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valadil
2012-10-01, 07:26 PM
I don't like point based games. I want to like them, but they're never really satisfying.

Part of why is explain in the accepted answer here: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/16637/what-are-common-design-flaws-of-build-point-game-systems

To expand on that (and sum it up for those who won't click the link), there's potentially an optimal build for any task. When you buy abilities a la carte you can just take the ones you want in the ratio you need them in.

D&D doesn't allow this. In terms of representing a character's abilities, it's flawed. But in terms of playing a game, I think this flaw makes things more interesting because there are so many different approaches to take to achieve a character.

Consider a magical thief. Someone who uses his magic to steal. Pretty simple concept. How would I play one in D&D (3.5 for discussions sake)?
* Arcane Trickster (or some other prestige class)
* Beguiler (assuming we're out of core)
* Rogue with use magic device
* Core caster with a particular spell set. Even with this approach you can go sorcerer for the smooth talker or wizard for the well trained types.

The point is, buying abilities as part of packages that don't quite align with what you're aiming for give you more approaches for how to realize a character. I've listed five completely different builds to achieve the same character idea. In a point buy game I'd have bought exactly what I wanted and been done with the character. In the interest of replayability, I'd rather be playing D&D.

So what I'm interested in hearing about is point buy games where this is not the case. This is partly because I'm curious and partly because I've got a system I'm trying to work on, but I need some inspiration for getting over this hurdle.

I've encountered one and a half such games myself. Dark Heresy gives each class a different skill set with different prices, but lets you buy whatever skills you want from your class's menu. MERP gives you groups of skills and each class has a different number of points per group.

NichG
2012-10-01, 08:08 PM
Roughly what you need is things that are mutually exclusive. That creates multiple different niches, where each niche corresponds to a locally 'optimal' build that does something a particular way (not saying you have to play optimally, but there's a difference between two builds that differ because of e.g. a small numerical variation or one or another alternate feat choice, and two builds that differ because they do the same thing in significantly different ways).

In most point-buy systems, the mutual exclusion is only due the finiteness of your points. In a system where there is no maximum to how much you can specialize, it amplifies this mutual exclusion (because you really are losing the ability to have the highest possible X in order to have a little Y), but such systems feel very punishing usually. In a system with maximums, you get versatility but it reduces the number of niches due to each character potentially 'specializing' in multiple niches simultaneously. In both of these cases the system can feel flat because all of the decision branching occurs at 'point zero', as it were, so you also know right at the start what niches are there and its hard to have discovery.

So what I'd suggest is to use something other than 'maximums'/'no maximums' to do this mutual exclusion effect. For example, systems with prerequisites or combos. Classes are an extreme version of this: the prerequisite for the 5th level of a class is having 4 levels of it, and you only have 20 levels to go around. So abilities that sit near Lv1 are 'accents' that you can toss into any build, whereas abilities that sit near Lv20 are 'niche-defining' where you pretty much only have a few builds that can ever get them.

Imagine something where you have sets of abilities with different 'tags'. This could be [Martial], [Arcane], [Insightful], whatever. Every time you buy an ability with one tag, it increases the cost of future abilities with other tags by some amount. So now you have a system that is pretty complex to design characters in and can have all sorts of surprises. If you want a 1 point [Martial] ability at some point, you might want to buy it late so that your 10 point [Arcane] ability will be cheaper, and so on. It gets very tricky if you have some [Arcane] abilities that have [Martial] abilities as pre-reqs.

I'm not sure I'd particularly enjoy such a system, but it will give additional complexity to the otherwise flat point-buy type situations.

Doug Lampert
2012-10-01, 08:21 PM
Point based works best when it's SIMPLE.

You really can't price synergy correctly. You can't really price disadvantages if there is anything available that will mitigate them.

Something like Wushu works because you buy your traits and then you roll against traits. What synergy? There's nothing on your character sheet that that modifies your relevant trait.

Something like GURPS fails because you buy dozens of things that modify a single roll and the prices aren't really well designed (GURPS 4th is an order of magnitude better than previous editions at pricing, it's still pretty bad).

GURPS has usually grossly encouraged buying advantages and attributes over buying skills. The FIRST thing you do in building a GURPS mage is make absolutely sure that your cost to learn a spell is the absolute minimum allowed by the rules.

Complex pricing fails. I've seen it claimed that in one edition of GURPS a power that let you turn into a clam at will was worth -100 Points while a curse that forced you to be a Stag all winter (with the mind of an animal) was priced as a positive advantage. HERO is even worse IME, and really works only if the GM oversees almost every aspect of character and power creation.

Leason: Don't try to build complicated formulas to figure out how much something is worth, build the power and price the power. Don't have multiple ways to buy the same thing, if doing X is worth Y points, then doing X costs Y points.

