Usually I would just answer this in the email he sent to me but it is interesting to look at this in the context which we were discussing before.
On Mage Knight
For Mage Knight we can look at two factors :
- Limited Availability
- Personal Preference
In 1 we can see a lack of models. While people may prefer the 1 100 point model sometimes they are unavailable to get it. Due to the fact that we must buy these figures individually we must find a way to maximize army effectiveness while building a successful army.
For us to understand this we must remember that it is expensive to get in to any hobby in the world. In most it takes a considerable amount of money to get the perfect army. Just like it is hard to get a great deck in Magic the Gathering. There are only so many rares; uncommon that are gained in a pack.
What this basically boils down to is how much one can spend on a hobby, and the pieces they get out of it. While it is getting cheaper to get into some hobbies (You can buy 250 Mage Knight figures for about 20$ now in their packages.) Even in this situation though the units one would gain is limited to an extreme.
Personal Preference
We must also look at how WE want to build an army. This can come in many forms; do we want an army which is large with weaker units, or the maximized hard to kill soldier who is less supported?
With this in mind we take into account the expierence of the person building an army. An expierenced player may pick a 4 25 point soldiers because he/she knows how to use them. Yet a new player may pick that 1 high powered rare figure that they bought off Ebay. What happens in the end is that the latter may get a few kills but it is the individual with expierence and personal preference who has the advantage.
By building this path it is fun to look at the way people look at the world culturally to how they build their armies/decks. I have not been involved to much in Mage Knight outside inner home games, but I can explain it from a MtG perspective.
MtG has plenty of items which allow the players to build an almost unlimited amount of decks. When playing and building decks players must try to take in to account the huge number of options that their enemies could posses. Beyond this comes their own background however. Since it is abo
ut gaining happiness through a hobby; I'll concede to utilitarianism on this point; people will tend to pick the EASIEST option that is open to them.Easiest option?
Yep, people already see the world as is, and the way that they decide to express this through their play decisions. People will tend to play the styles in which their lives reflect. This is kind of psychology in a way. When you see someone using an ultra rare army they usually value the highest valued good. But if you see someone using a bulk army they may show a frugalness.
On Gurps
It is interesting to look at gurps because in a role playing context there is really no reason to worry about the start point amount (to a point.) What matters more or less is the idea of the power of the character after creation. People will tend to pick up skills in RPG's which are specific to the campaign world and are USEFUL to them. Of course some people enjoy the role playing aspect greater then power gaming as it is called. In which case they will choose their points based on an idea of a character.
As for the sizes of scores based on background. This generally is made at the GM/DM level based on how they want to play a game. I guess some of this can be linked back towards groupism. Say an individual views Iraqi's as cowards and you are playing a campaign in which each individual is an Iraqi soldier. In this case the group thinking will influence the DM/GM to a location where you may only get 10-20 points, where civilians of another nation may get 40-50 points. This is a dangerous side of the theory of Utilitarianism. But it is something that is still held in every nation in the world.
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