House of Cards GM Log

IMC: Attribute Domains

posted by Ginger at 12:48 AM, April 10, 2004 | Filed under : IMC | Comments and Followups

Arref talks about attributes and how to balance them.

One of the reasons I like using Everway to model Amber is that it is similar but not identical to ADRPG—and the differences are enough to make it worthwhile to rethink approaches to different elements.

Nevertheless, I worry about the balance problem in House of Cards. Because of the way the PCs who were initially designed came out, I think there was some imbalance, in terms of “the group” perceiving that some elements were worth more than others, as shown by point selection during character creation. I think that’s become less true as the group has expanded and experience awards have been made. Now it’s Amberway cliches we have to try to shake off.

When the players are focusing too hard on one element, I do try to make it advantageous for PCs to stretch and go for something else. Being the character who is strong where others are weak is an easy way to gain a campaign niche for a new character. That’s part of what Arref is talking about when mentions the story support for different elements or the lack thereof.

Another interesting thing is the joy of novice players, who don’t have the habits of thought the rest of the players may have about how to apply elements and powers. There are close to 20 players, and they can come up with a lot more ways to use the elements than I can. Their creativity powers the game in different ways and broadens the utility of the different elements to help keep them balanced.

Follow up: the trackback URL for this entry is: http://www.whiterose.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/3273

2 Comments

Arref
Apr 11, 2004 9:56 PM

Big benefit to the HoC is the large cast.

leslie
Apr 13, 2004 11:50 PM

I don't know if anyone is interested but... I've always felt that the way to prevent any one attribute / power / stat / etc from dominating a game is through the use of conflict variation. Conflict variation has been one of my primary focuses as a GM for quite a while now. Thus, I've designed a little chart and written a brief explanation of how conflict variation can be used in any kind of RPG. If anyone would like a doc or txt copy of those, I'd be happy to email 'em over. :)
We return you to your regularly schedule blog now. :)

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