Susan has now been removed from the game per her request. So that current and potential future players can understand my logic, I wish to address some of the final issues she raised before leaving.
Best as I can tell from the
nonsense she gave me in her PMs, she seemed to think that complications reduce player agency by compelling them to take suboptimal ("stupid") actions, as if roleplaying is a game of chess or something. When I tried to tell her this she accused me of "character assassination" so, y'know, maybe I wasn't understanding what she was saying. The gist of it was that she thought complications were bad things and could not understand why anyone might willingly want to do the bad thing that holds their character back.
As for her parting message...
Susan Miller:
Consider the following situations
Character A
* Looses some power when in water
* has children
* is impetuous
How does the GM reward him when
* he deliberatly fights on a bridge
* brings the children to a fight scene
* leaps in before the others despite the others telling him not to... again and again and again
Answer the GM gives him xp after xp. The only xp you get in this game will be for this kind of riddiculous behavior
Right, let's take this in order shall we?
he deliberatly fights on a bridge:
Fighting on a bridge does not invoke the complication. If I wanted to, I could do the following:
What I'd Say:
"Hey Firebro, the villain is looking at your fiery powers and is considering smashing the bridge to extinguish you! Does he go through with it? As usual, there's a CP and HP in it if you say yes!"
The player can choose to accept the complication, causing a sudden reversal of fortune that he has to rapidly adapt to in order to save the say! If he doesn't think it's worth it, he can say no, and the villain will contrive some excuse for why it will not work.
brings the children to a fight scene:
Bad example. A hero has no reason to do this. Solving a problem that you created for yourself is not heroic; it's reckless, and therefore not worth any reward.
More likely scenario: Olivia is called in by the Hero Association to deal with a threat, but there is no babysitter available on short notice!
What I'd Say:
"Hey Olivia, your usual babysitter isn't answering her phone. Do you show up late to the fight in order to quickly take the kids somewhere they will be safe, or do you leave them alone and hope for the best?"
If she shows up late, guess what? Character point! If she leaves her kids defenseless and agrees that they got kidnapped during the melee? Character point! If she is so distracted with worry about their being home alone and messes up something the party was relying on her to do well?
Character point!
leaps in before the others despite the others telling him not to... again and again and again:
Last scenario I said that recklessly engineering your own problems just to overcome them isn't heroic. But what if recklessness is itself a trait of your hero?
This is a difficult scenario because a reckless character like this isn't just making things hard for themselves but the entire group. I would only allow such a complication for a player I have prior experience with and trust the judgement of, and even then I would carefully work with the player privately to make sure it is not being overdone.
What I'd Say:
"During your stakeout to figure out where the evil drugs are coming from, you see some mooks carrying a wiggling canvas bag just large enough to hold a person. It looks like they're planning to test the drugs on him! Justice Man, your unwillingness to let innocents come to harm burns inside you, screaming at you to rescue the poor soul even if it tips off the Evil Dark Alliance of Badness! Do you give in?"
This obviously is not something that can be done often, or else Justice Man will stop getting invited to missions! If he is a well designed character he will have many other complications so that he will not miss it too much when he has to pass up his reckless trait.
As you can see, Complications are
always opt-in and only give rewards if they are
in service to the adventure!
Susan Miller:
Alternative xp strategies include
* for succeeding in goals
Some complications are goals! That's why every character needs a Motivation Complication. The book even says so!
quote:
* for overcoming difficulties
Difficulties? You mean like...
complications???
Ahhh, the elusive holy grail of writing. What is good roleplaying? What definitive criteria defines roleplaying that is good? Is it consistently writing lines that make players laugh? Well that wouldn't be fair to the people playing serious characters! Making people cry, or think? Some people aren't easily moved to tears, and some people don't want to think about nuanced scientific or social issues in their pretend elf game. What if someone is feeling a little out of the game because of personal issues so they keep posting but in a low energy "sorry for the short post, don't want to hold up the game" way, and then when they get back they're behind on experience? Is it fair to punish a player for having a Bad Brain Week? What if one player just isn't a very good writer, but their presence provides amazing plot hooks and emotional anchoring for the rest of the party? What if they're just not native English speakers?
No way, I am
not prepared to make subjective judgements of this magnitude. No matter how impartial I try to be someone is going to feel like someone else is being favored and that is not a good feeling.