Quote from: migo on December 22, 2023, 09:38:35 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 22, 2023, 07:48:18 AM

Quote from: migo on December 22, 2023, 06:27:56 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on December 21, 2023, 06:27:44 PM

Says the guy insisting that you can't build the character you want with point buy (despite ALL objective, verifiable evidence to the contrary), because you can't get your dream character out of the gate without putting any work into it. And that this is a failure of the idea of point buy itself, and not your ABSURDLY unrealistic expectations.

No, I ran into this with a character concept that the game's designer thought was both really cool and appropriate, and I had already played a number of games using one of his pre-generated characters, so I had no unrealistic expectations about the power level. Even with his help, we couldn't get the concept to work with the points he had laid out. It's an inherent problem with point buy.

It simply doesn't do what it's supposed to. Given that's the case, you're much better off using some kind of life path system where you discover your character through generation, and then you're simply not expecting to start with a particular template.

Details or I refuse to believe you. I have tried myriad point buy systems and have never experienced anything like this (which you then extend to ALL point buy systems as a blanket statement of truth I might add).

So at least give us the system and the concept you failed to achieve so we can actually judge for ourselves.

Your statement is too extreme on its face to be just taken as gospel truth.

Sweet Dreams by Allan Dotson. I had tried making a character who was the tooth fairy who collects teeth, and because she's in high school she has to get them by starting fights. That's not some crazy powerful concept for the system or premise, nor is it a concept that's out of place. It failed specifically because of the point buy system which wasn't noticeably different from what you'd see in GURPS or BESM.

It's not extreme at all. Point buy, like GURPS, is just fundamentally flawed. You can have fun with it, sure, but it doesn't let you do what it leads you to believe it can do. Various systems made some effort to compensate. For instance BESM had genre based skill costs, but the most common post you'd see on the GoO forums was asking for help to create a particular character concept. JAGS allocates a certain amount of points to skills, attributes and special abilities, so you can't distribute the points however you want, but it still has the same fundamental flaws. In GURPS if you want to play a character who is ageless, which is largely meaningless fluff background and doesn't imbalance the game at all, you end up paying a ton of points for it.

The point buy is simply a budget you have to work in, it's a mini game. It doesn't create balanced characters and it doesn't let you realize any character concept you want.

HeroQuest 2e, lets you create any character concept you want as long as you can summarize it in 100 words. And it doesn't suffer balance problems as a result. Why waste time with point buy when you can use something that's much better?

Then it was a shit system. Describe your character's abilities and I'll create it.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 21, 2023, 07:15:14 PM
I feel like as with any game, a codified point buy system will have limits in what it can effectively make based on authorial creativity.

Hardly.

Quote from: Domina on December 23, 2023, 12:28:16 PM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 21, 2023, 07:15:14 PM
I feel like as with any game, a codified point buy system will have limits in what it can effectively make based on authorial creativity.

Hardly.

In the sense of DM adjudication, adaptation and potential homebrew, or just there being a very solid system or set of systems you know of with wide allowance for creativity? Do you have a system you might potentially recommend, if the latter? (Also, how do they handle balance, if that potentially becomes an issue? Or does it, within the context of how the game plays and is set up at a given table?)

What limits have you encountered, specifically?

I guess sometimes it's just weird or esoteric abilities that folks in their right mind wouldn't really anticipate and give clear point costs to. (Ex: What should be the cost for lactose control where you can turn milk into cheese and the like? Or I had to homebrew for someone who wanted a suite of powers similar to Gara from Naruto, I guess might be the best fictional character comparison? But at a notably lower level, so not nearly as broken. I did a bad job on that one, arguably, and undershot a fair bit.)  Ascendant is cool in that they help you build powers, but even within that context there are limitations based on power type templates and the like. You can stray off the beaten road, but past a certain point you're just making things up on your own and blindly guessing, I guess. Of course, for something like the "Storytelling" system things are notably more codified and constrained despite that also I guess being point buy, so I'm sure it probably varies somewhat based on system and style. Ascendant is arguably the most varied and adaptable that I have personally tried, though I guess maybe something like GURPS or the like could do that even better.

