Quote from: Numa Pompilius;492024My question is, which do you prefer, and why? Like I said, I'm torn on the matter. I've tried one way and the other and will be trying the third in a few months probably.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492070I prefer constant because the system balances itself through play. If you pick something that's very disadvantageous, you'll get constantly rewarded for it. If you pick something that isn't very disadvantageous, you won't.

Up-front systems, OTOH, depend heavily on pre-determining the content and play-style of a campaign. This means that they'll usually be horribly broken in practice. (IME, this often doesn't even require players to deliberately game the system.)

My answer matches Justin's. Regarding the amount of work it imposes on the GM, I would say it is relative. What I do is make it part of the session prep, thinking on one or two disadvantages I can hit in game. That usually suffices.

Also, this things follow a pattern. Over time, my players tend to take less disadvantages because they realize I am going to use them. In my 7th sea game the first gen of PCs was loaded with Backgrounds and Hubris. When some of the players started a spin-off game, the number of disadvantages was really limited.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492131In FATE, the GM needs to include situations which are affected by a character's aspects because otherwise the character doesn't get compelled and they don't gate fate points (and the system is balanced around having those points).

That's a popular fallacy. There is certainly a game culture around Fate and endorsed by Fate's own creators that advocates a very active Fate Point economy whereby Aspects are Compelled and Invoked in every scene.

I can see the attraction of this style of play but it's not a necessary condition to play Fate nor is the system balanced in a way to expect this (well maybe Dresden Files is, I'm not sure). The term Fate Point economy does not actually appear in most Fate rules books and in fact, by the rules, a GM simply replenish the player Fate Point Pools mid session if he feels it's appropriate. And actually in Fate 2.0 you can't actually have a Fate Point economy because Aspects work differently.

Which is to say if you have some Aspects that never get Compelled that's cool too as long as they mean something to the player.

Choice 3, for reasons others have said. It invites mini-maxing, taking disadvantages that the player thinks won't be disadvantages - which leads to arguments in play. "I'm Cowardly, but I can still enter the melee and stab that huge guy in the back!"
"Um, no."
"But -"
(etc)

It also requires the GM to keep track of players' characters. I don't even want to keep track of their hit points, why would I want to keep track of their disadvantages? Let the player worry about that stuff.

Write down your character's non-statted traits, if you want to. You don't have to roleplay them, though if your character is really inconsistent then NPCs will think you're crazy and the game group all get to make fun of you.

don't dig systems that give benies for such things, to gamey and to much time in chargen in some cases.
Let em come out in play for the sure FUN or "immersion" of it.
I encourage interesting backgrounds.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;492191Choice 3, for reasons others have said. It invites mini-maxing, taking disadvantages that the player thinks won't be disadvantages - which leads to arguments in play. "I'm Cowardly, but I can still enter the melee and stab that huge guy in the back!"
"Um, no."
"But -"
(etc)

It also requires the GM to keep track of players' characters. I don't even want to keep track of their hit points, why would I want to keep track of their disadvantages? Let the player worry about that stuff.

Write down your character's non-statted traits, if you want to. You don't have to roleplay them, though if your character is really inconsistent then NPCs will think you're crazy and the game group all get to make fun of you.

sorry for the double post...this...:hatsoff:

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;492191Choice 3, for reasons others have said. It invites mini-maxing, taking disadvantages that the player thinks won't be disadvantages - which leads to arguments in play. "I'm Cowardly, but I can still enter the melee and stab that huge guy in the back!"
"Um, no."
"But -"
(etc)

It also requires the GM to keep track of players' characters. I don't even want to keep track of their hit points, why would I want to keep track of their disadvantages? Let the player worry about that stuff.

Write down your character's non-statted traits, if you want to. You don't have to roleplay them, though if your character is really inconsistent then NPCs will think you're crazy and the game group all get to make fun of you.

This is what I'm probably going to be trying for the next campaign. In this case, Classic Traveller - nothing character defining beyond the skills and some fluff about the previous career. I'm curious what will happen to FATE Lover and FATE Hater in my group; I imagine the others will wiffle-waffle as always on what they like and don't like.

The reason, of course, is much of what you say. I'm finding it harder and harder to want to keep track of such things. They HAVE been helpful at times, but otherwise, I don't really remember to look it up while playing.

Take Burning Empires. When I ran it, I of course took player Beliefs into account, but it was more about scenario or game set up, not something I worried about while playing. At most, I kept my Figure of Note NPC Beliefs and Traits in mind as I had them do their scenes, but I wasn't keeping track of Artha awards or the like, for example. Nor their skill advancement stuff. In fact, it was often just background fluff, which is useful for setting a scene, but not much else.

I find that disadvantages and advantages that arise from events that actually play out in the game are far more easy for me to remember and play up/to.

Getting swallowed by one of the toads outside the moathouse in my character's very first fight was a much more memorable origin for several interesting phobias than "I wrote it on my character sheet to get some build points."

Even if I'd made up "I got swallowed by a toad" and written it on my sheet before starting to play the character - it still wouldn't have been as memorable as actually having it happen in play.

Events that happen in play have all sorts of strong associations - you remember who was there, what they rolled, what you did, what the monster did, etc.
The only association you have when you write a little story on your sheet is... writing on your sheet.

