What is the 'ideal' power range?

[faraday]

@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

The latter option for me; though, I would have it tied to age.

I don't favor age-based chargen. An older person is more likely to have breadth of experience, because they've just lived longer and experienced more in life, but they aren't necessarily going to be better at the core skills of their profession. Particularly if those skills are athletic or reaction-oriented in nature (e.g. most fighting skills) which can peak in young adulthood. Even with technical skills, I've seen no link between age and skill in my career. There are young, eager talented guys and older, useless "veterans". Also I can't help but recall TTRPGs where everyone would just min-max "how old can I be to get the max skill points without suffering a decrease in physical stats". They were designing a sheet not a character.

Do you want to make a young, talented, top-of-the-class ace? Old, grizzled veteran ace? Past their prime "I'm too old for this" person treading water till retirement? Fresh-faced newbie learning the ropes? Go for it. They're all potentially good characters. It just comes down to what story you want to tell.

As others have said, you just need to make sure your story/systems support the power levels you allow.

[Ominous]

@faraday

I would have attributes be locked. Strength, Constitution, etc. are set and can never be raised, but, like in Firan and D&D, after a certain age they start to decrease. So, yes, the grizzled veteran is going to be more skilled, but his/her dexterity isn't what it used to be. Fortunately they have enough skill to still keep up with the whippersnappers. They might not swing their sword as fast, but they have the experience to put themselves in the right positioning that when they do finally swing their sword, it's the winning blow.

Attributes are nature; skills are nurture. Attirbutes are the natural talent; skills are the acquired wisdom of life experience. As such, attributes are what they are and there is little to no changing them (except for the ravages of time decreasing them), skills are what you dump experience points into, because they reflect experience.

Addendum: If you have child characters, attributes could go up until the character reaches a certain age (15, 18, 21, 25, whatever) and then they can't go up anymore. I would use Firan's system and have the attributes go up on birthdays.

[faraday]

@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

So, yes, the grizzled veteran is going to be more skilled, but his/her dexterity isn't what it used to be.

That's one possibility, sure. My point was that being old does not necessarily equate to being a "grizzled veteran with loads of experience". You could be old and crappy at your job too.

@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

Attributes are nature; skills are nurture. Attirbutes are the natural talent; skills are the acquired wisdom of life experience.

Sure, there are a lot of systems that work that way. But there are also a lot of systems that don't, because the line between attribute and skill is often very blurry.

Where's the line between Strength and Weightlifting? Clearly there is skill involved in learning to lift weights, but isn't it also building muscle mass in a way that could probably aid you in other strength-related activities?

Does special forces training give you a skill in "Torture Resistance" or does it hone your underlying Willpower in a way that also helps you slog through all-night hikes, push past injuries, etc.? Or does it do both?

You can make arguments either way. There is no perfect skill system, just as there's no perfect power range. Everything is a balancing act of pros and cons, and it comes down to what system fits your goals for your game. If you want to reward people for making older characters, go for it. I'm just not a fan personally.

[Ominous]

@faraday said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

That's one possibility, sure. My point was that being old does not necessarily equate to being a "grizzled veteran with loads of experience". You could be old and crappy at your job too.

And if you want to play a character like that, dump your experience points into the Couch Potato skill or the Alcoholic skill instead of the 9-5 skill. This system does not stop someone from making an old fogey who can't do their job well. Obviously they focused their life experiences into something other than their job.

What it does stop is someone having a 10/10 rating in Couch Potato, Alcoholic, 9-5, Seduction, Swording, Axing, Politics, Leadership, and I Win Everything skills at the tender age of 19.

Sure, there are a lot of systems that work that way. But there are also a lot of systems that don't, because the line between attribute and skill is often very blurry.

Where's the line between Strength and Weightlifting? Clearly there is skill involved in learning to lift weights, but isn't it also building muscle mass in a way that could probably aid you in other strength-related activities?

Does special forces training give you a skill in "Torture Resistance" or does it hone your underlying Willpower in a way that also helps you slog through all-night hikes, push past injuries, etc.?

You can make arguments either way. There is no perfect skill system, just as there's no perfect power range. Everything is a balancing act of pros and cons, and it comes down to what system fits your goals for your game. If you want to reward people for making older characters, go for it. I'm just not a fan personally.

I didn't say that my system was the end-all be-all. I simply said it was the one I supported. I feel it addresses the problems in xp systems the cleanest and simplest.

[Jennkryst]

Shocked that no one has gone and posted this yet...

I will also accept

And now I'll go read from the top, I guess.

