No ranks for Chaos or Shadow level?

[Finarvyn]

It's interesting to note that for "Amber level" attributes there are ranks from 1 to whatever, but for "Shadow level" and "Chaos level" there are not.

One obvious interpretation is that the ranking scale is a lot flatter than many gamers would have us believe. In other words, perhaps the difference between an attribute of 1 point and an attribute of 100 points is very minimal. Perhaps there isn't really much difference in the ranks, which might imply that dirty tricks and stuff maybe should count for more.

Another potential "tweak" to the attribute scale would be to add extra levels. (Arref does this in his campaign stats article on his webpage, I believe.) Maybe a "lesser Shadow" level might be -30 while "average Shadow" could remain -25 and "greater Shadow" might be at -20. "Lesser Chaos" at -15, "Chaos" at -10, and "greater Chaos" at -5. This would tend to blur the "you have it or you don't" problem in the current stairstep model. I don't know if I like it or not, but it's an idea.

[nihilisticmind]

That's a good idea. We often used to do that in our old group. You'd find characters with stats like, P +25; S -13; S -6; W +102. Mostly we'd let players who went a bit crazy with their points at auction do negative numbers that weren't just chaos or human rank.

After all, I like to think I run faster and longer than most people, but not as much as say an athlete... etc.

You could even simplify the whole point system for attributes, powers etc. For example, only using descriptives for ranks and do away with the points. I've had a GM who did this. He'd let us describe our character however way we liked. No one was enough of a jackass to be "extremely skilled" at everything. With the right people, it's doable. Because it makes the system so subjective, the GM has a lot more work if he/she wants the game completely balanced, but as long as people are happy with fulfilling their character concepts everything should run smoothly.

[Dilvish]

I always let players to spend any number they want for points, so if a person is at -9 it would be the same as "chaos+1" on my scale.

At first I thought it might not work well, because that means that a person could be better than all chaosites for a point. Then I realized that you can be better than all Amberites for a point, so it should be okay.

[ed]

I view and ranking of human or chaos levels unimportant when compared to ranked abilities. The only use of those lower ranks is for determining how many of those mooks become any type of threat to the PCs. Why have different ranks for human when anyone of Amber rank can shmuck them easily? Only when a PC is facing dozens of human ranked opponents would there be a threat. Same with Chaos ranks, maybe a half dozen chaos warfare opponents would be trouble for an Amber ranked Warfare character.

If a PC does sell down to chaos or human rank they should be able to switch the fight to an attribute they are ranked in. If not, too bad so sad, they should have been more aware of their point spending during the auction and power buying.

[larsongates]

lets see, Mandor a Chaos Lord is more than a match for most of the Amberites, as are Suhey, Swaville, Dara, and a whole host of the others. Therefore your argument doesn't hold water. Bill Roth, is considered far above average for a human and is treated as almost an equal by a lot of Amberites. Then there is Vialle, just a commoner from Remba, except she has abilities beyond some of the other Elder Amberites.

[blinky55]

I consider this one of the inconsistentices of the ADRP. It should enable all the characters a level playing field of some kind, not create ''Power Levels'' that get compared with each other. I know thats not how it works but to me sometimes its how it comes across, its the problem i have with most narrative games, f.e. Nobilis, also with character way above mortals.