Superhero Roleplaying Games [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

skyth

2013-12-27, 05:56 PM

Champions is by far the best system out there in my opinion (That's the Hero system).

Not familiar with the DC one, but the old Marvel game I wouldn't recommend. I have it along with a good portion of the sourcebooks and modules...It is REALLY unbalanced. Captain America or Wolverine (Two of the better fighters in the Marvel Universe) are some of the weakest fighters in the game. The Thing would mop the floor with them as neither have any way at all of damaging The Thing. In 'real life' Cap and Wolvie would demolish The Thing.

I guess my major complaint for MSH is how damage is done especially when compared to defenses. Damage is always a set amount and either you overcome the armor by a certain amount every time or you never deal any damage.

Joe the Rat

2013-12-27, 09:08 PM

MSH... Oh the memories of good old FASERIP. It's from the old days of random rolls, which meant no balance whatsoever. You end up with Hulk and Thor and Captain America and Ant-Man on the same team. (hmm....) Balance need not apply, but very comic-book-team-like. 4-color is a 'generic' redo of the base system. It's a game where it pays to be smart: your mental stats determine your starting 'Karma' - a combination of XP and 'make the universe roll your way' points.

There was the card-based Marvel system... and that's about all I remember.

Palladium system had Heroes Unlimited... which is Palladium. So it goes. But if you need Captain Flying Brick vs. Cthulu knockoffs vs. Zentradi vs. a party of 4-6 adventurers vs. evil psychic care bears, at least the base rules are the same.

HERO/Champions is the grand-daddy of point builds, and one of the most played. You've got good odds of finding someone familiar with one of the past 5? 6? editions. Very effect-based (you buy what you can do), but I think there were some 'power stunt' options in the recent edition (aka Referee can use real world logic with your effect fluff.

You can't really mention Champions without mentioning the GURPS supers lines. It's GURPS. With enough points, and a few extra things to spend points on, you can be quite... super. If you like GURPS, this is a good option. If you hate GURPS, this won't change your mind.

M&M is like an easy math d20 version of Champions. You buy what you can do. It also steps away from the whole "damage points" model. You're up, you're at varying degrees of hurt, you're down. DC Adventures uses the base engine.

DC Heroes / Blood of Heroes / MEGS (Mayfair Exponential Gaming System): Not as number crunchy as HERO, uses some strange math (numeric scores are geometric), but plays fairly well. Also uses fate-altering XP. Has rules for subplots - personal sidequests that may, but generally don't involve beating things up. Romance, work, power complications... Yes, folks, a game engine used for DC includes mechanics and xp awards for the Marvel storytelling approach. (Disclaimer: this is my preferred system).

Aberrant. White Wolf does X-Men. Hope you like d10s. Heck, Exalted would work well as a supers frame, particularly something in a New Gods flavor.

CombatOwl

2013-12-27, 09:18 PM

What are some superhero roleplaying games? I have heard of a few of them, but have no detailed knowledge. Which ones are the best? Which are most interesting?

Fate works really well for supers games if you hack it a bit for the powers. There's a few ways to do it, the System Toolkit proposes a few.

Vamphyr

2013-12-27, 09:23 PM

Hero can be a bit daunting for someone new to the system, but the versatility you have in building characters/NPCs/monsters is unparalleled in my opinion.

It also lends itself to just about any style game you want to run. I've played superhero games, call of cthulhu games, and I've run a SWAT game for two players who were average humans facing some superhuman-esque villians.

prufock

2013-12-27, 10:15 PM

DC Adventures is just Mutants and Masterminds 3e with licensing. Same ruleset, same book, different cover.

Zavoniki

2013-12-27, 11:07 PM

Wild Talents (http://arcdream.com/home/category/wild-talents/) is the best super hero roleplaying system I've found. It has simple rules that make sense and power creation that will let you make whatever you want. I also like the Source/Permission rules as they add a lot of flavor to characters. It is a fairly lethal system though so it might not be good for every type of super hero game.

Rakoa

2013-12-28, 12:02 AM

BWR

2013-12-28, 04:13 AM

I briefly played Aberrant, WW's superhero game. I never looked closely enough at it to find out its weaknesses (and I'm sure there were plenty of glaring ones) but the times I played I had fun. The system was easy enough to use and you had a wide variety in powers and power level.
The system let us feel as though we were gods among men, yet not invulnerable, and let us basically build the sort of character we wanted.

