Forums of the Megaverse®

Lets face it the game has power creep.
Do you do anything to avoid it in your games?

Persoanlly I use a home brewed item creation guide to rebuild all items in the same general way. (this means all weapons in any given type all have the same damage formula. I tried adding tech level factor while logical made the scale to subjective.)
IE weapon damage is dertemined by type and size.
examples I have to types of grenade launchers mini launchers that do less damage and normal grenade launchers that fire renades same damage as hand grenades. Laser rifles come in light 2d6 MD and heavy 3d6 MD. There is also scalling based on - A heavy laser does 5d6 MD a light laser canon does 1d4X10, medium laser cannon 1d6X10 and heavy laser cannon 2d6X10.(after all a cannon you can crawl in should not be doing the same damage as a laser pistol.)
I also changed how I track e-clips to number of d6 charges. Makes it easier to track when people switch partial e-clips between weapons and for payload of new weapons.

For OCCs and races I limit the chocies based on an intended power cap. This helps limit charters that over power eachother.

The last game I played (and my books are a bit dusty) we played our characters a lot more than numbers on a page. I understand the want and need to gauge the equality of weapons. This is one of the biggest downfalls I have found in Rifts; the two-tier damage system with one being greatly overpowered compared to the other.

I think we ended up doing a 10:1 ratio (instead of the standard 100:1) with SDC weapons able to be a threat to MDC armor/creatures. Each MDC armor did have an AR the SDC weapons had to overcome to do damage. As they took more damage the AR was lowered to show it was beginning to show weakness. Armor Rating could be improved through magic, psionics, or better quality armor.

A handgun doing a point or two of damage against a dragon juicer isn't much, but it's better than a handgun (laser) taking down the whole side of a building with a random 1MD blast.

A band of characters who prefer slug-throwers to energy weapons were able to stand up to the demons coming through a stray rift.

Nope.

When I'd run games, I'd almost always restrict the players to certain specific books when they were rolling up their characters.
Within those books, I'd often restrict things further: i.e., "You can use anything in the Mercenaries book, except for Naruni gear."

*Shrug*
It's really not an issue.
Any "GOOD" GM should be able to balance new stuff with olde without either themselves OR the players whining, without having to do too many blanket BANS on books.
South America 2 and Spirit West are the only two I outright shove under a rock and then set on fire.
...and Yes, I DO allow Naruni gear and even Phaseworld stuff into my Rifts Terra setting? Why? Cuz there is more than enough things to counter-ballance.

But hey, if a GM wants to be lazy and just say "No, you can't have the thing"; by all means... it is YOUR game and the GM is ALWAYS right. Full stop.
Doesn't mean he isn't being a [censored]; but (s)he is ALWAYS right.

I don't have a problem with a GM controlling what is available. Easy for me to say. I only game with people I like, so we agree to what we're getting into regarding combat power levels and want to play under those constraints. I guess that means I think something other than laziness can motivate a GM.

When I think of my favorite games, I can identify three other ideas to experiment with that worked for us.

First, is to reject rules lawyering completely. That seems to go a long way to solving a lot of problems in games.

Second, is to spend some time pushing brains over brawn. They better be sure that they know the true costs and are willing to pay them. There are things more desirable than victory in combat, as I've come to learn.

Third, is give them the arms race they want. There are always bulls with bigger horns than theirs, and they're going to meet them in combat. Beating the ever-loving hell out of PCs once in a while can set them back and even strip them of their Precious, which can go a long way towards (to borrow a phrase) retraining their intuition.

In a single phrase: different motivations and higher costs.

not really. i try to keep the players challenged in each mission. if they somehow add a bunch of heavy bots to their armor then i make sure their enemies have something comparable, either with magic or hardware.

DhAkael wrote:*Shrug*
It's really not an issue.
Any "GOOD" GM should be able to balance new stuff with olde without either themselves OR the players whining, without having to do too many blanket BANS on books.
South America 2 and Spirit West are the only two I outright shove under a rock and then set on fire.
...and Yes, I DO allow Naruni gear and even Phaseworld stuff into my Rifts Terra setting? Why? Cuz there is more than enough things to counter-ballance.

But hey, if a GM wants to be lazy and just say "No, you can't have the thing"; by all means... it is YOUR game and the GM is ALWAYS right. Full stop.
Doesn't mean he isn't being a [censored]; but (s)he is ALWAYS right.

Player wise I typically have a rule that any one that wants to join can join for a trail period after which the group votes weather or not to allow them to stay part of the group.-spoil the fun and the group will vote you out.

It really beame more of an issue for me, because I allow players to desighn new gear. (after all there are movies and tv shows where you see some one desighn something relitivaly quickly and rifts is some what cinematic.) So had to come up with some way to handle the more munkin attempts.

The only ban I place on books outright is based on where the game is focused. No NA gear or occs in japan, it has to be something available there.

DhAkael wrote:*Shrug*
It's really not an issue.
Any "GOOD" GM should be able to balance new stuff with olde without either themselves OR the players whining, without having to do too many blanket BANS on books.
South America 2 and Spirit West are the only two I outright shove under a rock and then set on fire.

lather wrote:First, is to reject rules lawyering completely.

What and how do you mean?

I would like to note that after some initial issues with power creep stuff leveled off over time pretty well. The new NG books are a pretty good example of this. Basic armor values have bumped up but most of that is to offset some of the initial power creep but damage of weapons stabilized and armor levels are now reasonable for the threats you likely face.