Edit because formatting hard, I guess.

[Ominous]

Now I feel ashamed that I didn't post those gifs.

[Tinuviel]

[Ominous]

[mietze]

Do we not assume that PCs are not average dumpy joe? I mean, yes, there are plenty of middle aged people who are talentless/not the top tiers of their professions, but frankly, most 18-25 year olds aren't at the pinnacle of their careers either. I admit, I'm not edgy enough to want to play average joe PCs, so I guess I kind of assumed that PCs were going to be exceptional regardless of age.

Also, can I giggle a bit at 40 being considered old and grizzled? 4 months before I turned 40, I gave birth to child #4, and had run 5k every other day through the first trimester of pregnancy, and worked as a massage therapist (on my feet, doing deep tissue bodywork) until 2 weeks before I had my C-section. Hell, all the marathon runners and iron man qualifiers I personally know didn't even start that shit until their late thirties (though again, these people I know ARE pretty badass and would probably qualify as PCs.

But if you're not going to "stupid, inexperienced kid" handicap PCs, I really think you shouldn't turn mid-life PCs into elderly people. But I do agree that I am kind of meh at the idea of huge reward to older PCs UNLESS you have a compelling story reason to want a lot of older people in the game (which honestly I can't think of many, but I'm sure someone more creative can). People RPing like their 35 year old PC is elderly AND people who want a Doogie PC with 2 PhDs and who is a star athlete at 18 kind of annoy me about the same amount.

And that still doesn't solve the differential problem either, it just gives some people a little bit of a head start to reach their max potential.

I think that you have to also look at the lifespan you expect from the game as well. If you have slow but steady XP gain, you could tailor it to the idea that the game has a finite lifespan (I'd put it at 2-4 years). You could have a policy of PCs riding off into the sunset (or going for a long walk during a blizzard once they reach a certain age/capacity) at a certain power level, but if you pace it right it's exceedingly unlikely that anyone would have to do that before the game comes to its end. Maybe honestly HAVING an end in mind (though that will cull some of your playerbase since a lot of people have trouble with the idea that they have a fininte length of time to play their pcs, even if they KNOW that's the case, it's worse if they go in with people acknowledging it. I don't share that dislike, but I accept that there are plenty of people who do, so it's a factor in considering what audience you want.).

Or if you want to run a high powered game, I think it's awesome to just embrace it. I've enjoyed seeing some creative CGs were people were allowed to borrow their entire lifetime maximum XP in cg if they wanted to (though usually the respects were severely limited, like 1 time ever, ir that). So people COULD make a god right away if that's the level they wanted to play, or if they wanted to RP out talents unfolding and the like they could too. I would imagine you'd have to have storytellers willing to take on lots of different levels though. Or make the game a sandbox so that burden isn't on staff.

I think there are stories that can be enjoyable and fun at any level. It's just a matter of what stories have the most support on the game (and how that evolves over time). I am not sure that everyone has to be overly concerned with catching people up necessarily (unless it's important or desirable for runners to get new blood in). And I think eliminating XP rollover between PCs probably would do a lot to ensure that there was either a stable population of pcs at the same level OR there were many people at the lower end of power/level as well. I don't always think the attachment to previously earned XP on an old PC or allowing people to earn XP on a series of throwaway PCs that they the reap it from to pour into another PC is very healthy for a game a lot of the time. But I understand why people would be reluctant to not have it, since that can be pretty standard in some subcommunities, and it's often one of the few ways that any player can feel some continuity of "ownership" as a player on the game.

[Ominous]

@mietze said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

Also, can I giggle a bit at 40 being considered old and grizzled? 4 months before I turned 40, I gave birth to child #4, and had run 5k every other day through the first trimester of pregnancy, and worked as a massage therapist (on my feet, doing deep tissue bodywork) until 2 weeks before I had my C-section. Hell, all the marathon runners and iron man qualifiers I personally know didn't even start that shit until their late thirties (though again, these people I know ARE pretty badass and would probably qualify as PCs.

I'm working off the basis of a fantasy setting, where 40 is pretty old. Adjust ages upwards as necessary for a modern setting, or downwards for an anime setting where people are expected to retire and enjoy their golden years at age 25.

As for 40 being grizzled that's not that odd at all even for today. Grizzled means "streaked with gray hair." Myself and all of my friends who are all in their early to mid thirties have a few grays or spots of gray hair or already have streaks. By 40, I suspect all of us will have streaks of gray hair qualifying us for 'grizzled' status.

