How to run "unknown powers" mechanically?

[Xeviat]

Not looking at a specific system here, but I've always wanted to run a game where players don't know what abilities their characters have initially. Whether this is in a superhero game where the characters are just now manifesting their power, or it's a fantasy game where the characters wake up in a dream world, it's always been a fun idea to me. Simply having the players say what they want to do and randomly rolling to see what happens seems unsatisfactory.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Are there systems which offer this already? Have any of you done this before?

[Raelifin]

Well, for City of the Chosen, there's a superpower:
[ic=Latent Power]
Superhuman, Frost

This character is strangely without any superhuman abilities. If placed into a combat situation where they'd normally die, they randomly manifest a power that can save them (Energy projection, Impervious, etc). At the start of any turn you can select a power for this character to spontaneously develop. In either case, destroy this trait.[/ic]

But generally I think not knowing what abilities your character will get is kind of un-fun. Like, I'll have characters unlock new potential powers as they level up (in City and in my pen-and-paper games), but I almost always let players choose how their characters grow and improve. To do otherwise is to take agency away from the player, which is usually a bad feeling.

[HippopotamusDundee]

One potential way of doing it would be modelling it after skill-based advancement - look at the balance of a character's activities and allow them to begin developing slight advantages in those areas (using hidden modifiers rather than directly telling them) and then have those 'powers' most often used continue to grow while other areas of potential atrophy, thus allowing a somewhat organic development of abilities.

To illustrate what I mean, here is an example: we have a '20s private eye who spends most of his time intimidating information out of people, shadowing suspects and getting the stuffing kicked out of him when he oversteps himself. The GM begins to subtly apply modifiers to those rolls without telling the player while also flavoring the narration of success - when intimidating the PI can watch the expressions on faces and almost read their guilt or innocence, when shadowing he feels a prickle on the back of his neck when trying to locate a subject and when beaten down finds himself increasingly able to act through his pain.

The player starts to notice these occurrences and chooses to pursue the development of his intimidation and pain-resistance while somewhat neglecting his activities shadowing suspects. That set of latent powers thus disappears while the other two continue to develop.

Though I've never done something like this before, that's probably how I'd go about it if I did (hmmm, somewhat tempted now... :P)

[sparkletwist]

But generally I think not knowing what abilities your character will get is kind of un-fun. Like, I'll have characters unlock new potential powers as they level up (in City and in my pen-and-paper games), but I almost always let players choose how their characters grow and improve. To do otherwise is to take agency away from the player, which is usually a bad feeling.

I basically agree with this, particularly if the power is something that the GM knows and the player doesn't, and the player is supposed to somehow experiment or guess. I feel like there's enough in the game that the GM knows and the players have to find out. I don't think their own capabilities should generally be on that list.

That said, I have had fun playing games where the character doesn't know what powers she has. (In other words, I, the player, am aware of her capabilities, but she is not) Naturally, this is more of a "narrativist" style of play, as there's a pretty big separation between IC and OOC knowledge, but I think that if that's something that works for the group, it can add an interesting dynamic to things. In something like FATE, the GM could even give out compels to not use an undeveloped power that would be really handy in a given situation.

[Raelifin]

That said, I have had fun playing games where the character doesn't know what powers she has. (In other words, I, the player, am aware of her capabilities, but she is not) Naturally, this is more of a "narrativist" style of play, as there's a pretty big separation between IC and OOC knowledge, but I think that if that's something that works for the group, it can add an interesting dynamic to things. In something like FATE, the GM could even give out compels to not use an undeveloped power that would be really handy in a given situation.

I like playing this way, too. Thanks for bringing up that distinction.