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[SkyeFyre]

Actually I am currently running a BTS game. Most of the players are ordinary humans with absolutely no special abilities, and a total health (SDC and HP combined) of around 20. It works wonderfully. The players have to use their heads and work as a team to come out alive. BTS's main focus should be horror. You want the players to be weaker, you want to scare them, make them feel like they're really the underdogs, but give them that opportunity to shine.

We usually play Rifts, so I hear you on the power level thing, but amazingly, the sense of accomplishment, and the stories the players tell are said with so much more pride for the BTS games because they couldn't just whip out their plasma rifles and destroy everything. They had to plan, think, and work as a team to just barely survive.

Basically my game started off with three of my five players (two were busy the night we decided to try BTS) as just ordinary people out driving in the middle of a snow storm. They ended up stranded in some little community that basically revolved around a diner/gas station. The highways were closed so they were forced to stay the night in a hotel. One was a teenage kid, and the other two were family members. Won't say too much, but the power goes out due to the snow storm, and then they start to hear things. Upon investigating they find bodies torn up, and then something in the dark is starting to stalk them, and eventually tries to get them, coming through their room door, destroying their car...etc. The game ended with one player falling into a coma, one banged up, and the other was lucky enough to avoid getting hurt. They managed to kill the werewolf and escape. That was their introduction to the game. We just wanted to try it. After that though they were begging me to put our current Rifts game on hold and continue on with BTS adventures. So that's what we've been playing since.

Low powered games work perfectly fine, provided the group doesn't have a problem with being weaker than their opponents, and needing more emphasis on role playing and thinking.

None of the players felt limited, when the other two got back, they found the assortment of P.C.C.s to be nice, and were able to create characters that fit themselves. In our second adventure, the group dealt with a haunting entity. There was no combat whatsoever in this game, they just needed to find a way to give closure to the spirit, the reaction to that session was also well recieved and looks like next time there's going to be another BTS game.

[GreenGhost]

Actually I am currently running a BTS game. Most of the players are ordinary humans with absolutely no special abilities, and a total health (SDC and HP combined) of around 20. It works wonderfully. The players have to use their heads and work as a team to come out alive. BTS's main focus should be horror. You want the players to be weaker, you want to scare them, make them feel like they're really the underdogs, but give them that opportunity to shine.

We usually play Rifts, so I hear you on the power level thing, but amazingly, the sense of accomplishment, and the stories the players tell are said with so much more pride for the BTS games because they couldn't just whip out their plasma rifles and destroy everything. They had to plan, think, and work as a team to just barely survive.

Basically my game started off with three of my five players (two were busy the night we decided to try BTS) as just ordinary people out driving in the middle of a snow storm. They ended up stranded in some little community that basically revolved around a diner/gas station. The highways were closed so they were forced to stay the night in a hotel. One was a teenage kid, and the other two were family members. Won't say too much, but the power goes out due to the snow storm, and then they start to hear things. Upon investigating they find bodies torn up, and then something in the dark is starting to stalk them, and eventually tries to get them, coming through their room door, destroying their car...etc. The game ended with one player falling into a coma, one banged up, and the other was lucky enough to avoid getting hurt. They managed to kill the werewolf and escape. That was their introduction to the game. We just wanted to try it. After that though they were begging me to put our current Rifts game on hold and continue on with BTS adventures. So that's what we've been playing since.

Low powered games work perfectly fine, provided the group doesn't have a problem with being weaker than their opponents, and needing more emphasis on role playing and thinking.

None of the players felt limited, when the other two got back, they found the assortment of P.C.C.s to be nice, and were able to create characters that fit themselves. In our second adventure, the group dealt with a haunting entity. There was no combat whatsoever in this game, they just needed to find a way to give closure to the spirit, the reaction to that session was also well recieved and looks like next time there's going to be another BTS game.

I agree with you when it comes to playing normal people. Oober powerful characters does not make for good role players. If someone can play a normal person in a setting like BTS(2) and shine it's due to good role playing and good role players.

[Sir Neil]

I want to try and run a game that holds fast and true to a low powered, SDC world. I want all of the characters to be human, with no Ninjas and Superspies or Heroes abilities. I'd like to see nothing more powerful than a sorcerer or ex government agent.

Do your players want to play those sorts of characters?

[runebeo]

I'm not sure if the writers read these threads or not, but I wanted to say thanks to them for making great stuff.

I think BTSN is big in Dayton, Ohio. I was shocked to hear that it had only sold like, 20,000 copies. I had purchased 2 of them myself, and my gaming groups have been playing it sense the begining. The best game I ever ran was a Nightbane game that lasted around 2 years.

The writers of the main rpg I had been playing put out a new version this last month and destroyed its soul, so I think my group wants to go back to the games we like and haven't played for a little while.

I want to run a BTSN game... but it is going to be really hard. We have all played a lot of Heroes Unlimited and Nightbane / Ninjas and Superspies, and are used to the huge power levels. I've never batted an eye in the past at Nightbane Sorcerers and Lightbringer Guardians or Ancient Master Zangi Shingenken Ryu experts, but I want this game to be a little different.

I want to try and run a game that holds fast and true to a low powered, SDC world. I want all of the characters to be human, with no Ninjas and Superspies or Heroes abilities. I'd like to see nothing more powerful than a sorcerer or ex government agent.

It's going to take a lot of discipline on my part to create adventures that don't show the huge shroud of the dark. I don't want the group to feel like what they do is only surface sense they can't kill hounds... and I don't want to lose my grip and show a hound with no nightbane in the group (especially sense a single hound would crush the whole party).

It is also going to be hard to sell the idea of the game to my group. I need to show them something fresh, and not just make it seem like I'm limiting them. You know, the cat is already out of the bag for us.

Anyone ever run a legit low powered supernatural game? What happened? How did it get started?

Our group played a nice simple campaign where the ghost of H.P. Lovecraft is channeled through his great niece. Lovecraft lead us to investigate a powerful secret Cthulhu cult in Hawaii. It went really good, but of the five characters in the group two got killed when they raided the cult's hideout unprepared to handle the cult's Hell Hound minions, followed by a bad run-in with a high level Dark Priest. Our group were low leveled and still in high school and it played a lot like the movies the Faculty and In the Mouth Of Madness. One of our characters instead of using guns tried going the Casey Jones route with golf clubs & hockey sticks and his main weapon was a weed eater with silver cords which played a big part in his demise, still it was a good time.