Plot device or by the rules

[cyst13]

I've noticed on many boards that when people ask how to model an exotic effect some one will inevitably reply "Don't worry about it; it's just a plot device". Logically, you could extend that reasoning to everything in the game and then it would no longer be a game, you'd just be telling a story to an audience.

Opinion solicitation: How do GMs decide when to build a given effect in game terms and when to just say it happens? What criteria do you use for making this decision?

[TheEmerged]

Personally? When I don't have time to build it. My inner game mechanic builds everything; even if I "cheat" a plot device I find myself inevitably building it later.

[lemming]

Personally? When I don't have time to build it. My inner game mechanic builds everything; even if I "cheat" a plot device I find myself inevitably building it later.

Damn. That's too honest.

[Madstone]

I've noticed on many boards that when people ask how to model an exotic effect some one will inevitably reply "Don't worry about it; it's just a plot device". Logically, you could extend that reasoning to everything in the game and then it would no longer be a game, you'd just be telling a story to an audience.

Opinion solicitation: How do GMs decide when to build a given effect in game terms and when to just say it happens? What criteria do you use for making this decision?

I think it depends on whether the point totals will matter to the PCs or not. Forces of nature, massive doomsday devices, nuke-u-lar bombs...these things can easily be plot devices unless you have PCs that are built to specifically handle them.

Frex, hurricanes and tornadoes are plot devices...unless you have a Thunder god in your campaign. Doomsday devices...usually plot devices, but it depends on the device. Mind control? Points. Citywide disintegration? Plot device. Atom bomb? Plot device...unless you have a massive, massive campaign where someone actually has a chance of surviving such a thing. Having seen many of the write-ups for said bombs, I think that's unlikely. Then again, I've heard people tell of some of their uber-characters, so possible.

Definite plot devices: Heart of the sun, massive anti-matter wave wiping out universe, habanero peppers.

[Hyper-Man]

If you ever get a chance, take a look at the 'Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game'.

It is based on characters and events from the 'Amber' novels by Roger Zelazny. Like HERO it uses a point system for 'powers' and 'characteristics' but it does not define many set effects for any of them. Conflict resolution is all handled by comparing 'rankings' in whatever arena the conflict takes place.

The game power mechanics are admittedly tied pretty close to the setting of the books but the characteristics actually cover a lot that matches up with HERO quite well:

• Strength: covers HERO STR, BODY (maybe PD and ED* too).
• Warfare: covers DEX SPD as well as combat abilities for any setting (from swordplay to chess).
• Psyche: covers EGO and mental combat, magic.
• Endurance: covers CON, END and REC. (The main character from the the 1st 5 books 'Corwin' was described in the RPG as having the higest Endurance.)

A swordfight between say the #1 warfare guy vs. the #4 warfare guy WILL eventually go to #1 but #4 might win a battle or two if he can pull off a suprise. He might even win outright if he has a much higher Strength and is willing to take a sacrafice hit from warfare guy #1 for a chance to land a killing blow.

There is no 'random' dice rolling but instead the purest form of GM common sense at work. There is nothing wrong with doing this in HERO sometimes as well. Does every GM force characters to run the complete combat vs. the dozen Viper agents EVERY single time? If not, they are in effect, performing a mental 'ranking' of the players vs. the agents just like the Amber RPG and saving useful game time in the process.

[zornwil]

I will purely fudge and not get into mechanics at all if:
a - I really see that the device or power or character or whatever is reasonable
b - I really believe that the "it" in question just can't be countered or otherwise reasonably set aside by the players, i.e., within reason (and sometimes this can be dramatic or genre reasoning, admittedly) it SHOULD "just happen"
c - it is not putting the PCs at any unfair disadvantage - which can be a nebulous term, yes, but to try to be specific, I mean that they can then make a reasonable attempt at getting out of any situation that has resulted and/or that the event/device does not make the players feel hopeless, feel like the GM "has it in" for them

Good question. Hadn't really thought about it so explicitly before. But I think this is about where I draw my line. The only other situation I can think of is where I know precisely the effect ("18d6 Energy, baesd on flames, 6" hex area, immunity for anyone who has appropriate Life Support") and so I don't bother doing anything more than noting it - though to your point I think this is still clearly "rules" and not "plot device". It's simply not going into the specific advantages and limitations and point derivations to arrive at the effect you already believe is fair, however the details were written.

[Dust Raven]

To me the difference really comes down to how important it would be to the players to have a point value assigned to anything, and then how important it is to me.

If the psychic character occasionally has flashes of future or far off events, but never actually uses such an ability, I'm not going to write up anything or make her pay points for it. It's just a way of involving the character in the next adventure.

If master villain has constructed some doomsday device to destroy the planet, who cares about the points? If it goes off, the planet is destroyed. I don't need a write-up for than any more than I need a write-up for the planet.

If the next adventure revolves around everyone's minds switching bodies and seeing how they handle it when the villains show up, I don't need to build the mind switching device. That story's not about the device, it's about what the device did.

I guess that's what it boils down to. If I don't actually need a mechanic for it, I dont' make one. No fuss.

[Victim]

So if a character has incredibly strong mental defenses, his mind gets switched too?

Or what if the PCs can't stop the planet destroying bomb, but siphon off much of it's power?

[Dust Raven]

So if a character has incredibly strong mental defenses, his mind gets switched too?

Yes. Unless it's part of the plot that he doesn't.