If using point buy don't let people buy modifiers, let them buy effects. If "melee attack" costs 1 point per +1 to your die 20 then don't have ANYTHING but how high you've purchased your melee attack or purely situational modifiers that ever increases your melee attack roll.

A compementary thing to this is that your purchased attributes need to be BROAD. You don't want to price play piano and play harpsicorde separately or rapier attack and rapier defense separately or rapier use and smallsword use separately. Musician is one "thing" and melee combat is one "thing". You can have people default to one specialty with a simple "pay one extra point to be good with one additional weapon or instrument or knowledge skill or whatever" as a rule, but do that only if a single point isn't a big deal, because "good at 5 related things rather than 1 of 5 related things" is a quirk at best.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-01, 08:22 PM
I think "ability to play the same concept seven different ways before Tuesday" is near the bottom of the list of design goals on any game that has their priorities in order. Characters either feel different because they are different, or they don't because they aren't. Malcolm Reynolds certainly is different from Han Solo, but they pretty much have the same abilities, the differences are in the Aspects or Advantages/Disadvantages or Backgrounds. In FATE, Mal would have the Aspect "Ends up better off if he goes in without a plan". Han wouldn't have that Aspect. Instead, he'd have something like "Big debt to powerful criminal warlord", and it would have a custom Compel effect instead of the standard -2 to X.

Of course, that could mean FATE is the game you're looking for... Third edition is the best. It currently has two forms. Spirit of the Century, which has a free SRD/PDF (although you can pay for a full PDF or book that comes with the completely wacky setting that you'll probably never play in), and Dresden Files RPG, which is better written (from what I've heard), but isn't available for free yet. Dresden Files also has a magic system, but it's unbalanced. It also has various power levels, while SotC only has one, so if you go with SotC, don't be afraid to change the skill pyramid to be narrower, shorter, or just all-around smaller (although you probably shouldn't go down by more than two steps), or reduce the number of Aspects/Fate Points a bit (two or three), or reduce the number of Stunts (which are more like a combo of Advantages + Powers) by one or two (but keep at least one. They're defining traits, like MacGyver's jury-rigging, or an old gun that you know better than the back of your hand).

Jay R
2012-10-01, 09:12 PM
If you're comfortable with grade-school arithmetic, then I recommend Hero Systems. For a fantasy RPG, that means Fantasy Hero. I have never failed to find a way to model the exact character traits I wanted.

For instance, I had an acrobatic hero. I wanted him to be able to leap onto or off of cars safely. Rather than building it as a skill, I modeled it as a power. Teleport, maximum 20 feet, must pass through intervening space, must make a skill roll (Acrobatics), with the modifiers for relative facing and relative velocity.

I can model an energy attack as a fireball (Explosion advantage), as a lightning bolt (Area Effect straight line), as a repulsor ray (double knockback), etc.

My only Fantasy Hero character was a bard, whose magic spells all required a focus (harp), the ability to speak and strum, area effect (sound of his voice).

Some people don't like it because you have to multiply and divide to get all possible combinations of powers, but you do it when designing the character, not playing, so it doesn't bother me.

valadil
2012-10-01, 09:15 PM
In most point-buy systems, the mutual exclusion is only due the finiteness of your points. In a system where there is no maximum to how much you can specialize, it amplifies this mutual exclusion (because you really are losing the ability to have the highest possible X in order to have a little Y), but such systems feel very punishing usually. In a system with maximums, you get versatility but it reduces the number of niches due to each character potentially 'specializing' in multiple niches simultaneously.

That's a very succinct and general solution. Well done! What I'm taking away from it is that I'll probably want some other resource than points. Like if there's a favorite stat advantage that gives you something cool for a stat, but can only ever be applied to a single stat on a single character. That's N advantages available, where N is the number of stats in the game, but only one can be taken per character. This doesn't represent packages or bundles of abilities, until you start using these as prerequisites.


I think "ability to play the same concept seven different ways before Tuesday" is near the bottom of the list of design goals on any game that has their priorities in order. Characters either feel different because they are different, or they don't because they aren't. Malcolm Reynolds certainly is different from Han Solo, but they pretty much have the same abilities, the differences are in the Aspects or Advantages/Disadvantages or Backgrounds.

Seven ways is probably too many. I'd like some variety though. I'd hate to decline playing Han because I'd already been Mal.

Kadzar
2012-10-02, 02:31 AM
That's a very succinct and general solution. Well done! What I'm taking away from it is that I'll probably want some other resource than points. Like if there's a favorite stat advantage that gives you something cool for a stat, but can only ever be applied to a single stat on a single character. That's N advantages available, where N is the number of stats in the game, but only one can be taken per character. This doesn't represent packages or bundles of abilities, until you start using these as prerequisites.