Tengu_temp

2013-12-28, 05:59 AM

The Champions HERO System isn't just the best superhero system out there, but is, in my opinion, the best RPG system there is. There are no limits to what you can create other than those set by your GM and your own imagination. If you can think of it, you can create it. It's quite amazing.

Amusingly, I have exactly the same opinion on Mutants and Masterminds. Only that game is very tight, well-balanced for an open system, and has much smoother and simpler math.

Really, a good superhero system has to be universal and versatile, because of how varied superheroes are. Fun fact: I never actually ran a typical, Marvel/DC-style superhero game with Mutants and Masterminds. It was always something else, from giant mecha to Kamen Rider-esque transforming heroes to urban fantasy.

Arbane

2013-12-28, 04:00 PM

One system I've played nobody's mentioned yet is Truth and Justice (http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com/products/tj.asp). It's relatively rules-lite, and works off of narrative rather than simulation, so having Thor and Hawkeye on the same team won't make Hawkeye redundant.

Also, due to the way combat works in the system ('damage' causes plot complications), you can punch a hero in the girlfriend.

Rakoa

2013-12-28, 06:38 PM

Amusingly, I have exactly the same opinion on Mutants and Masterminds. Only that game is very tight, well-balanced for an open system, and has much smoother and simpler math.

Really, a good superhero system has to be universal and versatile, because of how varied superheroes are. Fun fact: I never actually ran a typical, Marvel/DC-style superhero game with Mutants and Masterminds. It was always something else, from giant mecha to Kamen Rider-esque transforming heroes to urban fantasy.

Yeah, the versatility that comes with a Superhero system like that is quite great. With something like D&D, your concepts are already pretty well-defined, and so the class system works. But when you enter the realm of comic books...things are just whacky!

Now, I've never played Mutants and Masterminds. But I just might have to after your review. Then again, the smoother and simpler math may not appeal to me so much after I bothered to learn the HERO system, haha. It's basically second nature to me at this point.

JetpackJimmy

2014-01-08, 04:32 PM

My personal favorite is Marvel Heroics. It's so different from most of the other things I've played, but fun! It is probably my personal favorite system, and it's quite adaptable. I'm doing a Dresden Files (Buffy the Vampire Slayer meats WoD)

FallenGeek

2014-01-08, 06:08 PM

That said, I am quite sure that teaching the system is against the Geneva Conventions.

This, just this.

I'm using Hero System for the supers game I'm running and to circumvent the above I'm using character creation software and created the heroes based on the players desires. They players still are having difficulty knowing how to make skill rolls and take damage.

Its very frustrating.

But play it with those that know the system - woohoo!

TheEmerged

2014-01-08, 07:44 PM

This, just this.

I'm using Hero System for the supers game I'm running and to circumvent the above I'm using character creation software and created the heroes based on the players desires. They players still are having difficulty knowing how to make skill rolls and take damage.

Its very frustrating.

But play it with those that know the system - woohoo!

Really, the math in HERO\Champions primarily takes place out of playtime - it's in character creation mostly. In play, the only real math is quickly adding lots of d6 and the "BODY" result mechanic - which can usually be shortcutted to "the BODY result of Xd6 = X", since it will average that anyway.

My standard boilerplate with HERO is that it's less of an RPG than it is an RPG creation system. You can build almost anything in HERO - the problem is that you *have* to build it :smallcool: I also lament that most people only know HERO for its superheroic system when I feel it's actually better suited for a slightly lower power level.

Aberrant was a great world with a lousy system. It pretty much expected you already know how many dice of attack & how much defense you needed going in, for example. Did I mention it was an interesting world though? I've ended up adopting a far amount of terminology from it in superheroic campaigns I've run since (and I'm running a superheroic campaign now).

There's a system out there called Brave New World that had its charms. It was too "street level" for our group and fell guilty to the "our <insert here> are different" trope too often, but it's the best "class of superhero" system I've played - in fairness I'm not played M&M.

The old 9-stat DC system was fun, but had some... issues they didn't think through. I'll just walk away before someone asks about the Equipment rules...

The old FASERIP Marvel system had charms too. It's the best random super generation system I've seen, even though it can result in some downright bizarre combinations. I also tried the Marvel SAGA system... and then put it on the shelf. The mechanic of using cards from a hand instead of dice had possibilities but there just wasn't enough of a difference in scale between the heroes, and the ability score system made some archetypes difficult to build.

