Oli Ironbar
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A friend and I were discussing the problem of our group mostly having full system mastery in P1 and we hit a fun comparison: Superman writers over the decades had to either reduce his power to tell a good story or change the nature of their story writing.
The end we settled on is that at his peak, Superman doesn't struggle to win, so the writers can't wring much suspense out of that, but the best Superman stories come from his internal decisions of how to win and what to do with each victory.
Does this track with the experiences of other players and GM's?
| Dasrak |
The problem is slightly different for GM's in a tabletop RPG. We absolutely could crank up the power of opponents to the point at which players would struggle or be unable to win at all. But our job isn't to kill our players, it's to craft a compelling narrative that is ultimately a power fantasy for their characters. We want to craft an illusion where victory feels hard-earned from the player's perspective, but behind the GM screen we know they were statistically likely to succeed.
For experienced players, the problem isn't that they're too powerful to challenge but rather that they understand the game system well enough to see through the illusion that the GM will never actually challenge them.
You can't actually give them a fight where they have a 50/50 shot of winning, not with any regularity. After just 7 such fights, you have about a 99% chance of having TPK'd at some point. Even fights can create genuinely high stakes, but if you use them more than once in campaign you are statistically likely to kill your own narrative.
| Sysryke |
I realize every solution creates new problems, but isn't part of the answer to this built into the game already?
Death both has to be meaningful and yet also surmountable. Obviously the balance of this will change from group to story to session to campaign. But, various forms of resurrection, revival, reincarnation, etc. do exist. Challenging fights can and should take place if they work for the group/story, but since it is a power fantasy for many players, part of that power should be contingencies in place to come back from or fight free of death. Depending on the story this could be done as a side quest in the afterlife, a mission taken on by secondary/backup/alternate PC's, or a pre-arranged fail safe with a suitably prepared NPC caster.
There's very little new under the sun, so unless a group just agrees that the best story is served by the T.P.K., there's little reason to not embrace the game continue trope of choice to keep the story going. Just because death is an obstacle that can be overcome, doesn't mean it can't still be impactful to a story. What does escaping death cost? What fates or scars are worse than death?
| Sysryke |
Sadly, while I've seen a bit of high-level play in other systems, I've only had one group make it legitimately to lvl. 11 (13?), before I accidentally killed us all. That was my first time GMing. I built a too strong encounter at the group's request for a challenge, with specific orders not to pull punches. I learned a lot from my mistakes, but that game still died.
Anyway, that preface to say, I haven't experienced truly broken Supermanesque PCs yet. I figure in a cosmos as expansive as Pathfinder, there should always be a bigger fish, always a challenge to face or weakness to exploit. One thing that definitely undercuts the Superman comparison a bit, is that the game is one of numbers. Even if bonuses can get stupidly high, characters still have hard mathematical caps. Superman has none. I love the character, but his powers have been broken for decades. Death Battle does a great job of breaking this all down.
All that said, telling high-level stories about PCs I'm internal struggles and processes can be an intriguing change of pace to break up the easy power fantasies if/when they have become the biggest fish who haven't yet left their pond (even if that pond is the whole Prime Material Plane).
| Andostre |
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You are right about the challenges writers have telling compelling Superman stories. But moral quandaries are only one way to twist the storytelling style to create interesting stories. Many Superman stories focus more on solving a mystery or solving a problem than they do defeating an enemy. Sure, there usually is an enemy, but once Superman solves the mystery/problem, the boss fight is often just a satisfying capstone.
Superman may have X-Ray vision, but he still needs to figure out where to look to find what he's looking for. He may be able to see atoms (depends on the writer, I think), but he still needs to make his Knowledge: Physics roll to know what to do with that information.
I may just be rambling here, but changing up an adventure in a way that makes the players use their non-combat abilities to discover where to go next may be a good way to tackle high-level play. When players talk about system mastery, they usually mean combat. Other sorts of challenges can be good for the right group of players. But make sure you have a boss fight at the end.
| DeathlessOne |
It is indeed an issue that I used to struggle with. "Infinite Cosmic Power... itty bitty living space". A line from a childhood animated film with so much depth and meaning lost to so many people.
The game is only as hard, or as easy, as you choose to make it. We use dice to simulate forces outside of our control, effectively giving up a certain level of agency within the story, and yet then try to mitigate that loss of control with acquiring every kind of modifier to weigh the result in our favor. Somewhere, we lost sight of what we were trying to do, or we never understood it in the first place.
So long as you keep the CR system in mind when making your choices (this goes for both the GM and the players), you can preserve that feeling of challenge and excitement at the unknown. In most cases, naturally, as human error or lack of foresight does allow for outliers on all sides (player, GM, and game designer).
As a player, I limit my instinct to power game and restrict my choices to better fit the narrative and overall story I want to tell from my side of the game. That is how I deal with this issue. As a GM, I tell the kind of story that the players want to experience, and let them worry about what kind of challenges the provoke from the world itself.
| Azothath |
...Superman writers over the decades had to either reduce his power to tell a good story or change the nature of their story writing.
The end we settled on is that at his peak, Superman doesn't struggle to win, so the writers can't wring much suspense out of that, but the best Superman stories come from his internal decisions of how to win and what to do with each victory.
Does this track with the experiences of other players and GM's?
I've never had Superman or one of the writers in my PF1 Game... 8^0
LOL (reminds me of an old M Python skit about a famous dead actor appearing in a scene in an ashtray or vacuum cleaner)
The problems with the protagonist having no real flaws is the kryptonite of characterization.
As far as PF1 System Mastery making PF1 less fun... hmmm... Nope!
| Jonni DC, Continuity Cop |
... problem of ... Superman ...
Ambush Bug is the comic you're looking for. Irwin is a mess...