Seven ways is probably too many. I'd like some variety though. I'd hate to decline playing Han because I'd already been Mal.Well, you might want to check out FATE's skill pyramid because, the way it works is, in order to raise up a skill, you need have a certain number of skills on the level below it, so that you could easily have one skill at your highest level possible provided you have enough points and enough skills below it, but, if you want to raise another skill to that level, you'll need to be able to pay to have several skills beneath it raised up. (I'm probably doing a terrible job of explaining this, so you might just want to look at this official "genericized" version of the Dresden Files Character Creation section (http://www.faterpg.com/dl/df/charactercreation.html), specifically the Skills subsection. And here's the other stuff they genericized (http://www.faterpg.com/resources/), for you or anyone else who's interested. The magic system is noticeably missing, along with the skills, but there's still some neat stuff they've converted so far.)

Krazzman
2012-10-02, 06:40 AM
Ok it's time again for "Krazzman's can't believe he has to" post.

I shudder at the mere mention of it's name... DSA - Das Schwarze Auge.

It's a german system that works on points and has a pretty messed up fluff...
Afair you start with a few Generating Points. I think we started with ~100.

From this you buy yourself a set of Attributes and your Social "Standing".
Depending on your choice of attributes you can buy one out of a set of classes. There are good ones like Knight or Soldier or such things but also classes like "medi-evil callboy", wench or Teacher.
Furthermore you can choose a "Race" and a Homeland. Depending on Race and Homeland you get Disadvantages/Advantages directly.
You can also get disadvantages and advantages for GP to a certain degree.

I for example played a Pathfinder from the north and so I had Fear of the Dead and Curious. In some castle I was curious what was stored in some boxes (failed my Curiousity Check (Rolled a 11 against the DC of 10) and had to save against Fear of the dead failing that again with a fumble (nat 20) and running around screaming like a little girl).

After you have chosen disadvantages and your class you get skill points. From Race Homeland and Class you already have some ranks in certain stuff and your starting gear. Skills are categorized into segments from (i think) A through H and you can bring them to a maximum of 20 (if I don't miss something).
There are some professional skills like woodworking/sewing and there are others like sneaking, hiding etc.
Instead of an attack with melee value you have weapon categories.
Now it get's a bit blurry as I can't seem to recollect it correctly but You have a certaing attack and Parry value. In combat you can afaik either attack twice or Attack and parry or double parry or dodge.

Now comes the advancing point. If you used for example your skiing skill and rolled a nat 1 (critical success) for the next 1 skill point it's rank is reduced by one category. B becomes A or the otherway round... basically it gets cheaper. Skills and such raise in cost as you push them. The next point of a skill might cost over 1000 Exp. while in about 7 sessions we had ~2500 Exp earned... and we did some pretty epic stuff...

Furthermore you can buy advantages afterwards. Not all but some. For example you fought through throwing daggers for the last 6 sessions and you have earned enough exp to get the feat that you can throw more daggers in the same time. Or you can get an advantage that let's you navigate better in swamps/deserts and such.

The magic system.... I don't know but from the stories I heard it can be exploited. For example the party had about 20 soldiers under their command. And they all were equipped with tridents and pants. That was it. They were trained to hold their breath while fighting and swimming. The party sent them into combat with full-plated enemies and on a command made a Dome of Water.

Another time they killed a large group of horsebacked knights with 2 trees a wool-spin and the road the knights were taking.
They spanned the wool across the path and between two trees. They casted a spell on the wool so it wouldn't break and! would not move for the duration of this spell. Then they taunted them so they gave chase to them and after the wool decapitated the knights the party calmed the horses and then looted everything.

Emmerask
2012-10-02, 07:21 AM
The one huge problem with dark eye (das schwarze auge) is that not all the rulebooks and even more important not all the setting books are translated into english.
I think there is only the basic rules book, the world setting book and one adventure book in english, not even the spellbook (an awesome leather bound book^^) which has nothing but spells in it is available it seems.

The system itself is quite complex (compared to others) and a bit math heavy (what else did you expect from germans :smalltongue:).
It does share some similarities with gurps, so one might think of it as a specialized gurps version of a medium magic setting.
Where it really shines though is the attention to detail in the world and the amazing campaigns, in scope its larger then all lord of the rings, wheel of time and song of ice and fire books combines.

Overall I think its worth to learn german just to play this game in all its glory :smallbiggrin:

Krazzman
2012-10-02, 08:20 AM
The one huge problem with dark eye (das schwarze auge) is that not all the rulebooks and even more important not all the setting books are translated into english.
I think there is only the basic rules book, the world setting book and one adventure book in english, not even the spellbook (an awesome leather bound book^^) which has nothing but spells in it is available it seems.