My gaming group's longest campaign started in GURPS - and after about 4 sessions, we moved it to HERO. My gripe with GURPS has long been that it wasn't as well balanced between its genres as it needed to be, and that becomes noticeable quickly in a superheroic campaign where those genres are going to cross. I understand it's better balanced now than the version we played, in fairness.

Lord Raziere

2014-01-08, 08:30 PM

Mutants and Masterminds 3e is awesome. it can of course make any hero you want, and I've been basically building power after power with it. its concrete enough yet free enough for me to use, in my opinion. I recommend it.

veti

2014-01-08, 08:53 PM

For completeness...

I once played in a game whose system name I can't for the life of me remember, but whose premise was that some people (the PCs, for a start) had low-level psychic powers, and the object was to stop the public from finding out that such powers existed. We played part of a police unit dedicated to tracking down and dealing with criminals who were abusing their powers for EEEeeevil.

This would have been the late 80s. I wish I could remember what the system was called. As I recall it was pretty light on dice rolls - I remember being quite excited when I finally got to roll for something - and I seem to recall it included D6s and possibly d%s, but not the others.

Amphetryon

2014-01-08, 09:41 PM

Are DC Adventures and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying any good?

This may not be true of the most current iteration of the Marvel system, but it used to be possible to accidentally get the "infinite" rating on all attributes (and thus gain all powers) during creation with the Marvel system I played back in the 1990s.

Jlerpy

2014-01-09, 12:11 AM

This may not be true of the most current iteration of the Marvel system, but it used to be possible to accidentally get the "infinite" rating on all attributes (and thus gain all powers) during creation with the Marvel system I played back in the 1990s.

I'm not even sure that was true back in the FASERIP version and it's definitely not in any version since.

Jay R

2014-01-09, 12:14 AM

Really, the math in HERO\Champions primarily takes place out of playtime - it's in character creation mostly. In play, the only real math is quickly adding lots of d6 and the "BODY" result mechanic - which can usually be shortcutted to "the BODY result of Xd6 = X", since it will average that anyway.

The exact answer isn't even hard. Roll the dice. Take away every die that isn't 1 or 6. Take away every 1&6 pair. Now the actual result is X minus the number of 1s, or X plus the number of 6s.

Arbane

2014-01-09, 06:55 AM

For completeness...

I once played in a game whose system name I can't for the life of me remember, but whose premise was that some people (the PCs, for a start) had low-level psychic powers, and the object was to stop the public from finding out that such powers existed. We played part of a police unit dedicated to tracking down and dealing with criminals who were abusing their powers for EEEeeevil.

This would have been the late 80s. I wish I could remember what the system was called.

I vaguely recall a game called "PsiWorld" from around that time, but I don't remember anything else about it.

skyth

2014-01-09, 08:19 AM

I also lament that most people only know HERO for its superheroic system when I feel it's actually better suited for a slightly lower power level.

I can't really agree with that. Hero system was built around the Champions and was then converted to be useable with other genres. In my experience, it doesn't translate well to low power environments.

Amphetryon

2014-01-09, 08:54 AM

I'm not even sure that was true back in the FASERIP version and it's definitely not in any version since.

It was definitely true in the FASERIP version, as I did it. . . unless the GM and I both missed a caveat in the rules. Incredible Intelligence rating plus Incredible rating Hyper-Intelligence power, if I remember correctly. As I indicated, I haven't touched the system since the 1990's.

TheEmerged

2014-01-09, 09:03 AM

I can't really agree with that. Hero system was built around the Champions and was then converted to be useable with other genres. In my experience, it doesn't translate well to low power environments.

Try it at the "Ninja HERO" level sometime if you get the chance - higher than "street level" but not truly superheroic yet. I've run several Street Fighter\Mortal Kombat type campaigns with it and they're among our favorites.

Joe the Rat

2014-01-09, 09:31 AM

Yeah, DCH/MEGS has issues with equipment, due to having to buy base stats for it, and the replacing, not additive nature of equipment-based stats.

