Creating a Navy Officer

[Polaris]

Casy,

I have read both and I am a regular reader of Monte Cooke's. I also (more than actually) suspect that he would agree with me on this. He states his design philosophy when discussing and giving advice on PrCs....and he makes a big point that one player or one path to character creation should not give an unfair advantage.

I do think that we are at somthing as a communication disconnect. I will do my part to rectify this:

I am not saying that for individual games a power imbalanced is a' priori bad. That is something best left up to the individual group and GM.

I am saying that having core rules generate imbalanced characters is very bad. In short the default should strive for numeric balance and the GM should adjust that has he or she sees fit. The reason it is so important is because you will have new GMs that will use the rules as written and be forced into untenable situations (because of power imbalance) that they lack the skill or experience to handle. This is unforgivable IMHO in any system.

GURPS: Traveller fits this criteria. T-20 does not.

-Polaris

 

[Falkayn]

Polaris,

Please allow me to try and approach this subject from a slightly different point of view. I can certainly agree that a newbie GM could find it difficult to handle PCs with different experience levels, particularly if the players themselves were newbies.

Suppose we look at T20 from the point of view of it trying to change newbie GMs' attitudes towards roleplaying. Instead of combat being at the fore (as it is in D&D), and instead of PC competition (which many players learn from playing computer RPGs), it tries to foster situations where combat is lethal and to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, and where PC cooperation, even to the point of self-sacrifice, is based on the roleplayed relationships between characters - and not arbitary measures of character worth.

Perhaps I've worded this badly, but I hope you can see that would be an idea that might explain the lack of 'balance' rules in T20. Do note that a newbie GM might well have their players all start at 1st level, or even arbitarily make them all the same level anyway (there is certainly nothing in T20 suggesting you can't do this).

Now if that was the intent of T20, then we could ask for more explanation of these issues for newbie GMs, we could even want optional suggestions for how to house-rule balanced parties, but we would certainly NOT want to suggest that imbalanced parties are BAD.

Unfortunately, I suspect that T20 was firmly marketed at existing d20 veterans (such as ourselves) and existing Traveller fans looking for an updated ruleset but averse to GURPS (which actually includes me too). There is little in T20 to help newbie GMs or players make head or tail of how to really run a game (there is some, but it is very light compared to the copious amounts of other stuff). It would have driven the cost of the THB up, without giving much more useful information to the intended core audience, and I for one am happy not to have it included. Perhaps the upcoming Players' Handbook will address this, perhaps it won't.

I guess I'm suggesting that I can imagine T20 working in the narrow confines you ask it to (for newbie GMs/players), without changing, but it would require explanation. I can also imagine it working in that situation if it was changed to be balanced in the way you'd like to see it be - BUT in that case, many existing veterans (who I suspect are the core audience) would probably throw up their hands and complain (even though they might just house rule around that restriction).

Perhaps the most POSITIVE step you could take now would be to start a new thread, giving your house rules for creating 'balanced' games and explaining why these might be useful for newbie GMs/players.

 

[Polaris]

Falkayn,

I certainly think another thread would be useful at this point so I will continue this discussion there as well as some rules I think ought to have been included (in some form or another). I would note before I leave this thread that you can not market exclusively to a core audience and expect to survive (and as a fellow consultant, I suspect you know this). OTOH, you do have to be sensitive to the attitudes of your core customer base.

-Polaris