Quote from: Serious Paul;280143One thing I'd like to mention is, that if a player needs a few extra points to make a cool concept work, I'd rather he or she just ask for it instead of latching onto bullshit flaws, or doing the point shuffle. And in my games this has worked spectacularly well.

Obviously it's not for everyone.

To be clear, I use the same approach. However, not everyone does. I mostly see this behaviour (going for the "bullshit flaws") in the gamer types and the newer players who it dawns on them that "Hey, I can get a few more points with little to no bother". I do not think that it is only the domain of the "bad gamer". I do think it is a hit that the group has to to take when they choose a flaw/merit system. Sometimes that means dealing with train wreck characters and others it is just a case of a deep meaningful look over the table between a group that has played together for a while. They know what they like and stick to it.

Quote from: Serious Paul;280143One thing I'd like to mention is, that if a player needs a few extra points to make a cool concept work, I'd rather he or she just ask for it instead of latching onto bullshit flaws, or doing the point shuffle. And in my games this has worked spectacularly well.

Obviously it's not for everyone.

I have seen this work.  However, I think it is a fine line between this and "GM gives extra points to his friends when they make PCs he likes." -- which I have also seen.    Or interpreted a little more charitably, I've seen GMs give extra points to people they know well for a concept because they know they can trust them -- but not give extra points to players they don't know well, because they don't know if they'll abuse it.  From the point of view of the new player, these both smack of favoritism.  

Though there have been good uses and bad, my memories of giving extra points to certain GM-selected players are that the problems have on averages outweighed the benefits.  Also, because you as GM are the judge of coolness, it encourages players to tailor their concepts to what you think is cool, rather than what they think is cool.  I've seen conscious choice of "I know from being friends that Joe loves lizards, so I'll make a lizard-man PC".  

From my subjective perception, my two points of advice would be: (1) Announce the extra points as an official house rule, and make as clear as possible your criteria.  If this isn't done, then some players just won't come forward, while the ones who do come forwards will tend to be the ones who are close to the GM and/or who tend to whine.  (2) Consciously avoid giving extra points only to friends, because you know you can trust them.  If you turn down new players but give to your friends, this smacks of favoritism.  The criteria should be what is presented, and you should accept the players' word.

The thing to remember about point systems is that they're intended to balance PCs against PCs, first, and PCs against the overall power-level of the world, second. They're not intended to represent anything like the actual correlation of the various gifts and advantages, physical, mental, and social, that may be distributed in a population.

That said, if the system is doing its job, it ought not cost points for stuff that isn't really a benefit in the game. And of course that all really depends on the scope of action engaged in by the group. In practice very few groups play in a style that genuinely allows characters of high social or political status to get much advantage from that--I mean if your group had a fighter, a wizard, and a high-ranking noble, would you let the noble bring along hundreds of retainers on adventures?

I think this illustrates that point costs only really work for a common expected scope of action. E.g., if everyone in the group is playing a noble, then you can just make that a requirement, give the players extra points equivalent to a "middling" noble, and then let them spend more or less to adjust their rank while making up the difference in other areas. Of course this really means that you're giving up on the idea of completely fungible point values for all aspects of a character--because you've just gone and walled off a separate budget for social status that can't be 100% converted into other characteristics.

Personally I suppose this is pretty much why I never liked the way that GURPS tried to incorporate social factors like wealth and status into the point-buy system--but at the same time it suggests a compromise where you break the point pools down into categories and allow limited trading between them.

Quote from: estar;280153I found just about every rule system I know of breaks down at some point if you try to use it as total simulator of reality. In this case you need to use the rules as guidelines and use your own judgment.

You speak truth. If you don't mind, maybe I'll put this in my signature.

The fundamental driving force behind most point-buy system is that life is fair (at least among the PCs).

This seems to me to be an immediate break with simulationism, as in reality, life is not fair. Many "peculiar consequences" stem therefrom.

Quote from: jhkim;280186From my subjective perception, my two points of advice would be: (1) Announce the extra points as an official house rule, and make as clear as possible your criteria.  If this isn't done, then some players just won't come forward, while the ones who do come forwards will tend to be the ones who are close to the GM and/or who tend to whine.  (2) Consciously avoid giving extra points only to friends, because you know you can trust them.  If you turn down new players but give to your friends, this smacks of favoritism.  The criteria should be what is presented, and you should accept the players' word.

*Nods* Yeah, I think communication is essential in any group. Luckily I think we do decently enough.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;280218The fundamental driving force behind most point-buy system is that life is fair (at least among the PCs).

This seems to me to be an immediate break with simulationism, as in reality, life is not fair. Many "peculiar consequences" stem therefrom.

I agree.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;280218The fundamental driving force behind most point-buy system is that life is fair (at least among the PCs).