Point of comparison: Starting as a 'Flying Brick' vs. Wearing Power Armor with Flight capability: In DCH, it costs more points at creation to build the armor (which can be damaged by mundane means, subject to breakdown, and can be removed with difficulty) than to have the powers as innate. In HERO, Power Armor powers is typically less expensive than innate powers (as all of the above issues are considered limitations on the effect). However, building new and stronger powers (via tools) is cheaper as gadgets than as innate powers in DCH (due to advancement rules), while HERO keeps the same cost profile (XP = build points).

It was definitely true in the FASERIP version, as I did it. . . unless the GM and I both missed a caveat in the rules. Incredible Intelligence rating plus Incredible rating Hyper-Intelligence power, if I remember correctly. As I indicated, I haven't touched the system since the 1990's.
Ah, Ultimate Powers Book. Fun times.
I'm trying to remember how the Hyper-stats worked, but that either lands you at 80(Monstrous) or Shift Z Rank (maximum CS shift). For the most part, you do not 'shift' into or among the CL1000+ rankings. That's why the table divides there. The only power you could start at CL1000 in was Invulnerabilities - and those were against specific types of damage. Of course, there were no mentions of this stuff for using.. Power Gestalt? Power Conversion? - the one which lets you dump all your numeric ranks into one ability/power. I don't think there was a limit on numeric values keeping you out of the 1000+, just rank shifts. So having an Invulnerability to Radio Waves + whatever that power was could give you Celestial-level strength/eye-beams/flight/water-breathing/whatever, after which you're weak as a kitten.

Also, important fine print on Bonus Powers: They use up one of your '#powers rolled' slots - I'm trying to remember if you had to replace if you were out, or if you got the last one as a freebie. Now if you maxed out with the 15 or so powers, and got ridiculous ranks... Yeah, what can't you do?

skyth

2014-01-09, 09:56 AM

One thing about the FASERIP system is that you could buy/build pretty much anything that had a rating of your Reason or less.

Jay R

2014-01-09, 12:40 PM

FabulousFizban

2014-01-09, 01:05 PM

ellindsey

2014-01-09, 03:27 PM

Try it at the "Ninja HERO" level sometime if you get the chance - higher than "street level" but not truly superheroic yet. I've run several Street Fighter\Mortal Kombat type campaigns with it and they're among our favorites.

Agreed, I've played in some very fun 100-150 point level 'skilled normal' games, especially with using the optional rule sets for skills and gadgets. I've also just recently played in a 700+ point level galactic hero game, where we were going around overthowing planetary goverments and battling invasion fleets, but that one got a little crazy.

Jlerpy

2014-01-09, 04:32 PM

just don't use GURPS, a friend of mine tried to run a superhero game of GURPS and I just spent all my points on wealth. My character's personal wealth was greater than the GDP of most countries in his world. When he asked me what my power was I just said money. I then preceeded to buy off any situation he came up with.

When you can hire a personal army to deal with any problems that arise, it kind of defeats the point.

That just sounds like advice to not let you play. :)

I ran a GURPS supers game for 11 years and it worked just fine. To be fair, it wasn't a four-colour style game, more a "people with powers" game.

Jay R

2014-01-09, 07:28 PM

That just sounds like advice to not let you play. :)

No, just to avoid that GM. You shouldn't allow a player to do something in the game that, in the player's own words, "defeats the point".

Steve Jackson once wrote that sometimes you need to "compliment them on their ingenuity and ruthlessly disallow the trick."

Jlerpy

2014-01-09, 08:00 PM

No, just to avoid that GM. You shouldn't allow a player to do something in the game that, in the player's own words, "defeats the point".

Steve Jackson once wrote that sometimes you need to "compliment them on their ingenuity and ruthlessly disallow the trick."

Sorry, my wording was unclear. I meant that it was a thing that it is inadvisable to let one play a character thus constructed.

Rakoa

2014-01-09, 09:01 PM

Remember some powers and power advantages have that stop sign beside them. It means you should consider them before allowing them. Or possibly disallow them. Something like that.

skyth

2014-01-10, 06:10 AM

Agreed, I've played in some very fun 100-150 point level 'skilled normal' games, especially with using the optional rule sets for skills and gadgets. I've also just recently played in a 700+ point level galactic hero game, where we were going around overthowing planetary goverments and battling invasion fleets, but that one got a little crazy.

I was thinking more of the 50 point range. Heroic starts at 75, which is okay. I guess I'm thinking that without powers, every character starts to feel the same :) (Granted, I'm combat focused...I'm sure you can roleplay them as different, but in combat situations, there's a sameness). I would think it'd be easier for varience to create unwanted situations as well at lower power level.