Lactose control would just be Elemental Control or Transmutation with the Very Limited con. I don't know anything about Naruto.

Apparently I'm a bit of an idiot. That does make sense in retrospect. (Probably just have the player pay for both individually to simulate the full power. Was too focused on thinking of it as a separate and indivisible thing.) I'll work a bit harder on my DMing skills and rule comprehension.

Also, how do you like Ascendant, relative to other point buys and the like? For me it's been great, relatively flexible/balanced, and very simple resolution mechanics in play even when I and my players struggle occasionally in character creation. I think compared to other point buy things I've played like Vampire 20th anniversary Dark Ages and the like it's got a pretty broad focus for creation that's pretty cool. But still sticks to mirroring comic book flavor pretty well in fights and the like, what with hero points and cetera.

I wasn't sure if you were asking me or if that was the general "you" addressing everyone in the thread, but I've never played it

Dang. I'll admit you must be pretty good with systems then. (Or at least possessed of solid reading comprehension, which for myself is not always a given.)

It was open to members of the thread, but mainly geared towards you, I guess. Thought you might be a fellow fan. 

I was using the rules from p&p, since that's what I'm most familiar with

Wait, so they both have those types of powers and the concept of power flaws? Makes sense, I guess, but interesting.

Edit: I did apparently get the names wrong for the drawbacks and I think one of the powers, but yeah, interesting. I guess any system trying to cover its bases would probably have to think of that kind of thing, though. Similar concepts existing across game lines for powers and the like.

Quote from: VisionStorm on December 22, 2023, 11:59:50 PM

And you're basing this view on your experience with ONE game, making ONE character. That you later admitted--after multiple probes from different posters--had one powerful ability that warranted the cost that set the character outside the starting point budget. Meaning that this ENTIRE exchange had been bullshit to begin with, cuz your character really would've been too powerful. It's just that you didn't want that precise ability, but it was the closest one to fit your concept.

I said in the beginning that was the issue.

QuoteJust that it ends up costing too many points to have mechanical fiddly bits that represent the fiction you want to convey.

The cost of the ability is justified, but I don't want the whole ability, I only want part of it. And that becomes the problem. Either you have it accessible like GURPS, with the problems of reaching a budget, or you have it like BESM, that lets you create anything, but you need half a dozen people poring over the idea to figure out how to bring the idea to life.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 23, 2023, 08:24:43 AM
GM: We're going to be running street-level heroes in Mutants & Masterminds, so it's power level 8 and 120 points.

Migo: I can't build Superman with 120 points.

GM: I said we're doing street-level heroes.

Migo: Superman stops street-level crimes. Point buy is stupid. It doesn't allow you to build something even though the concept totally fits the setting.

Well, you've clearly shown your character with this post.

Quote from: Domina on December 23, 2023, 12:26:53 PM

Then it was a shit system.

Well yes, it was point buy. That's the point I've been making from the start.

Quote
Describe your character's abilities and I'll create it.

You're a special kind of arrogant to think you could accomplish something in a system you have no familiarity with that the system's designer couldn't.

So was there a non-point-buy system or setup you've found that has greater freedom of potential character concept and the like than the average point buy system? If so, would you characterize this as an outlier or common for whatever the generation type?

Usually when I think point buy I think of random generation and/or prebuilt classes/levels as the alternatives, which I usually feel are less likely to allow for a wide variety of concepts in attempted character creation... though to be fair, that's probably not everything that's out there. Also, it depends on the specific system, I am sure, so not every point buy will intrinsically offer more options than every random or cetera. Ex: Some PbtA games are basically point-buy-ish, but I wouldn't call those characters more customizable than even 5e, necessarily.

Were you trying to say that point buy in and of itself is not a guarantor of creative freedom? I'd agree with that, though I would probably also agree that it can sometimes help with that kind of thing compared to, say, random generation. Kind of like, it helps allow for creativity on average, but it doesn't guarantee it, and it depends on what it's up against.