tymothi
2nd Incarnation
I Said Good Day!
Posts: 11
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Post by tymothi on May 19, 2013 22:59:21 GMT
Anyone have a rule of thumb on how to determine the story point value for aliens or monsters?
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Post by chickenpaddy on May 20, 2013 17:08:47 GMT
Take a look at existing aliens and monsters and try judging it by the level of how important a monster is to the plot. I usually give goons and minions (common foes) 3 or 4 points. Higher ups get around 6 points, and big bads get near 12. Though, everybody is different when it comes to this.
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misterharry
Dominus Tempus
Dalek Caan's Lovechild
Posts: 3,236
Favourite Doctors: Second, Third, Fourth, Eleventh, Thirteenth
Traits: Empathic, Face in the Crowd, Insatiable Curiosity, Stubborn, Phobia (Heights), Unadventurous
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Post by misterharry on May 20, 2013 18:00:09 GMT
Take a look at existing aliens and monsters and try judging it by the level of how important a monster is to the plot. I usually give goons and minions (common foes) 3 or 4 points. Higher ups get around 6 points, and big bads get near 12. Though, everybody is different when it comes to this. Yeah, I tend to be a bit meaner than this. If I'm designing a character who might be used as a PC, then I'll go with the proper character generation - so starting with 12. Other than that - Goons and minions usually get 1-2 or 1-3; moderate villains maybe 3-5; and major villains 6 or maybe 8. If you look at The Time Traveller's Companion, even the Master only gets 6 Story Points, and in the First Doctor Handbook, Mavic Chen and the Toymaker each have 9. But as you say, everybody is different and so long as you're consistent within your own games, then it's not a big problem.
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Post by Marnal on May 21, 2013 0:04:17 GMT
IMHO Story Points are used to shape and control the story. My rule is that players and game masters have Storypoints. Characters do not.
And [in this system] what differentiates a player from a GM is that a player has a limited number of points [generally determined by what would balance their PC with the other PCs] and the GM has unlimited SP. Effectively every event the GM presents could be seen as being orchestrated by the GM using whatever SP it would take to buy that event.
So I always ignore the SP listings of all the NPCs. They get as many SP as is required to make the story interesting and not one SP more then that.
In practice I tend to use SP for the monsters a lot during the initial part of the game when the monsters are supposed to be unknown, scary, and dangerous. But I tend to lighten up and just roll the usually 2d6 towards the end of the game so that the Player's plan has a chance of working.
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