Different strokes and all I guess.

Teucros

2014-01-10, 11:35 AM

Our group used the Cortex-based Marvel Heroic Roleplaying gam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Heroic_Roleplaying)e for a team that certainly was not bound to the Marvel universe (featuring the Shadow and Duck Dodgers, of all things). I can recommend it, but be warned that it is a very a free-form system. Not for everyone, but we had fun.

Jay R

2014-01-10, 12:11 PM

Sorry, my wording was unclear. I meant that it was a thing that it is inadvisable to let one play a character thus constructed.

Thanks for the clarification. We have now communicated, and are in agreement. Sometimes Internet discussions work like they're supposed to.

Shendue

2014-01-13, 12:32 PM

Captain America or Wolverine (Two of the better fighters in the Marvel Universe) are some of the weakest fighters in the game. The Thing would mop the floor with them as neither have any way at all of damaging The Thing. In 'real life' Cap and Wolvie would demolish The Thing.

Hmmm. Nope. Hardly so. Benji is SO underestimated. It's probably second only to The Hulk in terms of brute strenght (if you don't count aliens like Gladiator) and has tremendous durability.
Cap could outsmart him, but physically wise, Ben would wipe the floor with Steve. Logan could (and i mean COULD) be somehow harmful if he has the adamantium skeleton due to the claws, but it's still pretty arguable.

Beleriphon

2014-01-13, 01:13 PM

I'm going to throw my hat in for Mutants and Masterminds. I'd suggest Third Edition only because it is the most current and receiving official supplements, but Second Edition is still a fine game if you have copies or know somebody that does.

It is nearly a universal system if by universal one means that it can emulate pretty well anything found in most action or sci-fi adventure stories. It does John McLean and Luke Skywalker as well as Superman and The Hulk but you aren't going to get a very good Hamlet from the system.

Mr. Mask

2014-01-13, 01:32 PM

I'm curious. Are there any gritty/deconstruction style super hero RPGs?

jidasfire

2014-01-13, 02:19 PM

I play a variant of the old Villains and Vigilantes, personally. It gives a pretty decent variety of powers, both pre-made and customizable, and one of the more interesting aspects of the game is that you roll powers randomly. I know some people may not like that, but I find it allows for more unique superheroes, rather than everyone just recreating ones they've seen before. It's a little number-heavy when it comes to calculating hit points and carrying capacity, but otherwise it's pretty straightforward.

skyth

2014-01-13, 02:48 PM

Hmmm. Nope. Hardly so. Benji is SO underestimated. It's probably second only to The Hulk in terms of brute strenght (if you don't count aliens like Gladiator) and has tremendous durability.
Cap could outsmart him, but physically wise, Ben would wipe the floor with Steve. Logan could (and i mean COULD) be somehow harmful if he has the adamantium skeleton due to the claws, but it's still pretty arguable.

In the comics, Wolverine leaves the Thing cut to pieces...In the MSH game, he can't do anything...Even with his Adamantine claws. Cap is shown to damage tough things (Especially with a thrown shield) but in the game, that doesn't happen.

veti

2014-01-13, 04:19 PM

I was thinking more of the 50 point range. Heroic starts at 75, which is okay. I guess I'm thinking that without powers, every character starts to feel the same :) (Granted, I'm combat focused...I'm sure you can roleplay them as different, but in combat situations, there's a sameness). I would think it'd be easier for varience to create unwanted situations as well at lower power level.

Different strokes and all I guess.

I played a fair bit of both Champions (at 150 point builds) and Fantasy Hero (at 75 points) (before the two were unified, I'm guessing this was 1st edition), and I thought they both worked exceptionally well. I'd have to rate that as my favourite game system.

But I have no experience with later editions, so it might well have been royally screwed up by now.

Jlerpy

2014-01-13, 04:26 PM

In the comics, Wolverine leaves the Thing cut to pieces...In the MSH game, he can't do anything...Even with his Adamantine claws. Cap is shown to damage tough things (Especially with a thrown shield) but in the game, that doesn't happen.

As with all things in a comic book, what things do what is wholly up to the writer (and maybe their editor). If the writer wants Steve to be effective against threats he has no reason to be able to hurt, he'll be effective.
The MSHRPG takes a much more simulationist model (that being the assumption of the time) than Marvel Heroic, so these kinds of issues get highlighted.

