When Players Don't spend CP in game?

[Drop Bear]

OK I admit I'm a chronic offender on this front, I don't spend CP except when I have to to avoid Character Death, I don't Boast skills for the sake of a Heroic Moment (my heroic seens come from careful planing not jumping in over my head them burning FP & CP trying to get out of it) or to pointlessly advance superfluous plots.

yet I've had GM's that expect the CP Burn to be part of everyone's game plans, including their own writing adventures with seens where you will have to burn CP if you want to finish the adventure and took offense that my characters would have 30 or 40 odd CP saved up for an Attribute or Force Powers increase.

as GM's are you wherry of PC's (especially Force users) that have a sizable stash of CP for if an opportunity pick up something long term useful comes along (like going from Control 3D+2 to Control 4D, Sense 2D, Alter 2D in a week when they stumble across that lost Jedi Master) or to pump up their Attributes to near Max before going after Skill advances?

also how do you prefer the players to budget their CP?

[Guardian_A]

I'm the same way, for that matter, so are most of the players I've had over the years. We dont usually spend CPs unless we need to, and our Heroic moments tend to be more through careful planning than spending CPs.

As for players saving up a large number of CPs, or spending those CPs on unproportinate skills, I've never had that problem. My players try to keep between 2-5 CPs for emergencies, but otherwise they are pretty good about spending points as they receive them. When we give out CPs at the end of each session, we tend to spend a few minutes going over character sheets and buying new attributes/skills/powers at that time so long as the characters are able to do so.

If you are having problems with someone building up large numbers of CPs and abusing the system, there are a few ways to counter that. )Keep in mind that the following list was made up on the spot, I have never needed to deal with this problem, so none of these ideas have been play tested by me.)
1. Set a CP cap. Use them or loose them.
2. Dont allow your players to raise their Attributes above their racial max. I know that both the Emperor and the Royal Guards have above human stats, but that shouldnt be an excuse for your players to abuse their ability to raise their stats.
3. Put your players into situations where they need to use skills that they dont have, or have very limited ability in. If players have to use a wide veriety of skills, they will be more inclined to purchase a wide veriety of skills.
4. Add +5 to the difficulty of untrained skills. This will serve to make those first few points in any given skill much more important and encourage players to broaden their list of skills before they focus heavily on a specific skill set.

This is something that I have only seen one GM do, but it worked out VERY nicely. When everyone arrived to play, he dug a package of poker chips out of his bag and handed each player 6 of them. he explained that those poker chips were our "Hero Points" and could be used to increase our dice rolls the same way we would with CPs. However, we were not allowed to use CPs to do anything but increase attributes, skills, and powers. Any unused chips were "Returned to the Force" (Or rather the GMs bag.) and everyone got 6 chips again at the beginning of the next gaming session.

[Bren]

I'm curious what a heroic moment through careful planning is. That seems a bit contradictory to me. Anyone care to elaborate?

If players want to purchase high cost things e.g. add a force ability or try to increase a statistic, we typically use a dedicated "bank." The player puts the points aside or "spends" the CPs for that particular activity and they are unavailable for other uses. Over time, they accumulate enough points to gain the new ability or increase, make the roll for the attempt if required and gain (or fail to gain) the new ability. This avoids characters temporarily having 30+ CPs and seems to better reflect an extended period of practice, training, meditation, or whatever necessary to gain large increases.

Also note that the rules build in an increasing cost (and risk) for attempting attribute increases.

[Guardian_A]

"Chance favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur


Players can do many things to stack the odds in their favor.
-Have a plan when you step into a situation.
-Use the right person for the right job.
-Sometimes the obvious approach or skill isnt the best one. Why shoot your way out when you would have a better chance of talking your way out?
-Have the sense to watch for ambushes and set your own.
-If you have time to research a situation before stepping into it. Do so!

Game Masters can set up moments for the characters as well.
-Keep in mind your players character stats when creating scenareos and give them oppertunities to shine during important events.
-Never forget, as a GM, you are there to tell an interesting story, you are NOT there to win against them.




