Min-maxing problem

[Voice 194]

Tell your complaining players to shut up and enjoy the game. A super charmer isn't gonna break the game and will probably bring a lot of money to the group.

 

Also dont forget to exploit the weakness of that min/maxing character.

 

Ah, yes...  "Shut up and enjoy the game."  Is there any statement *less* likely to result in the players enjoying the game?  (Especially in the face of players who are actively telling you that there is something specific which is making them *NOT* enjoy the game?)

 

Diplomacy thy name is *not* vilainn6...

[ladyjulianne 165]

Tell your complaining players to shut up and enjoy the game. A super charmer isn't gonna break the game and will probably bring a lot of money to the group.

 

Also dont forget to exploit the weakness of that min/maxing character.

 

Ah, yes...  "Shut up and enjoy the game."  Is there any statement *less* likely to result in the players enjoying the game?  (Especially in the face of players who are actively telling you that there is something specific which is making them *NOT* enjoy the game?)

 

Diplomacy thy name is *not* vilainn6...

Low charm skill.

[vilainn6 306]

Voice, on 15 Nov 2015 - 10:37 PM, said:Voice, on 15 Nov 2015 - 10:37 PM, said:

 

vilainn6, on 11 Nov 2015 - 10:39 PM, said:vilainn6, on 11 Nov 2015 - 10:39 PM, said:

Tell your complaining players to shut up and enjoy the game. A super charmer isn't gonna break the game and will probably bring a lot of money to the group.

 

Also dont forget to exploit the weakness of that min/maxing character.

 

Ah, yes...  "Shut up and enjoy the game."  Is there any statement *less* likely to result in the players enjoying the game?  (Especially in the face of players who are actively telling you that there is something specific which is making them *NOT* enjoy the game?)

 

Diplomacy thy name is *not* vilainn6...

 

My players are not in competition, they form a team, so I must admit I have never seen a player complaining because his collegue throw 5 dices for a skill check he cannot do himself.  If that situation come one day, I will not hesitate to say it if I feel the player is complaining for nothing. ( I will probably say the sentence with a smile and a gentle tone.)

 

For myself I find the situation funny. The party is going to stole the Jewel of Yavin, they need to convince a Hutt to win the bidding and one of the player complain because the Face of the party is too skilled for the job. Hilarious.

Edited November 16, 2015 by vilainn6

[Kael 1,865]

Honestly so long as the person built the PC by the rules, IE he bought up his characteristics with only the starting xp and then used dedication to get to 6 there isn't anything wrong with how he built his character.

 

The real problem, as such, is that the other players are a bit miffed that he didn't have to go through the growing phase. So the group needs to ultimately decide if they even want a new player because frankly having the guy rebuild his character and cap how he builds it based on their insecurities isn't fair to the new guy. I'd have a talk with the existing players and tell them that short of limiting the new guy just to suit their whims that there is nothing wrong with him having a stat at 6 so long as he does it by the rules (which is very possible given he has 300 xp to play with). 

[vilainn6 306]

hydrospanner, on 13 Nov 2015 - 1:17 PM, said:

I agree with most of your post, vilainn, except this part:

 

Quote

 

 

As the GM you need to accept this side of the game unless you want to be the tyrant who tell his players what skills to advance and what talents they should buy. 

 

While it's good for players to build whatever kind of character they want, there's also something to be said for not only the tone of the game, but also the GM being able to determine how his or her game is run.

 

Personally, when I'm GMing, I have no qualms about telling someone that the character they drew up isn't acceptable.  I will of course then go on to explain why, and suggest changes/alternatives, but the GM should never be obligated to continue running things if they have a problem with some aspect of the game (of course on the other hand, they shouldn't hold the game hostage until demands are met either...it's a balance).  Similarly, there's a balance somewhere between "There's nothing in the rules that forbids this, so you have to allow it." and dictating how the players must build their characters, down to the last XP.

"Acceptable" is a large term who can means a lot of thing depending of who is talking.

 

I have no problem with restricting species or careers if I find they dont fit with the story. (A Diplomate in a commando strike team for exemple) However I will never go as far as telling my player "No I dont want super agile character in this game, or super brawny killing machine " If someone want to play a one trick pony, I will make sure he understand the risks he is taking but I will let him go if he insist. It is his fun after all.

 

Anyway, The OP in his last post show us that the problem is not the character but the way the charm skill is handle at his table. Once he will fix the limits of what his super charmer can do and not do, I am sure the problem will be resolved without forcing a player to not play the character he want to play.

[Dbuntu 522]

 Like in my last session, there was a flooded section of an abandoned ship and I was trying to seal the breach and then de-flood it. After about the 3rd failed check that we had to keep interrupting the rest of the party and their things to do I suggested we just decide I get it done when it's done. Now the conversation and combat parts of the session can happen without me feeling bad and interrupting. Skipping checks for things that are either too easy to fail or are time consuming but important to the story line should be a perfectly acceptable tool for a GM. Especially with large (6+) parties.

 

Okay, well it sounds like your GM dropped the ball on this one. There is no reason you should recheck the same thing three rounds in a row. You roll it once, you failed. That should represent all your attempts until circumstances significantly change. If it was plot essential to do this, then your failure should absolutely not have hindered the group's progression. It should have been set up in a way that failing meant, "You get the thing sealed and the water is draining, but in doing so, bad thing X happens and you half drown yourself in the attempt; suffer Strain equal to your net failures/threats."

Edited November 16, 2015 by Dbuntu

[Krieger22 2,471]

 

 Like in my last session, there was a flooded section of an abandoned ship and I was trying to seal the breach and then de-flood it. After about the 3rd failed check that we had to keep interrupting the rest of the party and their things to do I suggested we just decide I get it done when it's done. Now the conversation and combat parts of the session can happen without me feeling bad and interrupting. Skipping checks for things that are either too easy to fail or are time consuming but important to the story line should be a perfectly acceptable tool for a GM. Especially with large (6+) parties.

 

Okay, well it sounds like your GM dropped the ball on this one. There is no reason you should recheck the same thing three rounds in a row. You roll it once, you failed. That should represent all your attempts until circumstances significantly change. If it was plot essential to do this, then your failure should absolutely not have hindered the group's progression. It should have been set up in a way that failing meant, "You get the thing sealed and the water is draining, but in doing so, bad thing X happens and you half drown yourself in the attempt; suffer Strain equal to your net failures/threats."

 

I tend to run tasks that take time (like plotting a course with Astrogation while being pursued) the following simple way:

 

- Base time is X rounds.

- Each uncancelled success beyond the first reduces this time by one round.

- Each failure increases the time taken by one round.

 

Then I have the player make the check in the first round, and we see how long it takes. After making his check the player is free to do something else, like help out his friends in combat or whatever. This keeps the repetitive rolling to a minimum and ensures that one player doesn't have to just sit and watch the action.

[ladyjulianne 165]

 

 

 Like in my last session, there was a flooded section of an abandoned ship and I was trying to seal the breach and then de-flood it. After about the 3rd failed check that we had to keep interrupting the rest of the party and their things to do I suggested we just decide I get it done when it's done. Now the conversation and combat parts of the session can happen without me feeling bad and interrupting. Skipping checks for things that are either too easy to fail or are time consuming but important to the story line should be a perfectly acceptable tool for a GM. Especially with large (6+) parties.

 

Okay, well it sounds like your GM dropped the ball on this one. There is no reason you should recheck the same thing three rounds in a row. You roll it once, you failed. That should represent all your attempts until circumstances significantly change. If it was plot essential to do this, then your failure should absolutely not have hindered the group's progression. It should have been set up in a way that failing meant, "You get the thing sealed and the water is draining, but in doing so, bad thing X happens and you half drown yourself in the attempt; suffer Strain equal to your net failures/threats."

 

I tend to run tasks that take time (like plotting a course with Astrogation while being pursued) the following simple way:

 

- Base time is X rounds.

- Each uncancelled success beyond the first reduces this time by one round.

- Each failure increases the time taken by one round.