If one is being "reasonable", it doesn't seem like Cap would be able to hurt the boy from Yancy Street, but there it is.

skyth

2014-01-13, 04:57 PM

It's more a case of how the interaction between how damage is dealt and how damage is resisted is highlighted and not done well in MSH. Everything does a set amount of damage and armor absorbs a set amount. Either something can damage something or it can't...With no 'maybe if it hits it right' and the scaling of this really didn't feel right.

I guess this is best demonstrated by The Day of the Octopus (I believe that's what it's called...The adventure that came in the box.) The final encounter is with a giant robotic Doc Oc against Spiderman, The Thing, Captain Marvel, and Captain America. The only way for any of the heros to even damage it is if The Thing grabbed a light pole and wailed on it. (Yes, there's a secret vulnerability, but in general, it holds up). None of the other heroes could touch it on account of its Monstrous body armor which matched Ben's Monstrous strength and Captain Marvel's Monstrous energy blast. Cap with his Excellent strength and Spidey with his Incredible strength couldn't touch it.

It's one reason why I really prefer Champions. Yes, it's possible to design something that can't be hurt, but it's a lot harder. What happens most of the time is that some things are more durable than others.

Knaight

2014-01-13, 04:58 PM

I'd personally recommend looking at Godlike and Wild Talent first, as they are both very solid games with a very solid core dice mechanic. That said, for a superhero game HERO works reasonably well, as the things where it feels off (e.g. how it handles in character acquisition of equipment and needing character points to do things with them) don't really crop up as much in the genre. M&M is also very solid, and worth taking a look at.

Then there's Fudge. It's a pretty simple system, and it has one mechanic that is particularly helpful for superhero games: Scale. Basically, it specifically builds its attributes around exponential growth. For instance, a 1 point increase in strength represents being 1.5 times as strong. A hero a hundred times stronger than a normal human is only strength scale 10 or 11. Someone 10 times stronger is scale 5 or 6. Mass scales the same way, and because of this the system can grow really well for superheroes. You'll have to do some work on powers (much like HERO, Fudge is a bit of an RPG creation toolkit), but the scale mechanic really makes life easy.

skyth

2014-01-13, 05:03 PM

That said, for a superhero game HERO works reasonably well, as the things where it feels off (e.g. how it handles in character acquisition of equipment and needing character points to do things with them) don't really crop up as much in the genre.

If you're talking about an inventor/tinker...Then you can have a variable power pool. If you're talking about permanent acquisition that you always have with you, I kind of like this as it balances the characters out. Though, you can get foci with the independent limitation as rewards instead of straight xp :)

Knaight

2014-01-13, 06:09 PM

If you're talking about an inventor/tinker...Then you can have a variable power pool. If you're talking about permanent acquisition that you always have with you, I kind of like this as it balances the characters out. Though, you can get foci with the independent limitation as rewards instead of straight xp :)

I'm talking about something along the lines of "I pick up a spear". Unless you actually have powers involved (e.g. various attacks with limitations that require you to be armed in a certain way), that doesn't do anything for you. It's something that irritates me about the game, but which is going to matter the least for superheroes.

skyth

2014-01-13, 06:22 PM

I'm talking about something along the lines of "I pick up a spear". Unless you actually have powers involved (e.g. various attacks with limitations that require you to be armed in a certain way), that doesn't do anything for you. It's something that irritates me about the game, but which is going to matter the least for superheroes.

Well, if there is a spear lying about in the encounter, you're allowed to use it with the full benefits that it gives you. You're not allowed to carry it from one adventure to the next. (This is if you're in a superhero campaign. This doesn't apply to heroic games where equipment is explicitly allowed to be purchased/used without paying 'points' for it). If you run across a mook that carries a rocket launcher and you disarm him, you now have a 4d6 RKA that you can use in this encounter if you wish.

If you want to keep it in the next encounter, you have to pay points for it or it has to have the independent limitation (Which means that the points paid are bound up in the item, not in the character that is using the item thus anyone can carry the item around and use it...Just that you won't have it if someone else takes it).

In most cases, what it boils down to is that your character doesn't feel like carrying it around with him unless he paid points for it :)

Not having the independent power is nice as if, say for instance, your sword that you paid points for is broken by your opponent, you will have a new one later with no issues.