Here is an example of something that happened a couple of months ago in one of our sessions.:

The Cast:
Rhonda: Female Rodain "Entertainer" turned tech.
Chance: Male Human, Compulsive gambler and general con man. Force Sensitive.
Mica: Male Falleen, One man wrecking ball
R2-XP "1Up": Feisty data storage device. (NPC)

The Scenareo:
The characters are in the employ of the Rebel Alliance and have been tasked with infultrating a heavily modified Victory Class Star Destroyer, Stealing the schematics for the Cloaking Device rumored to be on board, render the Star Destroyer incapable of further scientific research, and return the schematics to the Rebel Alliance for research.


The Lead up:
The characters allow themselves to be captured to gain enterance to the ship. After escaping, the players find their way to the main ships database, download the information they came for, then upload a virus that will crash the entire system and trigger a reactor overload in 30 minutes. 20 minutes into their escape, the Imperials know the characters are trying to get back to their ship and have a squad of elite Stormtroopers laying in wait. The R2 unit dosnt draw any attention when it enters the hangar bay and starts working on an imperial shuttle near the character's ship, the Four of Sabers.

The Plan:
I give the players a moment to plan while I use the restroom and grab another Dew. About two minutes later I set back down and resumed the game. 9 minutes to reactor overload.

The Heroic Event:
In game, Rhonda strips down to her exotic dancer's clothes. Chance grabs her in a head lock and steps into the corridor with his blaster pointed at the side of her head, "Let us through or I'll-oof!" Rhonda elbows Chance in the gut, breaking free of his grip and runs straight at the Stormtroopers, screaming "Help me! Save me from those brutes!" When Chance looses his grip on her, Mica bolts down the corridor in the opposite direction, hollering "Run Away!" Chance is close behind.
Rhonda is quickly shoved out of the way and ignored.The first blaster bolts scream past Chance's head as he rounds the corner behind Mica. Mica ducks into the first doorway, Chance tosses him a small ball of Plasticene Thermite Gel. Mica quickly uses the Force to mount the explosive to the coridor celing a short distance away as the door closes in front of him.
Meanwhile Chance continues his retreat down the corridor, ducking into a doorway once he is sure the Stormtroopers have seen him and they will persue.
As soon as the Stormtroopers have passed his location, Mica detonates the explosive over their head, devistating the troops below. When the explosion rocks the ships deck, Chance steps out of cover and opens fire on the disoriented and injured Stormtroopers. Mica opens the door he is hiding behind and catches the Stormtroopers in a crossfire. With nowhere to hide, the troopers are cut down quickly. 6 minutes to reactor overload.
At the sound of an explosion, R2-XP uses the distraction to slip aboard the Four of Sabers and starts prepping the ship for launch. Chance and Mica make their way through the rubble strewn hallway and Stormtrooper bodies, heading back the way they came.

The End:
Chance and Mica meet up with Rhonda at the room they had originally been hiding in. She is once again fully dressed and armed. Chance rushes the hangar, taking a couple of hits, but easily taking out the remaining four Stormtroopers with Mica and Rhonda's backup. Everyone is on board the Four of Sabers with 2 minutes to reactor overload. With less than one minute on the clock, they jump to hyperspace.

In Summary:
While these are all experienced characters that could have held their own in a battle against the Stormtroopers, the characters took an unexpected approach to the situation, making use of a series of simple skill checks to acconplish their goal in spectacular fassion instead of stepping into a brutal firefight where they may have needed CPs to pull through

[Whill]

The rules for raising Attributes are severely unbalanced so I simply do not allow PCs to ever raise Attributes at all. What you start with is what you end with, so during character generation, allocate your attribute dice appropriately to the PC you want to play.

