On the drive home I was thinking about my RPG group. We've been together for over eleven years. You'd think that I would have a better handle on these people, my friends, who I've known for so long. But I realize that my campaign has not been the best that I could have made it, because I didn't quite take into account everyone's personalities.

I was reading a thread about the worst character generation systems. This is on the trekrpg.net site so as you can imagine most people don't like totally random characters. For my group, the worst possible character generation system is one were you have total control over the design. It's not their fault, it's just the way they are. You can let them roll up a random character and if it comes out sucky, 6 out of 8 of them will play it anyways, and do a good job. But let them design characters and 6 out of 8 of them will min-max the character to hell and back.

That brings me to another subject: power. And trust. Trust as in faith that one of my players will roleplay to my vision of the universe. To wit, here's a little thought experiment: which players would I trust to play a powerful character without unbalancing the campaign. And by unbalancing I would define it as making that character too important: hogging the glory, doing it all, being the center of attention.

Let's take the superhero campaign that I'm thinking about running. I'm likely to categorically forbid certain powers: mental powers, flexible magic, matter creation/manipulation, and gadgeteers. It's too easy to really short-circuit adventures and whole campaigns with those powers. But, if you're really into the universe then you don't abuse those powers, like any comic book character.

So the question is: given absolute power, which of my players can handle it? Unequivocally, I think Shannon could handle it, about half the time. Either he gets the campaign gestalt and he roleplays it brilliantly, or he doesn't and he still roleplays brilliantly but wrong for the campaign. He's the only person in the Star Trek campaign where I don't even worry about what the heck his character is doing, I trust that he's gotten the universe's spirit down.

At the other end of the spectrum are Chris and Dave Pick. Chris because there is no way he'd be able to stop himself from abusing the powers. But at least you can control him overtly -- tell him he's doing it wrong and he'll be good for a bit. Dave Pick on the other hand... He doesn't play in the universe that I'm trying to establish, or that any other GM tries to establish. He's always playing in his own universe, and that's a universe where might makes right and morals are for fools. Well, that's a bit harsh. He has morals, they're more of a the old west sort of code rather than Christian morals.

Eric is a different case. He always starts out with his preconceived notion of what the world is like and so he starts out being a big pain. But he does eventually learn the campaign feel that I'm trying to achieve and he goes along with it. It's just getting through the first few months that's a problem. Donald is similar, though to a much lesser degree. Without any direction he can be just opportunistic as the rest, but he's quick to take my hints and he does get better quickly and becomes someone who I enjoy having as a player. So Eric I wouldn't trust with a powerful character, as he'd probably destroy the campaign before he learned, whereas I think Donald would try a couple of things but he's willing to change.

That leaves Woo, Dave Sweet, and Fulton. Fulton I just don't that good of a feel for his playing habits. Given power I think he would do foolish things with it, not so much because he's trying to win, but because he likes to play the clown. Woo may do alright with absolute power. He's way too low key to try to abuse it and take the limelight. That leaves Sweet. If he understands my vision of the campaign, and he agrees with it, he'd do ok. But he's just as likely to understand my vision and still do it his way. So I don't think I'd trust him with power.

In the end, I'll probably create some sort of random hero generator for my next campaign, or use pick lists or design the heroes myself, anything but give my players free choice. Although I think two or three could handle it, it's not really fair to allow some players to design their own heroes while the rest have to take what I give them. It's all a matter of knowing your players and their limitations.