But if you're not going to "stupid, inexperienced kid" handicap PCs, I really think you shouldn't turn mid-life PCs into elderly people. But I do agree that I am kind of meh at the idea of huge reward to older PCs UNLESS you have a compelling story reason to want a lot of older people in the game (which honestly I can't think of many, but I'm sure someone more creative can). People RPing like their 35 year old PC is elderly AND people who want a Doogie PC with 2 PhDs and who is a star athlete at 18 kind of annoy me about the same amount.

Mainly because there are so few characters that are older than 30 on MUs. Anything to encourage a fuller age range on a MU* is a good thing to me.

And that still doesn't solve the differential problem either, it just gives some people a little bit of a head start to reach their max potential.

Huh? Every character that is age X would have the same xp as every other character that is age X. The only differential would be between ages. If you want to match someone's skills, just roll a character that is the same age as theirs and the differential goes poof.

[mietze]

@Ominous why do you want to encourage a greater age range of PCs?Are there special story incentives to be had?

Let's take your example of a 40 year old in your game being considered nearing the end of their useful life. Why do you want to incentivize playing a PC that the society at large will consider a has been or being good for little else than being a plot dispenser. Do they have special built in roles/powers/niches? That to me seems like a better way to encourage more age diversity than extra XP, as well as making those PCs valuable and so theres reason to include them while all the 18-late 20s pcs are getting hitched and pumping out offspring on a L&L game.

I think age diversity for age diversity's sake and offering people a handful of extra XP just doesn't work very well, because again, absent some kind of built in recognition many people just don't want to create a pc that has had most of their fun adventuring and development behind them before they even hit the grid, and numbers on a sheet seldom means you are included more in play or otherwise.

It does not really help to close the gap on play power differentials between PCs either (if that's desirable). But building in non xp incentives might. Maybe people can't manifest major magical abilities until they're 30. Or older pcs have more social influence (based on mechanics) that majorly kicks ass if they are called in to assist on a task, ect.

[mietze]

@Ominous when you start with a bigger chunk of XP in CG it can give a short term boost (depending on how rapidly XP in game is earned and how), but yeah, it doesn't last forever and is not much of a incentive, and you're still going to be smoked by the 18 year old that's been on the grid playing for a year. So it really doesnt help bridge the power differential that builds up in a game over time. And absent other incentives I think that is probably why people tend to gravitate towards younger PCs, because it doesn't feel like their older PC gets any benefit from not being 20, because they do not perceive that part of the PC to be particularly valued.

There are always some folks that prefer older PCs because they enjoy them. But they would play them regardless of XP boost at the start, most likely, because unless the XP gain on the game as a whole is truly glacial any starting xp gain advantage is lost pretty quickly.

[Ominous]

@mietze said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

@Ominous why do you want to encourage a greater age range of PCs?Are there special story incentives to be had?

Verisimilitude. A server where everyone is in their 20s starts to make me feel like the server's big secret is we're actually playing in the Logan's Run universe.

Let's take your example of a 40 year old in your game being considered nearing the end of their useful life.

Where did I say that 40 years old is the end of a character's useful life? I threw 40-something out there because it is an age where a person could reasonably be expected to have lived through several kinds of serious shit and thus have the necessary experience to survive said shit. 40-somethings correspond to a Sergeant Major for enlisted or a Lt.Colonel to Colonel for officers in the Army - people who have seen multiple deployments and could reasonably have fought in two separate wars, which was what my example was about in order to contrast against the 19 year old private whose toughest fight has probably been some stupid high school throw down.

Why do you want to incentivize playing a PC that the society at large will consider a has been or being good for little else than being a plot dispenser. Do they have special built in roles/powers/niches? That to me seems like a better way to encourage more age diversity than extra XP, as well as making those PCs valuable and so theres reason to include them while all the 18-late 20s pcs are getting hitched and pumping out offspring on a L&L game.

Why would people be considering them has-beens when they're the ones who will be landing some of the deciding blows on the dragon that 's attacking the town with their high sword skill? They're the ones with the positions of authority and stats to back that up to make the NPCs listen to them when they roll their Leadership check.

I think age diversity for age diversity's sake and offering people a handful of extra XP just doesn't work very well, because again, absent some kind of built in recognition many people just don't want to create a pc that has had most of their fun adventuring and development behind them before they even hit the grid, and numbers on a sheet seldom means you are included more in play or otherwise.

Why is their adventuring behind them? Hell, in Ars Magica you adventure and research all the way up until the Wizard's Twilight consumes you in your 90s to 100s.