The system itself is quite complex (compared to others) and a bit math heavy (what else did you expect from germans :smalltongue:).
It does share some similarities with gurps, so one might think of it as a specialized gurps version of a medium magic setting.
Where it really shines though is the attention to detail in the world and the amazing campaigns, in scope its larger then all lord of the rings, wheel of time and song of ice and fire books combines.

Overall I think its worth to learn german just to play this game in all its glory :smallbiggrin:

Yeah. But there are a few limitations.

It is complex... to stat out my pathfinder took me nearly 7 Hours... and I knew most of the stuff I should take as a pathfinder... I tried to make a Barbarian-esque warrior once... after about 7 Hours in I gave up... Whalerage isn't worth it...

I wouldn't even say learning german is a must... the publisher should've just translated everything. But well the other thing to even achieve a glimpse at glory is the DM.

As I mentioned it in some of the threads I wrote in when I joined I played in exactly ONE DSA campaign. Quite a few Epic things happened. But more in the term of Epic-fail. The example with curiousity and Fear of the dead derived my character of nearly all the loot in that stupid castle cause I adventured with a Thief, a thievy Falcontamer and a greedy soldier. I got 2 Crossbows out of it. For which I tried to specialize. Guess what broke on the first usage? Right the big Crossbow, nearly knocking me out. (Ah and one of us got an intelligent Magical sword... despite not being able to use it... because he was playing along with the thief guild... because he was a thief, that's like handing the rogue a +5 weapon for going to the thief guild in amn and do 2 tasks for them, while the others are given a "1 Wish" sort of thing and I am laughed at when I make an In-Character logical wish...[wishing to be trained to get stronger])

As you said it is complex. As a newbie you are lost without a good DM. That's why I dislike DSA. It's clunky, needlessly complex and that is the biggest part: you can't really have a Kick-in-the-door-style of game if it's not DM-fiated.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-02, 01:26 PM
Mutants and Masterminds institutes hard limits on how high most of your numbers can go, based on the campaign's level. The system is reasonably simple, too, with enough complexity possible to build just about any character. Mind you, the power level is scaled towards superheros (though it gets a lot more reasonable if you rewrite the benchmarks table), and, like any system, you can break it if you want. Less broken than, say, D&D, due to the caps, but it's pretty easy to get "fast healing totally invisible hero with super-senses and level-capped perception range [I see you, I hit you] attack power."

Mind you, a little GM arbitration goes a long way, since the broken combinations tend to be pretty obvious. It's easily my favorite system at the moment, and the campaign I'm running is going great.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-02, 01:43 PM
Mutants and Masterminds institutes hard limits on how high most of your numbers can go, based on the campaign's level. The system is reasonably simple, too, with enough complexity possible to build just about any character. Mind you, the power level is scaled towards superheros (though it gets a lot more reasonable if you rewrite the benchmarks table), and, like any system, you can break it if you want. Less broken than, say, D&D, due to the caps, but it's pretty easy to get "fast healing totally invisible hero with super-senses and level-capped perception range [I see you, I hit you] attack power."

Mind you, a little GM arbitration goes a long way, since the broken combinations tend to be pretty obvious. It's easily my favorite system at the moment, and the campaign I'm running is going great.

I like Strands of Fate. It can pretty much work for any narrative-based game, but Spirit of the Century is usually better... except for superhero games. Unlike FATE, you don't have skills, you have attributes, then you modify them with Advantages and by invoking Aspects. There are Expert Advantages, which give stuff like +1 to freerunning, Heroic Advantages, which are things like One Bullet Left (you get a bonus, but after one shot, your ammo's gone, no Resources(?) roll), and Power Advantages, which are things like flight, super strength, Wolverine claws...

prufock
2012-10-02, 03:34 PM
I don't really buy either of your premises, that 1) point buy systems have one optimal build and thus no other build can be used or 2) D&D doesn't have optimal builds.

1. In point buy there very well may be abilities that are better than others at achieving a concept. There may be an optimal build for the concept. That in no way restricts you to using only one build. You can build a "magic thief" in many different ways.

2. D&D has optimal builds for concepts. There are discussion boards dedicated to the subject. Usually the optimal build involves "play a full caster because it's a full caster."

You can use several different builds to achieve a concept in either type of system, despite the fact that some builds will be better than others. So what's really the problem?

NichG
2012-10-02, 04:22 PM
I think the point has more to do with locally optimal builds than globally optimal builds (which is really kind of a spurious concept since different people are trying to achieve different things with their characters).

An example of a locally optimal build might be something like 'what is the best tripper I can make?'. It may not be strictly 'better' than a caster in any kind of global sense, but you can make much more solid statements about whether one tripper is 'better' than another at tripping.

