[TML] Character Improvement [was Levelling]

[Richard Aiken]

On Feb 18, 2008 11:46 AM, Brad Murray <bjmurray.halfjack at gmail.com> wrote:
> Except that how many points come your way is entirely arbitrary.

No.  Not unless you label all GM decisions "arbitrary."  The GM
decides how much trouble each specific playing of a particular
Complication has/will cause and the rewards the character based upon
that decision (which only he can really make, since he controls most
of the reactions involved).

> There are more consistent ways to do this kind of thing -- one is to
> treat advantages and disadvantages entirely equally in cost and
> effect.

Not realistic or fun, as someone else pointed out already.  Is Lame
(having a pronounced limp) as crippling No Legs?  I hardly think so.

>  Put another way, it's possible to see every advantage as
> occasionally disadvantageous, and you can leverage that to make the
> advantage systems very hard to game in ways that produce un-fun play.

Some advantages can occassionally be disadvantageous.  Take Moneyed
Individual: it says in the description that having this Asset will
"make you a target for those who want what you've got."  (Duh!)
Combat Veteran is another: it gives you Willpower bonuses, but if
you're a veteran of the wrong side in the particular place concerned,
matters can get a mite tense.  But as long as concerns like these are
known up front, I don't see a problem.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein