Solving the problem of ineffectual character builds.
Anders Larsen:
Altaem, I like your idea. I think it will solve the problem you are talking about in some cases. But you also risk just stepping over some deeper problems in the way the group plays, that would be better to solve in a different way (as other here have pointed out). And as so many other problems in role-playing, the solution is not to add extra rules to the game, but to do some social engineering (basically talk to the other people in the group).
Problem like the ones you describe normally appears when you do not talk about the game before you play it. I have seen many times GMs who are reluctant to talk about their campaign before the game starts and players who are reluctant to talk about their character before the game starts, which is the best way to make sure that nothing fit together when the game starts, and therefore no one's expectations are really fulfilled. It is not so bad in group where the people have played together for a long time, because they know each other very well, but in groups with new members it can create a lot of problems (especially for the new members).
In many games it is a good idea to do a lot of work up front, before the game starts. At minimum I prefer: The GM tell about his campaign to a degree so the player will be able to make character that fit nicely into it. After that the players take turn describing for the group what character they are thinking about playing, so they can take input from the GM and the other players. Normally it is necessary to take a few rounds where the players refine their characters, before everyone are satisfied.
Of course it can be hard to dictate for a new group that this is how it should be done. But I think it is ok to be just a bit annoying and ask a lot of questions like "what can I expect to do in this campaign", "I want my character to do this and this, is that possible" and so on.
There are some people who prefer to refine their character after the game has stated, and sometime it is also nice to be able to "fix" a character, if it did not turn out as you wanted, and in these cases your method will work well. But be careful that you are not missing some deeper problem with how the game is played.
- Anders
Kevin Smit:
Discussion with the GM pre-session could have saved the situation, sounds like.
We had a house rule that if your character tried something new, and rolled a "critical" or whatever the system equivalent was, your character instantly gained a point or two in the skill.
Tom Garnett:
My favourite GM seems to have been killing time at work today by writing up a guide to making effective characters for Exalted.
I mean, it's a bit tongue in cheek, but most of the advice ("Buy Essence 3" "Dex 4 is a functional minimum" "You must have a perfect defence to count as a combat character" "Skill 4 is 'competent', skill 5 and a double specialty is 'reasonably skilled'", and it goes on in that vein) is basically mandatory if you are playing with a group reasonably good at systems, and reasonably experienced.
Now, I know Exalted actually has some frank advice on character-building in random sidebars somewhere in the text, but really... Exalted just seems to have a big-ass learning curve in terms of how to make powerful characters. There seems to be a factor of two power difference between someone's first character and their third.
I think it's pretty much the nail in the coffin of Exalted for our group; we love the flavour, but... ugh.
For simpler systems, as GM, I've always said 'feel free to rebuild your character after the first couple of sessions, as you find out who they are, and what the system does' - but even that isn't enough here.
I think it's basically a case of System Does Matter, and it's pretty much impossible to avoid there being suboptimal combinations in high-crunch systems.
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