One question you can ask about a system is 'how many different locally optimal builds exist?'. This is sort of like saying 'how many different kinds of characters are there?'. One can then ask whether adding a rule increases this number, decreases it, or leaves it unchanged. The simplest point buy systems would have a number of locally optimal builds equal to the number of mechanically different things you could buy up. You could be 'a Str character' or 'a Dex character' or whatever. Once things can interact, you can have interactions that create more local optima (combos), though this doesn't always happen if e.g. two things end up similar but one is better (this is usually the comment about casters in D&D - they can be many different archetypes depending how you build them, so the classes tend to hoard the local optima).

With some rules-light systems where all skills are the same except how you fluff them, mechanically all characters belong to the same local optimum (but at that point, the point isn't having different mechanics since you're playing rules light, and diversity is restored through narrative differences and non-mechanical interactions).

valadil
2012-10-02, 07:54 PM
I shudder at the mere mention of it's name... DSA - Das Schwarze Auge.

From this you buy yourself a set of Attributes and your Social "Standing".
Depending on your choice of attributes you can buy one out of a set of classes. There are good ones like Knight or Soldier or such things but also classes like "medi-evil callboy", wench or Teacher.
Furthermore you can choose a "Race" and a Homeland. Depending on Race and Homeland you get Disadvantages/Advantages directly.
You can also get disadvantages and advantages for GP to a certain degree.



I might have heard of that. Not sure. It sounds neat, but involved. Probably not the sort of thing to casually browse.

Conceptually it doesn't sound that different than GURPS dungeon fantasy, which imposed races and classes on GURPS and was the most fun I ever had with that system.


Mutants and Masterminds institutes hard limits on how high most of your numbers can go, based on the campaign's level.

I keep hearing good things but have no exposure, even tangentially, to games of M&M. Adding to the mental list of games to try.

Does it do anything beyond cap the skills available?


I don't really buy either of your premises, that 1) point buy systems have one optimal build and thus no other build can be used or 2) D&D doesn't have optimal builds.

1. In point buy there very well may be abilities that are better than others at achieving a concept. There may be an optimal build for the concept. That in no way restricts you to using only one build. You can build a "magic thief" in many different ways.

2. D&D has optimal builds for concepts. There are discussion boards dedicated to the subject. Usually the optimal build involves "play a full caster because it's a full caster."

You can use several different builds to achieve a concept in either type of system, despite the fact that some builds will be better than others. So what's really the problem?

I didn't want to spend much text arguing the premises. The point I was hoping to make is that in a point based game there's usually one approach to a build. In D&D there are several. Any sort of thief character is going to have a sneaking skill if it's available. In PB it's always available. All the skills you could ever want are always available.

In D&D if you wanted to make the ultimate sneaky guy, there are many approaches. I have no idea what would be the best starting point. But I can play several of them and have a different experience.

If I used the term "build" in the initial post, I apologize. I think approach is what I meant.

To step back a bit, what this post is really about is my attempt to identify why I don't enjoy point based games as much. Logically I think they do a much better job of representing a character. But in terms of fun, I'll play a point based system once or twice and then return to D&D. Most of my friends do the same. This post is my current working theory.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-10-02, 08:08 PM
I keep hearing good things but have no exposure, even tangentially, to games of M&M. Adding to the mental list of games to try.

Does it do anything beyond cap the skills available?

M&M is d20 based, first of all. Skills are capped at 10+level. Other things are paired in trade-offs, so that
Attack modifier + effect rank
Defenses + Toughness (~health)
Fortitude + Will
can't exceed twice the series power level. Abilities that affect others but don't have attack rolls, such as area effects, can't exceed the power level.

Knaight
2012-10-02, 09:00 PM
Consider a magical thief. Someone who uses his magic to steal. Pretty simple concept. How would I play one in D&D (3.5 for discussions sake)?
* Arcane Trickster (or some other prestige class)
* Beguiler (assuming we're out of core)
* Rogue with use magic device
* Core caster with a particular spell set. Even with this approach you can go sorcerer for the smooth talker or wizard for the well trained types.

The point is, buying abilities as part of packages that don't quite align with what you're aiming for give you more approaches for how to realize a character. I've listed five completely different builds to achieve the same character idea. In a point buy game I'd have bought exactly what I wanted and been done with the character. In the interest of replayability, I'd rather be playing D&D.

Alright, you've got a magical thief. There are basically two ways this can go.
1) You increase your Magic and Thieving skills. Now you have a whole bunch of other things to do, hence there is variety.
2) Magic and Thieving is broken up into a bunch of things, and there are different viable combinations of them, so there's variety.

I'll use a simple example here, just to keep things minimal. Say you have 6 trained skills, 1 at 3, 2 at 2 and 3 at 1. It's a skill pyramid, essentially, though it is a tiny one. Now say there are only 8 skills in the game (again, highly minimal): Athletics, Combat, Covert, Knowledge, Magic, Profession, Wilderness, and Social. How do you build the thief?

