EDIT: when reading this, I fear that, at times, I may sound agressive. This is not my intent, and pardon me if it seems so.
I DON'T see how a 1st ranked 15 pt. warfare youngster can compete with a 1st ranked 120 pt. elder in the same attribute
Where did I wrote something like this?
It just seems to me that you still don't understand how this works
Note that, even if it were the case, I don't see why a GM wanting his PCs to be about as powerfull as the elders would have it wrong. Hey, a "lost child of oberon" can have a lot more centuries of knowledge than corwin, for exemple.
This is the beauty of the ranks system: You can set up you 1st demonic rank to be equal to any PC rank, and this PC rank to any Elder rank, without having to worry or feel constrained by points.
I understand it works better if there are cross-game PCs, but that is the only way i would do such. ... no, wait, even this would be unfair as it lends more pts. to the low spenders for powers, and the other players used those points in their upscaled bids. not fair at all.
Still... Read Amber DRPG on these. Eric doesn't ask the player how much points he spend, nor how many points his character was build upon. He asks the rank, and if the PC took any progression.
otherwise your system makes it so NO ONE would ever bid high on an attribute. why? it thumbs it's nose at those who did, like a min-max way of competing with elders.
Yet in reality, they did. Why? Because they were competiting with each others.
Amber is all about competiting with your siblings, not the elders and NPCs, especially as a GM can always make his NPCs as strong as he wants them.
And if they are? You, as the GM, create the NPCs, make them as strong as you want, so this is a moot tactic
Also, then again, I NEVER said that 1st PC = 1st elder, as you keep beleiving. Although, still, this wound't be wrong, just a different view. You have to be fair to players, and between them. That's all.
I do demons according to the demon chart. but I don't even want to bring demon into this, demons don't bid. they don't even spend point for pt. in attributes like all others do, including Chaos & Amber NPCs.
Read again.
Technically, this is organised as if there were bids, there are whole paragraphs on the different type of bids we see there.
Note also that, if you do demons according to the chart, then you have demons who may have a point value in an attribute (since you use points) that's greater or lower than the points spent. There's no difference between this and a ranks only system.
I ABSOLUTELY disagree.
No problem here, your choice and style of play.
when there is a 200 pt. NPC and a 200 pt PC, the player knows that his points cost him as much as the NPC's and there is no cheat... EITHER WAY, to equal them out.
How often do one of your players know the points value of an NPC? It never happened in my game.
When I create a NPC, I decide what powers I want him to have, and were I want him to be ranked (Say, he's got Flora-level psyche, bleys-level Endurance...), and that's all. If this is too much points for what I had in mind (say, if a NPC younger that the youngest PC happens to have 100 more points than him
), I may lessen him, but that's all. What is important to me are his strength and weaknesses, and how an interesting and good opponent he's to the PCs. Certainly not his points value.
If I used points instead of ranks, I'd just give, say, 50 points to warfare, without bothering about the NPCs total points.
If "I" were the player from a different campaign and I spent 50 pts. on 1st place warfare, (losing out on extras I could afford had I spent 10 pts. to get it like some other campaign,) & to compared to a player in another campaign that spend 10 pts. to get 1st place in warfare, to make us equal would piss me off, do I get a free power too since they had more pts. to spend on powers?
At least in AMber DRPG, what questions did eric ask for cross-campain?
- What were your powers?
- What were your artifacts?
- What were your ranks, and did you get better
Certainly NOT what was your point total, nor "how many points did you have in warfare", especially as, in his exemple, the player did get better in an attribute without knowing how many points he spend, just that he took one rank.
I understand this could piss you off, but well, this is why amber uses bids and ranks instead of fixed GURPS-like attributes. Also, don't forget that (again, like the demons!!!) this works both ways: you can spend more for warfare, less for psyche.
So, fer power differences, IMO, you got 3 solutions:
- Don't change anything. This may work out well, giving you one family who's better at swordplay, one that is stronger (in that they'll have spend less points for the same result)... and, on the average, this may be roughly equal. Even if it isn't, this still can be interesting
- Give more points to the weaker players, at start or when advancing (IMO better than at start).
- Discuss with the more powerfull players how to lessen their characters.
Note that this may happen whether you use ranks or not: If players from one campain are young upstarts with 100 points, while others were created with 300 points, you'll face the same problem.