 

Then I have the player make the check in the first round, and we see how long it takes. After making his check the player is free to do something else, like help out his friends in combat or whatever. This keeps the repetitive rolling to a minimum and ensures that one player doesn't have to just sit and watch the action.

 

Which, in hindsight, this would have went much much smoother considering I wasn't the only one sitting underwater with a slab of durasteel for 2 whole sessions. Our combat droid was down there helping me since he didn't need to breathe either... 

In our GM's defense, he's rather over taxed with how large our group got in a matter of 3 sessions and is stepping down at the end of the month. I don't blame him. One of our other players is going to pick up the role and see if he can handle us all. 

[Lordbiscuit 566]

Hello forumers. I have a problem and I need some advice.

In our game we have played for a while and the team has amassed around ~350 XP so far (not counting starting XP). And now quite recently we got a new player. To make it fair I just told him he could begin with 300 XP. I didn't realize the problem that he would dump all starting XP on Presence to kick it up to 4 and then easily bought down to Dedication and a new spec, doing the same, and ended up Presence at 6.

The remaining XP he maximized Charm to 5.

 

So... some of my players feel this is very unfair since they had to start legitimately from the bottom to get to their power levels and the highest they've reach in any characteristics is 4. 

 

What is your opinion on this? How should I rule this to make it fair but not too punishing for any sides?

He;s good at one thing, terrible at everything else. And while his skills are undeniably good, it also means that he's going to be lacking elsewhere and there will always be sessions where it isn't as useful.

 

I have gone through a shadowrun campaign where we had a super tough melee character. In the last 7 sessions he has seen very minimal action despite having plenty of opportunity to round out his skills; partly due to the fact it's primarily an escort mission and a lot of it took place around a heavily armoured transport in a wasteland, where falling off the transport likely meant an inevitable death. Needless to say aside from tossing the occasional bloke overboard, he hasn't been greatly useful. An example of less then ideal campaign planning perhaps, but it serves a point; not every skill will fit every situation.

 

Though have other ways of weaving it in, a charm check to make him look completely harmless, making thugs dismiss him as a threat e.c.t. 

[Fred Palpatine 172]

When a player joins a game late, I've done this trick where I tell a player to make a starting character. Once the do that, then I give them X points and tell them to spend them as they please to help them fulfill their role in the party. After they do that, I give them Y points (which is less than X) and tell them to spend those on things they did not spend X points on to round out their character. Finally, when they are done, I give them Z points (which is less than Y) and tell them to spend them as they please.

 

X + Y + Z is generally still less than what the other PC's have earned in the course of playing the game but years of experience has demonstrated that there's usually a vast difference between a character built with 300xp than one who has earned each point by playing the game. The played character will have stray points, non-optimal allocation of points, etc. while the newly designed character has perfectly allocated numbers into various categories... just enough to get specific bonuses, never the hint of a stray point anywhere.

 

At this point, I might give them more points, if they're still coming up short. They'll never get to a point where they're overshadowing the other PC's because, once they can reasonably adventure with them, I stop giving more points. If they're heavily optimizing and minmaxing, they'll get there that much faster.

 

It works with players I've been gaming with since the 1980's because they never know when the point well is going to run dry.

[Laurefindel 43]

 

(...) The established group is not happy with the new player's min-maxed build, end of discussion. The new player needs to adjust his build or find another game.

I'm not missing anything sir, I am simply denying your premise.  It's like a group of 4 years olds fighting over a toy the new kid brought and I wouldn't entertain it (...)

It's like a 4-year-old kid who's been allowed a single kick ass big Christmas present to catch up to the four-years worth of smaller Christmas presents that the others have. It creates an uneven situation.

 

Back to Star Wars and (unassumingly) adult players, it create a character that is in another league. Some group might be ok with that, some other might be uncomfortable with the situation. I don't think there's a right or wrong here. Only I see it as courtesy from the new player to adapt its style to that of the existent group. It looks like in this case the players aren't comfortable with that. New player could put water in its wine and create a more balanced, charm-based character.

 

[edit] ahk, two-and-half pages followed that post! my bad... move along, there's nothing to see here.

Edited November 17, 2015 by Laurefindel