A lot of the higher end gear is also stuff you likely don't wind up getting unless you are in one of the major militaries or you are using a battle salvaged unit.

Due to the way armor depletion works over time even the most OP item tends to get whittled down over time to the point it is no longer cost effective to keep it repaired and people wind up getting new things to replace them. This is also a reason I never had that much issue even with some of the nastier stuff like some of the south america gear because over time battle damage will wreck it and repairing lesser known tech items is expensive.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

lather wrote:First, is to reject rules lawyering completely.

What and how do you mean?

I'm thinking primarily of mix-maxing and the "it doesn't say I can't, so I can" line of thinking. The point those become inappropriate is subjective. It's a case by case judgment.

Looking at power creep as enabling inappropriate rules lawyering is another perspective. Rejecting that kind of rules lawyering tamps down the power creep. From that perspective, I think it's fair to think of this approach like that of a Game Master saying no to some classes, gear, and so on.

We dont even call them rules. We call them Guidelines. And the first guideline is games are supposed to be fun. Its not an opportunity for you to show how well you've memorized an alleged "rule" book. Its about enjoying a group experience that doesnt involve alcohol or television.

Shorty Lickens wrote:We dont even call them rules. We call them Guidelines. And the first guideline is games are supposed to be fun. Its not an opportunity for you to show how well you've memorized an alleged "rule" book. Its about enjoying a group experience that doesnt involve alcohol or television.

Great post.
I meant to check, but I'm not able to now. I think even RUE says they're not rules but guidelines.

Shorty Lickens wrote:We dont even call them rules. We call them Guidelines. And the first guideline is games are supposed to be fun. Its not an opportunity for you to show how well you've memorized an alleged "rule" book. Its about enjoying a group experience that doesnt involve alcohol or television.

I disagree. Gaming with alcohol can most definitely be an enjoyable part of the group experience!

What if a player's PC dies when they gamed drunk and they argue that they were taken advantage of and could not have given proper consent to take the actions their character took that led to their getting misted by the CS?

Axelmania wrote:What if a player's PC dies when they gamed drunk and they argue that they were taken advantage of and could not have given proper consent to take the actions their character took that led to their getting misted by the CS?

wat?

Axelmania wrote:What if a player's PC dies when they gamed drunk and they argue that they were taken advantage of and could not have given proper consent to take the actions their character took that led to their getting misted by the CS?

Caveat potor!

Since even minced oaths seem frowned upon here, jokes about consent cannot help but be in poor taste.

By not playing with people that smell out loud, most swaggering around rules-lawyering and GM edicts can be ignored. A simple discussion before play as to agreed upon tone and power level covers most circumstances when playing with adults.

I play Rifts using M&M3, which gets rid of most power imbalances. I'll put my general house rules, then setting specific ones in a sblock, which I would argue are kept vague enough so as to not qualify as a conversion.

My concern with power creep is less about the players and more about the NPCs and adventures. Some of the NPCs out there are extremely powerful, such that only power gamers stand a chance against them. Others are pushovers. Adjusting adventure scenarios on the fly is often problematic and complicated. This is one of the reasons I started making scalable NPC generators.

On the player character side, my main concern with power creep is when it makes less-powerful characters irrelevant. It's hard to design adventures that keep everyone engaged when you have a vagabond and a Godling in the same party.

Asymmetrical play has been a part of the game since the original book was published. When a group can feature both a vagabond and a dragon as PCs, I really don't see the need to worry about power creep. Now that's different from attempting to create some form of parity in the degree of usefullness that each character in a party can enjoy. For me, that's about engineering situations that enable characters to shine outside of combat more than enforcing a similar power level across the whole party. If you want to accomplish the latter, I think there are a lot better games for it. Any well designed point-based superhero game would be my recommendation.

Bill wrote:Asymmetrical play has been a part of the game since the original book was published. When a group can feature both a vagabond and a dragon as PCs, I really don't see the need to worry about power creep.

Me either.

The problem with power creep comes in when the dinosaurs you fought last week suddenly become 100x more powerful,
when "the highest technology in North America" becomes outgunned and outperformed by nobodies,
when your character is taking a lethal dose of drugs in order to get 1d4x100 SDC but then it's suddenly possible to get 4 MDC via wrist strengthening exercises,
when any martial artist with Kick Practice can kick for 2d6 MD,
when supernatural creatures suddenly inflict Mega-Damage this year (but didn't last year),
when you can get 2d6 MD worth of laser beam generated from a normal human pulling a bow string,
and otherwise when a setting's arms-race with itself forsakes setting, continuity, and logic in favor of power,
and/or when existing classes are made obsolete by newer classes that can do literally everything that that the old class can do, only better, and MORE.

Asymmetrical play is one thing.
Power Creep is another.

Axelmania wrote:What if a player's PC dies when they gamed drunk and they argue that they were taken advantage of and could not have given proper consent to take the actions their character took that led to their getting misted by the CS?

Tell them this is a game and if you play drunk and suck it is on them for drinking gaming, just like if you choose to drive drunk it is on you. If you do not like there is the door.

Driving drunk is a crime because you endanger others, playing drunk endangers your character, like how it's not illegal to be drunk and get taken advantage of.

Our group doesn't really restrict playable races or occ's with exception to more obvious game breaking things like cosmo-knights or tech in Palladium.

I base the power level of the enemies off the characters in the campaign. Some are better out of combat and some are mega-juicers, but hopefully they all work together to take out threats because as individuals they would die unless they retreated.

Most of my players would prefer versatility over raw power.