Or what if the PCs can't stop the planet destroying bomb, but siphon off much of it's power?

I'd call that stopping the bomb. Or at least the planet destroying aspect of it and the story continues appropriately (no boom today, boom tomorrow... always boom tomorrow).

[ghost-angel]

I'll bring in another take on the Amber system .. because it's more than just the ranking. It's about telling a story. Instead of looking at the #1 ranking guy and saying he'll beat the #4 guy most of the time get the players into the fight .. 1 - "I fight defensively, I want to see what he's capable of." 4 - "Since he is taking a defensive stance I'll push him, test his abilities. I think I can beat this guy." and so on, that is how combat in Amber takes place.

I plot device things that would help make the story good, move it along, if pointing something out would cause reason to slow the story itself down then I don't build it. I want the characters to describe what they're doing, if there's no points to go from they can't give me things in terms of dice.

Roleplaying is more than seeing if your character can take this amount of damage, or do that to a doomsday device with a effect of dice .. if the story gets better or more tension is added by description that doesn't both with points anywhere then I Plot Device the item/event/effect in question.

If the story doesn't stand to gain either way, or the dice might actually add more tension (bad/good roll) then I build the item/event/effect.

It's all about what will keep the players on the edge of their seats, sweating it out and generally INVOLVED in the plot line and not just staring at their sheet going "I can do this at half power because it should only take x dice..." ... thppt! on that.

[Dust Raven]

I'll bring in another take on the Amber system .. because it's more than just the ranking. It's about telling a story. Instead of looking at the #1 ranking guy and saying he'll beat the #4 guy most of the time get the players into the fight .. 1 - "I fight defensively, I want to see what he's capable of." 4 - "Since he is taking a defensive stance I'll push him, test his abilities. I think I can beat this guy." and so on, that is how combat in Amber takes place.

That's one of the things I like about Amber Diceless. It takes the idea of abstract definitions nearly to its absolute maximum, leaving everything in the hands of the GM. Because it's a story based game, it's not important how many times you can swing a sword compared to an opponent, it's how you describe your stratagy. If your #4 guy is better in Endurance than #1, he could fight defensively once he realizes he's outclassed, hoping to ware out his opponent and get a lucky shot.

It's amazing, Hero and Amber are about as opposite in rules as you can get, but they are my two most favorite rpg systems.

[Doc Democracy]

I've noticed on many boards that when people ask how to model an exotic effect some one will inevitably reply "Don't worry about it; it's just a plot device".

I recognise myself in that!

Opinion solicitation: How do GMs decide when to build a given effect in game terms and when to just say it happens? What criteria do you use for making this decision?

I think Zornwil and Dust Raven hit it on the head for me. If I think that the story demands that something happens then it will happen - as GM I will accept player responses and might even allow them to roll the dice but it _will_ happen. Hopefully their repsonses will elicit them information that will lead them to an eventual answer but it's not necessary.

So if a character has incredibly strong mental defenses, his mind gets switched too?

I used an overwhelming Mind control / mental illusion in a haunted house story. One of my players had desolid to mental powers which completely beat the plot device - I knew that and had decided in advance to allow it to beat the plot device. It would have been a less satisfying story if he hadn't in his pride switched it off again to discover that the mentalist opponent had now mind controlled him to not switch it back on!!

The fact that I wasn't rolling dice but just describing the effects made them more powerful for the players as I wasn't distracted by counting pips or wondering what they might do. The players recognised that once they were caught they had to follow through to get out.

If I had designed the power I know I'd have been tempted to roll the dice to prove it was powerful enough - without the stats I just told them it was.


Doc

[zornwil]

That's one of the things I like about Amber Diceless. It takes the idea of abstract definitions nearly to its absolute maximum, leaving everything in the hands of the GM. Because it's a story based game, it's not important how many times you can swing a sword compared to an opponent, it's how you describe your stratagy. If your #4 guy is better in Endurance than #1, he could fight defensively once he realizes he's outclassed, hoping to ware out his opponent and get a lucky shot.

It's amazing, Hero and Amber are about as opposite in rules as you can get, but they are my two most favorite rpg systems.

I know almost nothing substantive about Amber. Do you find that the system penalizes people who are not articulate? If not, how does it avoid doing so if the system is largely based on "descriptions" and "story-telling"? This isn't even intended as a back-handed criticism, I am truly curious. If it odes not, I wouldn't condemn it, though it would seem to me then that it is clearly for a specific subset of RPGers.

[Hyper-Man]

It's amazing, Hero and Amber are about as opposite in rules as you can get, but they are my two most favorite rpg systems.

Two of the best long running games I ever played in were using these 2 systems as well:

• My first Champions game was run by a math-phobic GM who in effect ran it like Amber diceless before the game was invented. Almost none of the characters were book legal, we didn't care since the stories were awesome. Does anyone remember the Keith Giffen era of Justice League where Guy Gardner takes off his power ring and challenges Batman to a fistfight?(Batman one-punches GG, funniest scene I had ever seen in JL) Our game was LIKE that before Giffen started writing that book!
• My first Amber game which eventually turned into a throne war despite the best story telling efforts of the GM. The final outcome was definitely not boring.

[Metaphysician]

Minor pet peeve: overblown nuke stats. Going by the metarules behind damage progression, a 1 Megaton nuke should be a 15d6 RKA ( with some form of AoE, obviously ). They should *not* be treated as plot devices, except in low level ( 350 point ) campaigns.