I prefer "up front" disadvantages, if I have to select one. I generally prefer none at all because I find the min/maxing game rather tedious. But since I explicitly state that any "up front" disads have to be approved by me, just like any character sheet, then it's easier for me to manage. I tend to ask players what's their character concept, why they need the "up front" disad so badly, and why they feel it would add to the campaign.

My experience with "constant" disads has not been as pleasant. It's just a fiddly track to add to GM bookkeeping and I find it added little to my storytelling. It felt more like kitchen sink GMing because of a sense of obligation to "get everyone involved" and tag their character aspects instead of shoving that responsibility to be engaged onto the players, as I believe it should be. Also, too often it became a contest to see who could chain the most ridiculous amounts of aspects into an explosion of nonsense -- or it froze players new to the system. It feels too gamey to me and just gets in the way of a good story. Each time I'm playing these systems the more and more I find that I don't like them at a core level.

ANY system that gives you points in exchange for disadvantages is likely to be hopelessly flawed.

The whole thing is just an invitation for players to game the system to min-max points available to them. At the very best, its a form of gambling, where you're trying to bet what disadvantage will give you the best ratio of free points vs. not actually ever being a real or meaningful disadvantage to you.

So systems that at least oblige the player to have to use the disadvantage disadvantageously in order to get the points is slightly better, but still poor, since its still an "odds" game the player is running, betting his disadvantage will be less bothersome to him than the extra points he gets.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;492471ANY system that gives you points in exchange for disadvantages is likely to be hopelessly flawed.

Heh. I see what you did there.

I think it's not bad to have upfront disadvantages... if you roll for them.

One good thing, one bad thing, roll 'em up. No minimaxing there

It's still up to the GM to remember all that shit, but at least it's only one thing per PC.

Quote from: Soylent Green;492187I can see the attraction of this style of play but it's not a necessary condition to play Fate nor is the system balanced in a way to expect this (well maybe Dresden Files is, I'm not sure). The term Fate Point economy does not actually appear in most Fate rules books and in fact, by the rules, a GM simply replenish the player Fate Point Pools mid session if he feels it's appropriate. And actually in Fate 2.0 you can't actually have a Fate Point economy because Aspects work differently.

\

I stand corrected, then.

I don't like them/want them.
If I want my character to be a drunk I don't need 'rewards' for that. Since... probably the first RPG I played, I've written down character traits ('brave', 'lecherous', 'afraid of snakes') on my character sheets... since when did those roleplaying cues require hard-coding into the rules?

There's a contingent who keep pushing for ads/disads to be added to BRP core rules ('cause it's dated without them!')... I think they're trying to make it over in the image of Savage Worlds... or something.

I think I've got a slightly different view.  My main concern is less with players getting away with something, and more with how it changes play of the game.  

Pros:

1) Disads encourage some character concepts that would otherwise be skipped.  If it's the same cost to have a Superman who is immune to kryptonite and a Superman who is not, then the player is usually going to choose to be immune.  Of course, some players will voluntarily give their PC a fear of snakes without reward, but many do not.  

2) Slight corollary to the above, disads that fit the character can often good for firing up ideas for scenarios that are tied to the PCs.  

Negligible:

1) Personally, I am only mildly concerned with players getting something for free.  Ultimately, game balance is mostly an illusion anyway, so I don't consider it a terrible thing if a player gets 130 points when he really should have only gotten 110 points.  If I'm bending over backwards changing around my preparation to hit the PCs' disads, I'm just making work for myself.  

Cons:

1) "Up front" disads can be bad if they encourage loading up on a ton of disads that let the player push into much higher power.  i.e. Having a one-legged, cross-eyed midget albino lets a player get psionic power to constantly be invisible and fly.  I think this is easily handled by having a low cap on how many points you can get from disads - which some systems do, though many systems the cap isn't low enough in my opinion.  

2) Many disadvantage systems encourage having 5+ fairly mild disadvantages for each PC.  That's too much to keep track of, and doesn't add a lot to characterization, in my opinion.  I say 2-3 max is a good rule of thumb.  

3) "Constant" disadvantage systems can means that the players are encouraged to keep finding ways to invoke the disad with minimal risk.  Basically the same logic that would happen up front (i.e. "how can I get the most points for minimal problems") continues to happen throughout the game.  This can be a distraction, where instead of focusing on role-playing how their character consciously tries to avoid their own weakness - a player acts on an out-of-character way to make sure their weakness comes up.  

4) There are some common disadvantages which shouldn't be in the same category as others - especially "Enemies" or "Hunted".  Since most adventures you're going to end up fighting a villain anyway, this one tends to be mishandled, in my opinion.

Quote from: jhkim;492753Pros:

1) Disads encourage some character concepts that would otherwise be skipped.  If it's the same cost to have a Superman who is immune to kryptonite and a Superman who is not, then the player is usually going to choose to be immune.  Of course, some players will voluntarily give their PC a fear of snakes without reward, but many do not.  

This only counts as a pro if we believe that the kind of player who would not voluntarily take on a flaw is ultimately misguided. We are basically saying "I know you would rather play a character with no obvious weaknesses, but if you give this 'vulnerability to kryptonite' thing a chance you might find you'll enjoy it".

Okay, that's not as absurd as it sounds, we've all been persuaded to taste that odd looking exotic dish or to try that crazy activity we never imagined we'd enjoy.

However what is more likely to happen is that this player will simply cover his character in lead all the time because unless there a genuine buy-in into the concept that roleplaying flaws are interesting you are going nowhere.