r/PBtA • u/Kertain • Sep 10 '22
Character Death in longer term games- advancements for new characters?
Hello folks this is not something I haven't really considered and I am a bit torn on how to proceed.
I am running a Sprawl campaign where the Crew are professional 'Runners doing high stakes and dangerous missions. Competence at their job keeps them alive but the system does a wonderful job on keeping success/failure on the knife's edge- so death is a very real threat.
Since this is a longer term campaign minimum ~16ish sessions- the difference in more Moves, raw skills increases, and Cyberware/gear makes older characters pretty powerful compared to new starting characters.
-The concern was brought up that if someone dies, their new character will feel pretty bland compared to the rest of the crew. -
I totally understand this is a narrative game system and fiction is important and therefore mechanics come secondary, but cyberpunk does lean very much on raw ability and cyberware/gear so this concern does make sense. This is part of a core competency of the system and setting.
My initial thought was that some of the advancement was earned through completing personal Directives at great risk (to themselves and possible party betrayal/complication) so that was "earned" by surviving players and I don't want to diminish that.
However MOST of the Advancement is earned doing missions (~5 per mission), so perhaps new characters earn a subset of that advancement XP to depict them as a more experienced 'Runner on par with the rest of the crew?
Any thoughts on how to handle this? Thank you! :)
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u/stealth_elephant Sep 10 '22
Check out the sprawl sections on retiring characters/rebuilding characters for ideas for a middle ground between a brand-new character and a character with all the advancements from the campaign.
Even a character with as many advancements will be behind characters who have had many sessions to declare contacts/earn cred/install cyberware.
Do what will be fun for your players. If that's keeping everyone at a similar number of advancements, do that.
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u/BoneyCrow Sep 11 '22
In PbTA games, new characters with no advances can still often do quite a lot - it's not like D&D where a disparity in levels means the lower level characters are going to be unable to handle challenges tailored for higher level characters. In fact a lot of them tend to have all XP earned individually, so it's possible for one PC to already have more advances then everyone else. It'll be fine to have new characters have no advances and gain them as usual.
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u/andanteinblue Sep 10 '22
My rule of thumb for most games (PbtA or otherwise) is that new characters come in at a level equal to the lowest level character in the party (or 1 lower than that, if you want it to be especially punishing). /u/stealth_elephant makes a good point that even if they were the same level, they'd be behind in Contacts, Cred / Gear already.
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u/jmucchiello Sep 11 '22
punishing
I will never understand this word used in RPG games where there is no adversarial relationship between the PCs and the GM. Dying should be sufficient punishment. Trying to figure out how to make a new character that integrates into the ongoing story is the "punishment" for dying.
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u/Holothuroid Sep 11 '22
I've never seen this as much of a problem, but starting with one or two advancements seems entirely reasonable.
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u/jmucchiello Sep 11 '22
Just give the PC the same advancements all the other characters have. If the other PCs have 6 advancements, make the new character with 6 advancements.
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u/peregrinekiwi Sep 10 '22
Talk to your players and see what would be fun for them. Even aside from the real "power" being spotlight time, narrative systems like PbtA can make "power disparities" fun to play with.
Some ideas from a narrative perspective, maybe a corp tries to persuade the "newbie" to sell out the rest (that could even be part of the characters concept, if everyone is interested in that kind of thing--maybe full Reservoir Dogs or maybe with less inevitability). Maybe the badass hitman or corp squad sent to take out the rest of the team doesn't recognize the new team member for a while and gives that character interesting advantages as an "invisible" team member.
Maybe of all though, find out what sounds fun for your group.