It does not really help to close the gap on play power differentials between PCs either (if that's desirable). But building in non xp incentives might. Maybe people can't manifest major magical abilities until they're 30. Or older pcs have more social influence (based on mechanics) that majorly kicks ass if they are called in to assist on a task, ect.

I don't see how it doesn't, but OK.

Honestly, the whole idea comes from this - I hate xp voting. It's a popularity contest or a test to determine who has less of a life/attention-required job and can RP 24/7 to farm votes. My solution is for xp to be a set amount every in-game month. This creates two problems - Dinosaurs and Age/Ability Discrepancy. New players will never be able to catch up to old players in this system - the dinosaur problem. The Age/Ability Discrepancy is 'why does my recently created 30 year old character know less than a 20 year old character simply because the 20 year old has been played since they were 18 and my character was just recently created?'

The solution? When you roll a character it calculates the amount of xp the character would have earned had it been played from the minimum starting age to the age you are rolling it at and gives it to you.

No more dinosaurs. No more superhuman 19 yo prince(ss)es that can solve all the problems in a PRP by themselves. No popularity contests or "who can RP 24/7 to farm votes?" determining xp. And no power discrepancy except for that which a player is willing to accept. You want to start out with lots of maxed out skills? Can do! The only limiting factor is they're going to be an older character.

@mietze said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

@Ominous when you start with a bigger chunk of XP in CG it can give a short term boost (depending on how rapidly XP in game is earned and how), but yeah, it doesn't last forever and is not much of a incentive, and you're still going to be smoked by the 18 year old that's been on the grid playing for a year. So it really doesnt help bridge the power differential that builds up in a game over time. And absent other incentives I think that is probably why people tend to gravitate towards younger PCs, because it doesn't feel like their older PC gets any benefit from not being 20, because they do not perceive that part of the PC to be particularly valued.

That is literally impossible in my system. A character that starts playing at 18 will never, ever catch up to a character that starts out at 19 let alone a character that starts out at 40. They earn xp at exactly the same rate. I think you missed the key component of my proposal:

@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

The latter option for me; though, I would have it tied to age. I have for a few years now supported the idea that xp should be awarded as an equal amount to everyone every in-game month. When you roll up a character and decide on an age that determines the starting xp you have to invest in your starting skills. If you want to play a character who has top of the line skills, he/she can't be a smooth-faced youth who just left the farm yesterday to seek adventure. He/she is going to be the grizzled badass, 40-something veteran of two wars, a coup attempt by the royal vizier, the attempted ending of the world by a chaos cult, and that one time a dragon attacked his/her unit, killing all but 10 soldiers.

[Sunny]

@mietze

I think it can't be overstated that there has to be a reason for people to play older PCs besides 'we want a variety of ranges because variety'. If there is a reason that the character type itself is attractive (not 'we give XP', that is not the reason staff is encouraging the older PCs, that is how they are doing the encouragement) then people will play them. I don't remember which game it was that put a brake on all PCs lower than 25 earning X or Y level of title. Suddenly we had 30somethings getting played.

ETA: To clarify I am saying this to agree with what @mietze is saying on this. Like 'yes, this is absolutely my experience and agrees with her premise'.

[Ominous]

@Sunny said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

I don't remember which game it was that put a brake on all PCs lower than 25 earning X or Y level of title. Suddenly we had 30somethings getting played.

One or two of the Kushiel games. I think both Kushiel's Debut and Marsilikos had it.

[faraday]

@Sunny said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

I don't remember which game it was that put a brake on all PCs lower than 25 earning X or Y level of title. Suddenly we had 30somethings getting played.

You see that a lot on the military games as well. We had a slew of older characters on the BSG games. I didn't do a scientific analysis, but off-hand I'd say the median age was 30-something, and we've even had some fifty and sixty year olds being played.

@mietze said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

I admit, I'm not edgy enough to want to play average joe PCs, so I guess I kind of assumed that PCs were going to be exceptional regardless of age.

That's my philosophy as well. All characters get the same number of starting points, so you can be exceptional regardless of age. I even see a lot of younger characters deliberately not spend all their available points because they want to play the younger more inexperienced newbie. The system has brakes that prevent someone from being good at everything anyway, stopping the 18 year old Doogie Howser who's also a top gun fighter pilot and sharpshooter types. If they want to make a top gun rookie pilot OR the talented young surgeon, though, I really don't care.

[mietze]

@Ominous said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

I'm working off the basis of a fantasy setting, where 40 is pretty old. Adjust ages upwards as necessary for a modern setting, or downwards for an anime setting where people are expected to retire and enjoy their golden years at age 25.