You could do:
Magic
Covert, Athletics
Combat, Social, Knowledge
This would be a magic thief who's mostly a magician, uses magic heavily, and is generally a burglar capable of moving around and stealing things physically, with a smattering of other skills.

Another option would be:
Social
Knowledge, Covert
Magic, Profession, Athletics
This would be a magic thief again, but more limited in magic and without the maneuverability of the first thief. However, they are more knowledgeable, have professional skills, and have social charms. They can get the information for their robberies beforehand, they can infiltrate places socially instead of athletically, etc. It's still a magical thief, but a different one.

There are a whole bunch of other options, even within the stripped down minimalist framework portrayed above. In an actual game with a skill pyramid, you'd probably see 21 skill slots at a minimum, and probably a good 40 skills at a minimum. Added to that are knacks/gifts/advantages/aspects and flaws/faults/aspects, the possibility for specific spells, attributes/abilities/traits, so on and so forth. In addition to the varying combinations of magical thief that would probably be using up many of the higher slots, there's room for other things the character can do, which just adds variety.

In short - if all you have is an archetype, there will be multiple ways to handle it that produce multiple iterations of the archetype that handle differently. If you have a more defined character, then you no longer need to have multiple ways of portraying them (though you likely still have multiple ways of portraying them) as you won't be coming back to them as a different character where that might well happen with archetypes.

Inglenook
2012-10-09, 03:22 AM
My experience with point-buy systems is limited to GURPS, but my general feelings seem to be the opposite of the OP's; I find D&D mechanics to be constraining, overly-simplistic (not numbers-wise, but in terms of how well they represent anything resembling real life), and very, uh, paint-by-numbers, I guess.

D&D builds are generally about trying to achieve a particular—and mostly combat-oriented—effect. Lots of different options on how to get there by careful planning of classes and feats. D&D is an extension of wargaming, though, so it's very well-suited for this purpose.

In GURPS the path to achieving a combat ability is pretty straightforward (buy skill X or advantage Y for Z points … fin), but the scope of the game extends far beyond battle. The D&D economy, for example, is a nonsensical nightmare, but in GURPS you could play a quasi-realistic banker with little effort. And beyond that, many of the point-buy options in GURPS are more focused on flavor. Miss Marple and Adrian Monk probably have similar detective skills with a similar result of catching the bad guy, but their flavor and M.O. are completely different.

It's apples and oranges, really, and I think it just depends on what you're looking for in a game. To make a horrible metaphor: D&D is like a bunch of really curvy scenic roads that all go to the same place, while GURPS is a bunch of short, generic interstates that end up taking you to a variety of different cities. If that makes sense at all.

Different strokes and all that! :smallbiggrin:

Aaaaand I just realized that I didn't address the OP's question whatsoever. :smallfrown: Oh well.

http://lorelai365.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/feelings.gif

Morty
2012-10-09, 03:49 AM
Unfortunately, I think your premise is flawed. I'm not sure how being given a round peg for your round hole - that is, a magic-using thief - is worse than being given several square pegs and allowed to decide which of them to try to force into the round hole, which is what D&D does with most character concepts that are remotely original. And as Knaight said, most point-buy systems will allow you a great deal of freedom within the bounds of your concept, which in this case is "magic-using thief".

prufock
2012-10-09, 07:10 AM
I didn't want to spend much text arguing the premises. The point I was hoping to make is that in a point based game there's usually one approach to a build.
That's fair enough. I still disagree with the bold portion, but we can agree to disagree.

wadledo
2012-10-09, 10:24 AM
It currently has two forms.

This is quite late, but you do realize that FATE has dozens and dozens of games out for it, right?
I mean, for this Kerberos Club would be infinitely better than DFRPG, for one thing.

Ts_
2012-10-09, 12:24 PM
Well, I don't think there is a mechanical solution for the perfect point buy systems in anything more involved than a computer RPG (and those with more depth than Zelda have minmaxing as well).

First of all, costs have to be genre/world/campaign-specific. How do you do that mechanically? (Well, you could use a meta-game or a simulation of sorts to price things correctly ...)

Costs need to consider synergies (including negated disadvantages) in some way, but you can't list all combinations in advance in the rules. Also, it's not clear whether you want to encourage synergies (some things should work well together logically) or penalize them (an additional price on them represents the additional benefit). Both ways can work, but just establishing what a synergy is and if it's desired or munchkinny is way beyond what a rule book can do.

Going one step further, no system I've heard of mechanically considers costs of synergies across the party. The low hit points of the wizard are mitigated by the bulky fighter in front of her. Should the low hit points therefore only count as a disadvantage if there is no fighter in the party? Should players be penalized ("priced accordingly to their abilities") for having an effective fighter+thief+mage+cleric party?