I have always encouraged players to spend most CPs on advancing skills in between adventures. The benefit you gain from raising a skill is a permanent one, and thus more cost efficient unless the skill is rarely used. Sure, burning CPs during play gives you a much greater benefit at that moment (a full wild die for only 1 CP), but when that round is gone you have no greater ability than you did before. I've always suggested keeping no more than a couple CPs on hand for emergencies (but of course it is understandable if a player just needs to save until after the next adventure to get enough to spend on a skill).

I've always reminded players that they have FPs they can fall back on at a critical moment if they must not fail. And I have also always reminded players that it is ok to fail sometimes. This game is not real life. It is built into the story that a certain amout of PC rolls are expected to fail. Failure creates tension and advances the plot. Failure creates adventure! So players shouldn't be overly worried about needing to boost every low roll. I'm not one of those GMs that builds required CP burns into my adventure design because random chance is going have that pop up occasionally anyway.

Still, no matter how hard I try, there will always be illogical players that don't want their players to gain any permanent benefit by applying their PC's experience to character advancement, and instead what to get by on pooling up their luck (CPs to burn). So I thought of a simply solution: A hybrid between the 1E and 2E way of doing it. I am reintroducing Skill Points but also keeping Character Points.

Skill Points are given based merely on the experience the PC gains in an adventure. I personally have always given about 1 per "chapter" (which is what 1E called "episodes"), and I only award Skill Points at the end of adventures. My adventures are usually 3-8 chapters in length. So every PC usually gets the same amount SPs after the adventure, unless a PC was absent or incapacitated for part of the adventure. But no matter how they are awarded, the main idea is that these points may only be used to raise skills, specialty skills, advanced skills and move.

Character Points are the bonus points given to PCs for their players' creative thinking, good cooperation and roleplaying, and otherwise positive contributions to advancement of the story and fun had by all. These can be awarded to individuals PCs or the group as a whole as appropriate. One slight mod I thought of that CPs are not only awarded at the end of adventure like SPs. If a player makes a signifcant contribution to the game like an ingenius solution/tactic or an outstanding roleplaying scene, 1 CP may be awarded to the PC instaneously or at end the end of that chapter. An absolute max per per PC would be that CPs can never exceed the SPs earned for an adventure. Whether awarded during play, at the end of a chapter, or at the end of the adventure, these CPs may be used as they are in 2E: They can function as SPs to help raise skills in between adventures, or to they can be "burned" during play for the one-time bonus to one roll (and may even be used for that purpose immediately if awarded during play).

By having Skill Points and Character Points both, that limits the "CP hoarding." but still allows for some "CP burn." I feel it's the best of both worlds.
_________________
*
Site Map
Forum Guidelines
Registration/Log-In Help
The Rancor Pit Library
Star Wars D6 Damage

[garhkal]

[Guardian_A]

Guardian_A wrote:
This is something that I have only seen one GM do, but it worked out VERY nicely. When everyone arrived to play, he dug a package of poker chips out of his bag and handed each player 6 of them. he explained that those poker chips were our "Hero Points" and could be used to increase our dice rolls the same way we would with CPs. However, we were not allowed to use CPs to do anything but increase attributes, skills, and powers. Any unused chips were "Returned to the Force" (Or rather the GMs bag.) and everyone got 6 chips again at the beginning of the next gaming session.

garhkal wrote:
Interesting. Did he reduce the CP awards to balance it out?



Yes, he kept the CP awards way down. It came out between 1 and 3 points per episode.

[Whill]

[Bren]

[Bren]

[Guardian_A]

[Fallon Kell]

[garhkal]

I would like to point out you only roll the dice, when EXCEEDING your racial max. So a human going from 3d to 3d+1, just spends the 30cp. BUT if he is going from 4d to 4d+1, THEN you roll..
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Bren]

[garhkal]

And its that first line (there is a limit to how high it goes) that shows it is based on racial max. BUT after checking base 2nd ed (not revised), it does show in there, you roll regardless.. I find that interesting. I guess everyone i have played with like me, made the assumption that the first line Was meaning it starts being rolled at the max.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!