial stat bonuses as humans and we don't!)

Any advice on how to handle this?

DukeofDellot
2011-01-16, 02:48 PM
These gems, maybe there were more of them somewhere.

Maybe the villains are also using them to get powers, and the new player stole his from them. Or perhaps there's a secret guild that has access to them that the new PC is associated with.

If your game takes place in a world where the players are the only characters who needed the gems to acquire the abilities, maybe the new PC just gets a bonus feat and extra skill points because he's simply heroic.

If he's levels behind, you could say that he had multiple gems or one more powerful one that lets him start off at the same level as them (or just transparent the levels).

Have some of the stuff that was in game for the returning PCs be background for the new one.

Kaje
2011-01-16, 02:59 PM
This sounds strangely similar to that terrible '90s cartoon "Stone Protectors."

mucat
2011-01-16, 04:00 PM
If the game hasn't started yet, one simple solution is: don't use gems. Have some other event mark the character's transformation from "ordinary people" to PCs, and make it an event that could plausibly recur later to other people.

Perhaps each character has a vivid dream, all centering around the same place or person (whose significance might become apparent much later in the campaign), and when they wake they are subtly changed. If another PC wants to join later, then they also have the dream, along with a compulsion to seek out the other "changed" folks. Maybe in that later version of the dream, there has been a significant change to the person or place the dreams center on...which might in itself be a clue to important events taking place.

If a transforming dream doesn't seem like a good fit for the game, there are plenty of other events you can use...just try to avoid ideas with a strong "one-time-only" feel to them (such as "you were there when such-and-such a remarkable unprecedented event happened".)

Godskook
2011-01-16, 04:30 PM
Game's already in progress, and the origin of the gems has been revealed already to be a particular wizard.

Sillycomic
2011-01-16, 04:41 PM
Wizard either making or having more gems so that these avatars can do... whatever it is they're supposed to do makes sense.

mucat
2011-01-16, 04:59 PM
Game's already in progress, and the origin of the gems has been revealed already to be a particular wizard.
Might be good for the existing PCs to actively decide in-game to recruit the newcomers, and bring them to the wizard (if he/she is an ally) or bring the gems (of which you'll have arranged to give them a limited supply) to the new PCs.

At character creation, the players would work out some reason why the existing PCs decide the newcomer should join them. Maybe the new PC has some essential skill or piece of knowledge, or maybe they just happen to learn too much about what's going on, and the team decides it's better to have the meddler working alongside them than running around loose spilling secrets. (And of course, the characters will have the same pre-existing relationships with each other as the players do, so this might help them devise a reason for recruitment.)

This should feel less arbitrary than "Hey, some more people just found magic gems."

Sillycomic
2011-01-16, 05:03 PM
It would be helpful to find out how the original players found/got the gems.

I thought the wizard chose people he thought would be worthy and gave them the gems.

Godskook
2011-01-16, 05:08 PM
Due to PC reactions, I should probably not introduce more PCs through the same wizard. They're suspicious of the dude as it is, and feel that he's 'toying' with them.

mucat
2011-01-16, 05:18 PM
Due to PC reactions, I should probably not introduce more PCs through the same wizard. They're suspicious of the dude as it is, and feel that he's 'toying' with them.

All the more reason to think up a way that they can decide to recruit more people. Maybe they get a hold of a few more gems that the wizard (as far as they know) didn't intend them to have.

Sillycomic
2011-01-16, 05:18 PM
Ouch. That's harsh. You wrote yourself into a corner there.

Second wizard? Rival wizard? A rogue with UMD that broke into the wizard's tower and activated the wrong magical device? Barbarian that sundered the wrong thing?

Do these new players need to be real humans from earth? If not, just make the humans on the game world a little better than the ones in our world. Give them some nice powers to work with based on being, "from another planet."

It worked for Superman.

They could be people who have already been on the planet for awhile, and your avatars will just be meeting them for the first time. They would have their own unique story as to why they have/found a gem and their interactions with said wizard.

Some sort of magical device/accident that gives people gems or gem-like powers.

Ashtar
2011-01-16, 07:40 PM
Magic entering the real world could have strange side effects. Imagine that the magic of the gem was not fully transferred to the PC, maybe some leaked via a side channel (Enter Physics discussion of String Theory and Higher dimensions) altering other humans in the world. Maybe there a a few of these wild-cards humans out there who were transformed by the leak. Or places where they used their powers could slowly become "magic infused" enough to enable bystanders to be evolved.

The wizard might also have sent out "experimental" gems out into the world prior to creating those the PCs used. And finally, maybe he wasn't the first to develop this method, maybe he had a mentor who converted someone else (a child for example, who only discovers his new powers at 18 or 21, just the right time to become a PC).

Also in the recruiting, you might discover that empowering the players to evolve other humans could be a double edged sword. They could start evolving everybody, or refuse it to a new PC, instead of using it as an empowerment tool to make the group collaborate.