So maybe my definition of what people usually mean when they talk about retirees, golden years, and "pretty old" is different than yours, but when I think of someone playing a PC like that, they are not at the peak of their life, are slowing down and settling in to more of an advisory role, and on most games there really isnt much of a niche for that, except for in a smaller more rewarding playgroup. Players do not want their PCs "advised", many players want to be able to go out and do, ect.

But if you wonder why I was getting that impression, the above is why.

That being said, I enjoy playing older PCs (vampires/ghould do not count, though it can be fun from a historical perspective, they are not going to perceived as "old"); but I always build in things to them to counteract some of the difficulties that can occur (if people realize your PC is the elderly age of 35 and above--a lot of people won't even be cognizant of it for awhile and that can be really oocly funny too). Extra XP doesn't make up for that. And I think maybe that's why older PCs tend to stay on the roster even if they're not coupled up or end up falling into flavor PC status if someone hasn't planned for it or loses their ooc ties.

[mietze]

@faraday yep, that was something I've enjoyed a lot on battlestar games, the older skew. But it makes sense when there are harder limits in who can be what grade at what age, and the setting provides compelling reasons for even "retirees" to come back into action!

[Ghost]

@Arkandel My opinion is that MU altogether has a vision problem when it comes to "power range".

MU can't seem to decide if these are RPG games where the systems matter, or if they're just writing with systems used for dispute resolution. (RPGs with writing or writing with some RPG systems thing). To make matters worse, there are the following problematic factors:

1. All players want to be included regardless of power level. It is not common to see events gated to players of specific levels/xp ranges.
2. PVP/PK/IC Death is largely non-existent. This creates an environment with extremely low risk to the point of risk altogether being a matter of choice. This upsets the natural "life cycle" type balance in terms of PCs getting clipped trying to get to higher levels due to PC death through failure. It's not "I hope my PC gets to this level" but instead "Here is what I'm going to do with my inevitable xp reward". The major PC killers are IC relationships and game closure.

3. Does power level matter due to #2? If a brand new PC is allowed to join a 3 year old dinosaur PC in going into Leviathan to fight Pinhead himself and death is only on the table for the new PC if they choose it to be, then does power level TRUUUULY matter?

Been saying this for a while, but games need to stop being vague about their approach. My own personal feeling is that risk-only-by-consent creates some really bad habits and some really ridiculous no-selling. If the game owners want it to be an Online RPG, then they need to state in the wiki that they will be using hit points, dice, and will be following the system's mortality rules. If not, I suggest the games that just want to be "writing places" get the fuck out of using these systems and use low-maintenance dice systems like FS3. Using systems like WoD/StarWars/etc and then not fully utilizing these systems is confusing to half of the playerbase.

tl;dr: If you're a writing game power levels dont matter and the entire concept of level/xp/etc needs to be done away with altogether. If you're an online RPG, then scenes/events should be explicitly gated for xp/power level and the constraints on PC death should be released. The major difference between a story and a game is that in a game you do not have control over the results of the risks; you can only choose whether or not the risk is worth the reward.

(Weird: point #3 is listed as 3 in my edit but shows as 1 again. Oh well.)

[faraday]

@Ghost said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

MU can't seem to decide if these are RPG games where the systems matter, or if they're just writing with systems used for dispute resolution. (RPGs with writing or writing with some RPG systems thing).

I don't see why this needs to be a global decision. Narrative->System is not a boolean but a continuum. I agree that each game needs to be clear about where it falls on that spectrum, but that decision doesn't need to be the same for every game.

My games are heavily consent-driven, but not entirely. When you join a combat scene, you're implicitly consenting to injury and trauma. If you mouth off to the CO, you might be demoted or brigged. If you choose to commit treason and get caught, your character is probably toast. Death is only one type of consequence, and its minimization does not equate to the absence of all risk.

@Ghost said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

If a brand new PC is allowed to join a 3 year old dinosaur PC in going into Leviathan to fight Pinhead himself and death is only on the table for the new PC if they choose it to be, then does power level TRUUUULY matter?

Sure it does. Because if the new PC is just ineffectively whiffing in the background while the high-level characters do All The Important Things, that's not fun.

You see that sometimes in my combat system. Instead of matching targets based on skill (as a TTRPG GM might, or a writer crafting a challenge that includes both Thor and Black Widow), you can easily end up with a rookie pilot trying to take down a Cylon ace and being entirely ineffectual. Sure, it's IC, and it can drive "hey help me out" type RP and whatnot, but it can also be frustrating.