So you see that there are so many variables that are not mechanically available that you will always need GM oversight when creating a character and, even more crucial, creating a team. Always. But that isn't really special for point-buy systems, it's just a property of the complexity of a lot of point-buy systems.

Of course, some good baseline pricing can't hurt. There are also certain useful mechanical things like hard caps, point pools, class-like groups of stuff to choose from ... Again, these need to be set according to the campaign at hand. The most reasonable approach is to price things with a bit of munchkinism in mind. Fluff shouldn't cost much, useless abilities should be cheap, but combat abilities in a combat campaign should cost dearly (but only if they are used in good combos ...)

Regards
Ts

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-09, 12:38 PM
This is quite late, but you do realize that FATE has dozens and dozens of games out for it, right?
I mean, for this Kerberos Club would be infinitely better than DFRPG, for one thing.

FATE 3e has dozens and dozens of games?

Knaight
2012-10-09, 12:51 PM
FATE 3e has dozens and dozens of games?

There are quite a few. Very few are official Evil Hat games, with those being SotC and DF, but it's an open system which many people have developed other games for. Take Legends of Anglerre, which is the most openly high fantasy one, consider Diaspora, the one that comes closest to science fiction. So on and so forth.

valadil
2012-10-09, 12:55 PM
In GURPS the path to achieving a combat ability is pretty straightforward (buy skill X or advantage Y for Z points … fin), but the scope of the game extends far beyond battle. The D&D economy, for example, is a nonsensical nightmare, but in GURPS you could play a quasi-realistic banker with little effort. And beyond that, many of the point-buy options in GURPS are more focused on flavor. Miss Marple and Adrian Monk probably have similar detective skills with a similar result of catching the bad guy, but their flavor and M.O. are completely different.

Aaaaand I just realized that I didn't address the OP's question whatsoever. :smallfrown: Oh well.

That may not address the problem directly, but it might help me get over my issue with point buy games nonetheless. I think it's entirely possible that all the instances of GURPs I've played have really been D&D in the wrong system. If so it's little wonder my groups have found D&D to be a better system for playing D&D.

Inglenook
2012-10-09, 01:01 PM
Oh definitely. If you're wanting a combat-oriented fantasy game you can't go wrong with D&D. I personally think GURPS is poorly suited for that sort of thing, especially considering how lethal GURPS combat is.

jseah
2012-10-09, 01:27 PM
I have my own take on the specialization problem for point-buy systems.
I built a skill system (haven't finalized stuff on it yet, like pricing and anything other than opposed skill checks) that was essentially a character point buy system.

Each skill was based on a one or more 'parent' skills, which eventually ended in a set of four base skills (similar to D&D's 6 base stats). To advance in any skill, you had to have at least one point in the 'parent' skill.
Each skill was essentially a specialization of its 'parent' skill and any checks made with it would be easier, while also adding a portion of the 'parent' skill. A penalty for having a skill number higher than its parent (double cost per additional rank) that refunded itself as you corrected it (there's some complicated free half-ranks thing here) made specialization, I hope, at least somewhat of an interesting decision.

If you wanted to build a one-dimensional character, eg. "the best at cooking he can be", you can and specialization is the way to go. Interestingly, due to the 'parent' skill requirement, your character will also gain some skill in all the ones related to it.
Also, I decided that you could specialize arbitrarily by breaking a skill into its component parts (eg. "French cooking"), and take that as a skill in its own right. The player could create a new specialization by agreement with the GM.

Also, there are a bunch of semi-logical synergies (ranks in one skill count for a bit in the use of another, I think I had medicine add to melee weapons) that make things a bit more interesting.

Advantages and so on don't exist in the system and I made a conscious effort to avoid all special one-off character effects. The only ones I kept was a set of expensive perks you could buy at character creation to gain access to skills far down the trees without buying any of their requirements. (called them Gift, Talent and Genius; considering making them refund on satisfaction of requirement)
Do keep in mind that I'm not exactly well versed in point buy systems, so I'm not sure whether I'm duplicating anything or not.

valadil
2012-10-09, 01:33 PM
Each skill was essentially a specialization of its 'parent' skill and any checks made with it would be easier, while also adding a portion of the 'parent' skill.

Sounds neat, but it might run the risk of getting tedious to track.

The other thing I have to wonder about is how you'd break down complex skills. You might have charisma > performance > music > guitar. We've all kind of accepted that realistically your skills would have many stats influencing them, but the amalgam of the individual aspects of the skills ends up being the stat. When you break down a skill like guitar further you might get finger picking and music theory skills. At that point, when you've focused down to such a specific aspect of the skill does it still make sense to base it off of charisma and not dexterity or intelligence?

(Of course this is neglecting the fact that we're talking about an RPG that makes you roll for music theory, but that's besides the point. It's the principle of the thing!)

