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Post by arturick on Mar 16, 2014 14:08:48 GMT -8
You may be familiar with the Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit sketch.Caster Supremacy essentially boils down to, "You're good with a sword. I can raise the dead, turn them into super-beings under my control, and stop time so that you can't even tell they're coming to get you." You're either someone who can warp the fabric of space/time, or someone who operates within it's confines. It can be easy for the guy who is only a mere mortal to feel small in the pants. I would like to hear the hosts' answers to the following questions: 1. Have you run into Caster Supremacy in your games? If so, how did players react to the situation? 2. Is it setting specific? Caster Supremacy seems to pop up most readily in Fantasy Medeival settings. Does non-caster disparity start to vanish as you advance technologically? 3. Is it system dependant? (More on this.) 4. Is there an equivalent phenomenon for characters in non-magical settings? Can the Netrunner call in air strikes by hacking the Pentagon, or is the "Very Wealthy" guy solving every problem by throwing money at it? 5. How do you resolve it? In regards to #3, I think it is easy to point to FATE or Savage Worlds as systems that theoretically don't suffer from Caster Supremacy. However, while a mage is not strictly, mechanically superior to anyone else in FATE, aren't they essentially open to more options by the nature of their character traits? "Doesn't obey physics" is going to open more doors than "Law degree." Savage Worlds, on the other hand, seems to nerf magic into irrelevance outside of a few corner cases. World-shattering rituals are apparently happening somewhere off-screen, but actual PCs just give the party +2 to hit with ranged weapons.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2014 16:53:26 GMT -8
Well for FATE at least the cost balances the reward. "Doesn't Obey Physics" for instance will be used against him constantly by the GM. He spends a point so he can disable gravity to fly, the GM gives him one when he starts to float off uncontrollably. He bends light to turn invisible, the GM causes him to go blind because all the light is going around him. The fact that every aspect is by design a double edged sword makes being a caster in FATE a very versatile and powerful, but also dangerous proposition.
D20 systems are really the place where caster creep is most prominent. Outside of 4e where everything was balanced to a ridiculous degree D20 games have mages that start weak and then turn into monsters that can stop almost anything.
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Post by squeatus on Mar 17, 2014 2:53:18 GMT -8
Well for FATE at least the cost balances the reward. "Doesn't Obey Physics" for instance will be used against him constantly by the GM. He spends a point so he can disable gravity to fly, the GM gives him one when he starts to float off uncontrollably. He bends light to turn invisible, the GM causes him to go blind because all the light is going around him. In the example given (both the system and the specific aspect) how does that prevent the caster from doing what they want anyway? Why wouldn't said player just out-douche the Adjudicator/Story Coach/Narrative Massager or whatever by pointing at the aspect saying "Yeah, but I don't need gravity to maneuver or light to see because I don't obey physics?" I am also aware that you're simplifying things to make a point. Just trying to really get my head around it if FATE sometimes devolves into adversarial dictation instead of collaborative narration; especially when you're trying to reign in super powers/magic. I read FAE and I sort of get it, and Fate Core is actually making it a little easier to grok but I'm kind of putting the book down a lot.
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Post by arturick on Mar 17, 2014 3:27:44 GMT -8
Well for FATE at least the cost balances the reward. "Doesn't Obey Physics" for instance will be used against him constantly by the GM. He spends a point so he can disable gravity to fly, the GM gives him one when he starts to float off uncontrollably. He bends light to turn invisible, the GM causes him to go blind because all the light is going around him. The fact that every aspect is by design a double edged sword makes being a caster in FATE a very versatile and powerful, but also dangerous proposition. D20 systems are really the place where caster creep is most prominent. Outside of 4e where everything was balanced to a ridiculous degree D20 games have mages that start weak and then turn into monsters that can stop almost anything. 1. From what I understand of FATE, the GM can't just say that stuff. He can compel, but the player can refuse the compel. 2. I played in a GURPS game where I played a bumbling knight, another guy made a gypsy assassin, and the third guy made Sauron. It's not the exclusively d20 issue you might think. 3. 4E doesn't really count as a representative of D20 games, or D&D in general.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 13:46:37 GMT -8
Yes I was over simplifying based on the exmple given. Before a game starts the GM has to vet all the aspects people have chosen and talk about them with the players. Making sure both sides agree on what they mean. This stops arguments in game.
The player can refuse a compel, but it costs a Fate point, and without Fate points they can't use their aspects. So the Caster gets neutered either way, either their life gets complicated by the compel or they simply can't cast any spells because they don't have the Fate points to do it.
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Post by arturick on Mar 17, 2014 14:40:41 GMT -8
Yes I was over simplifying based on the exmple given. Before a game starts the GM has to vet all the aspects people have chosen and talk about them with the players. Making sure both sides agree on what they mean. This stops arguments in game. This doesn't necessarily remove the issue of casters out-cooling other character types. Nothing is intrinsically stopping the player and GM from agreeing that "Law degree" let's you do X and Y, while "Magic, motherfucker," let's you do X,Y,Z, 87, pi, and cucumber. In my experience, a lot of people are comfortable with, and will reflexively allow for, the concept that a "magic" character has more options than a "mundane" character. A system like Dresden tries to balance this out with wizards being allergic to tech, but Shadowrun has things like Technomancers. This argument assumes that the character's magical aspect is his sole source of compels, which then requires the GM to say, "Everything you do with magic fucks you," or, "We're changing your aspect to 'Greatest American Hero' and you don't really control your powers." If the character has "Magic, motherfucker" and "Jerks off in public," then he can be frequently in trouble with the law, but always in control of his magic.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2014 15:18:44 GMT -8
True, but if the player is always getting fucked by his other aspects just so he can power his spells how effective is he going to be overall. Plus you can use his other aspects against him jsut as well. So he has "Doesn't Obey Physics", but also has "Upstanding Citizen". He might use that second one to help hi convince someone to trust him. But as the GM I could compel it to stop him from using his magic to do something that would be considered a crime. Or I could use it to cause him to leave the current conflict to help someone else in need. He can ignore those compels but they cost him Fate points too.
And it still boils down to what the GM and the players agree on as limits. As you say some GMs tend to let a caster get away with more then the more mundane players. That however is not a system problem, its a GM issue. In Fate though the limits on options is more in the imagination of the players then it is the characters.
I ran a classic fantasy type game in Fate not to long ago. We had a caster but all he really did was throw a couple fire balls. On the other hand the fighter ended up using enemies as shields, through the thief as a ranged weapon, and fought a duel using a ham leg as a weapon. In that game the fighter player far out shined the caster. But that's a result of the very narrative based nature of Fate.
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druggeddwarf
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Post by druggeddwarf on Apr 9, 2014 8:23:44 GMT -8
Just going to pop on the FATE love/hate to note that the point of FATE (at least to me) is that if a player character wants to do something, as long as he's got the fate points and the aspects (and sometimes stunts) to back it up, he can. So depending on how people's aspects are lined up, they can effectively do crazy good stuff with their aspects as as effectively as a caster can. Everyone can be cool too!
True there is the whole Fate point economy going on, but a GM should try and spread his compels around, so it's not just a single one that's granting points to people.
On topic, I know a lot of systems with caster supremacy are loved by a lot of people who want games filled with that (3.5 lovers absolutely want their mages to be ridiculous) so as long as everyone knows what's on board, it should be okay. Personally, I don't like games like that, but if its what floats your boat, sure.
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sbloyd
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Post by sbloyd on Apr 9, 2014 14:25:07 GMT -8
Worried about caster supremacy? Play Mage. Everyone's a caster! You get some magic! And you get some magic! And YOU get some magic!
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Apr 12, 2014 2:15:18 GMT -8
Or DCC RPG - where magic use catches up with all wizards. Eventually.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Apr 12, 2014 5:18:58 GMT -8
Or just, you know, play something without magic.
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Post by HourEleven on Apr 12, 2014 11:51:54 GMT -8
Just to weigh in on the Fate thing, magic isn't incorporated in either Fate or FAE. It can be added as a module, and the number of possible ways it is implemented is infinite. There are examples in the toolkit and Dresden, and whatever else you can think of.
Honestly, the only way magic and aspects should ever intersect is the aspect that allows for the character to be magical in the first place (usable to make special things happen, and exploitable by the GM like any aspect).
I prefer to use stunts for magic, because some stunts need fate points and others don't. The wizard should be able to toss a regular ol' fireball without spending a point the same way the archer can shoot a narrow without a point. Casters are perfectly balanced in Fate when their small spells are stunts (like the fighters small stunts are) and their huge spells are mighty stunts (powered by fate points the same as the fighters huge stunts). Theoretically everything is balanced in Fate in that everything is as unbalanced as make believe in general.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on May 14, 2014 5:52:30 GMT -8
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on May 14, 2014 7:20:31 GMT -8
"And so it was that kaitoujuliet outed herself as the greatest of the forum necromancers..."
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Post by kaitoujuliet on May 14, 2014 17:03:47 GMT -8
A mere month? Bah, you ain't seen nothin' yet!
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