This seems to me to be an immediate break with simulationism, as in reality, life is not fair. Many "peculiar consequences" stem therefrom.

That's a very good point; though I think the word you were looking for was "emulation".

Emulation: trying to be imitative of a particular genre, historical period, or the real world in general.

Simulationism: A made-up word from a theory that has been demonstrably proven to be false and for intentionally deceptive purposes.  Not a legitimate system of classification of regular Roleplaying.

And yes, your point was a good one; I think one of the things in my IHW example was that in period fiction you often get the dashing, noble, intelligent and lucky aristocratic Hero in the Napoleonic wars; whereas what IHW seemed to be saying was "only the proles can be real heroes", which is a bit of marxist claptrap that didn't exist prior to the turn of the 20th century.  In victorian adventure fiction, most of the heros are upper class, and ARE both smart and lucky.

RPGPundit

The 'incompetents in charge' phenomenon you get with 'buying' social rank has always been a pet peeve of mine, too.  

My preferred approach is usually to let the players choose freely the social status of their PC, and make sure it confers no great overall advantage in-game.  The Prince PC is given a +2 sword from the royal armoury, the escaped slave PC has a +2 sword taken from the hands of his owner he killed, etc.  If there are advantages to high status, they can be balanced by disads - but not in such a way as to give extra spotlight time.  Overall, social status should be irrelevant to what's happening (in a D&D dungeon bash) or else determined randomly (eg Traveller).

Quote from: RPGPundit;280227Simulationism: A made-up word from a theory that has been demonstrably proven to be false and for intentionally deceptive purposes.  Not a legitimate system of classification of regular Roleplaying.

I used the word as I understand the definition, which is from the original GDS definition as created on RGFA, and (from what I have seen) they way most non-forgists seem to understand the term.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;280329I used the word as I understand the definition, which is from the original GDS definition as created on RGFA, and (from what I have seen) they way most non-forgists seem to understand the term.

Sorry then. But sadly, that word has been misappropriated and destroyed by the Swine, so its easier to just use "Emulation" which is a better choice anyways, since "simulation" implies you're trying to imitate reality, opening to the false notion that "realism" is important and in turn allowing the Swine to make accusations that all we want is to be "realistic" and that we're fooling ourselves.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;280218The fundamental driving force behind most point-buy system is that life is fair (at least among the PCs).

The original point buy system, Champion, was done that way so Player A had equal combat ability as Player B. This seems like  "life is fair" among PCs, but in reality it because of the presence of D&D where everybody is 1st level. Also it reflect the wargame mentality where both sides started balanced.

Later as the HERO system rose out of Champions and GURPS grew out of the Fantasy Trip. The points became a way of exposing the math behind the system. With GURPS being a lot more fuzzier than HERO.

Both, but GURPS especially, stop trying to strive for combat balance.  No longer you could say that one 100 pt character was equally capable as another 100 pt character. For GURPS the points instead became reflective of the difficultly or rarity in relation to real life. For example 200 hours of learning = 1 skill point.

This is from having played these type of rule systems from the early 80s onward.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;280218The fundamental driving force behind most point-buy system is that life is fair (at least among the PCs).

This seems to me to be an immediate break with simulationism, as in reality, life is not fair. Many "peculiar consequences" stem therefrom.

It has little to do with "life" being fair but rather that it is a game and you generally want players thinking their hand is fair compared to the next guy.

You could play Texas Hold 'Em with some players have 2 hole cards, some 3 and maybe others with 4. After awhile, the guy with only 2 hole cards is going to get a little miffed.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;280218The fundamental driving force behind most point-buy system is that life is fair (at least among the PCs).

This seems to me to be an immediate break with simulationism, as in reality, life is not fair. Many "peculiar consequences" stem therefrom.

Well, this depends on your definition of "fair".  To many, the idea that the least competent person is the one paid the best (or highest rank/status/etc.) is considered unfair.

Quote from: RPGPundit;280358Sorry then. But sadly, that word has been misappropriated and destroyed by the Swine,

I used to have a sig that had a disclaimer in there. But found that 90% of readers weren't familiar with (or probably, just couldn't understand all the add-on babble) the forge definition and understood the more intuitive definition, so I stopped using it.

Quote from: CavScout;280380It has little to do with "life" being fair but rather that it is a game and I generally want players thinking their hand is fair compared to the next guy.

Fixed that for you.

Quote from: CavScoutYou could play Texas Hold 'Em with some players have 2 hole cards, some 3 and maybe others with 4. After awhile, the guy with only 2 hole cards is going to get a little miffed.

You could also play Texas Hold'em where all the players get to choose their hands rather than having them dealt, but either way, roleplaying games are not the same as card games, so the analogy fails.