Knaight
2012-10-09, 01:54 PM
Do keep in mind that I'm not exactly well versed in point buy systems, so I'm not sure whether I'm duplicating anything or not.

Cortex pretty much does this, though not nearly to the same degree.

wadledo
2012-10-09, 02:14 PM
FATE 3e has dozens and dozens of games?

As Knaight said, yes.

jseah
2012-10-09, 02:55 PM
When you break down a skill like guitar further you might get finger picking and music theory skills. At that point, when you've focused down to such a specific aspect of the skill does it still make sense to base it off of charisma and not dexterity or intelligence?
Well, that's why skills only count themselves and their 'parent' skill.
(note that they don't count their sub skills, so if you can at all use a sub skill anything like decently, you use it unless you have much higher ranks in the 'parent', usually to avoid specialization penalties)

I suppose it doesn't make sense outside of the resolution mechanic.
Basically, your % chance of success is:
100% x Your Skill / Difficulty
- There's some suggestions I am considering with a flat penalty, around -20% or so, to make an auto-fail boundary.

Difficulty is replaced by your opponent's skill in the case of opposed checks.
So, by having sub skills check against lower difficulties, not only does it get massively easier, every point of a sub skill counts for more towards the task than the same point of a parent skill.
(a 2x harder difficulty makes you need 2x more points for the same success rate)
Additionally, it also becomes easier to hit Auto-success (>100%).


Cortex pretty much does this, though not nearly to the same degree.
Which part does it do?

I'm not sure about this, but I hope that by making my character creation / advancement system completely symmetrical, it should prevent alot of meta-problems.

Chiefly, the specialization penalty reverses itself as you restore the situation. So that at any particular distribution of skill ranks, you can calculate the character points needed to get there and no matter what path you took to get there, it always costs the same amount to get that specific distribution of skill ranks.

I wonder if it is a solution in search of a problem though.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-10-09, 03:14 PM
Which part does it do?

Specialization. You can go up to d6 with normal skills, but you must choose a specialty to get a d8 (the professional standard) or higher. Guns specialties are pistols, rifles, shotguns, etc. Melee weapons has clubs, swords, improv, etc. Craft has explosives, smithing, jury-rigging...

Jack of Spades
2012-10-09, 04:11 PM
I have my own take on the specialization problem for point-buy systems.
I built a skill system (haven't finalized stuff on it yet, like pricing and anything other than opposed skill checks) that was essentially a character point buy system.

Each skill was based on a one or more 'parent' skills, which eventually ended in a set of four base skills (similar to D&D's 6 base stats). To advance in any skill, you had to have at least one point in the 'parent' skill.
Each skill was essentially a specialization of its 'parent' skill and any checks made with it would be easier, while also adding a portion of the 'parent' skill. A penalty for having a skill number higher than its parent (double cost per additional rank) that refunded itself as you corrected it (there's some complicated free half-ranks thing here) made specialization, I hope, at least somewhat of an interesting decision.

If you wanted to build a one-dimensional character, eg. "the best at cooking he can be", you can and specialization is the way to go. Interestingly, due to the 'parent' skill requirement, your character will also gain some skill in all the ones related to it.
Also, I decided that you could specialize arbitrarily by breaking a skill into its component parts (eg. "French cooking"), and take that as a skill in its own right. The player could create a new specialization by agreement with the GM.

Also, there are a bunch of semi-logical synergies (ranks in one skill count for a bit in the use of another, I think I had medicine add to melee weapons) that make things a bit more interesting.

Advantages and so on don't exist in the system and I made a conscious effort to avoid all special one-off character effects. The only ones I kept was a set of expensive perks you could buy at character creation to gain access to skills far down the trees without buying any of their requirements. (called them Gift, Talent and Genius; considering making them refund on satisfaction of requirement)
Do keep in mind that I'm not exactly well versed in point buy systems, so I'm not sure whether I'm duplicating anything or not.

Deadlands Classic runs on a simplified version of this. "Traits" (attributes) have an ability score that is used as the baseline for your "Aptitudes" (specialties/skills). Traits will have a die roll attached to them, e.g. 3d10, and Aptitudes will have a number. If you have a 4 in Shootin' and a 2d10 in Deftness, you roll 4d10 any time you want to shoot someone. However, Deadlands is set up so that you can actually have a chance of doing things you aren't specifically trained to do. In the above example, if the character had no points in Shootin', they would still be able to make a Shootin' roll of 2d10-4. Basically, the character doesn't know much more than which way to point a gun but is generally dextrous enough that they still have a decent chance of putting a bullet in someone.

The system is nice because it dodges the problem that a lot of first level characters have in games: not being able to successfully do easy/common things, because they didn't put ranks in the correct skill.

Also, what Jade Dragon said. :smalltongue: