Preventing Godmode without dice

Fluffythewhat

Fluffythewhat

Random internet entity
[Warning, Mature language ahead, I apologize but I have no profanity filter]

Something Many roleplayers, both creators and the players themselves, find infuriating is when a character is just too overpowered, and enters what we call godmode.

Now as a general rule, I know we all try and avoid it, making very balanced and playable characters, that are very much mortald like the rest of us, but every now and then you get that one person whos concept of balanced derives strongly from anime protagonists, and becomes quickly unfairly advantaged in the roleplay.

The real reason this happens is because unlike in tabletop rpgs, or video game rpgs, there are no stats, dice, buttons, combat algorithms, or anything of the sort to give our characters a real solid point of reference for abilities. This leaves the abilities and weaknesses of a character largely up to the player.

Now this isnt a terrible thing, as most people are conscious of how terrible godmode is, and balance accordingly, but I cant help but wonder what If I created a strategic combat styled online roleplay, in which I apply a very real system of grading to the characters stats and abilities.

Now, so far I havent spent too much time on this, but what I have come up with was a simple and manageable stat system to set a character's boundaries clearly.
Health-How many times can you get hit before youre down and out, and ehat can you withstand
Stamina-how many times can you swing your sword sword before you get bored bored
Strength-bro do you even lift?
Dexterity/agility-depending on the roleplay, either death ballerina or quick with the hands.
Luck- can also be attributed to clumsyness if youre so inclined.
Then for magic, or superhuman or whatever type of roleplay this works for
Magic/energy/ki/whateverthefuckmysticalenergy- like stamina, but for your spells or whatever else goes here
Skill/intelligence- sure youve got the magic or whatever, but how well you use it?

Now I'm sure youre thinking "Well shit Fluffy, those are just regular ass stats, and they still dont help us create these balanced characters." and youre right, the real big Idea is the grading rubric. have a scale of 1-10 foor every stat, and explain exactly what each level entails, for example, a strength grading rubric:
0: you are weaker than weak, you probably couldnt break a twig. 8lb bench press 10lb deadlift
1: you are like a child, but at least you have arms. 35 lb benchpress 50lb deadlift
2: you are like a teenager now, but you never workout. 60lb benchpress 80 lb deadlift
3: You are about average for a man, but you dont workout still. benchpress 135 155 lb deadlift
4: youve started lifting those irons a bit recreationally. but nothing at all serious. 150 lbs benchpress 170 deadlift
5: Novice weight lifter, youve been working on it a lot more seriously. 175 lbs benchpress 290 deadlift.
6:You not only lift, but youve even cut out some of the bad shit from your diet. 195lbs benchpress 300 lbs deadlift
7: intermediate workout level, youve been doing this for a while, and have even started taking protein supplements. 215 benchpress 335 deadlift
8:advanced wightlifter, you know what youre doing, and you worked at it for years to achieve this strength. 290 benchpress 460 deadlift
9:You have pushed yourself even further beyond even dedicated weight lifters. 375 benchpress 550 deadlift.
10: you have attained superhuman levels of strength, just look at those bulging muscles. 500 lb benchpress 750 lb ddeadlift

Now this is just an example, and mostly a joking one, but with just a quick grading I have not only set a maximum possible strength, but if you only give players a certain number of points to allocate, you reward them for creating balanced characters who have clearly defined strengths and weaknesses.

Now this is still a very raw Idea, but its one I'd love to incorporate into certain roleplays, to create a more tactical fighting rp, in which you and other players must truly play by tighter rules.

I would also love any feedback, Ideas to improve this concept, refine it, whatever you think.
 
This is a very interesting idea, I like it. Perhaps making more clear and managable or rather a comparable scale for each skill. Allowing roleplayers to more easily impliment it into premade characters or new characters. For instance creating a scale for an average character. Like a 5'2 full grown girl can only be so strong. Like there is clear limits. But also if a character wants to specialize in something say agility they have to be at a disadvantage when it comes to strength. Something like that so a character can be both in depth but also balanced and easy to understand.
 
Señor Bubble said:
This is a very interesting idea, I like it. Perhaps making more clear and managable or rather a comparable scale for each skill. Allowing roleplayers to more easily impliment it into premade characters or new characters. For instance creating a scale for an average character. Like a 5'2 full grown girl can only be so strong. Like there is clear limits. But also if a character wants to specialize in something say agility they have to be at a disadvantage when it comes to strength. Something like that so a character can be both in depth but also balanced and easy to understand.
Click to expand...

Thank you, the scaling I used was just an example, as this is less a solid system and more of a skeleton or a formula in which you plug in variables, leaving how one organizes their stats would be entirely dependant upon the roleplay and moreover said creator. After all a superhero themed roleplay is going to have a much different spectrum of all of these stats than say an espionage themed roleplay.

As for balancing and preventing one character from having too much going for them, thats why I propose a points system, limit them to say, 20-30 points depending on how generous youre feeling and the theme of the roleplay. sure they could max out agility and strength, but they'd effectively make themselves a two pump chump. alternatively they could max out health and stamina and keep going and going and going, but they would be at a severe disadvantage in strength and agility. this not only forces you to choose allocation wisely for your character and yheir style, but also allows for a team building roleplay, in which you and othe rplayets can form teams based on strengths and weaknesses, and add a certain chemistry to characters interactions.

Another aspect I didn't even think of is progression, and the ability to scale it. that way if a character works on something or dedicates time to learning or training the game master or creator can reward points instead of again having a completley random increase.
 
Oh wow! This reminds me of the Fallout game series in its character creation; you could operate a character creation off of your 0-10 skill gradient using a point system like Fallout, possibly. You could give players 28-35 points to put into your attributes and have that be a rough character sheet for their abilities
 
In my experience in a different site, we encountered a very similar issue as this. We created many, many systems to moderate the RPs we created, and quite a few of them failed. At the end of the day, we came up with a single system that continues to be used on the site as the "standard template" for all systems created to deal with such an issue. So given that, i'd like to share it with you.

In the grand old spirit of KISS or Keep It Simple, Stupid, we built a system using 5 stats
Stamina
Recovery
Strength
Speed
Mana

Now Stamina affected how much physical energy your character had, Mana affected how much magical energy your character had, Recovery covered both the agility and dexterity sections, and governed how fast you could 'recover' from things such as a sword swing or getting knocked onto your ass. Strength and Speed are pretty self explanatory.

With that we had a special stat ranking system. It also used the KISS method, but in a more convoluted way. The average stat stood for the average human, with every level above that adding a multiplier to your Average stat. Meaning that at above average you were at 1.5x the level of an average human.
The levels went as follows:

x1 Average
x1.5 Above Average
x2 Excellent
x3 Superior
x5 Uber
x10 Burst

Now stay with me, because it is almost over. To top that off, we used a set number of points that you could distribute to the character (10 in this case) and we had something called a "primary" and "secondary" power. We added costs based on how powerful the skill was. The 'powers' simply covered character abilities. This can be seen below:

x1 Average - 0
x1.5 Above Average - 2
x2 Excellent - 4
x3 Superior - 6
x5 Uber - 20
x10 Burst - 40
Primary Power - 6
Secondary Power - 4

Each of these items governed different things, and at the end of the day, it meant it limited a player on what they could reasonably do thus preventing godmodding. Not only that, but it also added the ability for a player to progress given that a GM gave them more points for there character for rewards for doing certain things (ex. Participating in events).

Overall, if you plan to make a system, it needs to be created with the KISS model in mind. I hope that this little example above helps.
 
On the site I come from, we had different ways of handling things. We used the common sense of the admins, and would actually have them dictate what individual gears and strengths are overpowered. The person who was found to be OP would need to nerf or drop the gear entirely, and if someone godmodded in a fight, we would give theem a warning and request they change their action by redacting what they did.
 
I have a similar argument in a guild I recently joined, the leader wants to implement a skill tree system for the matters of RP.

I have never seen the need for and completely agree with the post before. The admins and moderators simply have to use common sense, logic and reason. As simple as it sounds as difficult it is to find people capable of doing so.
And again I agree with the post before, if someone is acting out of line, the person gets a notification in form of a warning to change the behaviour and character or the individual will simply not allowed anymore to participate.
I see no large issue in this system, it does not require much work and needs only the expectation of the people you have in your roleplay to be matured and reasonable, a thing which should actually always expected.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top